One of the nuns who lived with Mother Maddalena remembered: When she spoke to the Sisters who were troubled regarding prayer she used to say: ‘Prayer is not hard. It is a gift of the Holy Ghost. In the chapel, think that only you and God are present.’ She told the Sisters that their principal duty was the recitation of the divine office and that, therefore, nothing was to be preferred to this duty. All direction that she gave to the community was always centered about living in the presence of God. She wrote in an instruction: ‘Never allow the thought of God to be long absent from the mind.’