Untitled - Saints' Books

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470 Appendix.
remains only one thing to be done: it is, that I love
Thee. But why should I not love Thee, O my God!
?
Why what should I love if I do not love Thee ? Out
side of Thee, to whatever side I turn, I find nothing
amiable; I see only creatures, earthly objects; I see
fire that dost always
only smoke and misery.
burn," I will say with St. Augustine,
"inflame me!"
O God, who art all afire with love, thoroughly inflame
me, consume me with love for Thee!
Have we a better means to love God than continually
to ask him for his holy love ? I desire, says Jesus
Christ to us, I desire to inflame thy heart as thou desirest,
thou who art my priest; but come to mental prayer:
Arise, My love, my beautiful one, and come? I
expect thee
in solitude; it is there that I have prepared for thee the
abundance of my favors.
Ah, dear Fathers, of what advantage
is it not to love
God! The only thing that we find at the moment of
death will be to have loved God nothing more. If we
have obtained honors, possessed a convenient house, suc
ceeded in our undertakings, at the end what shall we
find ?
Nothing but that we have loved God. Alas!
what are we doing in this world, if we are not occupied
therein in loving God ? Should we seek to amass
riches, to gain the esteem of others, to enjoy pleasures,
to acquire honors ? What interest have we in the
world ? / have chosen you out of the world? God has
withdrawn us from the world, and we should wish to
throw ourselves again into it? Ah! the world, honors,
pleasures! let us live, and let us live only in order to
love God; and to do this, let us devote ourselves to
prayer, to prayer. By
this means we shall have the
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2 "
ignis qui semper ardes! accende me." Solil. an. ad D. c. 19.
Veni, columba mea in foraminibus petrae, in caverna maceriae."-
Cant. ii. 13.
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Elegi vos de mundo.
John, xv. 19.