Notwithstanding the coldness and insensibility that benumb my soul, I know that _I love Thee_, O my God! since my will prefers Thy service to all the joys of this world, since Thy grace is the sole good to which I aspire, and because I suffer so much by reason of my lack of sensible love for Thee. Act of Desire. No, I am not indifferent, Thou knowest, O my God! that I am not indifferent to this Most Holy Sacrament which I approach unmoved by any sensible feeling: for Thou seest that although I find in Holy Communion neither relish nor consolation, I would yet make any sacrifice in order to receive it. Act of Contrition. I feel neither hatred nor horror of sins to which the world does not attach shame and contempt; I experience no sensible sorrow for the sins I have committed, but I know, O my God! that, with the assistance of Thy grace, my will denounces them, for I am resolved to commit them no more. I have taken this resolution because sin displeases Thee and because all that swerves from eternal order is abhorrent to Thy infinite sanctity. _I believe, then, that I am contrite_, O my God! because I believe in Thy promises, and if Thou dost not always grant us the consolation of realizing our contrition, Thou wilt never refuse its justifying virtue to those who humbly implore it; and this I do. No, my God, I shall not pray Thee to grant me sensible enjoyment, not even that of Thy spiritual gifts: what I implore of Thy grace is to keep my will ever turned towards Thee and never to permit it to fall or wander anew on the earth. _Lord! into Thy hands I commend my spirit._ (Read _The Imitation_, Chapters IV., XIV., XV. of B. IV.; and Chapters XXV., XLVIII and LII of B. III.) If you have an ardent desire for the sensible love of God, a desire that cannot but be pleasing to Him provided you are at the same time resigned to be deprived of it, remember that according to Saint John Chrysostom it can be obtained only by fidelity to prayer. God wishes, says the Saint, to make us realize by experience that we cannot have His love but from Himself, and that this love, which is the true happiness of our souls, is not to be acquired by the reflections of our minds or the natural efforts of our hearts, but by the gratuitous infusion of the Holy Ghost. Yes, this love is so great a good that God wishes to be the sole dispenser of it: He bestows it only in proportion as we ask it of Him, and ordinarily makes us wait for some time before He grants it. There are few prayers better calculated to dispose the soul to receive this great grace than the XVI. and XVII. chapters of the IVth. Book, and XXI. and XXXIV. of the IIId. Book of _The Imitation_. For thanksgiving after Communion, read Chapters XXXIV., V., XXI., II. and X. of the III. Book of _The Imitation_. Footnotes