We can say without exaggeration that few young girls have loved as passionately as Thérèse loved her Lord Jesus. In order to find her Beloved, she walked through the very heart of the desert, for, after all, that was the quickest way to find him. Her spiritual father, St John of the Cross, had taught her ‘to go to the All by way of the Nothing’. Solitude did not mean Void. It implied a pleasurable walk to the dwelling-place of her Beloved in the oasis.
Conrad de Meester, O.C.D.
Love Beckons: The Desert
de Meester, C 2002, With Empty Hands: The Message of St. Therese of Lisieux, translated from the French by Seymour, M, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Carmelite Quotes 
How truly delightful! Where I come from, they say, “find someone who has what you want [spiritually], and ask how they got it…”