There is no affliction, trial, or labor difficult to endure, when we consider the torments and sufferings which Our Lord Jesus Christ endured for us.
Teresa Of AvilaRead
To converse with You, O King of glory, no third person is needed, You are always ready in the Sacrament of the Altar to give audience to all. All who desire You always find You there, and converse with You face to face
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes a personal and direct relationship with the divine without intermediaries.
Teresa of Avila expresses the intimate connection individuals can have with God through prayer and the sacrament of the altar. She reassures that one does not need a mediator to engage with the divine, as God is always present and ready to listen, inviting believers to converse directly and meaningfully with Him.
In practice
This quote could be used in a sermon to illustrate the availability of God's presence during prayer.
There is no affliction, trial, or labor difficult to endure, when we consider the torments and sufferings which Our Lord Jesus Christ endured for us.
How often I failed in my duty to God, because I was not leaning on the strong pillar of prayer.
What friends or kindred can be so close and intimate as the powers of our soul, which, whether we will or no, must ever bear us company?
If we do not use great care to mortify our will, there are many things which can deprives us of the holy freedom of spirit that we are seeking in order to fly more freely to our Creator, without always being bogged down with the clay of this earth. Moreover, there can never be solid virtue in a soul that is attached to its own will.
I say the same of humility and of all the virtues; the wiles of the devil are terrible, he will run a thousand times round hell if by so doing he can make us believe that we have a single virtue which we have not. And he is right, for such ideas are very harmful, and such imaginary virtues, when they come from this source, are never unaccompanied by vainglory; just as those which God gives are free both from this and from pride.
Patience attains All that it strives for. He who has God Finds he lacks nothing: God alone suffices.
To predispose our mind to welcome the Lord who, as we say in the Creed, one day will come to judge the living and the dead, we must learn to recognize him as present in the events of daily life. Therefore, Advent is, so to speak, an intense training that directs us decisively toward him who already came, who will come, and who comes continuously.
You must know how to translate the indications of the word into daily witness, allowing yourselves to be formed by the word which, like seed sown in good soil, brings abundant fruit. Thus you will remain docile to the Spirit and grow in union with God, you will cultivate fraternal communion among yourselves and be ready to serve your brethren generously, especially those most in need.
I bow at His Feet constantly, and pray to Him, the Guru, the True Guru, has shown me the Way.
I discovered a version of the sinner's prayer that increased my faith far more than the one that I had said years earlier...In this version, there were no formulas, no set phrases that promised us safe passage across the abyss. There was only our tattered trust that the Spirit who had given us life would not leave us in the wilderness without offering us life again.
Dear God, I give this time of quiet to You. Please dissolve my thoughts of stress and fear And deliver me to the inner place Where all is peace and love. Amen.
Let me say that it is not a question of us getting more of the Holy Spirit, but rather of the Holy Spirit getting more of us.
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