"...God is giving you, but do not be attached so much to what is sensible. With a pure and naked spirit of faith lose sight of the sensible and let it disappear and die in the fire of divine love, and simply repose on the bosom of God in a sacred silence of faith and holy love, and lose yourself in your true ... nothingness..." ~Paul of the Cross to Thomas Fossi (Fossi's 158th letter on May 26, 1770 in Vol. 3 on Page 573 for Paul's Letter 1902)

It is a wonderful thing and worth relating that, since this fire of God is so mighty it would consume a thousand worlds more easily than the fire of this earth would burn up a straw, it does not consume and destroy the soul in which it so burns. And it does not afflict it; rather, commensurate with the strength of the love, it divinizes and delights it, burning gently. ~John of the Cross "The Living Flame of Love"