Great Throughts Treasury

"In the Son of God are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. (Col. 2:3) #16. Humble recipients of supernatural experiences obtain new satisfaction, strength, light and security after consulting about them with the proper person."

"In the inner wine cellar I drank of my Beloved, and, when I went abroad through all this valley I no longer knew anything, and lost the herd which I was following."

"In this darkness faith alone – which is dark also – should be the light we use. (not visions)"

"It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others."

"In tribulation immediately draw near to God with confidence, and you will receive strength, enlightenment, and instruction."

"It has not entered the heart of man what God is like. A person should behave passively and negatively, because then God moves the soul to what transcends its power and knowledge. In these apprehensions coming from above (like spiritual feelings), a person should only advert to the love of God they interiorly cause. It is good for the soul to have no desire to comprehend anything save God alone in hope through faith."

"It is impossible for the will to attain to the sweetness and bliss of the divine union otherwise than in detachment, in refusing to the desire every pleasure in the things of heaven and earth."

"Like a blind man he must lean on dark faith, accept it for his guide and light, and rest on nothing of what he understands, tastes, feels, or imagines. To reach the supernatural bounds a person must depart from his natural bounds and leave self far off in respect to his interior and exterior limits in order to mount from a low state to the highest."

"Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved."

"It might possibly now lose, through defective use, what before it lost through excess. The soul loses the strength of its passions and concupiscence and it becomes sterile because it no longer consults its likings. It practices patience and longsuffering. Four benefits of the dark night: delight of peace, habitual remembrance and thought of God, cleanness and purity of soul, and the practice of the virtues. Often God communicates to the soul, when it is least expecting it, the purest spiritual sweetness and love, together with a spiritual knowledge which is sometimes very delicate (and cannot be perceived by sense)."

"No man of himself can succeed in voiding himself of all his desires in order to come to God."

"Nothing is understood particularly in that loving, substantial quietude – and so might believe they are wasting time. The less they understand the further they penetrate into the night of the spirit. They must pass through this night to a union with God beyond all knowing. #6. The third sign is the loving, general knowledge or awareness of God. A person might remain in deep oblivion and afterwards will think no time has passed at all. This oblivion is caused by the purity and simplicity of the knowledge. Effects: an elevation of mind to heavenly knowledge, and a withdrawal and abstraction from all objects, forms and figures as well as from the remembrance of them. The soul knows only God without knowing how it knows Him."

"Moral good consists in the control of the passions and the restruction of the inordinate appetites. The result for the soul is tranquility, peace, repose, and moral virtue. The soul cannot control the passion without forgetting and withdrawing from the sources of these emotions. Disturbances never arise in a soul unless through the apprehensions of the memory. The soul must go to God by not comprehending rather than by comprehending and it must exchange the mutable and comprehensible for the Immutable and Incomprehensible."

"Mystical wisdom, which comes through love, need not be understood distinctly… for it is given according to the mode of faith, through which we love God without understanding Him."

"Sensible satisfaction is inconstant and very quick to fail."

"Solitude and denudation concerning all things is a requisite for this union."

"Ordinarily that which is of the greatest profit – namely, to be ever losing oneself and becoming as nothing – is considered the worst thing possible, and that which is of least worth, which is for the soul to find consolation and sweetness, is considered best. Secret contemplation is the science of love. It is an infused and loving knowledge of God, which enlightens the soul and at the same time enkindles it with love, until it is raised up step by step, even unto God its Creator. For it is love alone that unites and joins the soul with God."

"The affection, feelings and apprehensions of the perfect spirit, being Divine, are of another kind and of a very different order from those that are natural. It seems now to the soul that it is going forth from its very self with much affliction. At other times things seem strange and rare, though they are the same that it was accustomed to experience before. The soul is now becoming alien and remote from common sense and knowledge of things in order to be informed with the Divine."

"The aim is union with God in the memory. #2. Images will always help a person toward union with God, provided he allows himself to soar – when God bestows the favor – from the painted image to the living God."

"Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with him continually, and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you."

