When one gets to know God; when in the silence of prayer He overshadows our soul with a ray of His infinite beauty; when He overshadows our mind with His wisdom and power; when He inflames us with His goodness and mercy; then everything on earth is seen with sadness.
St. Teresa of Jesus of the Andes from a letter to her brother Lucho

Oh, if you could go to the depths of my soul even for an instant, you'd see me captivated by that Beauty, by that incomprehensible Goodness. How I'd love to bind the hearts of creatures and surrender them to divine Love!
St. Teresa of Jesus from her Letters

Lucho dear, throughout these days I have kept you here with me in this retreat... How I'd like to share with you what I feel, little brother of my soul. How I'd love to show you the lovely infinite horizon beyond creation that I experience and contemplate. I love God now a thousand times more than I did before, because I hadn't known Him. He reveals and makes Himself known to souls that really seek to know and love Him. Everything on earth, dear Lucho, seems to shrink, to lose value before the Divinity which, like an infinite Sun, continues to shine upon my miserable soul with its rays. Oh, if you could go to the depths of my soul even for an instant, you'd see me captivated by that Beauty, by that incomprehensible Goodness. How I'd love to bind the hearts of creatures and surrender them to divine Love! You've never known the heaven that I, through God's mercy, possess in my heart. Yes. I have a heaven in my soul, because God is there, and God is heaven.
St. Teresa of Jesus of the Andes from her letter to her brother Lucho