Nevertheless it remains in the highest degree desirable that the vows of religion be heartily observed and never regretted. To serve this end, a novitiate is prefixed to the taking of them, that they may be appreciated, desired, and made matter of habitual practice before they come to bind. And after they are taken, the love of them is kept up by constant meditation and prayer. Like the words of our Saviour in the Gospel, the vows of religion are misinterpreted and misjudged in the abstract, away from the concrete facts which attend their first pronouncement and their habitual observance.

Of God and His Creatures: 3.139