Archive

If we fall, an act of love will set all right, and Jesus smiles. He helps us without seeming to do so; and the tears which sinners cause Him to shed are wiped away by our feeble love. Love can do all things.

Neither skill nor knowledge is required to go to God, but just a heart determined to turn to Him only, to beat for Him only, and to love Him only.

The Way of Spiritual Childhood...is the only means to make rapid progress in love and the only way by which saints are made.

To live by love is to banish all fear, all remembrance of past faults.

God acts with other weaker souls as though he were showing himself and then hiding; he does this to exercise them in his love, for without these withdrawals they would not learn to reach him.

As a result the soul recognizes the truth about its misery, of which it was formerly ignorant. When it was walking in festivity, gratification, consolation, and support in God, it was more content, believing that it was serving God in some way. Though this idea of serving God may not be explicitly formed in a person's mind, at least some notion of it is deeply embedded within, owing to the satisfaction derived from one's spiritual exercises.

What did You possess, my Lord, but trials, sufferings, and dishonor?...In sum, my God, it does not fit those of us who want to be your true children, and hold on to their inheritance, to flee suffering. Your heraldry consists of five wounds.

When you experience that interior cry of egotism, direct your mind and gaze to Jesus. Will you not have the strength to conquer this fault for love of Him?

The soul's aim is a love equal to God's. She always desired this equality, naturally and supernaturally, for lovers cannot be satisfied without feeling that they love as much as they are loved.

God is ready to pardon a sinner who humbles himself. He looks with more love on a soul who returns to Him in Humility, than on a faithful soul who finds pleasure in its virtues.

Who can lose confidence? For the Lord endured so much with me only because I desired and strove to have some place and time in order that He might be with me. Prayer is the door to favors as great as those He granted me.

If trials are not suffered for God, they are worth nothing; if they are suffered for Him, His Majesty adapts them to our strength. Thus, if we are so afraid of them it is because we are fainthearted.