III.—Interior Direction.

Method of interior direction, addressed to the same Sister.

1st. We attain to God by the annihilation of self. Let us abase ourselves till there is nothing of self to be perceived.

2nd. In the degree in which we banish all that is not God, we shall become filled with God, because where we no longer find self we shall find God. The greatest good we can do for our souls in this life is to fill them with God.

3rd. The practice of complete abnegation consists in having no other care but that of dying entirely to self to make room for God to live and work in us.

4th. The most excellent act of which we are capable, and one which in itself contains all other virtues, is to resign ourselves entirely to God by a total self-renunciation, and to lose self in the abyss of our own nothingness to find it no more save in God. This is the one thing necessary recommended by our Lord in the Gospel. Oh! the riches of nothingness! Why are you not known? The more completely a soul annihilates itself the more precious does it become in the sight of God. To lose yourself in your own nothingness is a sure way of finding God. Let us endeavour then to make the simple recollection of God, combined with a profound forgetfulness of ourselves and 100a loving and humble submission to His will become our sole task. This effort will keep far from us all that is evil and retain in us all that is useful for our salvation, and meritorious in the sight of God.

5th. Do not draw distinctions between the rest from labour, that is exterior, and that which is interior: it is all the same provided you submit willingly and keep interior peace—it is well to note this.

6th. In our intercourse with others let us be detached in a way that will show how far removed we are from all tenderness or feeling. It is inconceivable how small a thing will suffice to impede the soul, and for how long a time, often for a whole life-time a trifle is capable of preventing the wonderful progress that grace would have effected in our souls. God requires an empty space even in the most remote recesses of our nature in order to communicate Himself to our souls.

7th. It is in the most trying and annoying circumstances that you can practise the most perfect self-effacement and become confirmed in this matter by the loss of secondary things; let us then cheerfully acquiesce in the loss of everything except the loss of God.

8th. Let no business matter, nor any occurrence whatever, have any value out of God, and let God be all in all to us.

9th. Let us never be eager about anything nor allow our hearts to be oppressed by anything whatever. Where there is neither interest nor affection, there is no eagerness, nor sadness, but a void that is ever peaceful and unchangeable. In this we shall be established when we have detached ourselves from all created things, and shall find ourselves where self-seeking ceases; let us lose all to find all.

10th. When we have reduced ourselves to the Unity that is God, all that is not God is undesirable to us. If we but knew how to content ourselves with this supreme Unity we should never trouble ourselves about anything else. This truth thoroughly understood and well practised will enable us to cut off all superfluous things, even those that seem good, holy, and necessary, but which, in the end might do us harm instead of helping us to attain the object of all our aspirations—namely to be one with the Supreme Unity.

11th. Let our motto be that of blessed Giles of Assisi, “One to love, a single soul to a single God.” Let us go further still and love our identity in this Unity, but let us forget all things else, and remember nothing but this Unity, this infinite Unity—God alone. This expression—unity—is very enlightening. It will make us cut off all multiplicity, all superfluity and will be very efficacious in inducing us to give our whole minds to God 101and to discover all that He desires from us. We shall find in it treasures of grace, of light, of innocence, of holiness and of happiness.