me, as the Prodigal's father to his elder son: "All I have is
thine."[3] And therefore I may use thy very own words to draw down
favours from Our Heavenly Father on all who are dear to me.

My God, Thou knowest that I have ever desired to love Thee alone.
It has been my only ambition. Thy love has gone before me, even
from the days of my childhood. It has grown with my growth, and
now it is an abyss whose depths I cannot fathom.

Love attracts love; mine darts towards Thee, and would fain make
the abyss brim over, but alas! it is not even as a dewdrop in the
ocean. To love Thee as Thou lovest me, I must make Thy Love mine
own. Thus alone can I find rest. O my Jesus, it seems to me that
Thou couldst not have overwhelmed a soul with more love than Thou
hast poured out on mine, and that is why I dare ask Thee to love
those Thou hast given me, even as Thou lovest me.

If, in Heaven, I find that thou lovest them more than Thou lovest
me, I shall rejoice, for I acknowledge that their deserts are
greater than mine, but now, I can conceive no love more vast than
that with which Thou hast favoured me, without any merit on my
part.

. . . . . . .

Dear Mother, what I have just written amazes me. I had no
intention of writing it. When I said: "The words which Thou gavest
me I have given unto them," I was thinking only of my little
sisters in the noviciate. I am not able to teach missionaries, and
the words I wrote for them were from the prayer of Our Lord: "I do
not ask that Thou shouldst take them out of the world; I pray also
for them who through their word shall believe in Thee."

How could I forget those souls they are to win by their sufferings
and exhortations?

But I have not told you all my thoughts on this passage of the
Sacred Canticles: "Draw me--we will run!" Our Lord has said: "No
man can come to Me except the Father Who hath sent Me, draw
him,"[4] and later He tells us that _whosoever seeks shall find,
whosoever asks shall receive, that unto him that knocks it shall
be opened,_ and He adds that whatever we ask the Father in His
Name shall be given us. It was no doubt for this reason that, long
before the birth of Our Lord, the Holy Spirit dictated these
prophetic words: "Draw me--we will run!" By asking to be drawn, we
desire an intimate union with the object of our love. If iron and
fire were endowed with reason, and the iron could say: "Draw me!"
would not that prove its desire to be identifie