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As we said, the soul is not united with God in this life through understanding, or through enjoyment, or through imagination, or through any other sense; but only faith, hope, and charity (according to the intellect, memory, and will) can unite the soul with God in this life.

Abandonment! It is this which sets us free for God! ... Oh! when all was in confusion, when the present had been so sad and the future seemed even worse, I closed my eyes, I abandoned myself as a child in the arms of its Father who is in heaven.

...for the love of the Lord, let us make a real effort: let us leave our reason and our fears in His hands and let us forget the weakness of our nature which is apt to cause us so much worry...our own task is only to journey with good speed so that we may see the Lord.

That which is truly great grows unnoticed, and silence at the right moment is more fruitful than the constant activity that only too easily degenerates into spiritual idleness. In the present age, we are all possessed by a strange restlessness that suspects any silence of being a waste of time and any kind of repose as being negligence. We forget the real mystery of time, the real mystery present in growth and activity. That mystery involves silence and stillness. Even in the religious sphere we tend to expect and hope for everything from our own activity. We use all kinds of exercises and involvements to evade the real mystery of interior growth before God.

When under the action of detachment and spiritual darkness, faith plants firm roots in the soul, hope and charity likewise flow into it; a charity that logically does not manifest itself by giving a sensation of sweetness, but rather by producing in the soul a strength, a more decisive courage, a vigor hitherto unknown.

Jesus points out to me the only way which leads to Love's furnace - that way is self-surrender - it is the confidence of the little child who sleeps without fear in its father's arms.

Source of peace and light, come and enlighten me. I am hungry, come and feed me; thirsty, come and refresh me; blind, come and give me sight; poor, come and enrich me;ignorant, come and instruct me. Holy Spirit, I abandon myself to You.

With bold surrender, it wishes to remain gazing upon the Divine Sun. Nothing will frighten it, neither wind nor rain, and if dark clouds come and hide the Star of Love, the little bird will not change its place because it knows that beyond the clouds its bright Sun still shines on and that its brightness is not eclipsed for a single instant.

In all our necessities, trials, and difficulties, no better or safer aid exists for us than prayer and hope that God will provide for us by the means He desires.

We come home exhausted, shattered. New vexations possibly await there....and there is still so much to do until evening. Should we not immediately go to it? No, not before calm sets in at least for a moment. Each one must know, or get to know, where and how she can find peace. The best way, when it is possible, is to shed all cares again for a short time before the tabernacle. Whoever cannot do that...should take a breathing space in her own room...When there is no place in which to retreat, if duties prohibit a quiet hour, then at least she must for a moment seal herself inwardly against all other things and take refuge in the Lord. He is indeed there and can give us in a single moment what we need.

With daring confidence, and reckless of self, I will remain there till death, my gaze fixed upon the Divine Sun. Nothing shall affright me, neither wind or rain; and should impenetrable clouds conceal from my eyes the Orb of Love, should it seem to me that beyond this life there is darkness only, this would be the hour of perfect joy, the hour in which to urge my confidence to its uttermost bounds, for knowing that beyond the dark clouds my Sun is still shining, I should never dare to change my place. . . . O Divine Sun, I am happy to feel myself so small and frail in Thy presence, and my heart is at peace.

You do not have enough trust. You have too much fear before the good God. I can assure you that He is grieved over this.