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Tuesday, November 23, 2021

I already told you elsewhere that sometimes the devil gives us great desires so that we will avoid setting ourselves to the task at hand, serving our Lord in possible things, and instead be content with having desired the impossible. Apart from the fact that by prayer you will be helping greatly, you need not be desiring to benefit the whole world but must concentrate on those who are in your company, and thus your deed will be greater since you are more obliged toward them.

— St. Teresa of Avila

Monday, November 22, 2021

God deliver us from spiritual people who are so spiritual that they want to turn everything into perfect contemplation, come what may. It would be a bad business for us if we could not seek God until we were dead to the world. Neither Magdalene, nor the woman of Samaria, nor the Canaanite woman was dead to the world when she found him.

— St. Teresa of Avila

Friday, November 19, 2021

The people of Israel did not find the manna sweet above all else, although it was so in fact, because they would not limit their desires to it alone. The sweetness and nourishment of the manna was not perceived by them, not because it was lacking, but because they longed for other foods beside it.

— St. John of the Cross

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Since this flame is a flame of divine life, it wounds the soul with the tenderness of God's life, and it wounds and stirs it so deeply as to make it dissolve in love. What the bride affirmed in the Song of Songs is fulfilled in the soul. She was so moved that her soul melted, and so she says: As soon as he spoke my soul melted [Sg. 5:6]. For God's speech is the effect he produces in the soul.

— St. John of the Cross

Monday, November 15, 2021

We must dig deeply in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many pockets containing treasures: however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides.

— St. John of the Cross

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