Just for Today, January 16

(Christ.) Thou ought to seek the grace of devotion earnestly, to ask for it fervently, to wait for it patiently and confidently, to receive it thankfully, to keep it humbly, to work with it diligently, and to commit to God the time and manner of this heavenly visitation, until it shall please Him to come unto thee.

Thou ought chiefly to humble thyself when thou feels inwardly little or no devotion: and yet not to be too much dejected, not to grieve inordinately. God often gives in one short moment what He has a long time denied. He gives sometimes in the end, that which in the beginning of prayer He deferred to grant.
-Bk. IV, ch. xv.
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I am indeed far from being a saint; the dispositions I am in prove that. Instead of rejoicing in my aridity, I ought to attribute it to my lack of fervor and fidelity, I ought to grieve at the way I go to sleep at my prayer and during my thanksgiving, and yet, I do not grieve. Instead, I cannot help thinking that little children please their parents as much when they are asleep as when they are awake, that surgeons put their patients to sleep for an operation, in short, that the Lord knowest our frame. He remembereth that we are dust (Ps. cii).
-The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Âme)
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Adapted from Just For Today(©1943 Burns & Oates)
Nihil Obstat: Reginaldus Phillips, S.T.L.,Censor deputatus
Imprimatur: Edwardus Myers, Vic. Cap.