All quotes below are drawn from Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness (1911), which weaves together the words of the great Christian contemplatives into a luminous tapestry of the soul's journey toward God. They are organized here by the great themes of the contemplative life — from the first awakening, through purgation and the dark night, to illumination, union, and beyond.
- I. Awakening & Conversion
- II. Purgation, Detachment & Holy Poverty
- III. The Dark Night of the Soul
- IV. Illumination & the Divine Light
- V. Ecstasy, Rapture & Visions
- VI. Divine Love & the Longing of the Soul
- VII. The Presence & Nearness of God
- VIII. Prayer, Contemplation & Silence
- IX. The Divine Dark & the Cloud of Unknowing
- X. Union, Transformation & Deification
- XI. The Nature of God & the Holy Trinity
- XII. The Ground & Centre of the Soul
- XIII. God in Nature & Creation
- XIV. The Insufficiency of All Words
I. Awakening & Conversion
The first turning of the soul toward God — sudden illumination, the call, the moment everything changes.
"She received in her heart the wound of the unmeasured Love of God, with so clear a vision of her own misery and her faults, and of the goodness of God, that she almost fell upon the ground. And by these sensations of infinite love, and of the offenses that had been done against this most sweet God, she was so greatly drawn by purifying affection away from the poor things of this world that she was almost beside herself, and for this she cried inwardly with ardent love, 'No more world! no more sin!'"
— St. Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), Vita e Dottrina
"'O Love, can it be that thou hast called me with so great a love, and made me to know in one instant that which words cannot express?'"
— St. Catherine of Genoa, Vita e Dottrina
"And whilst he was thus moved, straightway—a thing unheard of for long ages!—the painted image of Christ Crucified spoke to him from out its pictured lips. And, calling him by his name, 'Francis,' it said, 'go, repair My house, the which as thou seest is falling into decay.' And Francis trembled, being utterly amazed, and almost as it were carried away by these words. And he prepared to obey, for he was wholly set on the fulfilling of this commandment. But forasmuch as he felt that the change he had undergone was ineffable, it becomes us to be silent concerning it."
— St. Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226), Thomas of Celano, Legenda Secunda
"He was kept of God in this, that when he turned to those things that most enticed him he found neither happiness nor peace therein. He was restless, and it seemed to him that something which was as yet unknown could alone give peace to his heart. . . . God at last delivered him by a complete conversion. . . . It was God Who, by a hidden light, had caused this return to Himself."
— Henry Suso (c. 1296–1366), Leben
"L'an de grace 1654, lundi, 23 novembre . . . depuis environ dix heures et demie du soir jusques environ minuit et demie,
Feu.
Dieu d'Abraham, Dieu d'Isaac, Dieu de Jacob,
Non des philosophes et des savants.
Certitude. Certitude. Sentiment. Joie. Paix.
Oubli du monde et de tout hormis Dieu.
Joie! joie! joie! pleurs de joie!
Mon Dieu, me quitterez vous?
Que je n'en sois pas séparé éternellement!
Renonciation, totale et douce."
— Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), The Memorial
"When in my zeal I stormed against it, then opened in me a Gate, that in a quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at a University. At which I did exceedingly wonder, and I knew not how it happened to me; and thereupon I set my heart and my mind to see whether I could comprehend and bring that which I had seen to outward expression."
— Jacob Boehme (1575–1624), Aurora
"In the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and Power of God, which has never since been effaced from his soul. That this view had set him perfectly loose from the world and kindled in him such a love for God that he could not tell whether it had increased in above forty years that he had lived since."
— Brother Lawrence (c. 1614–1691), The Practice of the Presence of God
"Though my exercises and troubles were very great, yet were they not so continual but I had some intermissions, and was sometimes brought into such a heavenly joy that I thought I had been in Abraham's bosom. . . . I found that there were two thirsts in me, the one after the creatures to get help and strength there; and the other after the Lord, the Creator. . . . One day when I had been walking solitarily abroad and was come home, I was wrapped up in the love of God, so that I could not but admire the greatness of his love. While I was in that condition it was opened unto me by the eternal Light and Power, and I saw clearly therein."
— George Fox (1624–1691), Journal
"Finding within myself a powerful contrarium, namely the desires that belong to the flesh and blood, I began to fight a hard battle against my corrupted nature, and with the aid of God I made up my mind to overcome the inherited evil will, to break it, and to enter wholly into the Love of God. . . . This, however, was not possible for me to accomplish, but I stood firmly by my earnest resolution, and fought a hard battle with myself. Now while I was wrestling and battling, being aided by God, a wonderful light arose within my soul. It was a light entirely foreign to my unruly nature, but in it I recognized the true nature of God and man."
— George Fox, Journal
"Suddenly I saw before my inward eyes these words—God only . . . they were at the same time a Light, an Attraction and a Power. A Light which showed me how I could belong completely to God alone in this world, and I saw that hitherto I had not well understood this; an Attraction by which my heart was subdued and delighted; a Power which inspired me with a generous resolution and somehow placed in my hands the means of carrying it out."
— Lucie-Christine (19th c.), Journal Spirituel
II. Purgation, Detachment & Holy Poverty
The stripping away of all that is not God — mortification, self-simplification, the poverty that makes room for the Infinite.
"That thou mayest have pleasure in everything, seek pleasure in nothing. That thou mayest know everything, seek to know nothing. That thou mayest possess all things, seek to possess nothing. . . . In detachment the spirit finds quiet and repose, for coveting nothing, nothing wearies it by elation, and nothing oppresses it by dejection, because it stands in the centre of its own humility."
— St. John of the Cross (1542–1591), Subida del Monte Carmelo
"It makes little difference whether a bird be held by a slender thread or by a rope; the bird is bound, and cannot fly until the cord that holds it is broken. It is true that a slender thread is more easily broken; still notwithstanding, if it is not broken the bird cannot fly."
— St. John of the Cross, Subida del Monte Carmelo
"The soul is not empty, so long as the desire for sensible things remains. But the absence of this desire for things produces emptiness and liberty of soul; even when there is an abundance of possessions."
— St. John of the Cross, Subida del Monte Carmelo
"God is pure Good in Himself, therefore will He dwell nowhere but in a pure soul. There He can pour Himself out: into that He can wholly flow. What is Purity? It is that a man should have turned himself away from all creatures and have set his heart so entirely on the Pure Good that no creature is to him a comfort, that he has no desire for aught creaturely, save so far as he may apprehend therein the Pure Good, which is God. And as little as the bright eye can endure aught foreign in it, so little can the pure soul bear anything in it, any stain on it, that comes between it and God. To it all creatures are pure to enjoy; for it enjoyeth all creatures in God, and God in all creatures."
— Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328)
"There was a learned man who, eight years long, desired that God would show him a man who would teach him the truth. And once when he felt a very great longing, a voice from God came to him and said, 'Go to the church, and there shalt thou find a man who shalt show thee the way to blessedness.' And he went thence and found a poor man whose feet were torn and covered with dust and dirt: and all his clothes were hardly worth three farthings.
'God give you good day!'
He answered: 'I have never had a bad day.'
'God give you good luck.'
'I have never had ill luck.'
'May you be happy! but why do you answer me thus?'
'I have never been unhappy.'
'Willingly. You wished me good day. I never had a bad day; for if I am hungry I praise God; if it freezes, hails, snows, rains, if the weather is fair or foul, still I praise God; am I wretched and despised, I praise God, and so I have never had an evil day.'
'Where did you find God?'
'When I forsook all creatures.'
'Where have you left God?'
'In pure hearts, and in men of good will.'
'What sort of man are you?'
'I am a king.'
'Where is your kingdom?'
'My soul is my kingdom, for I can so rule my senses inward and outward, that all the desires and power of my soul are in subjection, and this kingdom is greater than a kingdom on earth.'
'What brought you to this perfection?'
'My silence, my high thoughts, and my union with God. For I could not rest in anything that was less than God. Now I have found God; and in God have eternal rest and peace.'"
— Meister Eckhart
"There are four ascending degrees of spiritual poverty: 1. The soul's contempt of all things that are not God. 2. Contempt of herself and her own works. 3. Utter self-abandonment. 4. Self-loss in the incomprehensible Being of God."
