QUOTATION: The Spiritual Life

Avoid, too, an illusion into which beginners in the spiritual life frequently fall. Having read in certain books of the ineffable consolations of the Holy Spirit, and the joys of God's service, they persuade themselves that the path of virtue is filled with delights, and therefore, instead of entering it armed to meet their enemies, they set out as if for a festival. Truly the love of God is full of sweetness, but the way which leads to it contains much that is bitter, for self-love must first be conquered, and there is nothing harder to nature than to fight against it and all that it claims.

--Louis de Granada, The Sinner's Guide

QUOTATION: Consolation

When God allows you to feel the sweetness of His kindness in your devotions, you must be careful not to become attached to this consolation. You must humble yourself at once, considering yourself most unworthy of any consolation, and ready to be stripped of it, to assure Him that you desire to serve and love Him, not for the consolation that He gives, either in this world or in the next, but for love of Himself and merely to please Him.

--St. John Eudes, The Four Foundations of Sanctity

QUOTATION: Spiritual Sweetness

The fly that clings to honey hinders its flight, and the soul that allows itself attachment to spiritual sweetness hinders its own liberty and contemplation.

--St. John of the Cross

QUOTATION: Suffering and Predestination

We have never so much cause for consolation, as when we find ourselves oppressed by sufferings and trials; for these make us like Christ our Lord, and this resemblance is the true mark of our predestination.

--St. Vincent de Paul

QUOTATION: Suffering and Consolations

O you souls who wish to go on with so much safety and consolation, if you knew how pleasing to God is suffering, and how much it helps in acquiring other good things, you would never seek consolation in anything; but you would rather look upon it as a great happiness to bear the Cross of the Lord.

--St. John of the Cross