Archive

If we are determined to submit ourselves and to carry the cross, we shall find in it great refreshment.

Our Redeemer, ever present in the most Blessed Sacrament, extends His hand to everyone. He opens His heart and says, 'Come to Me, all of You.'

Aristotle says that, even as are the eyes of the bat with regard to the sun, which is total darkness to it, even so is our understanding to that which is greater light in God, which is total darkness to us. And he says further that, the loftier and clearer are the things of God in themselves, the more completely unknown and obscure are they to us.

If I did not suffer from moment to moment, I would not be able to keep patience, but I see only the present moment; I forget the past and take care not to peer into the future.

When one loves, one does not calculate.

We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.

"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...

One must not think that a person who is suffering is not praying. He is offering up his sufferings to God, and many a time he is praying much more truly than one who goes away by himself and meditates his head off, and, if he has squeezed out a few tears, thinks that is prayer.

Courage, my sister, the yoke of a Carmelite is necessarily very light or very heavy in proportion as one's courage bears it or one's cowardice drags it.

Lonely valleys are quiet, pleasant, cool, shady and flowing with fresh waters; in the variety of their groves and in the sweet song of the birds, they afford abundant recreation and delight...and in their solitude and silence they refresh and give rest. These valleys are what my Beloved is to me.

Beg our Lord to grant you perfect love of neighbor and leave the rest to Him.

Our knowledge is piecemeal. When our will and action build on it alone, they cannot achieve a perfect structure. Nor can that knowledge, because it does not have complete power over the self and often collapses before reaching the goal. And so this inner shaping power that is in bondage strains toward a light that will guide more surely, and a power that will free it and give it space. This is the light and the power of divine grace.