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In this interior union God communicates himself to the soul with such genuine love that neither the affection of a mother, with which she so tenderly caresses her child, nor a brother's love, nor any friendship is comparable to it.

“What is grace” I asked God. And He said, “All that happens.” Then He added, when I looked perplexed,“Could not lovers say that every moment in their Beloved’s arms was grace? Existence is my arms, though I well understand how one can turn away from me until the heart has wisdom.”

It is right that the soul, as far as it is able, should work to purify itself, that it may merit that God take it into His Divine care and heal it of those imperfections before which it is helpless.

The soul which has no other aim than the perfect observance of the law of God and the carrying of the cross of Christ will be a true ark, containing the true manna which is God.

When you are burdened you are close to God, your strength, who abides with the afflicted. When you are relieved of the burden you are close to yourself, your own weakness; for virtue and strength of soul grow and are confirmed in the trials of patience.

The more God gives the more He makes us desire, until we are empty and He is able to fill us with good things.

The more this kind of love grows the more our love of God grows with it; and the deeper our love for Him the more we shall love our neighbor for the principle of both is the same.

Oh, then, spiritual soul, when you see your appetites darkened, your inclinations dry and constrained, your faculties incapacitated for any interior exercise, do not be afflicted; think of this as a grace, since God is freeing you from yourself and taking from you your own activity.

If the sun's rays strike a window, but the window is stained and dirty, the sun cannot shine through in the same way it would have done if the window were clean and spotless. All depends, not on the sun, but on the window...The soul resembles this window.

The soul does no more than represent its miseries and pain to the Beloved, for he who loves wisely does not wish to ask for what he desires. He is satisfied at hinting at his necessities so that the Beloved may do what seems best to Him.

If a man is moved to love God apart from any sweetness he feels, he is already focusing his love upon God, who he does not feel.

It is noteworthy that this general knowledge is at times so delicate (especially when purer, simpler, and more perfect), spiritual, and interior that the soul does not perceive or feel it, even though employed with it.