Manchester Youth

Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its
pleasures, and its pains, to a dear friend.

Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He
may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him
your dislikes, that He may help you coquer them; talk to Him of your
temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your
heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your
depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you
unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises
you to yourself and others.

If you thus pour out your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack
of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being
renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subject
of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be
held back, neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the
abundance of their heart, without consideration they say just what they
think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse
with God.

-Francois Fenelon