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In the Passion and death of Christ our sins were consumed by fire. If we accept that in faith, and if we accept the whole Christ in faith-filled surrender, which means, however, that we choose and walk the path of the imitation of Christ, then He will lead us "through His Passion and cross to the glory of His Resurrection." This is exactly what is experienced in contemplation: passing through the expiatory flames to the bliss of the union of love. This explains its twofold character. It is death and resurrection.

We seem to ourselves to be making progress, yet we become weary, for, believe me, we are walking through a mist; it will be fortunate if we do not lose ourselves. Do you think, my daughters, if we could travel from one country to another in eight days, that it would be well to spend a year on the journey, through wind, snow, and inundations and over bad roads? Would it not be better to get it over at once, for it is full of dangers and serpents?

Just as Jesus in the extreme abandonment at His death surrendered Himself into the hands of the invisible and incomprehensible God, so will the soul yield herself to the midnight darkness of faith which is the only way to the incomprehensible God.

Our faith is so dead that we desire what we see more than what faith tells us.

O Lord, it is no longer just a veil that hides You from me, but a thick high wall...It is hard, after having felt so near You! But I am ready to remain in this state for as long as it pleases You to leave me in it, my Beloved, for faith tells me that You are still close at hand, and always will be...

A soul that would live in faith, beneath the eyes of God, that would have the ‘single eye’ of which Our Lord speaks in the gospel, which is to say that purity of intention that looks only to God; that soul, I think, would also live in humility. It would know how to recognize the gifts it has received, for humility is truth; but it would take nothing of them to itself, referring all to God.

Whoever, led by the truth of faith, seeks God, will set out by his free effort precisely to there, where the mystically graced are drawn...into the empty solitude of his interior in order to linger there in dark faith- in a simply loving upward glance of the spirit to the hidden God who is presently veiled.

Nothing shows forth the love which the Heart of God bears for us as does the Eucharist. It means union, consummation, He in us and we in Him. Is not that heaven on earth, heaven in faith, while we await the face to face vision for which we so yearn? Then, when His glory appears, we shall be satisfied when we see Him in His light. Do you not find that it rests the soul to think about that meeting with Him whom we love supremely? Then all else vanishes and we feel that already we are penetrating into the Mystery of God!

Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth! One without the other becomes a destructive lie.

Faith furnishes a certain but obscure knowledge to the understanding. In fact it shows us God as inaccessible light, as incomprehensible and infinite Being before whom every natural force gives way. And it is just for this motive that faith reduces reason to its intrinsic nothingness: to the realization of its impotence and of the grandeur of God.

I remember his love for the prodigal son, I have heard his words to Mary Magdalene, to the woman taken in adultery, to the woman of Samaria. No - there is no one who could frighten me, for I know too well what to believe concerning his mercy and his love

If Our Lord were to offer me a choice between dying in ecstasy or in the loneliness of Calvary, I would prefer the latter, not for the sake of the merit, but to glorify Him and be like Him. If I had died in my former state of soul, it would have been too easy! It is in pure faith that I now leave and I prefer it that way. I am thus more like my Master and more in truth.