He has never left you.It is justthat your soul is so vastthat just likethe earth in its innocence,it may think,"I do not feel my lover's warmthagainst my face rightnow."But look, dear,is not the sun reaching down its armsand always holding a continentin its light?God cannot leave us.It is just that our soul is so vast,we do not always feel His lipsupon theveil.
St. Catherine of SienaWe've been deceived by the thought that we would be more pleasing to God in our own way than in the way God has given us.
St. Catherine of SienaThe strongest and purest love is not the one that starts from impressions, but the one that comes from admiration.
St. Catherine of SienaTo a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.
St. Catherine of SienaThe city is the image of the soul, the surrounding walls being the frontier between the outward and inward life. The gates are the faculties or senses connecting the life of the soul with the outward world. Living springs of water rise within it. And in the centre, where beats the heart, stands the holy sanctuary.
St. Catherine of SienaWe were enclosed, O eternal Father, within the garden of your breast. You drew us out of your holy mind like a flower petaled with our soul's three powers and into each power you put the whole plant, so that they might bear fruit in your garden, might come back to you with the fruit you gave them. And you would come back to the soul, to fill her with your blessedness. There the soul dwells like the fish in the sea and the sea in the fish.
St. Catherine of Siena