— Meister Eckhart
"Holy poverty is a treasure so high excelling and so divine that we be not worthy to lay it up in our vile vessels; since this is that celestial virtue whereby all earthly things and fleeting are trodden underfoot, and whereby all hindrances are lifted from the soul, so that freely she may join herself to God Eternal."
— St. Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226), Fioretti
"This is the way: if thou wilt arrive at a perfect knowledge and enjoyment of Me, the Eternal Truth, thou shouldst never go outside the knowledge of thyself; and by humbling thyself in the valley of humility thou wilt know Me and thyself, from which knowledge thou wilt draw all that is necessary. . . . In self-knowledge, then, thou wilt humble thyself; seeing that, in thyself, thou dost not even exist."
— St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), Dialogo
"It is as with a covered object: the object cannot respond to the rays of the sun, not because the sun ceases to shine—for it shines without intermission—but because the covering intervenes. Let the covering be destroyed, and again the object will be exposed to the sun, and will answer to the rays which beat against it in proportion as the work of destruction advances. Thus the souls are covered by a rust—that is, by sin—which is gradually consumed away by the fire of purgatory. The more it is consumed, the more they respond to God their true Sun."
— St. Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), Trattato di Purgatorio
"I saw full surely that it behoveth needs to be that we should be in longing and in penance, until the time that we be led so deep into God that we verily and truly know our own soul."
— Julian of Norwich (1342–c. 1416), Revelations of Divine Love
"If thou truly all thing for God forsake, see more what thou despised than what thou forsaketh."
— Richard Rolle (c. 1300–1349), The Mending of Life
"Teach me, my only joy, the way in which I may bear upon my body the marks of Thy Love. Come, my soul, depart from outward things and gather thyself together into a true interior silence, that thou mayst set out with all thy courage and bury and lose thyself in the desert of a deep contrition."
— Henry Suso (c. 1296–1366), Buchlein von der ewigen Weisheit
"This dying has many degrees, and so has this life. A man might die a thousand deaths in one day and find at once a joyful life corresponding to each of them. . . . The stronger the death the more powerful and thorough is the corresponding life; the more intimate the death, the more inward is the life."
— Johannes Tauler (c. 1300–1361), Sermon on St. Paul
"In the truest death of all created things, the sweetest and most natural life is hidden."
— Johannes Tauler, Sermon on St. Paul
"Absolute poverty is thine when thou canst not remember whether anybody has ever owed thee or been indebted to thee for anything; just as all things will be forgotten by thee in the last journey of death."
— Johannes Tauler, Sermon on St. Paul
"Who hinders thee more than the unmortified affections of thy own heart? . . . If we were perfectly dead unto ourselves, and not entangled within our own breasts, then should we be able to taste Divine things, and to have some experience of heavenly contemplation."
— Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471), De Imitatione Christi
"No one can be enlightened unless he be first cleansed or purified and stripped."
"Behold, on this sort must we cast all things from us and strip ourselves of them: we must refrain from claiming anything for our own. When we do this, we shall have the best, fullest, clearest, and noblest knowledge that a man can have, and also the noblest and purest love and desire."
— Theologia Germanica (14th c.)
"The essence of purgation is self-simplification."
— Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173)
"Right as a true pilgrim going to Jerusalem leaveth behind him house and land, wife and child, and maketh himself poor and bare from all that he hath, that he might go lightly without letting: right so, if thou wilt be a ghostly pilgrim, thou shalt make thyself naked from all that thou hast; that are both good deeds and bad, and cast them all behind thee, that thou be so poor in thine own feeling that there be nothing of thine own working that thou wilt lean upon for rest, but ay desiring more and more of grace of love, and ay seeking the ghostly presence of Jesu."
— Walter Hilton (d. 1396), The Scale of Perfection
"Let all things be forsaken of me, so that being poor I may be able in great inward spaciousness, and without any hurt, to suffer want of all those things which the mind of man can desire; out of or excepting God Himself."
— Gerlac Petersen (1378–1411), Ignitum cum Deo Soliloquium
"Povertà, alto sapere, / a nulla cosa sojacere, / en desprezo possedere / tutte le cose create. . . . / Dio non alberga en core stretto, / tant'é grande quant' hai affetto, / povertate ha si gran petto / che ci alberga deitate. . . . / Povertate è nulla avere / e nulla cosa poi volere; / ad omne cosa possedere / en spirito de libertate."
Translation: "Oh Poverty, high wisdom! To be subject to nothing, and by despising all to possess all created things. . . . God will not lodge in a narrow heart; and it is as great as thy love. Poverty has so ample a bosom that Deity Itself may lodge therein. . . . Poverty is naught to have, and nothing to desire: but all things to possess in the spirit of liberty."
— Jacopone da Todi (c. 1230–1306), Lauda lix
"When the friars, climbing the steeps of the hill, found Lady Poverty at the summit enthroned only in her nakedness, she, preventing them with the blessings of sweetness, said, 'Why hasten ye so from the vale of tears to the mount of light? If, peradventure, it is me that ye seek, lo, I am but as you behold, a little poor one, stricken with storms and far from any consolation.' Whereto the brothers answer, 'Only admit us to thy peace; and we shall be saved.'"
— Sacrum Commercium (13th c.)
"That the worst part of his life was that he had been obliged to buy wine for the community in Burgundy; that this was a very unwelcome task to him, because he had no turn for business, and because he was lame, and could not go about the boat except by rolling himself over the casks. That, however, he gave himself no uneasiness about it, nor about the purchase of the wine. That he said to God, 'It is Your business: I was to look after'; and that he afterwards found everything well performed."
— Brother Lawrence (c. 1614–1691), The Practice of the Presence of God
III. The Dark Night of the Soul
Suffering, desolation, and the sense of divine abandonment — the crucible through which the soul is refined.
"That which this anguished soul feels most deeply is the conviction that God has abandoned it, of which it has no doubt; that He has cast it away into darkness as an abominable thing. . . . The shadow of death and the pains and torments of hell are most acutely felt, and this comes from the sense of being abandoned by God, being chastised and cast out by His wrath and heavy displeasure. All this and even more the soul feels now, for a terrible apprehension has come upon it that thus it will be with it for ever."
— St. John of the Cross (1542–1591), Noche Escura del Alma
"As long as this pain lasts, we cannot even remember our own existence; for in an instant all the faculties of the soul are so fettered as to lie incapable of any action save that of increasing our torture. The understanding realizes acutely what cause there is for grief in separation from God. The pain thus grows to such a degree that in spite of herself the sufferer gives vent to loud cries. . . . She feels an extraordinary loneliness, finds no companionship in any earthly creature. She is like a person suspended in mid-air, who can neither touch the earth, nor mount to heaven. She burns with a consuming thirst, and cannot reach the water."
— St. Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), El Castillo Interior, Moradas Sextas
"Let me suffer or die!"
— St. Teresa of Ávila
"Lord, since Thou hast taken from me all that I had of Thee, yet of Thy grace leave me the gift which every dog has by nature: that of being true to Thee in my distress, when I am deprived of all consolation. This I desire more fervently than Thy heavenly Kingdom."
— Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1207–c. 1282/94), Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit
"Think not that God will be always caressing His children, or shine upon their head, or kindle their hearts as He does at the first. He does so only to lure us to Himself, as the falconer lures the falcon with its gay hood. . . . We must stir up and rouse ourselves and be content to leave off learning, and no more enjoy feeling and warmth, and must now serve the Lord with strenuous industry and at our own cost."
— Johannes Tauler (c. 1300–1361)
"If only mortals would learn how great it is to possess divine grace, how beautiful, how noble, how precious! How many riches it hides within itself, how many joys and delights! Without doubt they would devote all their care and concern to winning for themselves pains and afflictions. All men throughout the world would seek troubles, infirmities, and torments, instead of good fortune, in order to attain the unfathomable treasure of grace. No one would complain of the cross or of sufferings, if one knew the scales on which these are weighed before being distributed to men."
— St. Rose of Lima (1586–1617)
"Apart from the Cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to Heaven."
— St. Rose of Lima
"When the true lover of Jesus is visited by tribulation, he should call upon his partner and his guide, his friend, who is hanging with arms outstretched and side open and bleeding, that he may forgive us: and then plunging our soul into those deep wounds, we shall gain that mystical wisdom which is hidden from the wise."
