How the Seed of the Kingdom Grows in Us

We should have small merit and little ability to show God our fidelity, if interior grace took charge of us and gave us throughout consolations that we could feel.  The one thing needed is to be faithful in every duty and every interior and exterior experience known to our spiritual state, in dryness and aversions no less than in delights and sensible consolations.  The merit is only the greater if at such times everything has to be done with effort and extreme repugnance.  Only thus can our love of God be wholly rid of that miserable self-love which, to quote Saint Francis de Sales, by its intrusive meddling, spoils everything.

In prayer there can be a gentle and pleasurable peace.  But that peace can be also bitter and barren and even sorrowful.  God can effect more in our soul by the latter than by the former, liable as it is to the activities of self-love.  Thus, self-abandonment is necessary in this matter as in all others.  Leave him to act he knows our need better than we.  We have but one thing to fear lest we voluntarily allow ourselves to go astray.  To avoid the risk of this we have only to wish exactly what God wills at every hour, at every moment, and in every happening of the day.  The surest, swiftest, and, I venture to say, the sole way of perfection lies in that.  Everything else is fable to illusion, pride, and self-love.

To conclude:  gently and without too much effort learn to refrain from those lengthy reasonings with which your mind is busied during prayer, and incline rather to loving aspirations, to simple rest and delight in God.  This, however, need not prevent you from dwelling for a little time on good thoughts when their nature is sweet, simple, and peaceful, and when they seem to be spontaneous.