FROM this sensible love is born devotion to God and His glory. For
none can have a hungry devotion in his heart, unless he possesses
the sensible love of God. Devotion excites and stimulates a man
internally and externally to the service of God. It makes the body
and soul abound in glory and merit in the eyes of God and men. God
exacts devotion in all that we do. It purges the body and soul from
all that might hold us back; it shows us the true path to
blessedness.

ON GRATITUDE

FROM fervent devotion is born gratitude, for none can thank or
praise God perfectly if he is not fervent and pious. We should thank
God for everything here below, that we may be able to thank Him
eternally above. Those who praise not God here, will be mute
eternally. To praise God is the most joyous and delicious employment
of the loving heart. There is no limit to the praises of God, for
therein is our salvation, and we shall praise Him eternally.

Now hear a comparison, by which you may understand the exercise of
gratitude. When the summer approaches and the sun mounts, it
attracts the moisture of the earth along the stems and branches of
the trees, whence come green leaves, flowers, and fruit. Even so
when Christ, the eternal sun, rises in our hearts, He sends His
light and heat upon our desires, and draws the heart away from all
the manifold things of earth, creating unity and inwardness, and
makes the heart grow and become green by interior love, and makes
loving devotion flourish, and makes us bear the fruits of gratitude
and love, and preserves these fruits eternally in the humble pain of