O God of my soul, how we hasten to offend You and how You hasten even more to pardon us! What reason is there, Lord, for such deranged boldness? Could it be that we have already understood Your great mercy and have forgotten that Your justice is just?
The sorrows of death surround me [Ps 18:4].
Oh, oh, oh, what a serious thing sin is, for it was enough to kill God with so many sorrows! And how surrounded You are by them, my God! Where can You go that they do not torment You? Everywhere mortals wound You.
O Christians, it’s time to defend your King and to accompany Him in such great solitude. Few are the vassals remaining with Him, and great the multitude accompanying Lucifer.
And what’s worse is that these latter appear as His friends in public and sell Him in secret. He finds almost no one in whom to trust. O true Friend, how badly they pay You back who betray You! […]
O you who are accustomed to delights, satisfactions, and consolations, and to always doing your own will, take pity on yourselves! Recall that you will have to be subject forever and ever, without end, to the infernal furies.
Behold, behold that the Judge who will condemn you now asks you; and that your lives are not safe for one moment. Why don’t you want to live forever? Oh, hardness of human hearts! May Your boundless compassion, my God, soften these hearts.
Saint Teresa of Avila
Soliloquies, 10
Teresa of Avila, St. 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K; Rodriguez, O, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: The Second Conversion of St. Teresa is an oil on canvas painting executed ca. 1694 by an unknown artist from the Cuzco school. “Serie Chica sobre la Vida de Santa Teresa,” Carmel of St. Joseph, Santiago, Chile.
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