A walk. . .

'Let everything in creation draw you to God. Refresh your mind with some innocent recreation and needful rest, if it were only to saunter through the garden or the fields, listening to the sermon preached by the flowers, the trees, the meadows, the sun, the sky, and the whole universe. You will find that they exhort you to love and praise God; that they excite you to extol the greatness of the Sovereign Architect Who has given them their being.'

St. Paul of the Cross

'Salomon also spake three thousand parables: and his songs were a thousand & five. And he disputed of trees from the cedar, that is in Libanus, unto the hyssop which cometh out of the wall: and he discoursed of beasts, and fowls, and creeping worms, and fishes. And there came from all people to hear the wisdom of Salomon, and from all the Kings of the earth, which heard his wisdom.'

3 Kings 4:32-34

'The knowledge of the wise shall abound as an inundation, and his counsel is permanent as a fountain of life.'

Ecclesiasticus 21:16

'And the fountains of waters appeared, and the foundations of the world were revealed.'

Psalm 17:16

'Consider the lilies, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.'

Luke 12:27

'A slight sabre-cut will separate my head from my body, like the spring flower which the Master of the garden gathers for His pleasure. We are all flowers planted on this earth, which God plucks in His own good time: some a little sooner, some a little later. Father and son may we meet in Paradise. I, poor little moth, go first. Adieu.'

St. Jean-Theophane Venard, from a letter to his father

'I said: I will water my garden of plants, and will inebriate the fruit of my meadow.'

Ecclesiasticus 24:42

'But he that shall drink of the water that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto life everlasting.'

John 4:13-14

'Be faithful in all your exercises of piety and virtue; be always resigned; be satisfied, in the superior part of your soul, to taste, without relish, the contentment of doing God's will. Thus after the winter the spring will come, with its flowers, and you will hear the voice of the turtle-dove in this land. (Cant. ii. 12.)'

St. Paul of the Cross