FROM this heat is born unity of heart, for we cannot obtain true unity, unless the Spirit of God lights His flame in our heart. For this fire makes one and like unto itself all that it can overtop and transform. Unity gives a man the feeling of being concentrated with all his faculties on one point. It gives internal peace and repose of heart. Unity of heart is a bond which draws and binds together the body and the soul, and all exterior and interior forces, in the unity of love.
HOW THE VIRTUES PROCEED FROM UNITY
FROM this unity of heart is born inwardness or the internal life, for none can have inwardness unless he is one and united in himself; fervour or inwardness is the introversion of a man into his own heart, to comprehend and experience the internal operation or speech of God. Inwardness is a sensible flame of love, which the Spirit of God lights and kindles in a man, and a man knows not whence it comes, nor what has happened to him.
ON SENSIBLE LOVE
FROM inwardness is born a sensible love which penetrates the heart of man and the highest faculties of the soul. This love and delight none can experience who has not inwardness. Sensible love is the desire and appetite for God as for an eternal good in which all is contained. Sensible love renounces all the creatures, not as needs but as pleasures. Interior love feels itself touched from above by the eternal love which it must practise eternally Interior love willingly renounces and despises everything, in order to obtain that which it loves.
ON DEVOTION
FROM this sensible love is born devotion to God and His glory. For none can have a hungry devotion in his heart, unless he possesses the sensible love of God. Devotion excites and stimulates a man internally and externally to the service of God. It makes the body and soul abound in glory and merit in the eyes of God and men. God exacts devotion in all that we do. It purges the body and soul from all that might hold us back; it shows us the true path to blessedness.
ON GRATITUDE
FROM fervent devotion is born gratitude, for none can thank or praise God perfectly if he is not fervent and pious. We should thank God for everything here below, that we may be able to thank Him eternally above. Those who praise not God here, will be mute eternally. To praise God is the most joyous and delicious employment of the loving heart. There is no limit to the praises of God, for therein is our salvation, and we shall praise Him eternally.
Now hear a comparison, by which you may understand the exercise of gratitude. When the summer approaches and the sun mounts, it attracts the moisture of the earth along the stems and branches of the trees, whence come green leaves, flowers, and fruit. Even so when Christ, the eternal sun, rises in our hearts, He sends His light and heat upon our desires, and draws the heart away from all the manifold things of earth, creating unity and inwardness, and makes the heart grow and become green by interior love, and makes loving devotion flourish, and makes us bear the fruits of gratitude and love, and preserves these fruits eternally in the humble pain of our inability to praise and serve Him enough.