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Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.

More effective than the mortification one practices according to one's own choice is the cross that God lays upon one, exteriorly and interiorly.

So I have experience that the true remedy against a fall is to be attached to the cross and trust in Him who placed Himself on it.

Our Lord wishes that we mortify ourselves, for that is good, and it is well that we love it. He has first suffered for us and all those who would have to labor at His work. We must be His imitators in little things as in great ones...

The waters of interior delights do not spring from the earth; the mouth of desire must be turned towards heaven, and be empty of everything else.

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.

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

When the evening of life comes, I shall stand before You with empty hands, because I do not ask You, my God, to take account of my works. All our good deeds are blemished in Your eyes. I wish therefore to be robed with Your own justice, and to receive from Your love the everlasting gift of Yourself. I desire no other throne but You, O my Beloved!

Now let us talk about the detachment we ought to have, for detachment, if it is practiced with perfection, includes everything. I say it includes everything because if we embrace the Creator and care not at all for the whole of creation, His Majesty will infuse the virtues. Doing little by little what we can, we will have hardly anything else to fight against; it is the Lord who in our defense takes up the battle against the demons and against the world.

Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us. The important thing is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love. Love is not great delight but desire to please God in everything.

If you want to find a hidden treasure you must enter the hiding place secretly, and once you have discovered it, you will also be hidden just as the treasure is hidden. Since, then, your beloved Bridegroom is the treasure hidden in a field for which the wise merchant sold all his possessions [Mt. 13:44], and that field is your soul, in order to find him you should forget all your possessions and all creatures and hide in the secret inner room of your spirit and there, closing the door behind you (your will to all things), you should pray to your Father in secret [Mt. 6:6]. Remaining hidden with him, you will experience him in hiding, that is, in a way transcending all language and feeling.

There are not two doctrines of St. John of the Cross, one for religious and one for seculars; there is only one, which applies to all Christians indiscriminately and does not require a special state of life, but only a disposition of will, namely the disposition of not wanting to be confined to mediocrity and therefore of not refusing generous renunciation at every privation required for attaining a more intimate union with God.