And did you say to me, "In what way should I love?" I answer you that children and everything else should be loved for love of Him who created them, and not for love of one's self or the children; and that God should never be wronged for their sake or any other. That is, do not love through regard to any utility, nor as your own thing, but as a thing lent to you: since whatever is given us in this life is given for use, as a loan, and is left to us so long only as pleases the Divine Goodness which gave it us. You should use everything, then, as a steward of Christ crucified, spending your temporal substance so far as is possible to you for the poor, who stand in the place of God; and so you ought to spend your children, nourishing and educating them ever in the fear of God, and wishing that they should die rather than wrong their Creator. Oh, make a sacrifice of yourself and them to God! And if you see that God is calling them, offer no resistance to His sweet will: but if they welcome it with one hand, do you reach out both like a true loving mother, who loves their salvation; do not desire to shape their lives to suit yourself--for this would be a sign that you loved them apart from God--but with any state to which God calls them, with that be you content. For a mother who loves her children according to the wickedness of the world, says many a time: "It pleases me well that my children should please God; they can serve Him in the world as well as anywhere else." But it happens often to these simple mothers, who want to plunge their children in the world, that later they possess those children neither in the world nor in God. And it is a just thing that they should be deprived of them, spirit and body, since such ignorance and pride reigns in them that they want to lay down law and rule to the Holy Spirit, who is calling them. Such people do not love their children in God, but with sensuous self-love apart from God, for they love their bodies more than their souls. Never, dearest sister and daughter in Christ sweet Jesus, could he clothe himself in Christ crucified who had not first divested him of this. I hope by the goodness of God that all this will not apply to you, but that you will give yourself and them to the honour and glory of the Name of God, like a true good mother, and so shall you be clothed in the Wedding Garment. But in order that you may clothe you the better, I want that you should lift your desire and heart above the world and all its doings, and that you should open the eye of the mind to know what love God bears to you, who has given you, for love, the Word, His Only-Begotten Son; and the Son in burning love has given you life, and has sacrificed His Body that He might cleanse us with His Blood. Ignorant are we and wretched who nor know nor love so great a benefit! But all this is because our eyes are closed; for were they open, and had they fastened themselves on Christ crucified, they would not be ignorant nor