Jesus told me I should obey my confessor. That I should place myself into His divine hands, and that I shouldn’t be disturbed about anything, since He told me where I’ll be.
I examined what was bringing me to Carmel and the principal reason is that there I’ll live already as in Heaven, since I’ll never be separated from God for even a moment. I’ll praise Him and will constantly sing His mercies, without mixing myself with anything in the world.
Also, the rigors of penance attract me, since I feel a longing to be a martyr in my body, despising it with scourges, not giving into it in anything that pleases it, and making reparation for the time that I gave it pleasure and denied it to my soul.
I love the Carmelites because they are so simple, so joyful and Jesus must be that way. But I see also that the life of a Carmelite consists in suffering, loving, and praying.
When the consolations of prayer are denied me, what will happen to me? I tremble. But Jesus said to me: “Do you believe I’ll abandon you?”
Saint Teresa of the Andes
Retreat journal, Thursday, 23 August 1917
Griffin, M D & Teresa of the Andes, S 2021, God, The Joy of My Life: A Biography of Saint Teresa of the Andes With the Saint’s Spiritual Diary, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Carmelite Quotes 
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