If your desire and aim is to reach the destination of the path and home of true happiness, of grace and glory, by a straight and safe way then earnestly apply your mind to seek constant purity of heart, clarity of mind and calm of the senses. Gather up your heart’s desire and fix it continually on the Lord God above.
–Saint Albert the Great (c. 1206-1280)
Furthermore, while the soul is withdrawn from everything and is turned within, the eye of contemplation is opened and sets itself up a ladder by which it can pass to the contemplation of God. By this contemplation the soul is set on fire for eternal things by the heavenly and divine good things it experiences, and views all the things of time from a distance and as if they were nothing. Hence when we approach God by the way of negation, we first deny him everything that can be experienced by the body, the senses and the imagination, secondly even things experienceable by the intellect, and finally even being itself in so far as it is found in created things. This, so far as the nature of the way is concerned, is the best means of union with God, according to Dionysius.
–Saint Albert the Great (c. 1206-1280)
Above all one should accept everything, in general and individually, in oneself or in others, agreeable or disagreeable, with a prompt and confident spirit, as coming from the hand of his infallible Providence or the order he has arranged.
–Saint Albert the Great (c. 1206-1280)
A heart which is free from thoughts and affections alien to God is like a temple consecrated to the Lord, in which we can contemplate him even in this world.
–Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
May God help us to prepare a dwelling place for this noble birth, so that we may all attain spiritual motherhood.
–Johannes Tauler (c. 1300-1361)
It is impossible for us in words to describe the ineffable dignity of the soul and we cannot in any way comprehend it.
–Johannes Tauler (c. 1300-1361)
