Today I am thinking about a little booklet that I gave to others for Christmas and now I am using myself. It is called Golden Counsels of St. Francis de Sales.

I was struck about what he said about devotion. Devotion is not a word we use very much as it became confused with "devotions". Francis says the "virtue of devotion is neither more nor less than a general inclination and promptitude of spirit to do what we know is pleasing to God. It is the joyful expansion of the heart spoken of in the psalms...
Ordinary people walk along the path of God; devout people run; very devout people fly.
I hope I can at least begin to run as Lent is half over and I feel that I am dragging my feet. At times like this, more prayer seems to help and I am glad we are about to have Spring Break as that will help to take more time just to sit in God's presence. Francis also says that the length of our prayers should be in proportion to the amount of work we have to do. He was a busy bishop, but found time to pray, to write about prayer, and to direct many people besides all his regular duties.
We had a power failure the other day in South Florida and everyone was without electricity. The elevators did not work; the traffic signals were out; it was a nightmare for people trying to drive home. Schools were kept later because the buses could not be safe without signals. It showed us how dependent we have become on the use of electricity. They are still trying to figure out why this happened and we are borrowing electricity from other states as our nuclear electric plants shut down with the power failure that was in another plant but triggered the shut-down as a precaution. I am not sure how this connects with a Lenten reflection, but it did make south Florida feel vulnerable.