It is clear, then, that the soul which loves God seeks and looks for no other reward of its service than to love God perfectly. INTRODUCTION. - John of the Cross

Now, if they who are in this state knew how to be quiet, to disregard every interior and exterior work — “for the accomplishment of which they labor” — to be without solicitude about everything, “and resign themselves into the hands of God, with a loving interior obedience to His voice,”3 they would have, in this tranquility, a most delicious sense of this interior food. This food is so delicate that, in general, it eludes our perceptions if we make any special effort to feel it, for, as I am saying, it does its work when the soul is most tranquil and free; it is like the air which vanishes when we shut our hands to grasp it. 9. The words of the Bridegroom which, addressed to the bride, in the Canticles, are applicable to this matter: “Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have made me flee away.”4 For this is God’s way of bringing the soul into this state; the road by which He leads it is so different from the first, that if it will do anything in its own strength, it will hinder rather than aid His work. It was far otherwise once. 10. The reason is

Many praise and bless Jesus as long as they receive some consolation from Him, but if He hide Himself and leave them for a little while, they fall either into complaining or into excessive dejection.

Seek in reading and you will find in meditation; knock in prayer and it will be opened to you in contemplation.