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If you want to find a hidden treasure you must enter the hiding place secretly, and once you have discovered it, you will also be hidden just as the treasure is hidden. Since, then, your beloved Bridegroom is the treasure hidden in a field for which the wise merchant sold all his possessions [Mt. 13:44], and that field is your soul, in order to find him you should forget all your possessions and all creatures and hide in the secret inner room of your spirit and there, closing the door behind you (your will to all things), you should pray to your Father in secret [Mt. 6:6]. Remaining hidden with him, you will experience him in hiding, that is, in a way transcending all language and feeling.

I am not disturbed at seeing myself weakness itself. On the contrary it is in my weakness that I glory, and I expect each day to discover new imperfections in myself.

Whether you have little or much, He wants everything for Himself.

The Beloved cares for nothing else but love. The soul therefore, anxious to please him perfectly, occupies itself unceasingly in pure love of God.

Through the centuries, the visible events of the Church's history are always prepared in the silent dialogues of souls consecrated with His Blood.

To remain in prayer without obtaining any advantage is not lost time, but a season of great gain, because then we labor without interest, and only for the glory of God. And though at first it may seem as if we labored in vain, it is not so; but it is like what happens to sons who work on their father's estate, and who, though at night they receive not wages for the day's work, yet at the end of the year they receive everything.

One thing is certain, that we are living in our present time and place in order to accomplish our salvation and that of those entrusted to us.

It is not because I am good that our Lord granted me these favors, but that His goodness might be made manifest.
Although I was so unworthy of grace, this Adorable Master sought me out that even when I was least occupied with the thought of Him, in order that I might not be lost, and that His kindness might cause admiration.

There are not two doctrines of St. John of the Cross, one for religious and one for seculars; there is only one, which applies to all Christians indiscriminately and does not require a special state of life, but only a disposition of will, namely the disposition of not wanting to be confined to mediocrity and therefore of not refusing generous renunciation at every privation required for attaining a more intimate union with God.

The soul has made known the manner of preparing oneself to begin this journey: to pursue delights and satisfactions no longer, and to overcome temptations and difficulties through fortitude. This is the practice of self-knowledge, the first requirement of advancing to the knowledge of God.

We object when He hands us the chalice of His suffering. It is so difficult for us to resign ourselves to suffering. To rejoice in it strikes us as heroic. What is the value of our offering of self if we unite ourselves each morning only in word and gesture, rather than in thought and will, to that offering which we, together with the Church, make of Him with whom we are in the one body?

He knows our nature; he takes it into consideration and therefore he has given us everything which can help us to reach our goal.