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There are many Christians who are virtuous men, and who do great things, but their virtues and good works are utterly useless in the matter of eternal life, because they seek themselves in them, and not solely the honor and glory of God.

Believe me, the question is not whether we wear the religious habit or not, but whether we practice the virtues and submit our will in all things to the will of God.

We seem to ourselves to be making progress, yet we become weary, for, believe me, we are walking through a mist; it will be fortunate if we do not lose ourselves. Do you think, my daughters, if we could travel from one country to another in eight days, that it would be well to spend a year on the journey, through wind, snow, and inundations and over bad roads? Would it not be better to get it over at once, for it is full of dangers and serpents?

One fall is not sufficient for a person to be lost nor are many, if they love You and not the things of the world. They journey in the valley of humility. I cannot understand what it is that makes people afraid of setting out on the road of perfection.

Oh, humility, humility! I know not why, but I am always tempted to think that persons who complain so much of aridities must be a little wanting in this virtue. However, I am not speaking of severe interior sufferings, which are far worse than a want of devotion.

I have understood that the thing that separates me most from God is my pride. I propose to be humble. Without humility the other virtues are hypocrisy. ... Humility gains us similarity to Christ, peace of soul, holiness and intimate union with God.

. . . you must not build upon foundations of prayer and contemplation alone, for, unless you strive after the virtues and practice them, you will never grow to be more than dwarfs.

Hence, don't pay any attention to the fears they raise or to the picture of the dangers they paint for you...Should anyone tell you that prayer is dangerous, consider him the real danger and run from him. Don't forget this counsel, for perhaps you will need it. There will be danger in not having humility and the other virtues. But that the way of prayer be a way of danger - God would never will that. It seems the devil has invented these fears, and so he has been skillful, apparently, in making some who have practiced prayer fall away.

For these are souls who, instead of committing themselves to God and making use of His help, rather hinder God by the indiscretion of their actions or by their resistance; like children who, when their mothers desire to carry them in their arms, start stamping and crying, and insist upon being allowed to walk, with the result that they can make no progress; and, if they advance at all, it is only at the pace of a child.

May nothing make you waver. Look at Him. He's awaiting you and is filled with infinite love and will make you His bride. He wants to forge with you the most intimate union. He will make you divine, by joining Himself to you. You will live in Jesus amid infinite sweetness, purity, holiness, goodness, amid the love of One who is God.

The dark night becomes the school of all the virtues: it trains one to resignation, to patience, from the moment that one is faithful to the spiritual life without finding consolation and refreshment in it. The soul attains a high degree of love of God, inasmuch as it acts solely according to His will.

We come to the great King of Heaven with empty hands, in debt to Him for everything: life itself, and grace, and all the gifts He lavishes on us. Yet all we can say is, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all I owe,’ while all the time we could never pay anything towards the remission of our own debts, if God did not put into our hands the means to do so. And then, how often do we go away and refuse pardon for some slight fault in our neighbors, withholding our love, remaining aloof, or even nursing a grievance against them, and building up grudges that cool charity.