this we should do often, and with great affection.
Let then your offering be without attachment, and without regard to your own desires, not aiming at earthly blessings or Heavenly, but purely at the Will and Providence of God, to which you ought entirely to submit, and to sacrifice yourself as a perpetual burnt-offering, and, weaned from all created things, say: "Behold, my Lord and Creator, each and every desire of mine is at the disposal of Thy Will and Eternal Providence; do with me as it pleases Thee, in life, in death, and after death; in time, and in eternity."
If you act thus in sincerity (which will be proved when some adversity arises) you will become from an earthly, a dealer in Heavenly and most blessed goods, for you shall be God's, and God shall be yours; since He always abides with those who, tearing themselves away from all creatures and from themselves, give themselves up entirely, and sacrifice themselves to His Divine Majesty.
Here then, beloved, you see a most powerful way of overcoming all your enemies; because if this offering so unites you to God, that you become wholly His, and He wholly yours, what enemy and what power can ever hurt you? And when you wish to offer to Him any of your
