From Moment To Moment One Can Bear

What A Miserable Life Is This! There Is No Happiness That Is Secure And Nothing That Does Not Change.

Learn To Self-conquest, Persevere Thus For A Time, And You Will Perceive Very Clearly The Advantage Which You Gain From It. As Soon You Apply Yourself To Orison, You Will At Once Feel Your Senses Gather Themselves Together: They Seem Like Bees Which Return To The Hive And There Shut Themselves Up To Work At The Making Of Honey. At The First Call Of The Will, They Come Back More And More Quickly. At Last, After Countless Exercises, Of This Kind, God Disposes Them To A State Of Utter Rest And Of Perfect Contemplation.

My Good Works, However Wretched And Imperfect, Have Been Made Better And Perfected By Him Who Is My Lord: He Has Rendered Them Meritorious. As To My Evil Deeds And My Sins, He Hid Them At Once. The Eyes Of Those Who Saw Them, He Made Even Blind; And He Has Blotted Them Out Of Their Memory.

They Deceive Themselves Who Believe That Union With God Consists In Ecstasies Or Raptures, And In The Enjoyment Of Him. For It Consists In Nothing Except The Surrender And Subjection Of Our Will - With Our Thoughts, Words And Actions - To The Will Of God.

God Prefers Your Health, And Your Obedience, To Your Penance.