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He has borne with many offences and much unworthiness in you, yet these have not sufficed to make Him turn away; is it much to ask that you should sometimes shift your gaze from earthly things to fix it on Him?

... When there is union of love, the image of the Beloved is so sketched in the will and drawn so vividly, that it is true to say that the Beloved lives in the lover and the lover in the Beloved...The reason is, that in the union and transformation of love, each gives possession of self to the other, and each leaves and exchanges self for the other. Thus each one lives in the other and is the other, and both are one in the transformation of love.

A Carmelite sanctifies herself in order to make all the Church's members holy... Let's live intimately united with Him, since one who loves tends to be united with the one loved. The fusing of two souls is done through love.

Here one can only endeavor to live with ever greater fidelity and purity the life that one has chosen in order to offer it as an acceptable sacrifice for all those with whom one is united.

We must let ourselves be rooted in Christ. How? By never ceasing to dwell, whatever happens, with Him who dwells in us and is Love. He thirsts to associate us to all He is; to transform us in Him.

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.

For, after all the efforts of the soul, it cannot by its unaided labors make itself fitted for union with God in love. God must take it to Himself into His own hands and purify it in the dark fire.

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.

I have never heard Him speak, but I know that He is within me.

It seems to the soul that the entire universe is a sea of love in which it is engulfed, for conscious of the living point or center of love within itself, it is unable to catch sight of the boundaries of this love.

He will gaze on you with beautiful, compassionate eyes, and will forget His own grief to solace yours, only because you went to comfort Him, and turned to look at Him.

Oh, would that I could tell everyone what sources of strength, of peace and also of happiness they would find if they consented to live in this intimate union with Him. Only they do not know how to wait. If God does not bestow Himself in a manner they can feel, they leave His holy presence and when He comes to them, laden with graces, He finds nobody there. The soul has gone away into exterior things; it no longer dwells in its center. Recollect yourself from time to time.