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...it is supreme ignorance for the soul to think that it will be able to pass to this high estate of union with God if first it void not the desire of all things, natural and supernatural, which may hinder it...for there is the greatest possible distance between these things and that which comes to pass in this estate, which is naught else than transformation in God.

Remember that there are few souls who stay with Him and follow Him in His trials...In many places He is neglected and ill-treated, but He suffers everything and will continue to do so, if He finds but one single soul which will receive Him and love to have Him as its Guest. Let this soul be yours then.

To come to God who is everything and consequently all good, no fatigue must seem to us too great; we must not be put off either by the difficulties we meet on the way, but accept bitterness and welcome every kind of cross with eagerness. By these means, which are precisely those of Jesus Christ, it is not difficult to come to the true God, to live in charity, to walk in love.

The soul, because its searching for the Beloved is real and its love great, will not leave undone anything it can do itself.  The soul that really loves God is not easygoing in its efforts to find the Son of God, the Beloved.  Even when it has done all it can it is still unsatisfied, feeling it has done nothing.

But remember that the love of supernatural charity is not a sensible love, it is a love of the will, in which it is not necessary to feel. It consists only in an interior decision of the will, with which the soul give God preference over creatures and wants to consecrate itself wholly to His service.

We can lean on nothing but Our Lord, for He alone is immutable.

Just as we cannot stop the movement of the heavens, but they proceed in rapid motion, so neither can we stop our mind; and then the faculties of the soul go with it, and we think we are lost and have wasted the time spent before God. But the soul is perhaps completely joined with Him in the dwelling places very close to the center while the mind is on the outskirts of the castle suffering from a thousand wild and poisonous beasts, and meriting by this suffering. As a result we should not be disturbed; nor should we abandon prayer, which is what the devil wants us to do. For the most part all the trials and disturbances come from our not understanding ourselves.

I understand very well why St. Peter fell. Poor Peter, he was relying upon himself instead of relying only upon God's strength...Before Peter fell, Our Lord said to him: 'And once you are converted, strengthen your brethren.' This means: Convince them of the weakness of human strength through your own experience.

Love consumes us only in the measure of our self-surrender.

If you put yourself completely into the hands of the Lord, you can trust that you are being guided safely. What you surrender to Him is never lost; it is preserved, purified, and elevated and balanced to the correct proportions.

The Lord's will fills my heart to the brim, and if anything else is added it cannot penetrate to any depth, but like oil on the surface of water it glides easily across.

In savoring a finite joy
the very most one can expect
is to enfeeble and destroy
our taste, leaving the palate wrecked;
for all the sweetness there may be
I’ll never throw away my soul…

Poem For All the Beauty there May Be