It is good to keep returning to the essential things, even though we have never completely distanced ourselves from them. I believe that this is what I promised the Lord: not that I would reach this or that level, but that I would start anew repeatedly. Like someone who has done nothing yet – and therefore has destroyed nothing, spoiled nothing. After all, it is precisely those countless beginnings granted by God's grace that have allowed me to already gain a certain spiritual capital.
(Father Jerome /1907–1985/, monk of the Trappist monastery in Sept-Fons,
Letters to Patrick)
