Ave Maria Meditations
You have done well to expose your difficulties. By doing so, you have freed your soul, and that is already something. Often that is all we can do in this life, and we must be content with that. Do not be too distressed over your shortcomings, nor with the difficulty you experience in overcoming them. Examine yourself from time to time, but quietly and with liberty of spirit, to see whether there is not some special point on which God is asking you to make an effort which so far you have refused Him. If there is, try to correct yourself on that point; if there is not, remain at peace and continue to accept not being today what you will have to be tomorrow.
Life is a growth, slow and imperceptible. We will not hurry matters by constantly watching the progress we are making. You have within you an interior Master, who will tell you what to do and what not to do. Be guided by Him. Be as faithful as you can to the indications He gives you, and wait with confidence and calm the realization of a design of love which He will bring about, if you do not hinder Him, and which He wants to bring to a happy consummation even more than you.
The enthusiasm that you say you lack is not really necessary: it is a luxury! When God gives it, it is a great help, but when He withholds it, what He gives instead is quite sufficient. You will accustom yourself little by little to be content with what God sends, and to draw profit from it. The effort called for here and now has this object in view, and it will help you to advance along His way much quicker than you think.
Life is a journey. Provided we keep going, all is well. What God cannot tolerate what is, indeed, intolerable, are those stationary souls who either are inert by nature or persuade themselves that they have reached the summit, and that there is nothing more for them.
+Dom Augustin Guillerand, O.Cart.
