Ever in the Chapel of Their Hearts

They who love Christ "endeavour to live always in union with Him Who is ever in the Chapel of their hearts. For the love of Jesus, they turn their thoughts away from the things of this world that they might dwell in Him alone. They practise complete renunciation for His sake in order to do His will. They labour to correct their defects and to reform their character that it may resemble His and be pleasing unto Him....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; St, John Berchmans, a Jesuit Novice; St. Therese of Lisieux, a little hidden Carmelite, 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 prayer-aspirations. This, then, is the life of prayer - a life which IS prayer, because it is a life of increasing advertence, adhesion and surrender to God."

(from "Listening to the Indwelling Presence," compiled by a Religious, Pellegrini, Australia, 1940, pp. 44-45)