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When we have many things to do, when we are persecuted and in trouble, when we cannot have much rest, and when we have our seasons of dryness, Christ is our best Friend; for we regard Him as Man, and behold Him faint and in trouble, and He is our Companion.

In this arid and obscure night the soul undergoes a thorough reform in its imperfections of avarice, in which it coveted various spiritual objects and was never content with any of its spiritual exercises.

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.

Oh, then, when everything was dark, when the present was so painful and the future seemed even more gloomy to me, I closed my eyes and abandoned myself like a child in the arms of this Heavenly Father... We look at ourselves too much, we want to see and understand, we do not have enough confidence in Him who envelops us in His love.

In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.

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.

Lord, if it please You that the darkness of my soul become deeper, that I not see You, it will not bother me because I want to fulfill Your will. I want to spend my life suffering to make reparation for my sins and those of sinners and so priests will be sanctified.

O Lord, what does it matter, when I can retire within myself, enlightened by faith, whether I feel or don't feel, whether I am in light or darkness, enjoy or do not enjoy?  I am struck by a kind of shame at making any distinction between such things...Help me to exalt You...above the sweetness and consolations which flow from You, because I have resolved to pass by all else in order to be united with You.

It's an amusing thing that even though we still have a thousand impediments and imperfections and our virtues have hardly begun to grow -and please, God, they might have begun- we are yet not ashamed to seek spiritual delights in prayer or to complain about dryness.

When one is in the midst of business matters, and in times of persecutions and trials, when one can't maintain so much quietude, and in times of dryness, Christ is a very good friend...He is company for us. Once we have the habit, it is very easy to find Him present at our side.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

It also happens very quickly and ineffably that God will show within Himself a truth that seems to leave in obscurity all those that are in creatures, and one understands very clearly that God alone is Truth, unable to lie.