Desire to be empty and poor for Christ’s sake. This state must be embraced with a perfect heart and you must really want it. If your heart is truly engaged in these efforts you shall speedily attain to great joy and consolation. -St. John of the Cross
Between Jesus and certain souls there exists a love so great that the soul always lives in the presence of the Beloved. Such a soul will not allow anything created to interfere with this, and that is why this soul seeks solitude. -St. Teresa de los Andes
In order to allow an entire human existence to be pervaded with divine life, it is not enough to kneel down once a year in front of the manger and allow oneself to be taken in by the spell of the Holy Night. One must be actively engaged with God…
Let go of your plans. The first hour of your morning belongs to God. Tackle the day’s work that he charges you with, and he will give you the power to accomplish it. – St. Teresa Bendicta (Edith Stein)
Jesus deigns to point out to me the only way which leads to Love’s divine furnace, and that way is self-surrender: it is the confidence of the little child who sleeps without fear in its father’s arms. -St. Therese
This path of self knowledge must never be abandoned, nor is there on this journey a soul so much a giant that it has no need to return often to the stage of an infant and a suckling. And this should never be forgotten. – St. Teresa of Avila
In order to show that human power and human wisdom are incapable of achieving salvation, he gives salvific power to what appears to human estimation to be weak and foolish, to him who wishes to be nothing on his own, but allows the power of God alone to work in…
When the time had come for him to be born, he went forth like the bridegroom from his bridal chamber, embracing his bride, holding her in his arms, whom the gracious Mother laid in a manger among some animals that were there at that time. Men sang songs and angels…
I understood the great blessing there is in not paying attention to what doesn’t bring us closer to God. -St. Teresa of Avila
I have always desired to become a saint, but in comparing myself with the saints I have always felt that I am as far removed from them as a grain of sand, trampled underfoot by the passer-by is from the mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds. -St. Therese