List of points

We have already entered upon the ways of prayer. But how do we go forward? You must have noticed how many people, both men and women, appear to be talking just to themselves, listening complacently to their own voices. It is an almost continuous chatter of words, a monologue that goes on and on about the problems that worry them, while they do nothing to solve them. It would seem as if all they really wanted was the morbid satisfaction of getting others to feel sorry for them, or admire them. That's all they seem to be aiming for.

If we truly want to unburden our hearts, and are honest and sincere about it, we seek the advice of those who love and understand us: our father or mother, wife or husband, our brother or friend. Even though often what we want isn't so much to listen as to express our feelings and say what has happened to us, a dialogue has already begun. Let us begin to do the same with God; we can be quite sure he listens to us and answers us. Let us pay attention to him and open up our soul in humble conversation, telling him in confidence everything that is on our mind and in our heart: our joys, sorrows, hopes, annoyances, successes, failures, even the most trivial happenings in our day. We will discover that our Heavenly Father is interested in everything about us.

It may be that, even from the beginning, dark clouds will appear and, at the same time, the enemies of our sanctification may employ techniques of psychological terrorism so vehement and well orchestrated — it is a real abuse of power — that they drag in their absurd direction even those who for a long time had behaved in a more reasonable and upright manner. Yet though their voices sound like cracked bells, that have not been cast from good metal and have a very different tone from the shepherd's whistle call, they so distort speech, which is one of the most precious talents ever bestowed on men by God, a most beautiful gift for the expression of deep thoughts of love and friendship towards the Lord and his creatures, that one comes to understand why St James says that the tongue is 'a whole world of malice'. So great is the harm it can do: lies, slander, dishonour, trickery, insults, tortuous insinuations.