The more we lack everything the more we resemble Jesus crucified. The more we cling to the cross, the closer do we embrace Jesus who is nailed to it. Every cross is a gain, for every cross unites us to Jesus. I should possess no more and nothing better than Jesus had at Nazareth, and I should rejoice rather to have less than more. At every moment I should live as though that day I should die a martyr’s death. Only one thing is necessary: that is to do at every moment what is most pleasing to Jesus. I must prepare myself, without ceasing, for martyrdom, and accept it without the smallest attempt to defend myself, like the Divine Lamb, in Jesus, by Jesus, like Jesus and for Jesus. I should rejoice rather to lack than to have, at failure rather than success, and at penury rather than possessions, for in these I bear the cross and the poverty of Jesus, the greatest blessing the earth can give me. I must practise Abjection, the service of others. I must fix a certain number of menial tasks to be accomplished every day and to do them like Jesus of Nazareth, who ,came to serve.’ I must do without the orderly and serve, not be served.

–Charles de Foucauld, Meditations of a Hermit