Sublime

Teresa of Avila.

To develop our spirituality, we need to drop our pretense of already knowing who we are and be open to the vast unknown depths of self.

Say, “Father, help me to understand what is keeping this person from knowing you.”

Ask His aid; but realize that you yourself, as His beloved child, are employing His gifts of will, emotion, and reason to solve all difficult problems of life. A balance should be struck between the medieval idea of wholly depending on God and the modern way of sole reliance on the ego.

The royal road to mysticism and to Reality does not pass through the world of people. It passes through the world of actions that are engaged in for themselves without an eye to success or to gain—or profit actions.

And how do we make an offering to Kali? The things that don’t liberate us, we give up. What do we give up? Unworthiness. We don’t need to analyze it; we just give it up. We give up guilt. Guilt isn’t going to get us to God. We give up anger. It’s not going to free us. Preoccupation with our own melodrama—we give up. Do we want to hold on to it, or

My Jesus, cure me of the desire to know everything. Instead give me great care for my eternal salvation. For I know you will judge me, not on the amount of knowledge I have amassed, but on my attention to salvation. Lord, give to all of us the grace to know, esteem, love, and practice the virtue of humility. Amen.

St. Augustine (AD 354–430) in affirming every human being as a trinity of existence (being), intellect, and will.

observe yourself in the course of a day or a week and think how many actions of yours are performed, how many activities engaged in that are uncontaminated by the desire for these thrills, these excitements that only produce emptiness, the desire for attention, approval, fame, popularity, success or power.