Quote of the day, 5 June: St. John of the Cross

A soul enkindled with love is a gentle, meek, humble, and patient soul.

Sayings of Light and Love, 29

The soul does not always feel this inflaming and anxious longing of love. In the beginning of the spiritual purgation, the divine fire spends itself in drying out and preparing the wood — that is, the soul — rather than in heating it. Yet as time passes and the fire begins to give off heat, the soul usually experiences the burning and warmth of love.

As the intellect becomes more purged by means of this darkness, it happens sometimes that this mystical and loving theology, besides inflaming the will, also wounds the intellect by illumining it with some knowledge and light so delightfully and delicately that the will is thereby marvelously enkindled in fervor. This divine fire burns in the will — while the will remains passive — like a living flame and in such a way that this love now seems to be a live fire because of the living knowledge communicated. David says in the psalm: My heart grew hot within me and a certain fire was enkindled while I was knowing [Ps. 39:3¹].

Saint John of the Cross

The Dark Night, Book II, chap. 12, no. 5

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

1. The Douay-Rheims translation 1899 American Edition states in Psalm 38:4, “My heart grew hot within me: and in my meditation a fire shall flame out.”