"Spiritual persons suffer great trials from the fear of being lost on the road and that God has abandoned them… Their soul was taking pleasure in being in that quietness and ease, instead of working with its faculties. Let them trust in God... who will bring them into the clear and pure light of love. This last He will give them by means of that other dark night. The way to conduct themselves is to allow the soul to remain in peace and quietness, although it may seem clear to them that they are doing nothing and are wasting their time… What they must do is merely to leave the soul free and disencumbered and at rest from all knowledge and thought… but contenting themselves with merely a peaceful and loving attentiveness toward God, and in being without anxiety, ability and desire to have experience of Him or to perceive Him. When the soul desires to remain in inward ease and peace, any operation and affection or attention wherein it may then seek to indulge will distract it and disquiet it and make it conscious of aridity and emptiness of sense. By not hindering the operation of infused contemplation that God is bestowing upon it, it can receive this with more powerful abundance, and cause its spirit to be enkindled to burn with the love which this dark and secret contemplation brings with it and sets firmly in the soul. For contemplation is naught else than a secret, peaceful and loving infusion from God which, if it be permitted, enkindles the soul with the spirit of love."

"The Divine assails the human soul in order to renew it and thus to make it Divine… The soul feels itself to be perishing and melting away. The sensual part is purified in aridity, the faculties are purified in the emptiness of their perceptions and the spirit is purified in thick darkness. The soul itself should be destroyed since these passions and imperfections have become natural to it. One hour of purgation here is more profitable than are many there."

"The eternal tide flows hid in Living Bread. That with its Heavenly Life too be fed."

"The communications of knowledge of the Creator are touches and spiritual feelings of union with God, the goal to which we are guiding the soul. The memory does not recall these through any form, image or figure that may have been impressed on the soul, for those touches and feelings of union with the Creator do not have any; it remembers them through the effect of light, love, delight and spiritual renewal, etc., produced in it."

"The fire begins to take hold of the soul in this night of painful contemplation. The understanding is in darkness. The spirit feels itself to be deeply and passionately in love. The touch of this love and Divine fire dries up the spirit and enkindles its desires, so much so that it turns upon itself a thousand times and desires God in a thousand ways. In the midst of these dark and loving afflictions the soul feels within itself a certain companionship and strength, which bears it company and so greatly strengthens it that, if this burden of grievous darkness be taken away, it often feels itself to be alone, empty and weak."

"The first and principal benefit caused by the arid and dark night of contemplation: the knowledge of oneself and of one’s misery. The soul learns to commune with God with more respect and more courtesy. God will enlighten the soul, giving it knowledge, not only of its lowliness and wretchedness, but of the greatness and excellence of God. He cleanses and frees the understanding that it may understand the truth. From the aridities and voids of this night of the desire, the soul draws spiritual humility. The soul is aware only of its own wretchedness – and esteems neighbors."

"The heart and the joy of will is withdrawn from all that is not God and concentrated on Him alone. In this elevation of joy in Him, God gives testimony of Who He is. In a desert way, dry and pathless, I appeared before You to see Your power and glory. (Ps. 62:3). The soul is exalted in purest faith, which God then infuses and augments much more abundantly. As a result the soul enjoys divine and lofty knowledge by means of the dark and naked habit of faith."

"The goods of God, which are beyond all measure, can only be contained in an empty and solitary heart."

"The more importance given to any clear apprehensions (visions, locutions, sentiments), natural or supernatural, the less capacity the soul has for entering the abyss of faith, where all else is absorbed."

"The more spiritual a man is, the more he discontinues trying to make particular acts with his faculties, for he becomes more engrossed in one general, pure act, a calm and repose of interior quietude. The soul would want to remain in that unintelligible peace as in its right place. Since people do not understand the mystery of that new experience, they imagine themselves to be idle and doing nothing. They must learn to abide in that quietude with a loving attentiveness to God. At this stage the faculties are at rest and do not work actively but passively, by receiving what God is effecting in them."

"The night of sense should be called a kind of correction and restraint of the desire rather than purgation. A period of tranquility comes after the first night."

"The sickness of love is not cured except by Your very presence and image. The soul that loves God lives more in the next life than in this."

"The soul goes about the things of God with much greater freedom and satisfaction of the soul than before it entered the dark night of sense. It now very readily finds in its spirit the most serene and loving contemplation and spiritual sweetness without the labor of meditation. This sweetness overflows into their senses more than was usual… since the sense is now purer. But they also endure many frailties and sufferings and weaknesses of the stomach and are fatigued in spirit. After the second night of the spirit: no raptures and no torments of the body because their senses are now neither clouded nor transported."

"The soul is drawing nearer to Him, and so she has greater experience within herself of the void of God, of very heavy darkness, and of spiritual fire which dries up and purges her, so that thus purified she may be united with Him."

