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Ms C 35v
[35v°] of giving my Sisters a few counsels, if you, Mother, who represent God to me, had not given me the grace for this. On the other hand, it is about your spiritual sons who are my brothers that I was thinking when I wrote these words of Jesus and those that follow: “I do not [5] pray that you will take them out of the world … I pray also for those who will believe in you because of their word.”347 How could I not pray for the souls whom they will save in their distant mission through suffering and preaching? Mother, I think it is necessary to give a few [10] more explanations on the passage in the Canticle of Canticles: “Draw me, we shall run,” for what I wanted to say appears to me little understood. “No man can come after me, unless the FATHER who sent me draw him,” Jesus has said.348 Again, through beautiful parables, and often even without using this means so well known to the people, He teaches us that it is enough to knock and it will be opened, to seek [15] in order to find, and to hold out one’s hand humbly to receive what is asked for. He also says that everything we ask the Father in His name, He will grant it. No doubt, it is because of this teaching that the Holy Spirit, before Jesus’ birth, dictated this prophetic prayer: “Draw me, we shall run.” [20] What is it then to ask to be “Drawn” if not to be united in an intimate way to the object which captivates our heart? If fire and iron had the use of reason, and if the latter said to the other: “Draw me,” would it not prove that it desires to be identified with the fire in such a way that the fire penetrate
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