If something has become deeply united with your soul, you should not only regard it as your possession in this life, but believe that it will accompany you into the life to come. If it is something good, rejoice and give thanks to God in your mind; if it is something bad,  grieve and sigh, and strive to free yourself from it while you are still in the body.
- St. Isaak of Syria -

(What spiritual possessions would you like to enter the next life holding closely? Pray the grace to grow in these treasures.)

Phil 2:5-11;    Ps 22:26-32;    Lk 14:15-24

R. (26a) I will praise you, Lord, in the assembly of your people.

I will fulfill my vows before those who fear him.
The lowly shall eat their fill;
they who seek the LORD shall praise him:
"May your hearts be ever merry!"

All the ends of the earth
shall remember and turn to the LORD;
All the families of the nations
shall bow down before him.

For dominion is the LORD's,
and he rules the nations.
To him alone shall bow down
all who sleep in the earth.

To him my soul shall live;
my descendants shall serve him.
Let the coming generation be told of the LORD
that they may proclaim to a people yet to be born
the justice he has shown.

Dieterich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who died for his faith by opposing the false Nazism, contrasted cheap grace and costly grace: "Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves... the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance... grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate... Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."

God invites each of us to his banquet that we may share in his joy. Are you ready to feast at the Lord's banquet table?

"Lord Jesus, you withhold no good thing from us and you lavish us with the treasures of heaven. Help me to seek your kingdom first and to lay aside anything that might hinder me from doing your will."

The Way of Perfection, by Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

(How not all souls are fitted for contemplation and how some take long to attain it. True humility will walk happily along the road by which the Lord leads it.)

I do not mean that it is for us to say what we shall do, but that we must do our best in everything, for the choice is not ours but the Lord's. If after many years He is pleased to give each of us her office, it will be a curious kind of humility for you to wish to choose; let the Lord of the house do that, for He is wise and powerful and knows what is fitting for you and for Himself as well. Be sure that, if you do what lies in your power and prepare yourself for high contemplation with the perfection aforementioned, then, if He does not grant it you (and I think He will not fail to do so if you have true detachment and humility), it will be because He has laid up this joy for you so as to give it you in Heaven, and because, as I have said elsewhere, He is pleased to treat you like people who are strong and give you a cross to bear on earth like that which His Majesty Himself always bore.

- Chapter 17

(Keep in mind that she is writing to sisters in a cloistered contemplative order.)