Then the servant of God, as if actually intoxicated, seemed beside herself.  It was as if the feelings of her body were alienated through the union of love that she had made with her Creator.  And it was as if, in elevating her mind, she had gazed into the eternal truth with the eye if her intellect, and, having recognized the truth, had become deeply in love with it.

And she said, “Supreme one! You, supreme and eternal Father, have manifested to me your truth, the hidden deceits of the devil, and the deceitfulness of personal feelings.  You have done this so that I, and others in this life of pilgrimage, may know how to avoid being deceived by the devil or ourselves!  What moved you to do so?  Love, because you loved me, without my having loved you.

“Fire of love!  Thanks, thanks be to you, eternal Father!  I am imperfect and full of darkness, and you, perfection and light, have shown to me perfection, and the resplendent way of the doctrine of your only-begotten Son.

“I was dead, and you have brought me to life.  I was sick, and you have given me medicine.  And yours was not only the medicine of the Blood that you gave for the diseased human race in the person of your Son, but also a medicine against a secret infirmity of which I was unaware.  –St Catherine of Siena ‘Little Talks with God’