Pere Othmann was not unwilling for me to follow these impulses as soon as he became convinced of their imperative strength.
Yet I now see that such practices were in a certain sense mistaken.
They necessarily consumed in mortification vitality that I could now use, if I had it, in a more useful way.

Still, how could I help it ?" The end of this period of his humiliations, which was not far from the end of his noviceship, is thus described: "One day after Communion I was making my half-hour thanksgiving in my room, when Pere Othmann came in and examined me about my form of prayer.

Oh! it was just then that I had reached the passive state of prayer: _I_ did nothing, _Another_ did everything in my prayer.

From that time, having put me down in the gutter, the novice-master raised me up to the pinnacle, whereas I should have been in neither place." On another occasion he told how the change of prayer had happened: "I was on my knees one day after Communion, making a regular thanksgiving, when suddenly God stopped me, and I was told not to pray that way any more.

Question: How were you told--what words were spoken to you?
Answer: Cease your activity.