Seek and love only that perfect good which includes in itself all good, and it will suffice thee. Unhappy art thou if thou knowest and possessest all, and art ignorant of this. If thou knewest at the same time both this good and all other things, this alone would render thee the happier. Therefore St. John has written: "This is eternal life: that they may know thee,"[48] and the Prophet: "I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear."[49]
CHAPTER X
THAT WE SHOULD NOT BE TOO SOLICITOUS FOR ACTUAL AND SENSIBLE DEVOTION, BUT DESIRE RATHER THE UNION OF OUR WILL WITH GOD
Seek not too eagerly after the grace of devotion, sensible sweetness and tears, but let thy chief care be to remain inwardly united to God by good will in the intellectual part of the soul.[50]
Of a truth nothing is so pleasing to God as a soul freed from all trace and image of created things. A true religious should be at liberty from every creature that he may be wholly free to devote himself to God alone and cleave to Him. Deny thyself, therefore, that thou mayest follow Christ, thy Lord and God, Who was truly poor, obedient, chaste, humble, and suffering, and Whose life and death were a scandal to many, as the Gospel clearly shows.[51]
The soul, when separated from the body, troubles not as to what becomes of the shell it has abandoned—it may be burnt, hanged, spoken evil of; and the soul is not afflicted by these outrages,[52] but thinks only of eternity and of the one thing necessary, of which the Lord speaks in the Gospel.[53]
So shouldst thou regard thy body, as though the soul were already freed from it. Set ever before thine eyes the eternal life in God, which awaits thee, and think on that only good of which the Lord said: "One thing is necessary."[54] A great grace will then descend upon thy soul, which will aid thee in acquiring purity of mind and simplicity of heart.
And, indeed, this treasure is close at thy doors. Turn from the images and distractions of earth, and quickly shalt thou find it with thee and learn what it is to be united to God without hindrance or impediment.