Chapter 132

The Rule Should Be Handled Freely

You must avoid all formality and mechanism in prayer. Let it each time be a matter of deliberate, free decision, and perform it with consciousness and feeling, not carelessly. You need to be able to shorten the rule as circumstances require. How many contingencies are there in family life? You can, for instance, morning and evening, when there is no time, read only the morning prayers and the prayers before sleep from memory. You can even read not all of them, but just a few. You can read nothing at all and do several prostrations, but with true, heartfelt prayer. Handle your rule with complete freedom. Be the mistress of the rule, not its slave. A slave only of God, obliged to devote every moment of your life to pleasing him.

(Letter 249. Vol. 2, p. 77)