This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
As the soul becomes purged and purified by means of this fire of love, it becomes ever more enkindled in love. This enkindling of love is not always felt by the soul, but only at times when contemplation assails it less vehemently.
Experience | Freedom | God | Good | Imagination | Quiet | Reason | Soul | Spirit | Strength | Time | God |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
Any kind of thought or meditation or pleasure would impede and disturb the soul and would introduce noise into the deep silence which the soul should observe in order to hear the deep and delicate voice in which God speaks to the heart in this secret place. When the soul is led into silence, it must forget even the practice of loving advertence… it must practice that advertence only when it is not conscious of being brought into solitude or interior rest or forgetfulness. Pure contemplation consists in receiving. The soul approaches God more nearly by not understanding than by understanding. Faith is darkness to the understanding. God brought them to this solitude and emptiness of their faculties and operations that He may speak to their hearts. God is leading you through the state of solitude and recollection and withdrawing you from your labors of sense. Return not to sense again. Lay aside your operations for they will now be a great obstacle and hindrance to you, since God is granting you the grace of Himself working within you. God is bearing the soul in His arms… and thus, although it is making progress at the rate willed by God Himself, it is not conscious of such movement. Three kinds of love: 1. the soul now loves God, not through itself but through Himself. 2. the soul is absorbed in the love of God and God surrenders Himself to the soul with great vehemence. 3. the soul love Him for Who He is.
Absolute | Forgetfulness | God | Habit | Hope | Journey | Knowing | Knowledge | Means | Memory | Method | Regard | Rights | Silence | Soul | Will | God |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
If formerly it sought sweetness and fervor, and found it, now it much neither seek it nor desire it, for not only will it be unable to find it through its own diligence, but it will rather find aridity, for it turns from the quiet and peaceful blessings which were secretly given it its spirit, to the work that it desires to do with sense; and thus it will lose one and not obtain the other, since no blessings are now given to it by means of sense as they were formerly… God secretly and quietly infuses into the soul loving knowledge and wisdom without any intervention of specific acts. And the soul has then to walk with loving advertence to God, without making specific acts, but conducting itself passively, and making no efforts of its own, but preserving this simple, pure and loving advertence. The soul must be attached to nothing – not even to any kind of meditation or sweetness. The spirit needs to be so free and so completely annihilated that any thought or meditation which the soul in this state might desire, or any pleasure to which it may conceive an attachment, would impede and disturb it and would introduce noise into the deep silence which it is meet that the soul should observe so that it may hear the deep and delicate voice of God which speaks to the heart in this secret place.
Experience | Faith | God | Humility | Love | Soul | Spirit | Words | Work | God | Value |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
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.
Attentiveness | Father | God | Light | Nothing | Solitude | Soul | Spirit | Will | God |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
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.
Contemplation | Forgetfulness | God | Knowing | Memory | Soul | Strength | Time | God | Contemplation |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
Desolation is a file, and the endurance of darkness is preparation for great light.
Aspiration | God | Inclination | Knowing | Life | Life | Love | Progress | Regard | Sense | Solitude | Soul | Spirit | Understanding | Will | Aspiration | God |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
God is communicating to the soul loving knowledge. greatly esteems having brought them to this solitude and emptiness of their faculties and operations, that He may speak to their heart, which is what He ever desires. If you only wait upon God with loving and pure attentiveness (detach the soul from everything and set it free). God will feed your soul for you with heavenly food, since you are not hindering Him. When God brings the soul into that emptiness and solitude where it can neither use its faculties nor make any acts, it sees that it is doing nothing and strives to do something. Therefore it becomes distracted and full of aridity and displeasure. Although it is doing nothing, it is nevertheless accomplishing much more than if it were working, since God is working within it. The deep caverns of sense, with strange brightness, give heat and light together to their Beloved. ‘Together’ because the communication of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in the soul are made together, and are the light and fire of love.
The soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.
Soul |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
If the soul sometimes prays it does so with such lack of strength and sweetness that it thinks that God neither hears it nor pays heed to it. Indeed, this is no time for the soul to speak with God – it should rather put its mouth in the dust, and endure its purgation with patience… It has such distractions and times of such profound forgetfulness of the memory that frequent periods pass by without its knowing what it has been doing or thinking. This unknowing and forgetfulness are caused by the interior recollection wherein this contemplation absorbs the soul.
Contemplation | Knowledge | Mystical | Property | Soul | Contemplation |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
This dark, loving knowledge, which is faith, serves as a means for the divine union in this life as does the light of glory for the clear vision of God in the next. A person should not store up as treasures these visions, nor have the desire to cling to them. Our journey toward God must proceed through the negation of all. One should remain in emptiness and darkness regarding all creatures. He should base his love and joy on what he neither sees nor feels – that is, upon God who is incomprehensible and transcendent.
Affliction | Contemplation | Darkness | God | Light | Love | Mystical | Order | Perfection | Soul | Wisdom | God | Contemplation |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
Like a blind man he must lean on dark faith, accept it for his guide and light, and rest on nothing of what he understands, tastes, feels, or imagines. To reach the supernatural bounds a person must depart from his natural bounds and leave self far off in respect to his interior and exterior limits in order to mount from a low state to the highest.
God | Knowledge | Patience | Practice | Purity | Soul | Strength | Thought | God | Thought |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
Ordinarily that which is of the greatest profit – namely, to be ever losing oneself and becoming as nothing – is considered the worst thing possible, and that which is of least worth, which is for the soul to find consolation and sweetness, is considered best. Secret contemplation is the science of love. It is an infused and loving knowledge of God, which enlightens the soul and at the same time enkindles it with love, until it is raised up step by step, even unto God its Creator. For it is love alone that unites and joins the soul with God.
Awareness | God | Knowing | Knowledge | Mind | Oblivion | Purity | Simplicity | Soul | Time | Will | God | Awareness | Think | Understand |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The eternal tide flows hid in Living Bread. That with its Heavenly Life too be fed.
Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
The Church of the Lord is built upon the rock of the apostles among so many dangers in the world; it therefore remains unmoved. The Church's foundation is unshakable and firm against assaults of the raging sea. Waves lash at the Church but do not shatter it. Although the elements of this world constantly beat upon the Church with crashing sounds, the Church possesses the safest harbor of salvation for all in distress. There is a stream which flows down on God's saints like a torrent. There is also a rushing river giving joy to the heart that is at peace and makes for peace.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
Sensible satisfaction is inconstant and very quick to fail.
Consolation | Contemplation | God | Knowledge | Love | Nothing | Science | Soul | Time | God | Contemplation |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
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.
Blessings | Lord | Means | Service | Soul | Trials | Troubles | Will |