“Perhaps you also desire,” he says, “this happy repose of contemplation, and you do well. Only be sure not to forget the flowers which should adorn the bed of the Bridegroom. The practice of virtues ought to precede contemplation repose as the flower precedes the fruit. Renounce your own will. If your soul is covered with the weeds and nettles of disobedience, how can He give Himself unreservedly to you. Who loves obedience to such a degree that he preferred death to the loss of it? There’s some here whom I cannot understand. They have troubled us by their singularities, grieved us by their impatience, despised us by their obstinacy; all day long they are a source of annoyance to their brother and a menace to the peace of the house. And nevertheless they have the impudence, by insistent prayer, to invite God of all purity to take His repose in their sin soiled hearts! No, your bed is not decorated with flowers, it is malodorous. Set about purifying your conscience from every defilement of anger, murmuring, quarreling and envy. Make haste to exclude from your heart whatever you find there opposed to the peace of the community or to the obedience you owe superiors. Then surround yourself with the flowers of every good action, every good desire, and perfume your soul with the sweet scent of the virtues. Whatsoever is true, whatsoever is chaste, whatsoever just, holy, amiable, of good repute, everything that appertains to virtue and discipline meditate on all these things and cultivate them….” Abbot Vitalis Lehodey from ‘Holy Abandonment’ quoting St Bernard of Clairvaux