— St. Bonaventura (1221–1274), De Itinerario Mentis in Deum
IV. Illumination & the Divine Light
The flooding of the soul with supernatural radiance — visions of light, the opening of the inner eye, the gift of spiritual sight.
"And being thence admonished to return to myself, I entered into my inward self, Thou being my guide: and was able to do it, for Thou wert become my Helper. And I entered, and beheld with the eye of my soul, above the same eye of my soul, above my mind, the Light Unchangeable. Not this ordinary light, which all flesh may look upon, nor as it were a greater of the same kind, as though the brightness of this should be manifold brighter, and with its greatness take up all space. Not such was this light, but other—yea, far other from all these. He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is; and he that knows It, knows Eternity. Love knoweth It."
— St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Confessions, bk. vii, cap. x
"More have I marvelled than I show, forsooth, when I first felt my heart wax warm, and truly, not imaginingly, but as it were with a sensible fire, burned. I was forsooth marvelled, as this burning burst up in my soul, and of an unwonted solace; for in my ignorance of such healing abundance, oft have I groped my breast, seeing whether this burning were of any bodily cause outwardly. But when I knew that only it was kindled of ghostly cause inwardly, and this burning was naught of fleshly love or desire, in this I conceived it was the gift of my Maker."
— Richard Rolle (c. 1300–1349), The Fire of Love
"Heat soothly I call when the mind truly is kindled in Love Everlasting, and the heart on the same manner to burn not hopingly but verily is felt. The heart truly turned into fire, gives feeling of burning love."
— Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love
"When man's desires are fixed immovably on his Maker as far as for deadliness and corruption of the flesh he is let, then it is no marvel that his strength manly using, first as it were heaven being opened, with his understanding he beholds high heavenly citizens; and afterwards sweetest heat, as it were burning fire, he feels. Then with marvellous sweetness he is taught, and so forth in songful noise he is joyed."
— Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love
"Lux vivens dicit: I am the Living Light who illuminates the darkness. The person whom I have chosen, and whom I have miraculously stricken according to My will, I have placed among great wonders, beyond the measure of the ancient people who saw in Me many secrets; but I have laid that person low upon the earth, that such a one should not set about any elation in its mind."
— St. Hildegarde of Bingen (1098–1179), Scivias
"From my infancy my soul has always beheld this Light; and in it my soul soars to the summit of the firmament and into a different air. . . . The brightness which I see is not limited by space, and is more brilliant than the brightness round the sun. . . . I cannot contemplate it in its fullness, and while I gaze upon it all sadness and distress vanish from my memory. . . . What I write is what I see and hear in the vision. I compose no other words than those I hear, and I set them forth in unpolished Latin just as I hear them in the vision, for I am not taught in this vision to write as philosophers do."
— St. Hildegarde of Bingen, Letter to Guibert of Gembloux
"Art has not wrote here, neither was there any time to consider how to set it punctually down, according to the Understanding of the Letters, but all was ordered according to the Direction of the Spirit, which often went in haste, so that in many words Letters may be wanting . . . the burning Fire often forced forward with Speed and the Hand and Pen must hasten directly after it, for it comes and goes as a sudden shower."
— Jacob Boehme (1575–1624)
"When love openeth the inner eyes of the soul for to see this truth, with other circumstances that come withal, then beginneth the soul for sooth to be vastly meek. For then by the sight of God it feeleth and seeth itself as it is, and then doth the soul forsake the beholding and leaning to itself."
— Walter Hilton (d. 1396), The Scale of Perfection
"He who is imbued with or illuminated by the Eternal or Divine Light, and inflamed or consumed with Eternal or Divine Love, he is a deified man and a partaker of the Divine Nature."
— Theologia Germanica (14th c.)
"Now was I come up in spirit through the flaming sword into the Paradise of God. All things were new, and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter. I knew nothing but pureness, and innocency, and righteousness, being renewed up into the image of God by Christ Jesus, so that I say I was come up into the state of Adam which he was in before he fell."
— George Fox (1624–1691), Journal
"In Eternal Nature, or the Kingdom of Heaven, materiality stands in life and light; it is the food of angels, the brightness of glory, and the wonder of wonders: for as it comes forth from the Eternal Light, it must needs have all the beauties of the eternal world in it."
— William Law (1686–1761)
"The bringing forth of a new-created Godlike similitude in the soul—this is that which hath been known to the enlightened ones in all ages, which some have called the New Birth, and some Regeneration, and some the Rising of the Light: but it is one and the same thing, proceeding from the one and the same Fountain."
— Jane Lead (1624–1704), Enochian Walks with God
"Then did the Virgin Wisdom appear unto me, and showed me a Tree full-laden with all manner of fruit, beautiful to the eye and pleasant to the taste: and She said, 'This tree grows in the Paradise of God, and its root is in Eternity: and they that eat of it shall never hunger.'"
— Jane Lead, A Fountain of Gardens
V. Ecstasy, Rapture & Visions
The soul seized and lifted beyond itself — supernatural experiences, the overwhelming encounter with the divine.
"I saw Christ close by me, or, to speak more correctly, felt Him; for I saw nothing with the eyes of the body, nothing with the eyes of the soul. He seemed to me to be close beside me; and I saw, too, as I believe, that it was He who was speaking to me. As I was utterly ignorant that such a favour was possible, I was extremely afraid at first, and did nothing but weep; however, when He spoke to me but one word to reassure me, I recovered myself, and was, as usual, calm and comforted, without any fear whatever."
— St. Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), Vida
"How did you know that it was Christ? I replied that I did not know how I knew it; but I could not help knowing that He was close beside me… there are no words whereby to explain it."
— St. Teresa of Ávila, Vida
"If I were to spend many years in devising how to picture to myself anything so beautiful, I should never be able, nor even know how, to do it; for it is beyond the scope of any possible imagination here below: the whiteness and brilliancy alone are inconceivable. It is not a brightness which dazzles, but a delicate whiteness, an infused brightness, giving excessive delight to the eyes."
— St. Teresa of Ávila, Vida
"The human locution is as something we cannot well make out, as if we were half asleep: but the divine locution is a voice so clear, that not a syllable of its utterance is lost. It may occur, too, when the understanding and the soul are so troubled and distracted that they cannot form one sentence correctly: and yet grand sentences, perfectly arranged such as the soul in its most recollected state never could have formed, are uttered: and at the first word, change it utterly."
— St. Teresa of Ávila, Vida
"Very often, he who was before sickly and full of pain comes forth healthy and even with new strength: for it is something great that is given to the soul in rapture."
— St. Teresa of Ávila, Vida
"Oftentimes, through the perfect union which the soul has made with Me, she is raised from the earth almost as if the heavy body became light. But this does not mean that the heaviness of the body is taken away, but that the union of the soul with Me is more perfect than the union of the body with the soul. . . . The memory is full of nothing but Me, the intellect, elevated, gazes upon the object of My Truth; the affection, which follows the intellect, loves and becomes united with that which the intellect sees. These powers being united and gathered together and immersed and inflamed in Me, the body loses its feeling, so that the seeing eye sees not, and the hearing ear hears not, and the tongue does not speak."
— St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), Dialogo
"Of a sudden his soul was rapt in his body, or out of his body. Then did he see and hear that which no tongue can express.
That which the Servitor saw had no form neither any manner of being; yet he had of it a joy such as he might have known in the seeing of the shapes and substances of all joyful things. His heart was hungry, yet satisfied, his soul was full of contentment and joy: his prayers and hopes were all fulfilled. And the Friar could do naught but contemplate this Shining Brightness, and he altogether forgot himself and all other things. Was it day or night? He knew not. It was, as it were, a manifestation of the sweetness of Eternal Life in the sensations of silence and of rest. Then he said, 'If that which I see and feel be not the Kingdom of Heaven, I know not what it can be: for it is very sure that the endurance of all possible pains were but a poor price to pay for the eternal possession of so great a joy.'"
— Henry Suso (c. 1296–1366), Leben
"I seemed to be in the midst of the Trinity in a more exalted way than I had ever been before for greater than usual were the blessings I received, and I enjoyed these blessings without interruption. And thus to be absorbed in God filled me with joy and with delight. . . . And I see and understand that these divine operations, that unfathomable abyss, no angel or other creature howsoever great or wise, could comprehend."
