Remembrance of God Must Be Brought to the Point of a Feeling of Warmth—of Ardent Love for God

You are surprised that for so long I have been explaining one and the same thing. Of course, you say, I need much else besides.

Well, now I have finished with it. What remains for you is simply to carry it out. And the reason I spent so much time on the remembrance of God is that this is where all the power lies. When you have become established in this remembrance—not bare, but accompanied by reverence and other feelings toward the Lord—that remembrance will make you upright in everything else as well, and upright in a way that has a certain wondrous beauty, since there is a kind of uprightness that is knotted and ungainly. This remembrance will be your master, your organizer, and the builder of all your affairs, and above all of your inner life. Then in you will be fulfilled that which the Apostle prayerfully wished for the Ephesians—and in their persons for all Christians—when he said: ”That He (God) would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:16–17). That is precisely what I have been speaking about all along. The Apostle considered this so important that when praying for it he prayed with particular ardor: ”I bow”, he says, ”my knees… to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:14). How then can the two of us not talk about this? When you are established in the inner man through the remembrance of God, then Christ the Lord will also dwell in you. The one and the other go together.

And here is a sign by which you may assure yourself that this wondrous work has begun to take place in you—namely: a certain warm feeling toward the Lord. If you carry out everything that has been written, such a feeling will soon begin to appear, and more and more frequently, and then will become unceasing. This feeling is sweet and blessed, and from its very first appearance it arouses the desire and the search for it, that it might not depart from the heart—for within it is paradise.

Do you wish to enter into this paradise more quickly? Here is what to do: when you pray, do not leave off prayer without having stirred in your heart some feeling toward God—whether reverence, or surrender, or gratitude, or glorification, or humility and contrition, or hope and trust. Likewise, when after prayer you begin to read, do not leave off reading without having brought the truth you have read to the level of feeling. These two feelings (practices), warming each other mutually, can—if you attend to yourself—keep you under their influence the whole day long. Take pains to fulfill these two practices exactly, and you will see for yourself what will come of it.

When an object lies under the sun’s rays for a long time it becomes strongly heated; so it will be with you. Keeping yourself under the rays of the remembrance of God and under feelings of relation to Him, you will become warmer and warmer with an unearthly warmth, and then will become altogether warm—and not merely warm but burning. And in you will be fulfilled: ”I came to cast fire upon the earth” — upon the earth of human hearts — ”and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Lk. 12:49).

Add to this the following comparison as well: when a spark falls on combustible material, the material begins to smolder little by little, then flares up, and finally is completely enveloped in flame; and though it is by nature dark, it becomes bright and luminous on account of the fire that has seized it. So it will be with you. Warming little by little, you will kindle, a spiritual flame will flare up and, penetrating you part by part, will enfold you entirely and make you radiant—though in yourself you are darkness. Recall what was said at the beginning about a certain sheath of the soul, and later about the luminousness of the soul that has received grace[1]. That is what will happen with you and in you! Truly so! But beforehand there must be labor and sweat, and how long—God alone knows, for all is from Him. Know only that God is not unjust to forget the labor of your love.