In prayer, you must be as a vessel open and exposed before God that he may distill into it his grace, drop by drop, as he wills. God will fill your soul with this divine water if you come before him often with lively faith.
–Saint Jane Frances de Chantal (1572-1641)
Surrender of the heart to God includes every possible way of obedience to God, because it means giving up one’s very being to God’s good pleasure. Since this surrender is effected by unalloyed love, it includes in its embrace every kind of operation his good pleasure may bring to pass…. and to stand ready to do his will at all times. What God requires of the soul is the essence of self-surrender. The free gifts he asks from us are self-denial, obedience, and love. The rest is his business.
–Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751)
Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves so that He who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally.
–Saint Francis of Assisi (1181–1226)
A cup is a container for holding something. Whatever it holds has to eventually be emptied out so that something more can be put into it. I have learned that I cannot always expect my life to be full. There has to be some emptying, some pouring out, if I am to make room for the new. The spiritual journey is like that-a constant process of emptying and filling, of giving and receiving, of accepting and letting go.
–Joyce Rupp (1943-
Give yourself entirely to God, enter and hide in the hidden ground of your soul.
— Johannes Tauler (c. 1300-1361)
