Cheerful givers do not count the cost of what they give. Their hearts are set on pleasing and cheering the person to whom the gift is given.

Our Lord is the ground from whom our prayer grows and in his love and grace he himself gives us our prayers.

Cheerful givers do not count the cost of what they give. Their hearts are set on pleasing and cheering the person to whom the gift is given.

... so our customary practice of prayer was brought to mind: how through our ignorance and inexperience in the ways of love we spend so much time on petition. I saw that it is indeed more worthy of God and more truly pleasing to him that through his goodness we should pray with full confidence, and by his grace cling to him with real understanding and unshakeable love, than that we should go on making as many petitions as our souls are capable of.

As we know, our own mother bore us only into pain and dying. But our true mother, Jesus, who is all love, bears us into joy and endless living. Blessed may he be.

Until I am essentially united with God, I can never have full rest or real happiness.

For we are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it. No created being can ever know how much and how sweetly and tenderly God loves them. It is only with the help of his grace that we are able to persevere in spiritual contemplation with endless wonder at his high, surpassing, immeasurable love which our Lord in his goodness has for us.