My heart was made for fidelity. I know that the living God listens intently to my prayer, that prayer is, if I may say so, our joint work that He and I carry out for the Kingdom of God. My perseverance is something natural and easy for me. It gives me courage, even when in prayer I can do nothing but repeat the same sentences over and over, and every evening my knees hurt nicely.
(Father Jerome /1907–1985/, monk of the Trappist monastery in Sept-Fons,
letter to a fellow brother, March 6, 1976)