…the preparation of the soul for this union, as we said, is not that it should understand or perceive or feel or imagine anything, concerning either God or aught else, but that it should have purity and love — that is, perfect resignation and detachment from everything for God’s sake…
I beg you not to remain any longer at the feet of Jesus but to follow that first impulse that would carry you into His arms. -St. Therese
When night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed, just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands, and…
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…