His axiom is that the soul must empty itself of self in order to be filled with God, that it must be purified of the last traces of earthly dross bef… - John of the Cross

My soul hath wrestled in it. . . . My belly was troubled in seeking it; therefore shall I possess a good possession.”4

They are like a man who does his work over again; or who goes out of a city that he may enter it once more; or who lets go what he has caught in hunting that he may hunt it again. Their labor is in vain; for they will find nothing, and that because they are turning back to their former ways, as I have said already.4 3. Under these circumstances, if they meet with no

When the soul has arrived at this state all the acts of its spiritual and sensual nature, whether active or passive, and of whatever kind they may be, always occasion an increase of love and delight in God: even the act of prayer and communion with God, which was once carried on by reflections and divers other methods, is now wholly an act of love. So much so is this the case that the soul may always say, whether occupied with temporal or spiritual things, "My sole occupation is love." Happy life! happy state! and happy the soul which has attained to it!