Whenever anything disagreeable...happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent. - John of the Cross

Reveal Thy presence, And let the vision and Thy beauty kill me, Behold the malady Of love is incurable Except in Thy presence and before Thy face. ~ 11

The breathing of the air, The song of the sweet nightingale, The grove and its beauty In the serene night, With the flame that consumes, and gives no pains. ~ 39

I condemn here that attachment and clinging of the heart to the form, number, and variety of these things, because in direct opposition to poverty of spirit, which looks only to the substance of devotion; which makes use indeed of these things, but only sufficiently for the end, and disdains that variety and curiosity, for real devotion must spring out of the heart, and consider only the truth and substance which the objects in question represent.