God treats every soul with infinite respect, and for this reason, because He does not force our will, humankind can resist grace and render divine desire sterile. In fact, throughout the day, perhaps in small things, we say no to God. And we must strive to say yes many times to what the Lord asks of us, and not to selfishness, to the impulses of pride, to laziness.
A free response to God's grace must be made in thought, words, and deeds. Faith alone is not enough to cooperate adequately: God asks for personal effort, works, initiatives, effective desires... Although Our Lord, with His Death on the Cross, merited for us an infinite treasure of goods, nevertheless, these graces are not granted to us all at once; and their greater or lesser abundance depends on how we respond. When we are willing to say yes to the Lord in everything, we attract a veritable shower of gifts. Grace, love of God, floods us when we are faithful to the small promptings of each day: when we live the "heroic minute" in the morning and strive to make our first thought of the Lord, when we prepare for Holy Mass and reject the distractions that seek to draw us away from what matters, when we offer our work...
No one can say that they have been forgotten or abandoned by God if they do all they can, because the Lord grants his help to all, even to those who are outside the Church through no fault of their own.
Indeed, the Lord, infinitely merciful and patient, has sought time and again, in a thousand different ways, the return of those who left with their inheritance and now find themselves in a pitiable situation. Each day he goes out to wait for them and moves their hearts to resume the journey that leads to their father's house. And when he finds a response to his graces, he pours out help and blessings, and encourages them to rise ever higher. If, in this personal prayer, we find it difficult to respond, let us follow this advice: "
Converse with Saint Mary and confide in her: O Lady, to live the ideal that God has placed in my heart, I need to fly... very high, very high! (...)"
And close to Mary we always find Joseph, her most faithful husband, who so well and so promptly knew how to carry out what God, through the Angel, was revealing to him. We can turn to him throughout the day, so that he may help us to hear clearly the voice of the Holy Spirit in so many details and on such small occasions, and may be strong to put it into practice.
Hablar con Dios