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Jesus is a hidden treasure which few souls can find, for it is hidden and the world loves what sparkles.

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.

That which is truly great grows unnoticed, and silence at the right moment is more fruitful than the constant activity that only too easily degenerates into spiritual idleness. In the present age, we are all possessed by a strange restlessness that suspects any silence of being a waste of time and any kind of repose as being negligence. We forget the real mystery of time, the real mystery present in growth and activity. That mystery involves silence and stillness. Even in the religious sphere we tend to expect and hope for everything from our own activity. We use all kinds of exercises and involvements to evade the real mystery of interior growth before God.

The Redemption was decided in the eternal silence of the divine life and in the hiddenness of the tranquil dwelling of Nazareth; the power of the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin while she was praying alone, and it brought about the Incarnation of the Redeemer.

. . . you must not build upon foundations of prayer and contemplation alone, for, unless you strive after the virtues and practice them, you will never grow to be more than dwarfs.

It is easier to have oneself nailed to the cross with Christ, than to become a stammering babe with Him.

Nevertheless, God usually imparts to those whom he brings into this night the humility and the readiness, even though they feel displeasure, to do what is commanded of them for his sake alone, and they become detached from many things because of this lack of gratification.

Conquering the tongue is better than fasting on bread and water.

I am consoled to hear the clock strike, for at the passing of that hour of life it seems to me I am drawing a little closer to the vision of God.

Receiving Communion is not like picturing with the imagination, as when we reflect upon the Lord on the cross or in other episodes of the Passion, when we picture within ourselves how things happened to Him in the past. In Communion the event is happening now, and it is entirely true.

For, as I have said, God now sees that they have grown a little, and are becoming strong enough to lay aside their swaddling clothes and be taken from the gentle breast; so He sets them down from His arms and teaches them to walk on their own feet; which they feel to be very strange, for everything seems to be going wrong with them.

Under the old law, the altar of sacrifice was to be hollow within. It is the will of God that the soul should be empty of all created things, and thus become a fitting altar for the King of heaven.