— Blessed Angela of Foligno (c. 1248–1309)
"The eyes of my soul were opened, and I beheld the plenitude of God, wherein I did comprehend the whole world, both here and beyond the sea, and the abyss and ocean and all things. In all these things I beheld naught save the divine power, in a manner assuredly indescribable; so that through excess of marvelling the soul cried with a loud voice, saying 'This whole world is full of God!' Wherefore I now comprehended how small a thing is the whole world. . . . Then He said unto me: 'I have shown thee something of My Power.' He then said, 'Behold now My humility.' Then was I given an insight into the deep humility of God towards man. And comprehending that unspeakable power and beholding that deep humility, my soul marvelled greatly, and did esteem itself to be nothing at all."
— Blessed Angela of Foligno
"I beheld a fullness and a clearness, and felt them within me so abundantly that I cannot describe it, or give any likeness thereof. I cannot say I saw anything corporeal. It was as though it were in heaven: a beauty so great that I can say nought concerning it, save that it was supreme Beauty and sovereign Good."
— Blessed Angela of Foligno
"This showing is so vehement and so strong that the whole of the interior man, not only of his heart but of his body, is marvellously moved and shaken, and faints within itself, unable to endure it. And by this means, his interior aspect is made clear without any cloud, and conformable in its own measure to Him whom he seeks."
— Gerlac Petersen (1378–1411), Ignitum cum Deo Soliloquium
"And we shall endlessly be all had in God, Him verily seeing and fully feeling, Him spiritually hearing and Him delectably smelling and sweetly swallowing."
— Julian of Norwich (1342–c. 1416), Revelations of Divine Love
VI. Divine Love & the Longing of the Soul
The great romance of the mystic life — bridal imagery, the dance of desire, the wound of love, and the soul's ache for its Beloved.
"I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain that I could not wish to be rid of it."
— St. Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), Vida
"In order to overcome our desires and to renounce all those things, our love and inclination for which are wont so to inflame the will that it delights therein, we require a more ardent fire and a nobler love—that of the Bridegroom. . . . If our spiritual nature were not on fire with other and nobler passions we should never cast off the yoke of the senses, nor be able to enter on their night, neither should we have the courage to remain in the darkness of all things."
— St. John of the Cross (1542–1591), Subida del Monte Carmelo
"O burn that burns to heal! / O more than pleasant wound! / And O soft hand, O touch most delicate / That dost new life reveal / That dost in grace abound / And, slaying, dost from death to life translate."
— St. John of the Cross, Llama de Amor Viva
"Upon an obscure night / Fevered with Love's anxiety / (O hapless, happy plight!) / I went, none seeing me, / Forth from my house, where all things quiet be. / Blest night of wandering / In secret, when by none might I be spied, / Nor I see anything: / Without a light to guide / Save that which in my heart burnt in my side. / That light did lead me on, / More surely than the shining of noontide / Where well I knew that One / Did for my coming bide; / Where He abode might none but He abide. / O night that didst lead thus / O night more lovely than the dawn of light; / O night that broughtest us, / Lover to lover's sight, / Lover to loved, in marriage of delight! / Upon my flowery breast / Wholly for Him and save Himself for none, / There did I give sweet rest / To my beloved one: / The fanning of the cedars breathed thereon."
— St. John of the Cross, En una Noche Escura
"Divine love draws those whom it seizes beyond themselves: and this so greatly that they belong no longer to themselves but wholly to the Object loved."
— Dionysius the Areopagite (5th–6th c.), De Divinis Nominibus
"Too late loved I Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late loved I Thee! And behold, Thou wert within, and I without, and without did seek Thee: I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty Thou madest. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee."
— St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Confessions, bk. x, cap. xxvii
"I was swept up to Thee by Thy Beauty, and torn away from Thee by my own weight."
— St. Augustine, Confessions, bk. vii
"When I shall cleave to Thee with all my being, then shall I in nothing have pain and labour; and my life shall be a real life, being wholly full of Thee."
— St. Augustine, Confessions, bk. x, cap. xxviii
"My love is my weight."
— St. Augustine, Confessions, bk. xiii, cap. ix
"I cannot dance, O Lord, unless Thou lead me. If Thou wilt that I leap joyfully, then must Thou Thyself first dance and sing! Then will I leap for love, from love to knowledge, from knowledge to fruition, from fruition to beyond all human sense."
— Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1207–c. 1282/94), Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit
"The soul spake thus to her Desire, 'Fare forth and see where my Love is. Say to him that I desire to love.' So Desire sped forth, for she is quick of her nature, and came to the Empyrean and cried, 'Great Lord, open and let me in!' Then said the Householder of that place: 'What means this fiery eagerness?' Desire replied, 'Lord I would have thee know that my lady can no longer bear to live. If Thou wouldst flow forth to her, then might she swim: but the fish cannot long exist that is left stranded on the shore.' 'Go back,' said the Lord, 'I will not let thee in unless thou bring to me that hungry soul, for it is in this alone that I take delight.'"
— Mechthild of Magdeburg, Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit
"O soul, before the world was I longed for thee: and I still long for thee, and thou for Me. Therefore, when our two desires unite, Love shall be fulfilled."
— Mechthild of Magdeburg, Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit
"I chased thee, for in this was my pleasure; I captured thee, for this was my desire; I bound thee, and I rejoice in thy bonds; I wounded thee, that thou mightest be united to Me. I, the Boundless God, gave Myself to thee, that thou also mightest give thyself to Me."
— Mechthild of Magdeburg, Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit, pt. i, cap. iii
"The beatings of the Heart of God sounded like so many invitations which thus spake: Come and do penance, come and be reconciled, come and be consoled, come and be blessed; come, My love, and receive all that the Beloved can give to His beloved. . . . Come, My bride, and enjoy My Godhead."
— St. Mechthild of Hackborn (1241–1299), Liber Specialis Gratiae
"She saw in the Heart of God, as it were a virgin exceeding fair, holding a ring in her hand on which was a diamond: with which, incessantly, she touched the Heart of God. And the soul asked why that virgin thus touched the Heart of God. And the virgin answered, 'I am Divine Love, and this stone signifieth the sin of Adam. . . . As soon as Adam sinned, I introduced myself and intercepted the whole of his sin, and by thus ceaselessly touching the Heart of God and moving Him to pity, I suffered Him not to rest until the moment when I took the Son of God from His Father's Heart and laid him in the Virgin Mother's womb.'"
— St. Mechthild of Hackborn, Liber Specialis Gratiae
"The Bridegroom comes. His coming is eternal: and that coming consists in an inexpressible beauty and an infinite richness. For He comes with new graces and new gifts, descending as if from the highest heaven into every soul, according to its worthiness and desires. . . . Yea, He comes in the unity of His divine nature, saying to each soul: 'Thou art Mine and I am thine.'"
— Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293–1381), De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum
"To eat and be eaten! this is Union! . . . Since His desire is without measure, to be devoured of Him does not greatly amaze me."
— Jan van Ruysbroeck, Regnum Deum Amantium
"The Father, together with the Son, enfolds His beloved ones in the fruitive unity of His Spirit, above the fecundity of nature. And that same Father says to each soul in His infinite loving kindness, 'Thou art Mine and I am thine: I have chosen thee from all eternity.'"
— Jan van Ruysbroeck, De Septem Gradibus Amoris
"Every soul is like a live coal, burned up by God on the heart of His Infinite Love."
— Jan van Ruysbroeck, De Septem Gradibus Amoris
"Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit: it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love; I love in order that I may love. Love is a great thing so long as it continually returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its origin, always drawing from there the water which constantly replenishes it."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), Cantica Canticorum, Sermon lxxxiii
"When the soul loves God, it receives as the reward of its love nothing other than God Himself. And the soul is not satisfied to be loved by God, unless it be loved for love's sake, and not for the sake of any profit. Such love cannot be void, even though it seem to be without fruit; for its very desire is its fruit and its reward."
— St. Bernard, De Diligendo Deo
"With this sweet enjoying He showed unto mine understanding in part the blessed Godhead, stirring then the poor soul to understand, as it may be said; that is, to think on the endless Love that was without beginning, and is, and shall be ever. And with this our good Lord said full blissfully, 'Lo, how that I loved thee,' as if He had said, 'My darling, behold and see thy Lord, thy God that is thy Matter, and thine endless joy.'"
