WE want to save our souls and to tend to the perfection of the spiritual life. That is to say, we want to purify ourselves thoroughly, to make progress in all the virtues, to attain to loving union with God, and so in a sense to transform ourselves into Him ever more and more. This is the sole occupation to which we have exclusively consecrated our lives. It is a work of incomparable grandeur, yet also one that involves almost endless toil. It offers us liberty of spirit, peace and joy of heart, and the sweet unction of the Holy Ghost; but, on the other hand, it demands of us sacrifices innumerable and the patient labour of a lifetime. An undertaking so colossal would assuredly be not only difficult but utterly impossible to us, were we left dependent upon our own resources, for it belongs to the purely supernatural order. But “I can do all things in Him Who strengtheneth me ” (Phil. iv, 13). Without God, we are absolutely powerless, unable to do anything at all meritorious of eternal life; as St. Paul says: we cannot of ourselves even think or will what is good, much less bring it to accomplishment (2 Cor. iii, 5; Phil. ii, 13). –Abbot Vital Lehodey.