There is no better weapon than the Cross, o my Lord and my all!

The soul on whom God bestows his favour requires strong courage, great faith, trust and resignation, so that God may do what he chooses with it.

The soul has so often placed itself absolutely in His hands and offered itself entirely to Him, that it no longer belongs to itself; thus it is snatched away more vehemently in consequence of its opposition. This person resolved to resist, she yielded herself into the hands of Him who is Almighty.

He takes away the power of speech. Sometimes she’s deprived of all her senses. God ravishes the soul to Himself as being His very own and His bride.

But now this great God Who restrains the springs and the waters, lets loose the streams, which flow with a powerful rush and a mighty wave rises, strong enough to uplift on high the little vessel of our soul. Neither the ship nor her pilot and sailors can control the fury of the sea and stop its carrying the boat where it will: far less can the soul now stay where it chooses, or force its senses or faculties to act, more than He Who holds them in His dominion decrees.

These sublime favours leave the soul so desirous of fully enjoying Him, that life becomes a painful though delicious torture, and death is ardently longed for. Longings, tears, sighs and violent and impetuous desires, strong feelings which seem to proceed from our vehement love, are yet as nothing compared with what I am about to describe, and seem but a smouldering fire, the heat of which, though painful, is yet tolerable.

While the soul is thus inflamed with love, it often happens that the heart re-ceives a blow as from a fiery dart. It wounds u s severely.

We cannot even remember our own existence, for the faculties of the soul are so fettered as to be incapable of any action except of increasing our torture.

This increases the anguish, the sufferer gives vent to loud cries which she cannot stifle, however accustomed to pain she may be.

It leaves the limbs all disjointed and the pulse as feeble, the natural heat fails, while the supernatural so burns the frame that God could easily satisfy the soul’s desire for death.
All the joints are dislocated so that the suffering is too severe for the person to have the strength to hold a pen.
I believe that the health becomes permanently enfeebled in consequence, Nor do I think the person would feel it were she torn to pieces.
She feels a strange loneliness, she is like suspended in mid-air. She is una-ble to reach the water. She seems dying from her desire for death.