Be just; neither excuse nor accuse your poor soul without due reflection, lest by excusing it without reason you render it insolent, or by lightly accusing it you weaken its courage and make it pusillanimous.
225.
How many courtiers there are who go into the presence of the king a hundred times, not to speak to him or listen to him, but merely to be seen by him, and to show by this assiduity that they are his servants. When, then, you come into the presence of our Lord, speak to Him if you can; if you cannot, remain and show yourself to Him, and do not be anxious to do any more.
226.
You do nothing in meditation, you tell me. But what should you do if not just what you are doing, that is, presenting and representing your misery and nothingness to God? The most efficacious appeal a beggar can make is to expose to our eyes his ulcers and necessities.
227.
But sometimes you do not even do this, and you remain before Him like a phantom or statue. Well, that is something. In the palaces of princes and kings there are statues which are only meant to gratify the eyes of the king; content yourself with a similar service in the presence of God. He will animate the statue when it pleases Him. Were we to ask the statue if it desired anything it would answer, “No; I am where my master placed me, and his pleasure is the sole happiness of my being.”
228.
Ah! but it is a good prayer, and a good method of keeping one’s self in the presence of God, to wait upon his will and good pleasure.