This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If we say a little it is easy to add, but having said too much it is hard to withdraw and never can it be done so quickly as to hinder the harm of our success.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The soul is wearied and fatigued by its desires… the (desires) disturb it, allowing it not to rest in any place or in any thing soever.… the desires and indulgence in them all cause it greater emptiness and hunger.
Experience | Soul |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
This perfection consists in voiding and stripping and purifying the soul of every desire. #7. God will give to the soul a new understanding of God in God, the old human understanding being cast aside – and a new love of God in God.
Soul |
Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
What is the meaning of the passage about the woman who is struck and ‘has an abortion,’ and ‘if the child comes out perfectly formed’ the law declares that the one who struck [her] must give ‘life for life.’ But if the child falls out unformed, [why] is it only an accident? Literally, we understand the passage in this way: since the murder is of the body — for a soul, being immortal, is never murdered – for this reason ‘being not perfectly formed’ into the human form does not entail to danger but only mild damage. But if the human image is fully developed, it is reasonable to see such a person as committing the murder of a perfect human being
Not only do we have to accept that God wounds us, but we have to accept to be wounded where He desires; we have to let God choose, because it is His right.
Circumstances | Excess | Marriage | Mortal | Soul |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
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. #2. 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. #4. 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. #6. The affections and appetites deprive them of a treasure of divine light. #7. Any appetite, even one that is but slightly imperfect, stains and defiles the soul.
Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
All of us human beings are born under sin, and our very origin is in sin.
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
A merciful man is the physician of his own soul. Like a violent wind he drives the darkness of the passions out of his inner self.
Disease | Experience | Kindness | Little | Man | Need | Soul | Understanding | Words |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
This soul is so near to God that it is transformed in the flames of love, wherein Father, Son and Holy Spirit communicate themselves to it. The effect of the living flames is to make the soul live spiritually in God, and experience the life of God. Love is ever throwing out sparks; the effect of life is to wound, that it may enkindle with love and cause delight. God wars against all the imperfect habits of the soul and, purifying the soul with the heat of His flame, He uproots these habits from it and prepares it so that at last He may enter it and be united with it by His sweet, peaceful and glorious love, as is the fire when it has entered the wood. At death the rivers of love of the soul are about to enter the sea. Burning with sweetness. Consuming not but enlightening.
God | Love | Perfection | Soul | Understanding | Will | God | Old |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
You should strive in your prayer for a pure conscience, a will that is wholly with God, and a mind truly set upon Him.
Attention | Awareness | Desire | Experience | Faith | Father | God | Love | Order | Possessions | Reflection | Regard | Soul | Understanding | Wants | Will | God | Awareness | Understand |
Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
There is no hardship more oppressive to the soul than slander, whether one is slandered in his faith or in his conduct. And no one can disdain it except the one who like Susanna looks to God who alone can rescue in need, as he rescued her, and to reassure men, as he did in her case, and to encourage the soul with hope.
The true and solid devotion consists in the constant will, resolve, promptness and activeness to execute what is pleasing to God.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The soul refrains from the desire to feel or see anything while it is in this loving awareness. The soul does nothing – only receives what is given. #4. As soon as natural things are driven out of the enamored soul, the divine are naturally and supernaturally infused, since there can be no void in nature.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
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.
Cause | Indulgence | Rest | Soul |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
This dark night is an inflowing of God into the soul – called infused contemplation or mystical theology. God secretly teaches the soul and instructs it in perfection of love, without its doing anything. It is the loving wisdom of God, and He prepares it for the union of love with God. This Divine wisdom is night and darkness for the soul, and affliction and torment. When this pure light assails the soul, in order to expel its impurity, the soul feels itself to be so impure and miserable that it believes God to be against it, and things that it has set itself up against God.
Existence | Life | Life | Love | Merit | Soul | War | Worth |
Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
For by plucking out self-love, which is, as they say, the beginning and mother of all evils, everything that comes from it and after it is plucked out as well. Once this is no more, absolutely no form or trace of evil can any longer subsist. All the forms of virtue are introduced, fulfilling the power of love, which gather together what has been separated, once again fashioning the human being in accordance with a single meaning and mode. It levels off and makes equal any inequality or difference inclination in anything, or rather binds it to that praiseworthy inequality, by which each is so drawn to his neighbor in preference to himself and so honors him before himself, that he is eager to spurn any obstacle in his desire to excel. And for this reason each one willingly frees himself from himself, by separating himself from any thoughts or properties to which he is privately inclined, and is gathered to the one singleness and sameness, in accordance with which nothing is in anyway separated from what is common to all, so that each is in each, and all in all, or rather in God and in others, and they are radiantly established as one, having the one logos of being in themselves, utterly single in nature and inclination. And in this God is understood: in him they are all beheld together and they are bound together and raised to him, as the source and maker. The logos of being of all beings by nature preserves itself pure and inviolate for our attention, who, with conscious zeal through the virtues and the toils that accompany them, have been purified from the passions that rebel against it.
Contemplation | Failure | Future | Grace | Hope | Ignorance | Law | Mystery | Principles | Scripture | Soul | Wisdom | Failure | Contemplation | Intellect |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The aim is union with God in the memory. #2. Images will always help a person toward union with God, provided he allows himself to soar – when God bestows the favor – from the painted image to the living God.
Common Sense | Experience | Feelings | Knowledge | Order | Self | Sense | Soul |