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When our hearts are free from liking and judging people merely according to their natural gifts we are not held captive by external and changing charms.  We are instead free to love people as they really are, and we can penetrate more easily to the core of their personality, their true goodness.

There is no room for the boundless gifts of God save in a heart that is empty and solitary, and they enter none but such a heart.

We have to be on our guard against wanting to judge for ourselves what point we have reached in the way of pure love. Only God knows this. What we recognize of ourselves, also of our faults and failings, is only the illuminated part on the surface. The deep roots are also hidden from us. God, who knows these, can purify them.

As the bee draws honey from all plants and makes use of them only for that end, so the soul most easily draws the sweetness of love from all that happens to it.  It makes all things subservient to the end of loving God, whether they are sweet or bitter.

Jesus has shown me the only way that leads to the fire of divine love: it is that of a little child who, full of trust, falls asleep in its father's arms.

Some there are who call the Bridegroom their Beloved, but He is not really beloved, because their heart is not wholly with Him. Their prayers are, therefore, not so effectual before God, and they shall not obtain their petitions until, persevering in prayer, they fix their minds more constantly upon God and their hearts more wholly in loving affection upon Him, for nothing can be obtained from God but by love.

"In perfect love this law holds:

that the lover become like the one he loves;

for the greater their likeness the greater their delight.

Surely your bride's delight would greatly increase

were she to see you like her, in her own flesh."

"My will is yours," the Son replied,

"and my glory is that your will be mine...

O my Jesus! You never ask what is impossible; You know better than I how frail and imperfect I am; You know that I shall never love my Sisters as You have loved them, unless You love them Yourself within me, my dearest Master.

The immense gifts of God can only be contained by empty and solitary hearts.  Therefore our Lord, who loves you greatly, wishes you to be quite alone, for he desires to be your only companion.

Christ's love knows no bounds, is never ending, does not draw back before ugliness and filth. He came for sinners and not for the just, and if the love of Christ lives in us we ought to do as He did and set ourselves to seek the lost sheep.

The dark night becomes the school of all the virtues: it trains one to resignation, to patience, from the moment that one is faithful to the spiritual life without finding consolation and refreshment in it. The soul attains a high degree of love of God, inasmuch as it acts solely according to His will.

O you who do not dare draw near to Him, make the test and prove how good and generous is our most loving God!