Holy Church! Twenty years I had been looking for you: I looked at you and I did not know you, because you were hidden under the dark shadows of an enigma, of tropes and metaphors, and I could not see you except under the species of a being incomprehensible to me; that is how I looked at you and that is how I loved you.
It is you, O holy Church, that I love! You are the only object of my love! Ah, since I have been grieving for you for so many years, why did you cover yourself and hide from my sight?
Blessed Francis of Jesus Mary Joseph Palau y Quer
Mis relaciones con la Iglesia, Chap. III, no. 1
Note: Blessed Francis Palau y Quer was born to José Palau y Antonia Quer on 29 December 1811 in Aytona (Lerida) Spain. Founder of the “School of Virtue”—which was a model of catechetical teaching—at Barcelona, he suffered much during his life and ministry. While in exile at Ibiza in the Balearic Islands, often Blessed Palau would row to the rugged island of Es Vedra and pray in the solitude of a cave. He began to write his autobiographical journal, Mis relaciones con la Iglesia (My relations with the Church) in that solitude. While in the Balearic Islands he founded the Congregations of Teresian Carmelite Missionary Sisters and Brothers (1860-1861) at Ciutadella de Menorca.
Translation from the Spanish text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.
Carmelite Quotes 
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