Mirror of the Honesty of Life

like the castigation of the body, fasting, or vigils, and similar exercises of virtue, which must be judged as secondary and inferior, they are nevertheless expedient things that contribute to the purity of the heart. Hence it is that very few now arrive at true perfection, because they do not expend enough time and energy on the means, they neglect the necessary remedies, and they propose them. But if you desire to arrive at the intended goal, you must strive in your work for the perpetual purity of the heart and the tranquility of the mind, and also keep your heart lifted unceasingly to the Lord.

It is true, however, that no mortal is able to cling unceasingly to this contemplation; but it is said so that you may know where you ought to keep your inner mind fixed, and to what destination you should always recall the gaze of your soul. The mind rejoices in what it is able to obtain, and it grieves and sighs when it feels itself distracted from it. Whenever you find yourself separated from that gaze, and you wish to object to me with a complaining voice, saying that you cannot remain long in the same state, you must know that the divine virtue is able to do more than man can imagine, and that the frequency of an act is accustomed to generate a similar habit for itself. Whence it happens more often that that to which a man perhaps bound himself in the beginning with...