Such affection and devotion as this, so vehement a love and burning, is often far from me.
Be thou merciful to me, O good Jesus, sweet and gracious Lord; and grant me, thy poor beggar, to feel, sometimes at least, in the sacred communion, some little of the cordial affection of thy love, that my faith may be more strengthened, my hope in thy goodness increased, and that my charity, being once perfectly enkindled, and having tasted the Manna of heaven, may never decay.
3. Moreover, thy mercy is able to give me the grace I desire, and to visit me in thy great clemency with the spirit of fervour, when it shall please thee:
For though I burn not at present with so great a desire as those that are so singularly devoted to thee; yet, by thy grace, I desire to have this same great inflamed desire; praying and wishing that I may be made partaker with all such thy fervent lovers, and be numbered in their holy company.
Chap. XV.
That the grace of devotion
is obtained by humility and self-denial.
1. Thou oughtest to seek the grace of devotion earnestly, to ask it fervently, to wait for it patiently and confidently, to receive it thankfully, to keep it humbly, to work with it diligently, and to commit to God the time and manner of this heavenly visitation, until it shall please him to come unto thee.
Thou oughtest chiefly to humble thyself, when thou feelest inwardly little or no devotion; and yet not to be too much dejected, nor to grieve inordinately.
God often giveth, in one short moment, what he hath a long time denied: