When we see that Savior before our eyes of faith as the Scriptures portray him, then our desire to receive him in the bread of life increases. The eucharistic bread, on the other hand, awakens our desire to get to know the Lord in the written word more and more deeply and strengthens our spirit to get a better understanding.
–Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942)
The supernatural union exists when God’s will and the soul’s are in conformity, so that nothing in the one is repugnant to the other.
–Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942)
The higher the degree of union of love to which God desires to lead them, the more intense and prolonged will the purification be.
–Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942)
Immediately before, and for a good while after, my religious conversion, I was of the opinion that to lead a religious life meant one had to give up all that was secular and to live totally immersed in thoughts of the Divine. But gradually I realized that something else is asked of us in this world and that, even in the contemplative life, one may not sever the connection with the world. I even believe that the deeper one is drawn into God, the more one must “go out of oneself”, that is, one must go out to the world in order to carry the divine life into it.
–Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942)
The entirely comfortable being-at-home in the world, the satiety of pleasures that it offers, the demand for these pleasures and the matter-of-course consent to these demands – all of this that human nature considers bright daily life – all of this is darkness in God’s eyes and incompatible with the divine light. It has to be totally uprooted if room for God is to be made in the soul.
–Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942)
The title of Mary as our mother is not merely symbolic. Mary is our mother in the most real and lofty sense, a sense which surpasses that of earthly maternity. She begot our life of grace for us because she offered up her entire being, body and soul, as the Mother of God. That is why an intimate bond exists between Mary and ourselves. She loves us, she knows us, she exerts herself to bring each one of us into the closest possible relationship with the Lord – that which we are above all supposed to be.
–Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942)