— Julian of Norwich (1342–c. 1416), Revelations of Divine Love
"I saw Him and sought Him: and I had Him, I wanted Him."
— Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
"For our natural Will is to have God, and the Good Will of God is to have us; and we may never cease from longing till we have Him in fullness of joy."
— Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, cap. vi
"My darling, I am glad that thou art come to Me; in all thy woe I have ever been with thee."
— Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, cap. xl
"Sometimes I do not see or feel myself to have either soul, body, heart, will or taste, or any other thing except Pure Love."
— St. Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), Vita e Dottrina
"Non voglio quello che esce da te, ma sol voglio te, O dolce Amore!"
Translation: "I desire not that which comes forth from Thee; but only I desire Thee, O sweetest Love!"
— St. Catherine of Genoa, Vita e Dottrina
"In the first degree, God enters into the soul, and she turns inward into herself. In the second, she ascends above herself and is lifted up to God. In the third, the soul, lifted up to God, passes over altogether into Him. In the fourth, the soul goes forth on God's behalf and descends below herself."
— Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173), De Quatuor Gradibus Violentae Charitatis
"Burning of love into a soul truly taken all vices purgeth: for whilst the true lover with strong and fervent desire into God is borne, all things him displease that from the sight of God withdrawn."
— Richard Rolle (c. 1300–1349), The Fire of Love
"In the beginning truly of my conversion and singular purpose, I thought I would be like the little bird that for love of her lover longs, but in her longing she is gladdened when he comes that she loves. And joying she sings, and singing she longs, but in sweetness and heat. It is said the nightingale to song and melody all night is given, that she may please him to whom she is joined. How muckle more with greatest sweetness to Christ my Jesu should I sing, that is spouse of my soul by all this present life, that is night in regard of clearness to come."
— Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love
"The soul, when first she is made, receives from God a Pledge—and this Pledge is the love with which the Bridegroom pledges to Himself His Bride: a love kindled from above, which comes down and bestows itself upon the soul to draw her upward to its source."
— Hugh of St. Victor (c. 1096–1141), De Arrha Animae
"He it is that desireth in thee, and He it is that is desired. He is all, and He doeth all, if thou mightest see Him."
— Walter Hilton (d. 1396), The Scale of Perfection
"God can as little do without us, as we without Him."
— Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328), Pred. xiii
"I sought only for the heart of God, therein to hide myself."
— Jacob Boehme (1575–1624), Aurora
"To give all for love is a most sweet bargain. Let us not deceive ourselves: we can never be anything but what we are now—miserable, poor creatures—until we give all for All: but when once we have done so, we shall be repaid a thousandfold."
— Gertrude More (1606–1633), Confessiones Amantis
"If love be not thy whole employment, thou shalt never attain to perfection."
— Gertrude More, Confessiones Amantis
"Never was there or can there be imagined such a love as this, which is between God and the soul: a love in which more is meant than can ever be expressed, or thought, or desired."
— Gertrude More, Confessiones Amantis
"Thou, my God, who art Love, art Love that loveth; Thou art Love that is loveable; Thou art the bond, and Thou art all that is. Thou art He who seeth, Thou art He who is seen, Thou art the seeing. For Thou who art Love that loveth, art the same who art the Love that is loveable: and the bond of love, proceeding from Him that loveth toward that which is loveable, art the same as that love by which the loveable draweth unto itself him that loveth."
— Nicolas of Cusa (1401–1464), De Visione Dei
"Sopr' onne lengua amore, / bontà senza figura, / lume fuor de mesura, / resplende nel mio core."
Translation: "Love beyond all telling, goodness beyond all shape, light beyond all measure, shines within my heart."
— Jacopone da Todi (c. 1230–1306), Lauda xci
VII. The Presence & Nearness of God
God within, God beside, God inescapable — the mystic discovery that the Divine is closer than breath itself.
"In the beginning it happened to me that I was ignorant of one thing—I did not know that God was in all things: and when He seemed to me to be so near, I thought it impossible. Not to believe that He was present was not in my power; for it seemed to me, as it were, evident that I felt there His very presence. Some unlearned men used to say to me, that He was present only by His grace. I could not believe that, because, as I am saying, He seemed to me to be present Himself: so I was distressed. A most learned man, of the Order of the glorious Patriarch St. Dominic, delivered me from this doubt, for he told me that He was present, and how He communed with us: this was a great comfort to me."
— St. Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), Vida
"An interior peace, and the little strength which either pleasures or displeasures have to remove this presence of the Three Persons, continue in such a manner that I clearly seem to experience what St. John says, That He will dwell in the soul, and this not only by grace, but that He will also make her perceive this presence."
— St. Teresa of Ávila, Letters (1581)
"I understood how our Lord was in all things, and how He was in the soul: and the illustration of a sponge filled with water was suggested to me."
— St. Teresa of Ávila, Relaccion ix
"God is near us, but we are far from Him. God is within, we are without. God is at home, we are in the far country."
— Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328)
"God is nearer to me than I am to myself; He is just as near to wood and stone, but they do not know it."
— Meister Eckhart, Pred. lxix
"In the book of Hidden Things it is written, 'I stand at the door and knock and wait' . . . thou needst not seek Him here or there: He is no farther off than the door of the heart. There He stands and waits and waits until He finds thee ready to open and let Him in. Thou needst not call Him from a distance; to wait until thou openest is harder for Him than for thee. He needs thee a thousand times more than thou canst need Him. Thy opening and His entering are but one moment."
— Meister Eckhart, Pred. iii
"Earth cannot escape the sky; let it flee up or down, the sky flows into it, and makes it fruitful whether it will or no. So God does to man. He who will escape Him only runs to His bosom; for all corners are open to Him."
— Meister Eckhart, Pred. lxxxviii
"He acts as if there were a wall erected between Him and us."
— Meister Eckhart
"We are all in Him enclosed and He is enclosed in us."
— Julian of Norwich (1342–c. 1416), Revelations of Divine Love
"God is all thing that is good as to my sight, and the goodness that all thing hath, it is He."
— Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
"At times God comes into the soul without being called; and He instills into her fire, love, and sometimes sweetness; and the soul believes this comes from God, and delights therein. But she does not yet know, or see, that He dwells in her; she perceives His grace, in which she delights. And again God comes to the soul, and speaks to her words full of sweetness, in which she has much joy, and she feels Him. . . . And beyond this the soul receives the gift of seeing God. God says to her, 'Behold Me!' and the soul sees Him dwelling within her. She sees Him more clearly than one man sees another. For the eyes of the soul behold a plenitude of which I cannot speak: a plenitude which is not bodily but spiritual, of which I can say nothing."
— Blessed Angela of Foligno (c. 1248–1309)
"The Word has visited me—and even very often. But though He has frequently entered into my soul, I have never at any time been sensible of the precise moment of His coming. I have felt that He was present; I remember that He has been with me; I have sometimes been able even to have a presentiment that He would come: but never to feel His coming nor His departure. For whence He came to enter my soul, or whither He went on quitting it, by what means He has made entrance or departure, I confess that I know not even to this day. . . . It is not by the eyes that He enters, for He is without colour; nor by the ears, for His coming is without sound; nor by the nostrils, for it is not with the air but with the mind that He is blended. . . . By what avenue then has He entered? Or perhaps He did not enter at all, because He did not come from outside. Yet neither did He come from within me, for He is good, and I know that no good thing dwells in me. . . . The coming of the Word has been made known to me by the movement of my heart."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), Cantica Canticorum, Sermon lxxiv
"How that presence of Jesus is felt . . . it is not in a bodily manner but in a spiritual . . . He ravisheth all the affection of the soul to Him, by the strength and sweetness of His blessed and unseen presence; and setteth it all on fire with love."
— Walter Hilton (d. 1396), The Scale of Perfection
"By ghostly sight of His presence he feeleth his soul so near to God, so comforted and sustained by His might, so separated from the world, so far from earthly vanity and so knit in itself by its own savour and the hidden manna of the nature of Christ, that the soul well feeleth it hath no homeland upon earth."
— Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection
"The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament."
— Brother Lawrence (c. 1614–1691), The Practice of the Presence of God
"I have sought Thee, and thought upon Thee from the beginning. And when I beheld all things outwardly I saw Thee in none of them; and searching inwardly, I found Thee not, though within was Thy sign and Thy token. Then I cried out with a loud voice, and Thou didst hear, and Thou didst say: 'Open thy heart, that I may enter, for it is I whom thou seekest; before I was sought I was found, before I was called I came in.'"
— Hugh of St. Victor (c. 1096–1141), De Arrha Animae
"God is the only Reality, and we are real only as far as we are in His order and He is in us."
— Coventry Patmore (1823–1896), The Rod, the Root, and the Flower
VIII. Prayer, Contemplation & Silence
The practice of turning inward — methods of prayer, stillness, the orison of union, and the contemplative art.
"There is no sense of anything: only fruition, without understanding what that may be the fruition of which is granted. It is understood that the fruition is of a certain good, containing in itself all good together at once; but this good is not comprehended. The senses are all occupied in this fruition in such a way, that not one of them is at liberty so as to be able to attend to anything else, whether outward or inward. . . . The will must be fully occupied in loving, but it understands not how it loves; the understanding, if it understands, does not understand how it understands."
— St. Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), Vida
"Do not imagine that this orison is a sort of drowsiness. In the prayer of union the soul is asleep; fast asleep as regards herself and earthly things. In fact, during the short time that this state lasts she is deprived of all feeling, and though she wishes it, she can think of nothing. . . . She is, as it were, entirely dead to the world, the better to live in God."
— St. Teresa of Ávila, El Castillo Interior, Moradas Quintas
"I am really terrified by what passes among us in these days. Anyone who has barely begun to meditate, if he becomes conscious of words during his self-recollection, pronounces them forthwith to be the work of God; and, convinced that they are so, goes about proclaiming 'God has told me this,' or 'I have had that answer from God.' But all is illusion and fancy; such an one has only been speaking to himself."
— St. John of the Cross (1542–1591), Subida del Monte Carmelo
"Prayer draws down the great God into the small heart; it drives the hungry soul up to the fullness of God. It brings together two lovers, God and the soul, in a wondrous place where they speak much of love."
— Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1207–c. 1282/94), Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit
"When both thy intellect and will are quiet and passive to the expressions of the eternal Word and Spirit, and when thy soul is winged up above that which is temporal, the outward senses and the imagination being locked up by holy abstraction, then the eternal Hearing, Seeing, and Speaking will be revealed in thee. Blessed art thou therefore if thou canst stand still from self-thinking and self-willing, and canst stop the wheel of thy imagination and senses."
— Jacob Boehme (1575–1624), Three Dialogues of the Supersensual Life
"If thou see any manner of light or brightness with thy bodily eye or in imagining . . . or if thou hear any merry sounding with thy ear, or in thy mouth any sweet sudden savour . . . be then wary in that time or soon after, and wisely behold the stirrings of thy heart."
— Walter Hilton (d. 1396), The Scale of Perfection
"This restful travail is full far from fleshly idleness and from blind security. It is full of ghostly work but it is called rest, for grace looseth the heavy yoke of fleshly love from the soul and maketh it mighty and free through the gift of the holy ghostly love for to work gladly, softly, and delectably."
— Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection
"Lift up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love; and mean Himself, and none of His goods. And thereto, look thee loath to think on aught but Himself. So that naught work in thy wit, nor in thy will, but only Himself. And do that in thee is to forget all the creatures that ever God made and the works of them; so that thy thought or thy desire be not directed or stretched to any of them, neither in general nor in special."
— The Cloud of Unknowing (Anonymous, 14th c.)
"Short prayer pierceth heaven. And therefore it is written that short prayer penetrateth the high heaven. A man or a woman, affrighted by any sudden chance of fire, or of death, or what else that it be: suddenly, in the height of his spirit, he is driven upon haste and upon need for to cry and pray for help. Yea, how? Surely, not in many words; nor yet in one word of two syllables. And why is that? Because him thinketh it too long to tarry in the declaring of the need of his spirit. And therefore he bursteth up in hideous cry with one little word of one syllable, such as this word FIRE, or this word OUT! . . . And so doth this little word GOD or this word LOVE. Choose thee whether thou wilt, or another: as thee list . . . and fasten this word to thine heart."
— The Cloud of Unknowing
"The soul of man hath two eyes: the one is the power of seeing into Eternity, the other the power of seeing into time and the creatures. But these two eyes of the soul of man cannot both perform their work at once: if the soul shall see with the right eye into Eternity, then the left eye must close itself and refrain from working, and be as though it were dead. For if the left eye be fulfilling its office toward outward things, the right eye must be hindered in its working—that is, in its contemplation."
— Theologia Germanica (14th c.)
"To me it seems that contemplation is joyful song of God's love taken in mind, with sweetness of angels' praise. This is jubilation, that is the end of perfect prayer and high devotion in this life. This is that mirth in mind, had ghostily by the lover everlastingly, with great voice outbreaking."
— Richard Rolle (c. 1300–1349), The Mending of Life
"In the wilderness . . . speaks the loved to the heart of the lover, as it were a bashful lover, that his sweetheart before men entreats not, nor friendly-wise but commonly and as a stranger he kisses. A devout soul safely from worldly business in mind and body departed . . . anon comes heavenly joy, and it marvellously making merry melody, to her springs. This is ghostly music, that is unknown to all that with worldly business lawful or unlawful are occupied."
— Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love
"O let me sitt alone, silent to all the world and it to me, that I may learn the song of Thy love, that so at last I may sing it in the land of everlastingness."
— Gertrude More (1606–1633), Confessiones Amantis
"Ask it of grace, not of doctrine; of desire, not of intellect; of the ardour of prayer, not of the teaching of the schools; of the Bridegroom, not of the Master; of God, not of man; of darkness, not of day; not of illumination, but of that Fire which enflames all and transports into God by the most burning affections and most consuming anointings. . . . Let us then die and enter into this darkness."
— St. Bonaventura (1221–1274), De Itinerario Mentis in Deum
IX. The Divine Dark & the Cloud of Unknowing
Apophatic theology — the via negativa, where God is found not in light but in luminous darkness, not in knowledge but in unknowing.
"This dark contemplation is called secret, because it is the mystical theology which theologians call secret wisdom, and which is infused into the soul more especially by love. This happens in a secret hidden way, in which the natural operations of the understanding and the other powers have no share. . . . This mystical wisdom has the property of hiding the soul within itself. It sometimes happens that this wisdom absorbs the soul and plunges it in a secret abyss wherein it sees itself distinctly as far away, and separated from, all created things; it looks upon itself as one that is placed in a profound and vast solitude whither no creature can come, and which seems an immense Wilderness without limits. And this solitude is the more delicious, sweet, and lovely, the more it is deep, vast, and empty."
— St. John of the Cross (1542–1591), Noche Escura del Alma
"Never forget that God is inaccessible. Ask not therefore to understand, seek not to have a clear vision; believe and that suffices. The incomprehensible and infinite God is all our occupation. That which can be comprehended is not God but something which is less than He. What think you to do with a finite God?"
— St. John of the Cross, Subida del Monte Carmelo
"Leave the senses and the operations of the intellect, and all things that the senses or the intellect can perceive, and all things which are not and things which are; and strain upwards in unknowing, as far as may be, towards the union with Him Who is above all being and knowledge. For by ceaseless and limitless going out of thyself and out of all things else, thou shalt be borne on high, to the superessential ray of the divine darkness, stripped of all and freed from all."
— Dionysius the Areopagite (5th–6th c.), De Mystica Theologia
"The Divine Dark is naught else but that inaccessible light in which God is said to dwell. And in this darkness, invisible indeed on account of the surpassing brightness and unsearchable on account of the abundance of the supernatural streams of light—in this darkness every one must enter who is worthy to know and to see God."
— Dionysius the Areopagite, Letter to Dorotheos
"He may well be loved, but not thought. By love may He be gotten and holden; but by thought never."
— The Cloud of Unknowing (Anonymous, 14th c.)
"When thou first dost begin, thou findest but a darkness, and as it were a cloud of unknowing, thou knowest not what, saving that thou feelest in thy will a naked intent unto God. This darkness and this cloud is, howsoever thou dost, betwixt thee and thy God, and hindereth thee that thou mayest not see Him clearly by light of understanding in thy reason, nor feel Him in sweetness of love in thine affection. And therefore shape thee to bide in this darkness as long as thou mayest, evermore crying after Him that thou lovest."
— The Cloud of Unknowing
"The great wastes to be found in this divine ground have neither image nor form nor condition, for they are neither here nor there. They are like unto a fathomless Abyss, bottomless and floating in itself. Even as water ebbs and flows, up and down, so does it come to pass in this Abyss. This, truly, is much more God's Dwelling-place than heaven or man. A man who verily desires to enter will surely find God here, and himself simply in God; for God never separates Himself from this ground. . . . This ground is so desert and bare that no thought has ever entered there. It is so close and yet so far off, and so far beyond all things, that it has neither time nor place. It is a simple and unchanging condition. A man who really and truly enters, feels as though he had been here throughout eternity, and as though he were one therewith."
— Johannes Tauler (c. 1300–1361), Sermon on St. John the Baptist
"All there is so still and mysterious and so desolate: for there is nothing there but God only, and nothing strange. . . . This Wilderness is the Quiet Desert of the Godhead, into which He leads all who are to receive this inspiration of God, now or in Eternity."
— Johannes Tauler
"When love has carried us above and beyond all things, above the light, into the Divine Dark, there we are wrought and transformed by the Eternal Word Who is the image of the Father; and as the air is penetrated by the sun, thus we receive in idleness of spirit the Incomprehensible Light, enfolding us and penetrating us. And this flight is nothing else but an infinite gazing and seeing. We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold; because our thought, life and being are uplifted in simplicity and made one with the Truth which is God."
— Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293–1381), De Calculo
"My soul has just been rapt to a state in which I tasted unspeakable joy. I knew all I longed to know, possessed all I longed to possess. I saw all Good. . . . My soul sees nothing whatever that can be told of the lips or the heart, she sees nothing, and she sees All. . . . If I see it in the dark, it is because it surpasses all good. All, all the rest is but darkness. All which the soul or heart can reach is inferior to this Good. . . . This Good which I see in the darkness is the All, and all other things are but parts."
— Blessed Angela of Foligno (c. 1248–1309)
"The place wherein Thou art found unveiled is girt round with the coincidence of contradictories, and this is the wall of Paradise wherein Thou dost abide. The door whereof is guarded by the most proud spirit of Reason, and unless he be vanquished, the way in will not lie open."
— Nicolas of Cusa (1401–1464), De Visione Dei
"The more a man knows that he is unknowing, the more learned he will be: since this is the true purpose and meaning of learning—to know that we are surrounded by mystery."
— Nicolas of Cusa, De Docta Ignorantia
"No knowledge which we can here have of Thee, O God, is comparable to the least degree of the fruition of Thy blessed Presence; and therefore do I hold that no soul doth or can truly know Thee, unless it be taught by Thee, and that at Thine own time, and in Thine own way."
— Gertrude More (1606–1633), Confessiones Amantis
X. Union, Transformation & Deification
The soul's final return — mystical marriage, the loss of self in God, the transmutation of being.
"You may think, my daughters, that the soul in this state of union should be so absorbed that she can occupy herself with nothing. You deceive yourselves. She turns with greater ease and ardour than before to all that which belongs to the service of God, and when these occupations leave her free again, she remains in the enjoyment of that companionship."
— St. Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), El Castillo Interior, Moradas Sétimas
"In the high state of the union of love, God does not communicate Himself to the soul under the disguise of imaginary visions, similitudes or figures, neither is there place for such, but mouth to mouth."
— St. John of the Cross (1542–1591), Subida del Monte Carmelo
"The soul enamoured of My Truth never ceases to serve the whole world in general."
— St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), Dialogo
"My me is God: nor do I know my selfhood except in God."
— St. Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), Vita e Dottrina
"My Being is God, not by simple participation, but by a true transformation of my Being."
— St. Catherine of Genoa, Vita e Dottrina
"Even as a cup of wine poured into the sea becomes the sea and not the sea wine, so the soul drawn into God is made divine: she is of God, not God of her."
— Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1207–c. 1282/94), Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit
"When the soul is plunged in the fire of divine love, like iron, it first loses its blackness, and then growing to white heat, it becomes like unto the fire itself. And lastly, it grows liquid, and losing its nature is transmuted into an utterly different quality of being."
— Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173), De Quatuor Gradibus Violentae Charitatis
"The interior man lives his life according to these two ways; that is to say, in rest and in work. And in each of them he is wholly and undividedly; for he dwells wholly in God in virtue of his restful fruition, and wholly in himself in virtue of his active love. . . . He is a pilgrim, for he sees his country. For love's sake he strives for victory, for he sees his crown. . . . And this is the supreme summit of the inner life."
— Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293–1381), De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum
"Our activity consists in loving God and our fruition in enduring God and being penetrated by His love. There is a distinction between love and fruition, as there is between God and His Grace. When we unite ourselves to God by love, then we are spirit: but when we are caught up and transformed by His Spirit, then we are led into fruition. And the spirit of God Himself breathes us out from Himself that we may love, and may do good works; and again He draws us into Himself, that we may rest in fruition. And this is Eternal Life; even as our mortal life subsists in the indrawing and outgoing of our breath."
— Jan van Ruysbroeck, De Septem Gradibus Amoris
"How great is the difference between the secret friend and the hidden child! For the friend makes only loving, living, but measured ascents towards God. But the child presses on to lose his own life upon the summits, in that simplicity which knoweth not itself. . . . When we transcend ourselves and become in our ascent towards God so simple that the bare supreme Love can lay hold of us, then we cease, and we and all our selfhood die in God. And in this death we become the hidden children of God, and find a new life within us."
— Jan van Ruysbroeck, De Calculo
"By a simple introspection in fruitive love, they meet God without intermediary."
— Jan van Ruysbroeck, De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum
"How glorious is that soul which has indeed been able to pass from the stormy ocean to Me, the Sea Pacific, and in that Sea, which is Myself, to fill the pitcher of her heart."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), cited by St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogo
"I am the Food of the full-grown: grow then, and thou shalt feed on Me. Nor shalt thou change Me into thy substance, as thou changest the food of thy flesh, but thou shalt be changed into Mine."
— St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Confessions, bk. vii, cap. x
"The soul, leaving all things and forgetting herself, is immersed in the ocean of Divine Splendour, and illuminated by the Sublime Abyss of the Unfathomable Wisdom."
— Dionysius the Areopagite (5th–6th c.), De Divinis Nominibus
"I would fain be to the Eternal Goodness what his own hand is to a man."
— Theologia Germanica (14th c.)
"La guerra è terminata / de le virtu battaglia, / de la mente travaglia / cosa nulla contende."
Translation: "The war is at an end: in the battle of virtues, in travail of mind, there is no more striving."
— Jacopone da Todi (c. 1230–1306), Lauda xci
"The Incarnation, which is for the Christian the one central and supreme symbol, is also for him the bridge between the world of Being and the world of Becoming; the highest expression of the Invisible in terms of the Visible. The babe is at its mother's breast: God Almighty is that babe."
— Coventry Patmore (1823–1896), The Rod, the Root, and the Flower
XI. The Nature of God & the Holy Trinity
Who and what is God? — Trinitarian visions, the paradox of divine attributes, the mystery of the Godhead.
"By some mysterious manifestation of the truth, the three Persons of the most Blessed Trinity reveal themselves, preceded by an illumination which shines on the spirit like a most dazzling cloud of light. The three Persons are distinct from one another; a sublime knowledge is infused into the soul, imbuing it with a certainty of the truth that the Three are of one substance, power, and knowledge, and are one God. Thus that which we hold as a doctrine of faith, the soul now, so to speak, understands by sight, though it beholds the Blessed Trinity neither by the eyes of the body nor of the soul, this being no imaginary vision."
— St. Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), El Castillo Interior, Moradas Sétimas
"What art Thou, then, my God? . . . Highest, best, most potent, most omnipotent, most merciful and most just, most deeply hid and yet most near. Fairest, yet strongest: steadfast, yet unseizable; unchangeable yet changing all things: never new, yet never old. . . . Ever busy, yet ever at rest; gathering yet needing not: bearing, filling, guarding: creating, nourishing and perfecting; seeking though Thou hast no wants. . . . What can I say, my God, my life, my holy joy? or what can any say who speaks of Thee?"
