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If a person is not quite blind, that person often refuses to be led by a guide. Since he sees a little, he thinks it is best to go in whatever direction he can distinguish because he sees no better direction. So he can lead astray a guide who sees more than he, for after all, he tells the guide where to go. Also a soul may lean on any knowledge or feeling of its own. However great this knowledge might be, it is small and far different from what God is. A soul must pass beyond everything to unknowing.

I saw an angel appear in bodily form close by my left side .... He was not large, but small, and extremely beautiful," Teresa wrote. "His face was aflame with fire so much that he appeared to be one of the highest ranks of angels, those that we call seraphim or cherubim. Their names, angels never tell me, but I'm well aware that in heaven there are great differences between different types of angels, though I can't explain it.

True poverty of spirit...means being at rest in labors and dryness and not seeking consolation or comfort in prayer...but seeking consolation in trials for love of Him who always lived in the midst of them.

We ought to receive everything as coming directly from our Father’s divine hand, who loves us and who, in all our trials, is working out His own end end — that of uniting us more closely to Himself. Launch your soul upon the sea of courage and holy abandonment to Him! Remember that nothing that troubles you and makes you afraid comes from God, for He is the Prince of Peace and has promised peace to men of good will.

If I ask You to free me from a trial, and the purpose of that trial is my mortification, what is it that I'm asking for, my God?

The hours of adoration before the Highest Good and the listening for the voice of the Eucharistic God are simultaneously "meditation on the Law of the Lord" and "watching in prayer." But the highest level is reached "when the Law is deep within our hearts" (Ps 40:8), when we are so united with the triune God whose temple we are, that his Spirit rules all we do or do not do. Then it does not mean we are forsaking the Lord when we do the work that obedience requires of us. Work is unavoidable as long as we are subject to nature's laws and to the necessities of life.

Work, especially great work, is a burden and a pain, a suffering precisely because intense activity cannot fail to generate in us that disagreeable phenomenon that is called fatigue, which eventually degenerates into depression or prostration or some other form of real and actual suffering. This painful aspect of work renders it particularly adapted to share as an instrument in the work of our sanctification.

O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, descend into my soul and make all in me as an incarnation of the Word, that I may be to Him a super-added humanity wherein He renews His mystery; and You O Father, bestow Yourself and bend down to Your little creature, seeing in her only Your beloved Son in whom You are well pleased.

When I think that previously I was envious of Mary Magdalene for having had Jesus in her home so many times, for having listened to Him, I become ashamed; for He did not abandon our earth. He remains in the tabernacle. There I look at Him in faith and listen to Him.

I am content to sacrifice during my life all joyful thought of the home which awaits me.

Come, Holy Spirit. Spirit of truth, you are the reward of the saints, the comforter of souls, light in the darkness, riches to the poor, treasure to lovers, food for the hungry, comfort to those who are wandering; to sum up, you are the one in whom all treasures are contained.

Always receive with equal contentment from God’s hand either consolations or sufferings, peace or distress, health or illness. Ask nothing, refuse nothing, but always be ready to do and to suffer anything that comes from His Providence.