I was in misery, and misery is the state of every soul overcome by friendship with mortal things and lacerated when they are lost. Then the soul becomes aware of the misery which is its actual condition even before it loses them.
Now the Apostle, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says, "Knowledge inflates: but love edifies." The only correct inerpretation of this saying is that knowledge is valuable when charity informs it. Without charity, knowledge inflates; that is, it exalts man to an arrogance which is nothing but a kind of windy emptiness.
What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction
The fellow who eggs you on to avenge yourself will rob you of what you were going to say - as we forgive our debtors . When you have forfeited that, all your sins will be held against you; absolutely nothing is forgiven.
He who devoutly hears holy Mass will receive a great vigor to enable him to resist mortal sin, and there shall be pardoned to him all venial sins which he may have committed up to that hour.
God suffers not the pain of repentance, nor is He deceived in any matter, so that He would wish to correct that wherein He has erred. But as when a man repents of anything, he wishes to change what he has done; thus where you hear that God repents, look for an actual change. God does it differently from you, although He calls it by the name of repentance; for thou dost it, because you had erred; while He does it, because He avenges, or frees.
My love for you, Lord, is not an uncertain feeling, but a matter of concious certainty. With your word you pierced my heart, and I loved you. But heaven and earth and everything in them on all sides tell me to love you.
The desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.