— St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Confessions, bk. i, cap. iv
"I could wish that men would consider these three things that are in themselves . . . To Be, to Know, and to Will. For I am, and I know, and I will; I am knowing and willing, and I know myself to be and to will; and I will to be and to know. In these three therefore let him who can, see how inseparable a life there is—even one life, one mind, one essence: finally how inseparable is the distinction, and yet a distinction."
— St. Augustine, Confessions, bk. xiii, cap. xi
"I beheld the working of all the blessed Trinity: in which beholding, I saw and understood these three properties: the property of the Fatherhood, the property of the Motherhood, and the property of the Lordhood, in one God. In our Father Almighty we have our keeping and our bliss as anent our natural Substance, which is to us by our making, without beginning. And in the Second Person in wit and wisdom we have our keeping as anent our Sense-soul: our restoring and our saving; for He is our Mother, Brother, and Saviour. And in our good Lord, the Holy Ghost, we have our rewarding and our meed-giving for our living and our travail, and endless overpassing of all that we desire, in His marvellous courtesy of His high plenteous grace."
— Julian of Norwich (1342–c. 1416), Revelations of Divine Love, cap. lviii
"I it am, the Might and the Goodness of the Fatherhood; I it am, the Wisdom of the Motherhood; I it am, the Light and the Grace that is all blessed Love. I it am, the Trinity, I it am, the Unity: I am the sovereign Goodness of all manner of things. I am that maketh thee to love. I am that maketh thee to long: I it am, the endless fulfilling of all true desires."
— Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, cap. lix
"What is God? He is length, breadth, height, and depth. 'What!' you say, 'after all, then, is the Godhead a fourfold thing?' Far from it: rather is He, Whom we thus call fourfold, undivided and one. There is in Him a certain depth, His incomprehensibility; a certain height, His measureless majesty; a certain length, His eternity; a certain breadth, His love."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), De Consideratione
"From our proper Ground, that is to say of the Father, there shines an eternal Ray, the which is the Birth of the Son. . . . This is why all that lives in the Father unmanifested in the Unity, is also in the Son actively poured forth in manifestation."
— Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293–1381), De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum
"The heavenly Father, as a living Ground, with all that lives in Him, is actively turned towards His Son as to His own Eternal Wisdom. And that same Wisdom, with all that lives in it, is actively turned back towards the Father, that is towards that very ground from which it comes forth. And of this meeting is born the third Person, the Holy Spirit, their mutual Love."
— Jan van Ruysbroeck, De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum
XII. The Ground & Centre of the Soul
The deepest interior — the spark of the divine nature, the fundament, the abyss within where God and the soul meet.
"We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all Eternity. . . . But if it takes not place in me, what avails it? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me."
— Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328), Pred. i
"When the soul brings forth the Son, it is happier than Mary."
— Meister Eckhart
"I give you an earthly similitude of this. Behold a bright flaming piece of iron, which of itself is dark and black, and the fire so penetrateth and shineth through the iron, that it giveth light. Now, the iron doth not cease to be; it is iron still: and the source of the fire retaineth its own propriety: it doth not take the iron into it, but it penetrateth and shineth through the iron. . . . In such a manner is the soul set in the Deity; the Deity penetrateth through the soul, and dwelleth in the soul, yet the soul doth not comprehend the Deity, but the Deity comprehendeth the soul, but doth not alter it from being a soul, but only giveth it the divine source of the Majesty."
— Jacob Boehme (1575–1624), The Threefold Life of Man
"If thou conceivest a small minute circle, as small as a grain of mustard seed, yet the Heart of God is wholly and perfectly therein: and if thou art born in God, then there is in thyself—in the circle of thy life—the whole Heart of God undivided."
— Jacob Boehme, The Threefold Life of Man
"The Son of God, the Eternal Word in the Father, who is the glance, or brightness, and the power of the light eternity, must become man and be born in you, if you will know God: otherwise you are in the dark stable and go about groping."
— Jacob Boehme, The Threefold Life of Man
"The deepest and most central part of thy soul, which alone is capable of Divine Union, is a depth and infinity which nothing created can fill. Nothing less than God can satisfy it, and it can be satisfied by God alone because it is a Spirit made by and in His likeness and image: and is therefore capable of the Highest Good without end."
— William Law (1686–1761)
"Though God is everywhere present, yet He is only present to thee in the deepest and most central part of thy soul. The natural senses cannot possess God or unite thee to Him; nay, thy inward faculties of understanding, will, and memory can only reach after God, but cannot be the place of His habitation in thee. But there is a root or depth of thee from whence all these faculties come forth, as lines from a centre, or as branches from the body of the tree. This depth is called the Centre, the Fund, or Bottom of the soul. This depth is the unity, the Eternity, I had almost said the Infinity of thy soul; for it is so infinite that nothing can satisfy it, or give it any rest, but the infinity of God."
— William Law
"The Kingdom of Heaven is within you; and he only finds it that seeketh for it in Fire, Light, and Spirit: Fire, to drive away and consume all that is dark and impure; Light, to reveal and open that which is heavenly in us; Spirit, to bring to the Birth that new creature, which is to be born of the Spirit."
— William Law
"For well we know that the bosom of the Father is our ground and origin, wherein our life and being is begun."
— Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293–1381), De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum
"We ascend Thy ways that be in our heart, and sing a song of degrees; we glow inwardly with Thy fire, with Thy good fire, and we go, because we go upwards to the peace of Jerusalem."
— St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Confessions, bk. xiii, cap. xi
XIII. God in Nature & Creation
The divine shining through the natural world — birds, flowers, the greening power, and the sacrament of the ordinary.
"My little sisters the birds. Brother Sun, Sister Water, Mother Earth."
— St. Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226), Fioretti & Speculum Perfectionis
"The meanest thing that one knows in God—for instance if one could understand a flower as it has its Being in God—this would be a higher thing than the whole world!"
— Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328)
"Whoso knows and loves the nobleness of My Freedom cannot bear to love Me alone, he must love also Me in the creatures."
— Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1207–c. 1282/94), Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit
"He showed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with the eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall, for that God loveth it. And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God."
— Julian of Norwich (1342–c. 1416), Revelations of Divine Love
"Out of doors one day with her sisters, she heard a bird's note. 'What a lovely song!' she said: and the song drew her straightway to God. Did they bring her a flower, its beauty had a like effect."
— St. Douceline (c. 1215–1274)
"When she heard the little bird singing in the garden, she was wont to say: 'Hush! It is my turn now!' And straightway she would begin to sing to God; and the little bird would be silent while she sang. And then when she ceased, the bird began again, and so they went on, duetting together in the praise of God, turn and turn about."
— St. Rose of Lima (1586–1617)
"There is a power that has been since all eternity, and that force and potentiality is green! From it the rocks and the gems draw their strength, and the waters get their flowing, and the plants their growing power, and the ether its motion. And all creatures draw their radiance from this force."
— St. Hildegarde of Bingen (1098–1179), Liber Divinorum Operum
"Whilst the Servitor was still at rest, he heard within himself a gracious melody by which his heart was greatly moved. And at the moment of the rising of the morning star, a deep sweet voice sang within him these words, Stella Maria maris, hodie processit ad ortum. . . . And this song which he heard was so spiritual and so sweet, that his soul was transported by it and he too began to sing joyously."
— Henry Suso (c. 1296–1366), Leben
"Then He opened to me the gate, and showed me a beauty immeasurable and inconceivable which descended with sweet modulations through all things. And there were harmonies of the worlds and many voices, like the sound of many waters, each in its kind. And I heard the voice say: 'This is the music of the Spirit, which filleth all things; and these are the songs that are before the throne."
— Hugh of St. Victor (c. 1096–1141), De Arrha Animae
XIV. The Insufficiency of All Words
The limits of human language before the infinite — the stammering, the silence, the "I cannot say."
"Of these most excellent and divine workings in the soul, when God doth manifest Himself, we can in no wise speak, or even stammer."
— Blessed Angela of Foligno (c. 1248–1309)
"Of the heavenly things God has shown me, I can speak but a little word, no more than a honeybee can carry away on its foot from an overflowing jar."
— Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1207–c. 1282/94), Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit