So then – in the time of labors and persecutions, of insults and injuries inflicted by one’s neighbor, of mental conflicts and deprivation of spiritual consolations, by the Creator or by the creature (by the Creator in His gentleness, when He withdraws the feeling of the mind, so that it does not seem as if God were in the soul, so many are its pains and conflicts – and by fellow-creatures, in conversation or amusement, or when the soul thinks that it loves more than it is loved) – in all these things, I say that the soul perfected by humility says, “My Lord, behold Thy handmaid: be it done unto me according to Thy word, and not according to what I want with my senses.”
–Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
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