The  anonymous author was a Carthusian monk of a French charterhouse who wrote in the 1940s.

Meditation:

…We know only too well the selfishness that is paramount in the world. The number of those who know how to give themselves (and want to do so) is not legion. This is because our “being” is so limited, and consequently we have so little to give. And amongst those who seem to give themselves, many are simply giving themselves to themselves: in other words, they are not giving at all. They are only seeking something in others to complete themselves; not that they may complete others.

It is in this respect that God is so infinitely superior to us, for he is Love – the gift of self. He is overflowing plenitude, yearning to pour himself out into nothingness, in order that he may fill if with his infinite being. To give himself, therefore, is “being” to him, as well as his life and joy. The weaker and emptier we are, and the more helpless and imperfect, the greater is the capacity he finds in us to receive him. Love, then, for us consists above all in accepting this outpouring of life; for him, love consists in bestowing it.