1. See God, that is to say, be always realizing His Presence, feeling Him near, as the friend from Whom we would never be separated, in work, in prayer, in recreation, in repose. God is not importunate, He never wearies, He is so gracious and merciful, His Hand directs everything, and He will not "suffer us to be tempted above that we are able."
2. Listen to God: be attentive to His counsels, His warnings; we hear His Voice in those Gospel words that recur to our minds, in the good thoughts that suddenly dawn on us, the devout words that meet us in some book, on a sheet of paper, or falling from the lips of a preacher, a friend, or even a stranger.
3. Speak to God: hold converse with Him, more with the heart than the lips, in the early morning's meditation, [pg 125] ejaculatory prayer, vocal prayer, and above all in Holy Communion.
4. Love God: be devoted to Him, and Him alone; have no affection apart from Him; restrain the love that would estrange us from Him; lend ourselves to all, out of love to Him, but give ourselves to Him alone.
5. Think of God: reject whatever excludes the thought of Him. Of course, we must fulfil our daily duties, accomplishing them with all the perfection of which we are capable; but they must be done as beneath the Eye of God, with the thought that God has commanded them, and that to do them carefully is pleasing in His sight.
Means by which to Attain the Interior Life
1. Great tenderness of Conscience, secured by constant, regular, and [pg 126] earnest confession to God, a hatred of all sin, imperfection, infidelity, by calmly but resolutely fleeing every occasion of it.
2. Great purity of heart, by detachment from all earthly things,—wealth, luxuries, fame, kindred, friends, tastes, even life itself ... not that we need fail in love to our kindred and friends, but we must only let the thought of them abide in the heart as united to the love and thought of God.