Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

23rd Tuesday after Trinity

The soul, when it least uses its own proper ability, travels most securely, because it walks most by faith.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.

Sometimes, when the soul least thinks of it, and when it least desires it, God touches it divinely causing certain recollections of Himself.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.

We have done nothing . . . if we have not purified the will in the order of charity.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.

No knowledge, therefore, and no conceptions in this mortal life can serve as proximate means of this high union of the love of God.  All that the understanding can comprehend; all that the will may be satisfied with; and all that the imagination may conceive, is most unlike unto God, and most disproportionate to Him.

St. John of the Cross:
Ascent of Mount Carmel.

12th Tuesday after Trinity

Even one unruly desire, though not a mortal sin, sullies and deforms the soul, and indisposes it for the perfect union with God, until it be cast away.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.

A devout man grounds his devotion chiefly on the invisible; he requires but few images, and uses but few.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.

10th Thursday after Trinity

Evil locutions are occasionally hard to distinguish, for, though they dry up the love of God in the will, and incline men to vanity, self-esteem, false humility and fervent affection of the will founded on self-love, which requires for its detection great spirituality of mind.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.

Scarcely any one is contented with that measure of the spirit which God gives; they are very disconsolate and querulous because they do not find the comfort they desire in spiritual things.

St. John of the Cross: Dark Night of the Soul.

Sexagesima Sunday

What is Sexagesima?

The soul cannot enter into the night of itself, because no one is able of his own strength to empty his heart of all desires, so as to draw near unto God.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.

2nd Monday in Advent

In every soul, even that of the greatest sinner in the world, God dwells, and is substantially present.  This way of union or presence of God, in the order of nature, substists between Him and all His creatures.

St. John of the Cross: Ascent of Mount Carmel.