Carmel Quotes

I don't care what your name is," she hisses. "And I don't care who you are. If you don't get him some help, I will burn your fucking place down." Go Carmel.

You’re … what was it Carmel said earlier?” She looks down, then back at me. “An ass.

Chef?" Carmel exclaims. "I could give a shit about a chef. I'm going to find the most expensive thing in that kitchen, eat one bite, and throw the rest on the floor. Then I'm going to break some plates.

Above all, she is the girl who 'feels' things, who has hung on to the freshness and pain of adolescence, the girl ever wounded, ever young. Now, at an age when the wounds begin to heal whether one wants them to or not, Joan Baez rarely leaves the Carmel Valley.

… you’ll need some help getting acquainted. I’m Carmel Jones.” “Theseus Cassio Lowood. What kind of a parent names their kid Carmel?” She laughs. “What kind of a parent names their kid Theseus Cassio?” “Hippies,” I reply. “Exactly.

Carmel’s a very pretty girl,” she says hopefully. “Thomas seems to think so.” She sighs, then smiles. “Good. He could use a woman’s touch.” “Mom,” I groan. “Gross.” “Not that kind of touch,” she laughs.

She's liked you since chemistry last semester," Carmel says, scowling. "Then you should have told her what an ass I am. Made me sound like a moronic jerk." "Better to let her see it for herself.

When he realizes that Carmel’s standing behind me, he quickly checks his face for drool and tries to smooth his hair down. Unsuccessfully.

Will Carmel eventually forget about this adventurous time with us? Will she shun Thomas and go back to being the center of SWC? She wouldn’t do that, would she? I mean, she did just compare me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My opinion of her isn’t the highest right now.

You wouldn't think that people would believe that we all got so incredibly beat up—in so many interesting ways—from a bear attack. Especially not when Carmel is sporting a bite mark that is a spot-on match for wounds found at one of the most horrifying crime scenes in recent history. But I never fail to be surprised by what people will believe.

Trusting God's grace means trusting God's love for us rather than our love for God. […] Therefore our prayers should consist mainly of rousing our awareness of God's love for us rather than trying to rouse God's awareness of our love for him, like the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:26-29).

I’ll be here if he needs me. I’ll watch his back.” Carmel smiles. “Better watch all sides. He can be downright clumsy sometimes.

I sigh. “So now what? Can I possibly tell you to go home and forget about this? Is there any way that I can avoid us forming some peppy group of—” Before my mouth can finish, I lean forward and groan into my hands. Carmel gets it first, and laughs. “A peppy group of ghostbusters?” she asks.

Guys," he says. "After this is over, can we go get a burger or something?" "You're thinking about food now?" Carmel asks. "Hey, you haven't spent the last three days fasting and doing herbal rue steams and drinking nothing but Morfran's gross chrysanthemum purification potions." Carmel and I grin at each other in the mirror. "It isn't easy becoming a vessel. I'm freaking starving.

We must uncenter our minds from ourselves; We must unhmanize our views a little, and become confident As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

Carmel experienced another burst of euphoria. She might have lost a husband, but she got herself a wife. An efficient, energetic young wife. What a bargain. What an upgrade.

What is the truth?” Carmel asks. “What happened in that house? Am I really supposed to believe that Mike was murdered by a ghost?

This is as close as I've ever heard to a Thomas and Carmel argument. And as special as it is to listen to your friends argue over whether or not you have a mental illness, I'm starting to get the urge to go back to class.

She raises her brows at Thomas and Carmel. "How do you want to room? The two of you and the two of us? Or boys in one, girls in the other?" "Boys in one," I say quickly. "Right. Back in a minute." Jestine gets up to make the arrangements, leaving me with my gaping friends. "Where'd that come from?" Carmel asks. "Where'd what come from?" As usual, playing dumb gets me nowhere.

9. Never give up prayer, and should you find dryness and difficulty, persevere in it for this very reason. God often desires to see what love your soul has, and love is not tried by ease and satisfaction.

Our greatest need is to be silent before this great God with the appetite and with the tongue, for the only language he hears is the silent language of love.

Confidence is your most powerful asset; knowledge is your most powerful weapon.

Don't just reach for the stars, pluck one out of the sky.

Seek in reading and you will find in meditation; knock in prayer and it will be opened to you in contemplation.

The Carmel is a lovely little river. It isn't very long but in its course it has everything a river should have. It ... tumbles down a while, runs through shallows, ... crackles among round boulders, wanders lazily under sycamores, spills into pools where trout live ... In the winter, it becomes a torrent, ... and in the summer it is a place for children to wade in and for fishermen to wander in.

Letter 33 [To a discalced Carmelite nun in Segovia[63] Ubeda, October-November 1591]   ... Have a great love for those who contradict and fail to love you, for in this way love is begotten in a heart that has no love. God so acts with us, for he loves us that we might love by means of the very love he bears toward us. [63] This person's identify is unknown.

Everyone else has sort of scattered off to their respective corners. I suppose everyone's doing some thinking, maybe saying some prayers. Hopefully Thomas and Carmel are making out in a closet.

He is like ice cream without the calories or whiskey without the hangover. He's a drug. My drug.

Alana, you could never disappoint me," he shifts while still on top of me. "I may have had more lovers than you, and I may take my clothes off for countless women, but you are the only one who can strip me bare.

I've been dead for five years Alana." "You look pretty alive to me." He shakes his head, "I came back to life five minutes ago.

If life were fair, Carmel would turn around and look into his eyes, see that he’s her willing slave, and be grateful. She’d lift him up and he wouldn’t be a slave anymore, he’d just be Thomas, and they’d be glad to have each other. But life isn’t fair. She’ll probably end up with Will, or some other jock, and Thomas will suffer quietly.

So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I was applying for campus housing and overheard Andy telling my mother that the only way I was going to be safe from all the sexual assaults he'd heard about on National Public Radio was if I lived in an all-girl dorm. Never mind that I have been kicking the butts of the undead since I was in elementary school, and that almost the entire time I resided under Andy's roof, I had a hot undead guy living in my bedroom. These are two of those secrets I was telling you about. Andy doesn't know about them, and neither does my mother. They think Jesse is what Father Dominic told them he is: a "young Jesuit student who transferred to the Carmel Mission from Mexico, then lost his yearning to go into the priesthood" after meeting me. That one slays me every time.

A secret isn't a secret unless you keep it to yourself.

I don't understand it. Addiction. The pull or the control, the want or the need.

Look, this isn't who I am , it's just what I do.

I'm not lucky, I'm just privileged. There's a big difference," I clarify indifferently.

You have power, you have force, and you irreversibly own my heart.

Do you want to leave me Alana?" Ryan asks anxiously. "Do you want me to leave you Ryan?" I respond softly. "No," he rasps. "Then there's your answer.

I want to suggest performance as lived reality, the site of performance being located neither 'inside' nor 'outside,' but at a threshold, at the stage of one's skin.

Home isn't a place it's a feeling

To come to the knowledge you have not you must go by a way in which you know not.

If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. ” — Joseph Campbell

We’re sorry about her, you know,” he says. “Carmel and I. We kind of liked her, even if she was creepy, and we know that you—” He breaks off and clears his throat again. I loved her. That’s what he was going to say. That’s what everyone else knew before I did.

As long as this attachment remains, it is impossible to make progress in perfection, even though the imperfection be very small. It makes little difference whether a bird is tied by a thin thread or by a cord. Even if it is tied by a thread, the bird will be held bound… it will be impeded from flying as long as it does not break the thread.” -            St John of the Cross,       Ascent of Mt. Carmel, Book One, 11.4.

The Carmel is a lovely little river. It isn't very long but in its course it has everything a river should have. It rises in the mountains, and tumbles down a while, runs through shallows, is damned to make a lake, spills over the dam, crackles among round boulders, wanders lazily under sycamores, spills into pools where trout live, drops in against banks where crayfish live. In the winter it becomes a torrent, a mean little fierce river, and in the summer it is a place for children to wade in and for fishermen to wander in. Frogs blink from its banks and the deep ferns grow beside it. Deer and foxes come to drink from it, secretly in the morning and evening, and now and then a mountain lion crouched flat laps its water. The farms of the rich little valley back up to the river and take its water for the orchards and the vegetables. The quail call beside it and the wild doves come whistling in at dusk. Raccoons pace its edges looking for frogs. It's everything a river should be.

In order to be united with him, the will must consequently be emptied of and detached from all disordered appetite and satisfaction with respect to every particular thing in which it can rejoice, whether earthly or heavenly, temporal or spiritual, so that purged and cleansed of all inordinate satisfactions, joys, and appetites it might be wholly occupied in loving God with its affections.

For its own well-being, the intellect should be doing what you condemn; that is, it should avoid busying itself with particular knowledge, for it cannot reach God through this knowledge, which would rather hinder it in its advance toward him.

Jack Frost hibernates from March to November, dreaming snowflake designs to share in December. With glittering breath, snowstorms, and blue blizzards, lakes made of crystal, he’s an icy wizard! People assume winter will be harsh, cold, and cruel and that Jack must be a wicked, cold-weather ghoul. But he’s truly an artist, known as Bringer of Ice, and although his heart is cold, he’s really quite nice.

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;         the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;     2 it shall blossom abundantly         and rejoice with joy and singing.     The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,         the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.     They shall see the glory of the LORD,         the majesty of our God.

When a great multitude is making a pilgrimage, I should never advise him to do so, for as a rule people return on these occasions in a state of greater distraction than when they went. And many set out and make these pilgrimages for recreation rather than devotion.

You’re dangerous because you can see the real in people.

I never thought I would touch you again," he says smoothly, his tone laced with emotion.

I'm not even capable of an auditory response; my vocal cords have shorted out and my jaw has dropped to the floor. Raunch-y.

Are you ready to pick up the pieces?" I ask quickly. "Yes, and I know exactly where each one goes.

In giving us his Son, his only and definitive word, God spoke everything to us at once in this sole word, and he has no more to say.

Maybe he's trying to be a gentleman, Carmel. Keeping away from the garlic for you." "Gross," I say, and Thomas laughs. It's Carmel who blushes this time.

Carmel. 1SA25.8 Ask thy young men, and they will shew

I look up. Carmel is wearing those eyeglasses that become sunglasses when you go outside. Except she’s inside and the glasses don’t seem to have realized.

Mondays taste like split-pea soup, Tuesdays taste like gobbledygook, Wednesdays taste like licorice, Thursdays taste like deep-fried fish, Fridays taste like the color red, Saturdays taste like gingerbread, Sundays taste like chicken breast, But birthdays! Birthdays taste the best! Birthdays taste like chocolate cake, Balloons, presents, and sirloin steak.

19. Before the divine fire is introduced into the substance of the soul and united with it through perfect and complete purgation and purity, its flame, which is the Holy Spirit, wounds the soul by destroying and consuming the imperfections of its bad habits. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit, in which he disposes it for divine union and transformation in God through love. The very fire of love that afterward is united with the soul, glorifying it, is what previously assailed it by purging it, just as the fire that penetrates a log of wood is the same that first makes an assault on the wood, wounding it with the flame, drying it out, and stripping it of its unsightly qualities until it is so disposed that it can be penetrated and transformed into the fire. Spiritual writers call this activity the purgative way.

I want to be the father I never had and the husband my mother was cheated out of. So if I have to take off my fucking clothes to make the money I need, I'll do it. And I pray you want me enough to suffer through it. Because I promise I'll make it up to you for the rest of my life.

Have habitual desire to imitate Christ in all your deeds by bringing your life into conformity with his. You must then study his life in order to know how to imitate him and behave in all events as he would.

God is more pleased by one work, however small, done secretly, without desire that it be known, than a thousand done with the desire that people know of them. Those who work for God with purest love not only care nothing about whether others see their works, but do not even seek that God himself know of them. Such persons would not cease to render God the same services, with the same joy and purity of love, even if God were never to know of these.

Keep this in mind, daughters: the soul that is quick to turn to speaking and conversing is slow to turn to God. For when it is turned toward God, it is then strongly and inwardly drawn toward silence and flight from all conversation. For God desires a soul to rejoice with him more than with any other person, however advanced and helpful the person may be.

Sometimes I sensed within myself–somestimes I felt it strongly– a will, a pull towards frivolity. I wanted to separate myself from the common fate of girls who are called Carmel, and identify myself with girls with casual names, names which their parents didn't think about too hard. I wanted to elect pleasure, not duty, and to be happy, and to have an expectation of happiness. I think now that this is the great division between people. There are people who find life hard and those who find it easy. There are those who have a natural, in-built, expectation of happiness, and there are those who feel that happiness is not to be expected: that it is not, in fact, one of the rights of man. Nor, God knows, one of the rights of women.

To endure all things, with an equable and peaceful mind, not only brings with it many blessings to the soul; but it also enables us, in the midst of our difficulties, to have a clear judgment about them, and to minister the fitting remedy for them.

Here are some of the towns I played last year: Carmel, Indiana; Hutchinson, Kansas; and Huntsville, Alabama. I even played Peoria. So why not limit my dates to easy-to-reach cities like Toronto, Chicago, and Reno? Easier still, why not just retire?

I spend my life worrying. I worry about everything, about money, about my daddy, about my future, but draped across Sebastian's lap, I am at ease. There's no storm. There's no boat. There is no up or down, just the slapping sound of his hand against my flesh.

For God is so desirous that the government and direction of every man should be undertaken by another man like himself, and that every man should be ruled and governed by natural reason, that He earnestly desires us not to give entire credence to the things that He communicates to us supernaturally, nor to consider them as being securely and completely confirmed until they pass through this human aqueduct of the mouth of man.

The problem is that one cannot easily build Charleston anymore, because it is against the law. Similarly, Boston’s Beacon Hill, Nantucket, Santa Fe, Carmel—all of these well-known places, many of which have become tourist destinations, exist in direct violation of current zoning ordinances.

Carmel was impatient, the story not to her liking. She did not enjoy to hear about anything Rose had done before she met her father. (Nor did she like to hear about Richie's mother Louise or anything of John's life with her. It was uncomfortable to think she might so nearly not have existed.

Scott stared at her mouth, just stared like he was hypnotized, paralyzed, like that crimson O was the answer to all of life’s problems, or maybe just his prayers. I kicked his shin to break the spell, which worked; he blinked, then ate the bite himself as if he’d never even offered it to anyone at all. I looked frankly at Carmel; her expression was innocently amused. There are women whose whole selves are engaged in being a public commodity, and Carmel was one of these. Every gesture she made, every syllable she uttered, the tinkle of her laughter, the way her dress’s fabric draped over her breasts, all of it was self-conscious and deliberate, designed to elicit admiration in women, desire in men. This isn’t to say I held any of that against her. Not a bit. I liked her, in fact. The way I saw it, she was a kind of living work of art, and funny and thoughtful besides. Was it her fault if she, as had happened to me, sometimes provoked the basest feelings in a man? Scott and Fred made short work of that second bottle of brandy while Carmel’s and my glasses still held our initial pour. I’d found that drinking very much of any kind of alcohol still did bad things to my stomach. Carmel might have found that it did bad things to her self-preservation; I know that if I looked like her, I’d never let down my guard.

Only a few months ago, standing in front of thousands of people would have made me suicidal. But tonight, I can enjoy the holiday with my immortal, like any other normal girl.

True Love Does Not Exist. 4 You To Have True Love, You Need Trust And Commitment. And That Will Never Happen...

My father sighs, "Alana, sometimes it takes one instant to change an entire life's perspective.

If you love someone, say so! Not just with words mind, but in your actions too.

Life can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be.’ Olly snorts.

Everyone knows that not to go forward on this road is to turn back, and not to gain ground is to lose.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.

Joan Baez was a personality before she was entirely a person, and, like anyone to whom that happen, she is in a sense the hapless victim of what others have seen in her, written about her, wanted her to be and not to be. The roles assigned to her are various, but variations on a single theme. She is the Madonna of the disaffected. She is the pawn of the protest movement. She is the unhappy analysand. She is the singer who would not train her voice, the rebel who drives the Jaguar too fast, the Rima who hides with the bird and the deer. Above all, she is the girl who “feels” things, who has hung on to the freshness and pain of adolescence, the girl ever wounded, ever young. Now, at an age when the wounds begin to heal whether one wants them to or not, Joan Baez never leaves the Carmel Valley.

Hence, for the soul to be in its center - which is God, as we have said - it is sufficient for it to possess one degree of love, for by one degree alone it is united with him through grace. Should it have two degrees, it becomes united and concentrated in God in another, deeper center. Should it reach three, it centers itself in a third. But once it has attained the final degree, God's love has arrived at wounding the soul in its ultimate and deepest center, which is to illuminate and transform it in its whole being, power, and strength, and according to its capacity, until it appears to be God. When light shines on a clean and pure crystal, we find that the more intense the degree of light, the more light the crystal has concentrated within it and the brighter it becomes; it can become so brilliant from the abundance of light received that it seems to be all light. And then the crystal is undistinguishable from the light, since it is illumined according to its full capacity, which is to appear to be light.

Lila mě postupně přesvědčila, že v lásce získáme trochu jistoty, jen když svého nápadníka podrobíme přetěžkým zkouškám. A proto, přešla rázem zas do dialektu, mi radí, abych se s Ginem zasnoubila, ale jen pod podmínkou, že bude celé léto kupovat mně, jí a Carmele zmrzlinu. „Když s tím nebude souhlasit, znamená to, že to není pravá láska.“ Udělala jsem, co mi řekla, a Gino zmizel. Takže to nebyla pravá láska.

Whether you deliver or receive the handover report, mindful communication during handovers is essential and can significantly reduce the risk of errors and accidents during your shift and the ones that follow.

Letter 26 [To Madre María de la Encarnación,[53] discalced Carmelite in Segovia July 6, 1591][54]   ... Do not let what is happening to me, daughter, cause you any grief, for it does not cause me any. What greatly grieves me is that the one who is not at fault is blamed. Men do not do these things, but God, who knows what is suitable for us and arranges things for our good. Think nothing else but that God ordains all, and where there is no love, put love, and you will draw out love ...

Her home in the hills above Carmel Valley is awash in thousands of books and documents. Among them is the 26-volume Warren Commission hearings and her 27,000 pages of textual analysis. “I studied it for eight years. It was like the Rosetta Stone. It unlocked every other conspiracy,” Brussell says. “Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the Kennedys—there is always a pattern where a piece of information is destroyed, in which a witness is killed. It’s so predictable, you can go back and look up old cases.

We do not know whether or not Thérèse had a premonition of an early death when she entered Carmel. What we do know is that by the time she passed through the portals of the cloister, she was already skilled in some of the secrets of spiritual living. For example, mortification “consisted in breaking my will, always so ready to impose itself on others, in holding back a reply, in rendering little services without recognition.”2 The practice of these nothings prepared her to be espoused to Jesus, but nothing was more important to Thérèse than the sacramental life.

