A Year With The Saints

"Do not fear that the occupations imposed by obedience will draw you away from union with God; for when they are performed for His glory, they have, instead, great power to unite us closely to Him. For how can those things separate us from God, which unite our will to His? The whole mistake arises from the failure to distinguish between being drawn away from God, and being drawn away from the sweetness found in the interior perception of God. It is true that in occupation this sweetness is not always enjoyed (though it is somethimes in the highest degree); but in depriving ourselves of this for the love of God, we gain instead of losing, while we leave the weak for the strong. While to quit or abandon our work to unite ourselves to God by prayer, reading, or recollection, by solitude and contemplation, would be to withdraw from God and to unite ourselves to ourselves and to our own self-love."--St. Francis de Sales