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At the evening of life, you will be examined in love.

In savoring a finite joy
the very most one can expect
is to enfeeble and destroy
our taste, leaving the palate wrecked;
for all the sweetness there may be
I’ll never throw away my soul…

The fly that clings to honey hinders its flight, and the soul that allows itself attachment to spiritual sweetness hinders its own liberty and contemplation.

We cannot give him anything, he needs nothing and asks for nothing. 'He wants but one thing, the exaltation of the soul.' The only thing that gives him pleasure is the enrichment of the soul.

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.

For on this road there is room only for self denial (as our Savior asserts) and the cross. The cross is a supporting staff and greatly lightens and eases the journey.

Yet, as is evident through experience, souls who will pass on to so happy and lofty a state as is the union of love must usually remain in these aridities and temptations for a long while no matter how quickly God leads them.

God communicates Himself to the soul in this interior union with a love so intense that the love of a mother who tenderly caresses her child, the love of a brother or the affection of a friend bears no resemblance to it.

Simple faith is necessary in seeking God. In outward things, light helps to prevent one from falling; but in the things of God just the opposite is true: it is better for the soul not to see if it is to be more secure.

The very pure spirit does not bother about the regard of others or human respect, but communes inwardly with God, alone and in solitude as to all forms, and with delightful tranquility, for the knowledge of God is received in divine silence.

Courage then, O soul most beautiful! You now know that your Beloved dwells hidden within your own breast. Endeavor therefore to be truly hidden with Him.

It is clear, then, that for the soul to come to unite itself perfectly with God through love and will, it must first be free from all desire of the will, howsoever slight. That is, that it must not intentionally and knowingly consent with the will to imperfections, and it must have power and liberty to be able not so to consent intentionally.