It is regrettable, then, to behold some souls, laden as rich vessels with wealth, deeds, spiritual exercises, virtues, and favors from God, who never advance because they lack the courage to make a complete break with some little satisfaction, attachment, or affection (which are all about the same) and thereby never reach the port of perfection.

When we turned off Carmel Valley Road south onto Highway 1 and entered Big Sur, nature woke up and suddenly started doing the can-can. Everywhere I looked, the jagged mountains were tumbling into the sea, like rockslides frozen in free fall—still yet dramatic at the same time. We navigated a thin, winding ribbon of road hundreds of feet above the exploding surf. I rolled the window down, and heard sea lions barking and waves booming into sea caves below. The spicy aroma of sage mixed with sea salt wafted into the truck. We dipped down into forests where the air dropped ten degrees and the massive redwood trees clustered together in tribal circles, then we burst back into the sun again. I twisted my head in every direction, trying not to miss a thing.

does our relational language, already imbued with oppressive cultural meaning-making, necessarily preclude the possibility of speaking about freedom? How can you speak about freedom if you can't speak freely? Does the way that we talk about this problem make a difference in how we try to solve it? Does the question as I've phrased it fail to adequately exhaust the possibilities?

8. Such is the lowliness of our condition in this life; for we think others are like ourselves and we judge others according to what we ourselves are, since our judgment arises from within us and not outside us. Thus the thief thinks others also steal; and the lustful think others are lustful too; and the malicious think others also bear malice, their judgment stemming from their own malice; and the good think well of others, for their judgment flows from the goodness of their own thoughts; and to those who are careless and asleep, it seems that others are too. Hence it is that when we are careless and asleep in God's presence, it seems to us it is God who is asleep and neglectful of us, as is seen in psalm 43 where David calls to him: Arise, Lord, why do you sleep? Arise [Ps. 44:23].

The outsiders stood always in awe in front of what they had surnamed the Celestial City with Mighty Walls. The great mystery that cloaked its very foundations kept impelling the youth of Crotona, as well as those of the adjacent cities, to seek admittance. In spite of the difficult rules of the Master, curiosity goaded many to venture inside its secrecy, with a passionate aspiration to discover the unknown. Yet, to enroll, young men and women should be introduced by their parents. Sometimes, it was one of the assigned Masters of the Pythagorean Society who assumed the introduction. At the massive wooden gated entrance, one could admire the marble statue of Hermes-Enoch, the father of the spiritual laws. A cubical stone formed its stall where a skillful hand had carved the words: No entry to the vulgar

14. I say this in order to make it clear that the one who would go to God relying on natural ability and reasoning will not be very spiritual. There are some who think that by pure force and the activity of the senses, which of itself is lowly and no more than natural, they can reach the strength and height of the supernatural spirit. One does not attain to this peak without surpassing and leaving aside the activity of the senses.

SAMUEL 30 Now when David and his men came to  uZiklag on the third day,  vthe Amalekites had  wmade a raid against the Negeb and against Ziklag. They had overcome Ziklag and burned it with fire 2and taken captive the women and all [1] who were in it, both small and great. They killed no one, but carried them off and went their way. 3And when David and his men came to the city, they found it burned with fire, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. 4Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. 5David’s  xtwo wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. 6And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke  yof stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, [2] each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.

I want to feel you.” “You feel me every day,” he pulls my hand to his lips and kisses the inside of my palm. “No, I want to feel you my way,” I say uneasily. He stares down at me with mesmerizing eyes. They are so lustrous they even seem to glow in the darkness. He is contemplating my request. He takes my hand from his lips and carefully moves it towards his chest; I can’t explain the fear I have from just that small gesture. The anticipation of what I will find excites me and terrifies me all at once. The last time - the only time - I felt Justice, he literally lit me on fire. As I apprehensively touch his skin, it washes over me. The tender warmth he holds inside, like I’m being wrapped in warm blankets on a cold autumn morning. “Feel what you were looking for?” he asks. “Yes,” I say, as I spread my fingers over him. The sensation is glorious. “Good,” he leans down and kisses me, his lips holding the same warmth as my insides. Without even thinking, I wrap my arms around his neck and jerk him in closer.

