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In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.

For, as I have said, God now sees that they have grown a little, and are becoming strong enough to lay aside their swaddling clothes and be taken from the gentle breast; so He sets them down from His arms and teaches them to walk on their own feet; which they feel to be very strange, for everything seems to be going wrong with them.

How amazing and pitiful it is that the soul be so utterly weak and impure that the hand of God, though light and gentle, should feel too heavy and contrary.  For the hand of God does not press down or weigh on the soul, but only touches it; and this mercifully, for God's aim is to grant it favors and not to chastise it.

David also said that clouds and darkness are near God and surround him [Ps. 18:11], not because this is true in itself, but because it appears thus to our weak intellects, which in being unable to attain so bright a light are blinded and darkened.

It is a serious evil to have more regard for God's blessings than for God Himself: prayer and detachment.

Because the light and wisdom of this contemplation is very bright and pure, and the soul in which it shines is dark and impure, a person will be deeply afflicted on receiving it.

Wait upon God with loving and pure attentiveness, working no violence on yourself lest you disturb the soul's peace and tranquility. God will feed your soul with heavenly food since you put no obstacle in His way... And it is not remarkable that the soul does not see this, for our senses cannot perceive what God does in the soul. . . if the soul stays in God's care it will certainly make progress.

When God communicates this bright ray of his secret wisdom to the soul not yet transformed, he causes thick darkness.

Those who now desire to question God or receive some vision or revelation are guilty not only of foolish behavior but of also offending Him by not fixing their eyes entirely on Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty.

Feed not your spirit on anything but God. Cast off concern about things, and bear peace and recollection in your heart.

These aridities, then, make people walk with purity in the love of God. No longer are they moved to act by the delight and satisfaction they find in a work, as perhaps they were when they derived this from their deeds, but by the desire of pleasing God.

O soul, most beautiful of creatures, who desire so ardently to know that place where your Beloved dwells in order to seek Him and unite yourself to Him; you yourself are the retreat where He takes refuge, the dwelling where He hides Himself.