Heavenly realities…

Tie the leg of a sparrow to the ground, and no matter how hard it tries to fly, it will be fastened to the earth. In the same way, if your intellect tries to fly up to the mystical knowledge of heavenly realities but has not yet been freed of obsessive passions, it will remain tied fast to the earth.
–Saint Maximos the Confessor (580-662)

With patient love…

With patient love, with self-abasement and humiliation, with the reiterated breathings of an ardent but peaceful affection, and with silence full of the most profound respect, you must await the return of the Beloved. Thus only you will demonstrate that it is Himself alone, and His good pleasure, that you seek; and not the selfish delights of your sensations.
–Jeanne Guyon (1648-1717)