Archive

If we plant a flower or a shrub and water it daily it will grow so tall that in time we shall need a spade and a hoe to uproot it. It is just so, I think, when we commit a fault, however small, each day, and do not cure ourselves of it.

I beg you not to remain any longer at the feet of Jesus but to follow that first impulse that would carry you into His arms.

Silence and solitude are brother and sister who hold hands and gently help each other.

There is no wood like that of the cross for lighting the fire of love in the soul! And Jesus needs to be loved and to find in the world, where He is so offended, souls that are given, wholly surrendered to Him and His good pleasure!

If we fall, an act of love will set all right, and Jesus smiles. He helps us without seeming to do so; and the tears which sinners cause Him to shed are wiped away by our feeble love. Love can do all things.

Neither skill nor knowledge is required to go to God, but just a heart determined to turn to Him only, to beat for Him only, and to love Him only.

The Way of Spiritual Childhood...is the only means to make rapid progress in love and the only way by which saints are made.

To live by love is to banish all fear, all remembrance of past faults.

God acts with other weaker souls as though he were showing himself and then hiding; he does this to exercise them in his love, for without these withdrawals they would not learn to reach him.

As a result the soul recognizes the truth about its misery, of which it was formerly ignorant. When it was walking in festivity, gratification, consolation, and support in God, it was more content, believing that it was serving God in some way. Though this idea of serving God may not be explicitly formed in a person's mind, at least some notion of it is deeply embedded within, owing to the satisfaction derived from one's spiritual exercises.

What did You possess, my Lord, but trials, sufferings, and dishonor?...In sum, my God, it does not fit those of us who want to be your true children, and hold on to their inheritance, to flee suffering. Your heraldry consists of five wounds.

When you experience that interior cry of egotism, direct your mind and gaze to Jesus. Will you not have the strength to conquer this fault for love of Him?