With me prayer is a lifting up of the heart, a look towards Heaven, a cry of gratitude and love uttered equally in sorrow and in joy; in a word, something noble, supernatural, which enlarges my soul and unites it to God.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Everything seems to be a heavy burden, and rightly so, because it involves a war against ourselves. But once we begin to work, God does so much in the soul and grants it so many favors that all that one can do in this life seems little.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
It constantly happens that the Lord permits is a soul to fall so that it may grow humbler. When it is honest, and realizes what it is done, and returns, it makes ever-increasing progress in our Lord service.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
I notice in some souls – there are not many because of our sins – that the more they advance in this kind of prayer and the gifts of our Lord, the more attention they pay to the needs of their neighbor.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
We must take care of little faults: for he who once begins to go backward, and to make light of such defects, brings a sort of grossness over his conscience, and then goes wrong altogether.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
But do not let your soul dwell in seclusion, or, instead of acquiring holiness, you will develop many imperfections, which the devil will implant in you in other ways, in which case, as I have said, you will not do the good that you might, either to yourselves or to others.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
