It’s not by our own efforts that we will alienate us from ourselves. We can only take baby steps. If, for example, it occurs to us that, instead of having some food we rather like, we don’t and instead offer this to God and think smilingly of him, then he takes it. But not so much and not so often. We will not break down any doors; we will not take holiness by force. But baby steps make God happy.

How could they not make him happy? He can use this for others. He can use this for us: we become more ready for the great alienation that God will do to us in this life or the next – that alienation from ourselves and anything that distracts us from God at all.