O eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity! You are my God; to you I sigh by day and by night. And when I first knew you, you raised me up so that I could see that there was something to see and that I still lacked the ability to see it. And you beat back the weakness of my sight, blazing upon me with your rays, and I trembled in love and in dread.
God's faithful servant has no desire for people to say or to give to him, or what he likes to hear or see, for his first and greatest aim is to hear what is most pleasing to God.
What can be more excellent than prayer; what is more profitable to our life; what sweeter to our souls; what more sublime, in the course of our whole life, than the practice of prayer!
Hear, O God. Alas, for man's sin! So saith man, and Thou pitiest him; for Thou madest him, but sin is in him Thou madest not. Who remindeth me of the sins of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth.