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Think how Our Lady must have felt when, after the Incarnation, she possessed within her the Incarnate Word, the gift of God! In what depths of silence, of recollection, of adoration, she must have lived in the centre of her soul, in order to embrace that God whose Mother she was! He is in us. Let us keep close to Him in that silence, that love of the Virgin Mother.

To what a height of glory we are called! I understand that silence, the recollection of the saints, who could no longer emerge from their contemplation. The good God led them to the summit of the mountain, where union between Himself and the soul that has become His bride is consummated.

There is no way to catch in words the sublime things of God...The appropriate language for the person receiving these favors is that he understand them, experience them within himself, enjoy them, and be silent.

In contemplation God teaches the soul very quietly and secretly, without its knowing how, without the sound of words, and without the help of any bodily or spiritual faculty, in silence and quietude, in darkness to all sensory and natural things.

‘You are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God’ (Col. 3:3). There is the condition: we must be ‘dead’, otherwise we may be hidden in God sometimes, but we do not live habitually in Him; for all our sensitiveness, our self-seeking and such-like, causes us to depart from Him.

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

That is the whole life of Carmel; to live in Him, then, all sacrifices, all immolations become divine, for through everything the soul sees Him whom it loves and everything leads it to Him; it is a continual heart to heart exchange! You see that you can already be a Carmelite in your heart. Love silence and prayer for this is the essence of the life of Carmel. Ask the Queen of Carmel to teach you to adore Jesus in profound recollection.

When I am in this state of spiritual dryness, unable to pray, or to practice virtue, I look for little opportunities, for the smallest trifles, to give pleasure to Jesus; a smile or a kind word, for instance, when I would wish to be silent, or to show that I am bored.

When a soul is happy, living in close union with God, so as to make its life an intimate friendship with the Divine Master, when it knows how to find Him in its inmost depths, then it is never lonely again, and it feels the need of solitude in order to enjoy the Presence of the Guest it adores. You must give Him His rightful place in your heart, which He has made capable of loving so passionately; if you realized how good He is, how He is all love!

In this temple of God, in this divine dwelling place, God alone rejoices with the soul in the deepest silence. There is no reason for the intellect to stir or seek anything, for the Lord who created it wishes to give it repose here.

'Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear, forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty’. It seems that this appeal is an invitation to silence; ‘listen ... incline your ear ...’. But to hear, one must forget the house of one’s father, that is, all that binds one to the natural life, that life which was spoken of by the apostle when he said, ‘…if you live according to the flesh you will die’ (Rom. 8:13).

...Jesus has taken command of my ship and has protected it from encountering other vessels. He has kept me in solitude with Himself. Consequently, my heart, by knowing this Captain, has fallen under the spell of His love, and here He keeps me captive. Oh, I love this prison and this powerful King who keeps me captive; and how I love this Captain who amid the waves of the ocean doesn't allow me to suffer shipwreck.