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You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him.

In this arid and obscure night the soul undergoes a thorough reform in its imperfections of avarice, in which it coveted various spiritual objects and was never content with any of its spiritual exercises.

His blood is the curtain through which we enter into the Holiest of Holies, the Divine Life. In baptism and in the sacrament of reconciliation, his blood cleanses us of our sins, opens our eyes to eternal light, our ears to hearing God's word. It opens our lips to sing his praise, to pray in expiation, in petition, in thanksgiving, all of which are but varying forms of adoration, i.e., of the creature's homage to the Almighty and All-benevolent One.

It is a good proof and test of our love if we can bear with such faults and not be shocked by them. Others, in their turn, will bear with your faults, which, if you include those of which you are not aware, must be much more numerous.

Yet, as is evident through experience, souls who will pass on to so happy and lofty a state as is the union of love must usually remain in these aridities and temptations for a long while no matter how quickly God leads them.

The practice of humility consists not only in thinking and saying that you are full of faults, but in rejoicing because others think and say the same thing about you.

How easy it is to please Jesus, to ravish His Heart. We have merely to love Him, while, at the same time, forgetting ourselves.

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.

She no longer feels "hunger or thirst," for in spite of her consuming desire for Beatitude, she is satisfied by this food which was her Master's: "The will of the Father." "She no longer feels the heat of the sun," that is, she no longer suffers from suffering. Then the Lamb can "lead her to the fountain of life," where He wills, as He wills, for she does not look at the paths on which she is walking; she simply gazes at the Shepherd who is leading her.

Mary, who kept all God's words in her heart, in the fullness of grace granted her, understood the great value of suffering. While the apostles fled,she went out to meet the Saviour on the way to Calvary and stood beneath the cross, in order to share His grief and shame to the end. And she carried Him to the grave, firmly trusting that He would rise.

Life is only a dream: soon we shall awaken. And what joy! The greater our sufferings, the more limitless our glory. Do not let us waste the trials Jesus sends.

It is vital for individuals to make acts of love in this life so that in being perfected in a short time they may not be detained long, either here on earth or in the next life before seeing God.