Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.

The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are but only their potential likeness to ourselves then we do not love them we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them

The only trouble is that in the spiritual life there are no tricks and no shortcuts. Those who imagine that they can discover spiritual gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore Gods will and his grace.

Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick whether you are in religion or out of it married or single no matter who you are or what you are you are called to the summit of perfection you are called to a deep interior life perhaps even to mystical prayer and to pass the fruits of your contemplation on to others. And if you cannot do so by word then by example.Yet if this sublime fire of infused love burns in your soul it will inevitably send forth throughout the Church and the world an influence more tremendous than could be estimated by the radius reached by words or by example.

The whole function of the life of prayer is then to enlighten and strengthen our conscience so that it not only knows and perceives the outward written precepts of the moral and divine laws but above all lives Gods law in concrete reality by perfect and continual union with His will.

The lights of prayer that make us imagine we are beginning to be angels are sometimes only signs that we are finally beginning to be men. We do not have a high enough opinion of our own nature. We think we are at the gates of heaven and we are only just beginning to come into our own realm as free and intelligent beings.

We do not want to be beginners at prayer. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners all our life