Spiritual Directory of St. Francis de Sales
It is here that I wish you very earnestly to follow my counsel, for in this exercise of spiritual retreat, short prayers, Scripture phrases, speaking to Christ throughout the day, lies one of the surest means of your spiritual advancement and the great work of devotion. Without it the contemplative life cannot properly be followed, nor the active life lived well. It can supply the lack of all other prayers, but the failure of it can scarecely be made good in any other way. I beg you, therefore, to embrace it with your whole heart and never abandon it.
Source:In the Midst of the World; illustrations by Sr. Judith Ann Shea, CSJ