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Other penitential practices and other mortifications are useful only in so far as they promote union with God through Love.

Or look upon Him bending under the weight of the Cross and not even allowed to take breath: He will look upon you with His lovely and compassionate eyes, full of tears, and in comforting your grief will forget His own because you are bearing Him company in order to comfort Him and turning your head to look upon Him.

I leave you my faith in the presence of God, of the God who is all Love dwelling in pour soul. I confide to you: it is this intimacy with Him "within" that has been the beautiful sun illuminating my life, making it already an anticipated Heaven.

But there still remain in the spirit the stains of the old man, although the spirit thinks not that this is so, neither can it perceive them; if these stains be not removed with the soap and strong lye of the purgation of this night, the spirit will be unable to come to the purity of Divine union.

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.

In order to reach the ideal life of the soul, I believe we must live in the realm of the supernatural and be persuaded that God dwells in our innermost being, and go to everything with Him. Then nothing can be trivial, no matter how commonplace in itself, for we do not live in those things, but soar above them.

(My God) What a joyous mystery is your presence within me, in that intimate sanctuary of my soul where I can always find you, even when I do not feel your presence. Of what importance is feeling? Perhaps you are all the closer when I feel you less.

The soul that leaves the house of its own will, and abandons the bed of its own satisfaction, will find the Divine Wisdom, the Son of God, the Bridegroom, waiting at the door without.

Frequent combing gives the hair more luster and makes it easier to comb; a soul that frequently examines its thoughts, words, and deeds, which are its hair, doing all things for the love of God, will have lustrous hair. Then the Bridegroom will look on the neck of the bride and thereby be captivated; and will be wounded by one of her eyes, that is, by the purity of intention she has in all she does. If in combing hair one wants it to have luster, one begins from the crown. All our works must begin from the crown (the love of God) if we wish them to be pure and lustrous.

God sustains every soul and dwells in it substantially, even though it be that of the greatest sinner in the world,
and this union is natural. The supernatural union exists when God’s will and the soul’s will are in conformity.
Therefore the soul rests transformed in God through love.

Is there any freedom greater than the freedom to serve God? Is there any freedom more complete than union with Him? Does He not free us from ties of money and property and selfishness, of avarice and pride and inconstancy? Is He not the only true Emancipator? Who is free who does not love God?

In this interior union God communicates himself to the soul with such genuine love that neither the affection of a mother, with which she so tenderly caresses her child, nor a brother's love, nor any friendship is comparable to it.