In return for the invitation he received he gives us an invitation; and "what can be sweeter than the voice of the Lord inviting us" to fill our hearts with the riches of his treasures. But the invitation has conditions attached to it. We must be consumed with a hunger for divine things. If our hearts have feasted on "fleeting, earthly, perishable things" they will not take delight in these divine gifts; indeed, divine things will be insipid and distasteful.

Another condition is that we be child-like. All the docility of a child in its father's arms, all its trust and confidence are necessary if we are to accept our Lord's invitation.

Then, too, this divine Guest speaks and acts with all the power and force of the infinite God. Yet so soft is his voice, so gentle are his ways and almost imperceptible his touches that he can only be heard and understood in the loving and attentive silence of the soul. However, we must not make the mistake of thinking of this silence as being purely passive and inactive. It is not a silence that lets the Holy Spirit do all the work. Rather, it is an eager, receptive, and active silence in which the soul adorns itself as best it can, goes to meet the Holy Spirit, and welcomes him, giving him complete dominion. Then while still contributing its best cooperating efforts, the soul lets the Holy Spirit accomplish what was impossible to the soul alone. There is no beginning of perfection made without the Holy Spirit; no effort can be made toward perfection, not even a desire for perfection stirred in the heart, without the Holy Spirit.

"We have heard the conditions for dwelling" with God, and "if we fulfill these conditions" we will find that we have exchanged invitations with the Holy Spirit. He is our guest, we are his host. There is a mutual giving and receiving, a mutual indwelling. We live in him; live by his life, see by his sight, and love with his love. He dwells in us, sanctifying us at the very root of our being, drawing us far above ourselves, into the life and love of the Trinity, there to give glory to God.

When we contrast the intimacy of our life in God with the love of distraction, which is so characteristic of our modern life, we see how much distraction is an obstacle to our growth in God. Distraction has been commercialized and streamlined to satisfy each and every possible novel whim. Sometimes we pay a high price for an evening of distraction. Not that recreation is unimportant. But if the whole of life, its end and very meaning, is defined and described in terms of play and distraction, then something is radically wrong. Recreation should be of such a kind that it does not impede the "recreation" of the soul in the image of God, it should be as noble, in its way, as the calling of man to divine life; it should relieve man of his tensions, but not make him forget God. Even at play man must "have the awe of God before his eyes".

The life of union with God makes great demands upon us; demands that God does not hesitate to make because he does not cease to love us. Because his love for us is infinite and inexhaustible, his demands resemble those of a God jealous to possess our bodies and souls not by merely surrounding them with all a divinity can offer, but by penetrating to their interior where he sanctifies them by the power of the very substance of his godhead.