O my God and my delight, for your love I have also desired to give my soul to composing these sayings of light and love concerning you. Since, although I can express them in words, I do not have the works and virtues they imply (which is what pleases you, O my Lord, more than the words and wisdom they contain), may others, perhaps stirred by them, go forward in your service and love — in which I am wanting. I will thereby find consolation, that these sayings be an occasion for your finding in others the things that I lack. Lord, you love discretion, you love light, you love love; these three you love above the other operations of the soul. Hence these will be sayings of discretion for the wayfarer, of light for the way, and of love in the wayfaring. May there be nothing of worldly rhetoric in them or the long-winded and dry eloquence of weak and artificial human wisdom, which never pleases you. Let us speak to the heart words bathed in sweetness and love that do indeed please you, removing obstacles and stumbling blocks from the paths of many souls who unknowingly trip and unconsciously walk in the path of error — poor souls who think they are right in what concerns the following of your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in becoming like him, imitating his life, actions, and virtues, and the form of his nakedness and purity of spirit. Father of mercies, come to our aid, for without you, Lord, we can do nothing.

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The traits of the solitary bird are five: first, it seeks the highest place; second, it withstands no company; third, it holds its beak in the air; fourth, it has no definite color; fifth, it sings sweetly. These traits must be possessed by the contemplative soul. It must rise above passing things, paying no more heed to them than if they did not exist. It must likewise be so fond of silence and solitude that it does not tolerate the company of another creature. It must hold its beak in the air of the Holy Spirit, responding to his inspirations, that by so doing it may become worthy of his company. It must have no definite color, desiring to do nothing definite other than the will of God. It must sing sweetly in the contemplation and love of its Bridegroom.

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Perfection does not lie in the virtues that the soul knows it has, but in the virtues that our Lord sees in it. This is a closed book; hence one has no reason for presumption, but must remain prostrate on the ground with respect to self.

St John of the Cross

The communications of knowledge of the Creator are touches and spiritual feelings of union with God, the goal to which we are guiding the soul. The memory does not recall these through any form, image or figure that may have been impressed on the soul, for those touches and feelings of union with the Creator do not have any; it remembers them through the effect of light, love, delight and spiritual renewal, etc., produced in it.

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The heart and the joy of will is withdrawn from all that is not God and concentrated on Him alone. In this elevation of joy in Him, God gives testimony of Who He is. “In a desert way, dry and pathless, I appeared before You to see Your power and glory.” (Ps. 62:3). The soul is exalted in purest faith, which God then infuses and augments much more abundantly. As a result the soul enjoys divine and lofty knowledge by means of the dark and naked habit of faith.

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“Because wisdom pleased you more than any other thing…” I give you everything. Pray in our secret chamber, or in the solitary wilderness, and at the best and most quiet time of night.

St John of the Cross ‘Ascent of Mount Carmel’

José García Hidalgo, Levitation of St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross at the Monastery of San Juan de la Cruz. Discalced Carmelite Fathers

The feast of the Holy Ghost is celebrated in the substance of the soul, which is inaccessible to the devil, the world, and the flesh; and therefore the more interior the feast, the more secure, substantial, and delicious. For the more interior it is, the purer it is; and the greater the purity, the greater the abundance, frequency, and universality of God s communication of Himself; and thus the joy of the soul and spirit is so much the greater, for it is God Himself Who is the author of all this, and the soul doeth nothing of itself… -St John of the Cross ‘Living Flame of Love’

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So for the memory; even in prayer I must not seek to remember this or that person, or “intention,” but go direct to God, in whom the object of my petition, if it is to be granted, will be found. I go, not to my friend, and take him up to God; but to God, and there, if He wills it, find my friend. Even what is good, in memory, must be rejected, because of the tendency to rest upon it; just as a similar tendency is felt, to rest upon the vision—imaginative or intellectual—which, at the moment; fills me with divine delight. In this way, even the will has to be “mortified,” and reduced (St John of the Cross says it seems) to silence. Whatever grace, whatever help or spiritual success or communication God gives to me, is but new material for renunciation, until assuredly, since sense, memory, intelligence, and will, are one after the other transcended by the soul as it climbs its Carmel in the night, we well may ask, What, after all, is left? -‘Upon God’s Holy Hills: the Guides of St Anthony of Egypt, St Bruno of Cologne, St John of the Cross’ by C.C.Martindale