Christ will come to you offering His consolation, if you prepare a fit dwelling for Him in your heart, whose beauty and glory, wherein He takes delight, are all from within. His visits with the inward man are frequent, His communion sweet and full of consolation, His peace great, and His intimacy wonderful indeed. Therefore, faithful soul, prepare your heart for this Bridegroom that He may come and dwell within you.
–Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)
What most of all hinders heavenly consolation is that you are too slow in turning yourself to prayer.
–Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)
The humble live in continuous peace, while in the hearts of the proud are envy and frequent anger.
–Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)
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)
