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

That is the whole life of Carmel; to live in Him, then, all sacrifices, all immolations become divine, for through everything the soul sees Him whom it loves and everything leads it to Him; it is a continual heart to heart exchange! You see that you can already be a Carmelite in your heart. Love silence and prayer for this is the essence of the life of Carmel. Ask the Queen of Carmel to teach you to adore Jesus in profound recollection.

Today I felt annihilated, but I held my crucifix tightly and I only told Him: "I love You."

It is better to labor and do things for one another than to have each one work for herself, because in doing things for ourselves, there us self love; and in doing things for others, there is charity.

The created will is not destined to be free to exalt itself. It is called to come into unison with the divine will. If it freely submits itself to this unison, then it is permitted in freedom to participate in the perfection of creation. If a free creature declines this unison, it lapses into bondage.

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!

These times in which all structures of life on earth are tottering and changing, are also a period of struggle over eternal questions.  Ardently, we seek God, we strive for intensification and revival...we have a desire to live totally out of faith, to place ourselves completely at the service of the Lord.

The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer-and don't forget this, because it's very important-should be that he work and prepare himself with determination and every possible effort to bring his will into conformity with God's will...The greatest perfection attainable along the spiritual path lies in this conformity.

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.

During mental prayer...remain before God like a poor, mute paralytic at the door of a rich man.

It would not disturb me if (supposing the impossible) God Himself did not see my good actions. I love Him so much, that I would like to give Him joy without His knowing who gave it. When He does know, He is, as it were, obliged to make a return.

It is there in the very depths that the divine impact takes place, where the abyss of our nothingness encounters the Abyss of mercy, the immensity of the all of God. There we will find the strength to die to ourselves and, losing all vestige of self, we will be changed into love... "Blessed are those who die in the Lord!"