Abandonment is the heart of sanctity

"The measure of our abandonment is the measure of our sanctity. Those who are most intimately united to God cannot pray for anything intensely or desire anything ardently except on the condition that it be the holy will of God in which is all their life. The live in it as fish in water.

Whatever their minds conceive or their hearts desire to pray for is always prefaced by: If it be Your will, Lord, because they know that nothing good is done outside of His will.

The difference between a good person and a saint is a simple but continuous 'yes' to Divine Love.

All our merit consists not in what we have done but in the part of our lives that we have surrendered to Christ to live in us. This abandonment of ourselves to Him so that His life is all we have through the will of God, is the heart of sanctity. Abandonment makes us the little children of the Gospel more than anything else. It is both the way up the mountain and the summit. All our prayer must aim at this: to remove the obstacles so that we allow God to act in us, through Christ living in us."

-- The Pathways of Prayer: Communion with God by Sr Immaculata, ocd