th your existence becomes a thing of ceaseless activity; each
act has a meaning which connects you with God, just as in love your
actions and your thoughts are filled with the loved one. But love and
its joys, love and its pleasures limited by the senses, are but the
imperfect image of the love which unites you to your celestial Spouse.
All earthly joy is mixed with anguish, with discontent. If love ought
not to pall then death should end it while its flame is high, so that
we see no ashes. But in God our wretchedness becomes delight, joy lives
upon itself and multiplies, and grows, and has no limit. In the Earthly
life our fleeting love is ended by tribulation; in the Spiritual life
the tribulations of a day end in joys unending. The soul is ceaselessly
joyful. We feel God with us, in us; He gives a sacred savor to all
things; He shines in the soul; He imparts to us His sweetness; He stills
our interest in the world viewed for ourselves; He quickens our interest
in it viewed for His sake, and grants us the exercise of His power upon
it. In His name we do the works which He inspires, we act for Him, we
have no self except in Him, we love His creatures with undying love, we
dry their tears and long to bring them unto Him, as a loving woman longs
to see the inhabitants of earth obey her well-beloved.

"The final life, the fruition of all other lives, to which the powers
of the soul have tended, and whose merits open the Sacred Portals to
perfected man, is the life of Prayer. Who can make you comprehend the
grandeur, the majesty, the might of Prayer? May my voice, these words of
mine, ring in your hearts and change them. Be now, here, what you may
be after cruel trial! There are privileged beings, Prophets, Seers,
Messengers, and Martyrs, all those who suffer for the Word and who
proclaim it; such souls spring at a bound across the human sphere and
rise at once to Prayer. So, too, with those whose souls receive the fire
of Faith. Be one of those brave souls! God welcomes boldness. He loves
to be taken by violence; He will never reject those who force their way
to Him. Know this! desire, the torrent of your will, is so all-powerful
that a single emission of it, made with force, can obtain all; a single
cry, uttered under the pressure of Faith, suffices. Be one of such
beings, full of force, of will, of love! Be conquerors on the earth! Let
the hunger and thirst of God possess you. Fly to Him as the hart panting
for the water