Pray the Rosary every day to achieve peace for the world and the end of the war,' said Our Lady on May 13, 1917. This insistent recommendation was not only for the three poor and humble children; it is a call to the whole world, to all souls, to all humanity, believers and unbelievers, because Faith is a gift from God and we are to ask Him for it: ‘ask and you shall receive.’ You who have no Faith, ask it of God and He will grant it, because you who have no Faith have a soul that you need to save so that you will not be eternally miserable.

The will's operation is quite distinct from the will's feeling: By its operation, which is love, the will is united with God and terminates in him, and not by the feeling and gratification of its appetite that remains in the soul and goes no further. The feelings only serve as stimulants to love, if the will desires to pass beyond them; and they serve for no more. Thus the delightful feelings do not of themselves lead the soul to God, but rather cause it to become attached to delightful feelings. But the operation of the will, which is the love of God, concentrates the affection, joy, plea sure, satisfaction, and love of the soul only on God, leaving aside all things and loving him above them all.

Hence they would be very foolish who would think that God is failing them because of their lack of spiritual sweetness and delight, or would rejoice, thinking they possess God because of the presence of this sweet ness. And they would be more foolish if they were to go in search of this sweetness in God and rejoice and be detained in it. With such an attitude they would no longer be seeking God with their wills grounded in the emptiness of faith and charity, but they would be seeking spiritual satisfaction and sweetness, which are creatures, by following after their own pleasure and appetite. And thus they would no longer be loving God purely, above all things, which means centering all the strength of one's will on him.

STANZA 2   O sweet cautery, O delightful wound! O gentle hand! O delicate touch that tastes of eternal life and pays every debt! in killing you changed death to life.   Commentary   1. In this stanza the soul proclaims how the three Persons of the Most Blessed Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are the ones who effect this divine work of union in it. Thus the hand, the cautery, and the touch are in substance the same. The soul applies these terms to the Persons of the Trinity because of the effect each of the Persons produces. The cautery is the Holy Spirit, the hand is the Father, and the touch is the Son. The soul here magnifies the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, stressing the three admirable favors and blessings they produce in it, having changed its death to life, transforming it in the Trinity.

Since the will has never tasted God as he is or known him through some gratification of the appetite, and consequently does not know what God is like, it cannot know what the pleasure of God is; nor can its being, appetite, and satisfaction know how to desire God, for he transcends all its capacity. Thus it is obvious that none of all those particular things in which it can rejoice is God. In order to be united with him, the will must consequently be emptied of and detached from all disordered appetite and satisfaction with respect to every particular thing in which it can rejoice, whether earthly or heavenly, temporal or spiritual, so that purged and cleansed of all inordinate satisfactions, joys, and appetites it might be wholly occupied in loving God with its affections. For if in any way the will can comprehend God and be united with him, it is through love and not through any gratification of the appetite.

we assert that when a rock is in the ground it is, after a fashion, in its center, even though it is not in its deepest center, for it is within the sphere of its center, activity, and movement; yet we do not assert that it has reached its deepest center, which is the middle of the earth. Thus the rock always possesses the power, strength, and inclination to go deeper and reach the ultimate and deepest center; and this it would do if the hindrance were removed. When once it arrives and no longer has any power or inclination toward further movement, we declare that it is in its deepest center. 12. The soul's center is God. When it has reached God with all the capacity of its being and the strength of its operation and inclination, it will have attained its final and deepest center in God, it will know, love, and enjoy God with all its might. When it has not reached this point (as happens in this mortal life, in which the soul cannot reach God with all its strength, even though in its center - which is God through grace and his self-communication to it), it still has movement and strength for advancing further and is not satisfied. Although it is in its center, it is not yet in its deepest center, for it can go deeper in God.