Great Throughts Treasury

"The soul of one who serves God always swims in joy, always keeps a holiday, is always in her palace of jubilation, ever singing with fresh ardor and fresh pleasure a new song of joy and love."

"No man of himself can succeed in voiding himself of all his desires in order to come to God."

"The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. The soul has to proceed rather by unknowing rather than knowing."

"All that is required for a complete pacification of the spiritual house is the negation through pure faith of all the spiritual faculties and gratifications and appetites. This achieved, the soul will be joined with the Beloved in a union of simplicity and purity and love and likeness... In the night of sense there is yet some light, because the intellect and reason remain and suffer no blindness. But his spiritual night of faith removes everything, both in the intellect and in the senses. The less a soul works with its own abilities, the more securely it proceeds, because its progress in faith is greater."

"The soul that is clouded by the desires is darkened in the understanding and allows neither the sun of natural reason nor that of the supernatural Wisdom of God to shine upon it and illumine it clearly... At the same time, when the soul is darkened in the understanding, it is benumbed also in the will, and the memory becomes dull and disordered in its dire operation. The intellect cannot get the illumination of God’s wisdom, the will cannot get the love of God, and the memory cannot get God’s image... Darkness and coarseness will always be with a soul until its appetites are extinguished. The appetites are like a cataract on the eye or specks of dust in it; until removed they obstruct vision... The affections and appetites deprive them of a treasure of divine light... Any appetite, even one that is but slightly imperfect, stains and defiles the soul."

"Cares do not bother the detached man."

"You should strive in your prayer for a pure conscience, a will that is wholly with God, and a mind truly set upon Him."

"Spiritual persons suffer great trials from the fear of being lost on the road and that God has abandoned them… Their soul was taking pleasure in being in that quietness and ease, instead of working with its faculties. "

"Mystical wisdom, which comes through love, need not be understood distinctly… for it is given according to the mode of faith, through which we love God without understanding Him."

"God sustains every soul and dwells in it substantially, even though it be that of the greatest sinner in the world, and this union is natural. The supernatural union exists when God’s will and the soul’s will are in conformity. Therefore the soul rests transformed in God through love... The illumination of the soul and its union with God corresponds to its purity."

"When he is brought to nothing, the highest degree of humility, the spiritual union between his soul and God will be effected. The journey does not consist on recreations, experiences and spiritual feelings, but in the living, sensory and spiritual, exterior and interior death of the cross."

"This divine knowledge of God never deals with particular things. This sublime knowledge can be received only by a person who has arrived at union with God, for it is itself that very union. It consists in a certain touch of the divinity produced in the soul, and thus it is God Himself who is experienced and tasted there… This knowledge savors of the divine essence and of eternal life... Since this knowledge is imparted to thesoul suddenly, without exercise of free will, a person does not have to be concerned about desiring it or not. He should simply remain humble and resigned about it, for God will do His work at the time and in the manner he wishes... God does not bestow these favors on a possessive soul, since He gives them out of a very special love for the recipient. For the individual receiving them is one who loves God with great detachment."

"The more spiritual a man is, the more he discontinues trying to make particular acts with his faculties, for he becomes more engrossed in one general, pure act, a calm and repose of interior quietude. #7. The soul would want to remain in that unintelligible peace as in its right place. Since people do not understand the mystery of that new experience, they imagine themselves to be idle and doing nothing... They must learn to abide in that quietude with a loving attentiveness to God. At this stage the faculties are at rest and do not work actively but passively, by receiving what God is effecting in them."

"If the memory is annihilated, the devil is powerless, and it liberates us from a lot of sorrow, affliction and sadness."

"Moral good consists in the control of the passions and the restruction of the inordinate appetites. The result for the soul is tranquility, peace, repose, and moral virtue. The soul cannot control the passion without forgetting and withdrawing from the sources of these emotions. Disturbances never arise in a soul unless through the apprehensions of the memory... The soul must go to God by not comprehending rather than by comprehending and it must exchange the mutable and comprehensible for the Immutable and Incomprehensible."

"Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing."

"How to being this journey: don’t pursue delights, and overcome temptations and difficulties; which equal the practice of self-knowledge."

"If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark."

"In detachment, the spirit finds quiet and repose for coveting nothing."

"God is pleased with nothing but love; but before I explain this, it will be as well to set forth the grounds on which the assertion rests. All our works, and all our labours, how grand soever they may be, are nothing in the sight of God, for we can give Him nothing, neither can we by them fulfil His desire, which is the growth of our soul. As to Himself He desires nothing of this, for He has need of nothing, and so, if He is pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul; and as there is no way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for this reason only is He pleased with our love. It is the property of love to place him who loves on an equality with the object of his love."

"There is nothing better or more necessary than love."

"If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection."

"If you purify your soul of attachment to and desire for things, you will understand them spiritually. If you deny your appetite for them, you will enjoy their truth, understanding what is certain in them."

"God desires the smallest degree of purity of conscience in you more than all the works you can perform. "

"With what procrastinations do you wait, since from this very moment you can love God in your heart?"

"When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks Him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways, or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with Him by faith and love, then it may be said to have found God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self."

"When the soul, then, in any degree possesses the spirit of solitary love, we must not interfere with it. We should inflict a grievous wrong upon it, and upon the Church also, if we were to occupy it, were it only for a moment, in exterior or active duties, however important they might be. When God Himself adjures all not to waken it from its love, who shall venture to do so, and be blameless? In a word, it is for this love that we are all created. Let those men of zeal, who think by their preaching and exterior works to convert the world, consider that they would be much more edifying to the Church, and more pleasing unto God — setting aside the good example they would give if they would spend at least one half their time in prayer, even though they may have not attained to the state of unitive love."

"One human thought alone is worth more than the entire world, hence God alone is worthy of it."

"Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved."

"Whoever flees prayer flees all that is good."

"Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it; reflect that all must come to an end."

"In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone."