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146 service; for by it we gain the mastery over self, superiority over Satan, and become the sons of God.

Secondly, you must have a lively faith and trust in God, that He will give you all things which you need for His service, and for your own good.

This holy confidence is a vessel into which Divine Mercy pours the treasures of His grace; and the larger and more capacious it is, the more richly laden will our prayers return into our bosom. For how shall the Unchanging and Almighty God fail to impart to us His gifts, when He Himself has commanded us to ask for them, and has also promised us His Holy Spirit, if we ask for it with faith and perseverance?

Thirdly, you must, when you draw nigh in prayer, seek the accomplishment of the Divine Will, and not of your own, both by the act of prayer itself and by that you desire to obtain; that is, pray, as an act of obedience to the Divine Will, and desire to be heard in so far only as God wills. In short, your attention should be to unite your will to God's, not to bend His to yours.

And the reason for this is, that your own will, being tainted and corrupted by self-love, very often errs, and knows not what it asks; but the Divine Will, always united to ineffable Goodness,