“When I was young, of course I rightly wanted to do great things for God. As my vocation was to be a contemplative nun, I suppose I meant I wanted to be able to pray like St. Clare. Well, without that desire I should have got nowhere. I most certainly wanted to help others by my prayer–and I took it for granted that I should know I was doing so.
Now I am old, I know that it is his action, not mine. I can only pray the prayer God gives me to pray–and if he does not give me any prayers, that does not really matter–he can use even that. I now view ‘waste of time’ differently. It is not the intrinsic value of how I am occupied that is important. It is the attitude with which I am living. Brooding on what happened yesterday or worrying about how I am going to be able to cope tomorrow, these are wasted time. It is today I am at peace to love and serve the Lord.”
Elsie Felicity in The Monastic Way, ed. by Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2006) 194.