"The soul feels its love to be increasing and growing in strength and refinement to such a degree that it seems to have within it seas of fire which reach to the farthest heights and depths of the spheres, filling it wholly with love. Death is the ‘old man,’ namely, the employment of the faculties – memory, understanding and will – and the use and occupation of them in things of the world, and the occupation of the desires in the pleasure afforded by created things. All this and the exercise of the old life, which is the death of the new, or spiritual life… In this new life, when the soul has reached the perfection of union with God, all the desires and faculties of the soul… are changed into Divine operations. Understanding is not the understanding of God. The will has now been changed into the life of Divine love. The memory has in its mind the eternal years. The desire now tastes and enjoys Divine food, being now moved by the delight of God."

"The soul is wearied and fatigued by its desires… the (desires) disturb it, allowing it not to rest in any place or in any thing soever.… the desires and indulgence in them all cause it greater emptiness and hunger."

"The soul refrains from the desire to feel or see anything while it is in this loving awareness. The soul does nothing – only receives what is given. #4. As soon as natural things are driven out of the enamored soul, the divine are naturally and supernaturally infused, since there can be no void in nature."

"The soul that is attached to anything, however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord is broken, the bird cannot fly. so the soul, held by the bonds of human affections, however slight they may be, cannot, while they last, make its way to God."

"The soul of one who serves God always swims in joy, always keeps a holiday, is always in her palace of jubilation, ever singing with fresh ardor and fresh pleasure a new song of joy and love."

"The soul went by a very secret ladder, which is living faith. In this purgative night the desires, affections and passions of the soul are put to sleep."

"The soul that is clouded by the desires is darkened in the understanding and allows neither the sun of natural reason nor that of the supernatural Wisdom of God to shine upon it and illumine it clearly. #2. At the same time, when the soul is darkened in the understanding, it is benumbed also in the will, and the memory becomes dull and disordered in its dire operation. The intellect cannot get the illumination of God’s wisdom, the will cannot get the love of God, and the memory cannot get God’s image. #4. Darkness and coarseness will always be with a soul until its appetites are extinguished. The appetites are like a cataract on the eye or specks of dust in it; until removed they obstruct vision. #6. The affections and appetites deprive them of a treasure of divine light. #7. Any appetite, even one that is but slightly imperfect, stains and defiles the soul."

"The spiritual man is perceptive of the things of God, one who penetrates and judges all things, even the deep things of God."

"The unmortified appetites result in killing a man in his relationship with God."

"The third sign: a person likes to remain alone in loving awareness of God, without particular considerations, in interior peace and quiet and repose, and that he prefers to remain only in the general, loving awareness and knowledge without any particular knowledge or understanding. The more habituated he becomes to this calm, the deeper his experience of the general, loving knowledge of God will grow. This knowledge is more enjoyable than all other things, because without the soul’s labor it affords peace, rest, savor, and delight."

"The worth of love does not consist in high feelings, but in detachment, in patience under all trials for the sake of God whom we love."

"The will is content with nothing less than His presence and the sight of Him."

"The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. The soul has to proceed rather by unknowing rather than knowing."

"This dark night is an inflowing of God into the soul – called infused contemplation or mystical theology. God secretly teaches the soul and instructs it in perfection of love, without its doing anything. It is the loving wisdom of God, and He prepares it for the union of love with God. This Divine wisdom is night and darkness for the soul, and affliction and torment. When this pure light assails the soul, in order to expel its impurity, the soul feels itself to be so impure and miserable that it believes God to be against it, and things that it has set itself up against God."

"These acts of love of the soul are most precious and even one of them is of greater merit and worth than all that the soul has done in its life apart from this transformation. These wounds, which are the fires of God, are the sparks of these tender touches of flame which touch the soul intermittently and proceed from the fire of love, which is not idle, but whose flames strike and wound my soul in its deepest center. The virtues and properties of God, which are perfect in the extreme, war against the habits and properties of the soul, which are imperfect in the extreme, so that the soul has to suffer the existence of two contraries within it. This flame of love makes the soul feel its hardness and aridity. The soul says to God, ‘Perfect me now if it be Thy will.’"

"This dark, loving knowledge, which is faith, serves as a means for the divine union in this life as does the light of glory for the clear vision of God in the next. A person should not store up as treasures these visions, nor have the desire to cling to them. Our journey toward God must proceed through the negation of all. One should remain in emptiness and darkness regarding all creatures. He should base his love and joy on what he neither sees nor feels – that is, upon God who is incomprehensible and transcendent."