these seek above all things
to learn to know Jesus...
and endeavour to live always
in union with Him
Who is ever in the
chapel of their hearts....
This is, indeed, the perfect practice of devotion
to the Sacred Heart
beating in the Tabernacle on the Altar
and in the living tabernacle of our hearts -
thus did the Saints love! Many
of these friends of God
never did very wonderful things
during their years on earth,
but they loved much
and did ordinary things
with extraordinary love.
St. Rita was a cook;
St. Benedict Joseph Labre, a beggar...
and an endless list of others who did no more than the ordinary actions that go to make up the warp and woof of our daily lives. Yet they scaled the heights of sanctity by the ladder of loving aspirations of prayer.'
(from "Listening to the Indwelling Presence," compiled by a Religious, Pellegrini, Australia, 1940, pp. 44-45)
Painting: Edgar Degas, Woman Ironing