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faithful Bride of Jesus should never seek herself in anything
whatsoever, be it within or without; she must always seek only
to please God and meet with His approval, and in that way she
will enjoy heavenly peace, even in the midst of afflictions. She
will thus live on a plane higher than created things and might
rightly say: “I hold discourse in the Heavens ... I dwell in the
1
heights above ”. She is not dismayed by the human misery
around her, because it has no hold on her; she lives above all
earthly things with her spirit fixed in God, like the Blessed in
Heaven.
When the Lord in His overflowing goodness graciously visits
the soul with some extraordinary grace, he does it in order that
she may be enkindled in loving contemplation of such an
infinite bounty that deigns to visit the meanest worm on earth
in answer to her genuine desire to be loved by him. Oh, my
God! What a boundless bounty! What an infinite love! ... Let
the soul, then, God’s own Bride, attend to her inner shrine as
much as she knows and is capable of; there, let her die to
herself, humble herself and reduce herself to nothing; there let
her believe, hope and trust, thank and pray; there let her
conform her will to God’s will in utter self-surrender and, lastly,
tend to the infinite beyond all measure. In fact, even when she
has done all this, she will not have overdone it, because
everything is simply her duty, obligation, incumbent upon her,
and she feels driven to do more in order to fulfil her duty.
Being infinitely good, God deserves all she could ever offer.
The holiness of a Religious is in proportion to her virtue, that
is, to her charity towards God and neighbour, and to her

1 Original in Latin “Mea conversation in Coelis est - Ego in altissimis habito”.

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