O souls who in spiritual matters desire to walk in security andconsolation! If you but knew how much it behooves you to suffer inorder to reach this security and consolation, and how without sufferingyou cannot attain to your desire but rather turn back, in no way wouldyou look for comfort either from God or from creatures. You wouldinstead carry the cross and, placed on it, desire to drink the puregall and vinegar. You would consider it good fortune that, dying tothis world and to yourselves, you would live to God in the delights ofthe spirit, and patiently and faithfully suffering exterior trials,which are small, you would merit that God fix his eyes on you and purgeyou more profoundly through deeper spiritual trials in order to giveyou more interior blessings. -St. John of the Cross