Many / One

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Compiled by JoAnn Kite

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The Soul Afire, Revelations of the Mystics
H. A. Reinhold, editor

1 "St. Augustine says, 'Well and truly loves the man who loves where he well knows he is not loved; that is the best of all loving.'" Meister Eckhart (1260-1327)

2 "Outwardly practised and inwardly cherished virtue produces peace of soul." Blessed John Tauler (1300-1361), German scholar, mystic

3 "God sees Himself in Himself alone and draws His power from Himself alone, and He sees Himself in all His creatures, even in those that have no sensation, and in them He feels Himself through the power with which He gives them their being, and causes them to be of use and to bear fruit." St. Maria Maddelena de'Pazzi (1566-1607), teacher, political activist

4 "The power and the constancy of God's eternal kingdom cannot be destroyed by the impact of unsteadfast mutability." St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Abbess, visionary

5 "You must know that divinity is undivided." Symeon the Younger (949-1022), mystic of the Eastern Church

6 "One must hunt down one's nature in an implacable course towards perfection, to the end that one may exhale and infuse one's whole being, open mouthed, into the mouth of God." Fr. Joseph LeClerc du Tremblay, quoted by Aldous Huxley in 'Grey Eminence'

7 "All creatures have a certain good of their own, to the completeness and perfection of their nature." St. Augustine (b.354)

8 "And as the soul within your dust, through members differing and conformed to divers powers, doth diffuse itself, so doth the Intelligence deploy its goodness, multiplied through the stars, revolving still on its own unity." Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

9 "Eternal Wisdom: My beloved ones are encompassed by My love, and are absorbed into the One Thing alone without imaged love and without spoken words, and are taken and infused into that good out of which they flowed." Henry Suso (1295-1366), German mystic

10 "God in His faithfulness gives each man what is best for him….For God in His Godhood sees each thing as it is at its best." Meister Eckhart (1260-1327)

11 "In that spiritual home where the Uncreated, the Formless, the Ineffable, keeps the soul infinitely removed from all the specific detail of created shadows and atoms, we remain calm even when our senses are the prey of the tempest." Fr. J. P. deCaussade, S.J. (1675-1751), French teacher

12 "Whoever loves something fervently and with all his strength….he will never forget what he so loves, and in all things he will see the Image of the One, and he will see it within him more clearly as his love grows deeper and deeper." Meister Eckhart (1260-1327)

13 "I saw the One I love, with eyes that learned to see. I saw within my soul that He was waiting there." Mechtild of Magdeburg (ca. 1207-1294), German mystic

14 "In this embrace, in the essential Unity of God, all inward spirits are one with God in the immersion of love; and are that same one which the Essence is in Itself, according to the mode of Eternal Bliss." John Ruysbroeck (1293-1381), Dutch mystic

15 "It [the soul] could and should abide in God, in God alone! God above all graces, God above every cross!" Lucie Christine, French mystic, author

16 "There was talk of a man who wanted to begin his life anew and I spoke in this way: man shall become a seeker of God in all things, and a finder of God at all times, and everywhere and among all people and in every way. And therein one can always and incessantly wax and grow and there shall be no end of waxing." Meister Eckhart (1260-1327)

17 "Eternal Wisdom: My love is of that sort which is not diminished in unity, nor confounded in multiplicity. I am as entirely concerned and occupied with you alone, with the thought how I may at all times love you alone, and fulfill everything that appertains to you, as though I were wholly disengaged from all other things." Henry Suso (1295-1366), German mystic

18 "Man is the hand of God." Theologia Germanica, 14th century,

19 "Eternal Wisdom: 'I go forth to meet those who seek Me, and I receive with affectionate joy such as desire My love. All that you can ever experience of My sweet love in time is but as a little drop to the ocean of My love in eternity." Henry Suso (1295-1366), German mystic

20 "Whatsoever is good shall no one take unto himself as his own, seeing that it belongs to the Eternal Goodness only." Theologia Germanica, 14th century

21 "God has made, of one single stock, all the nations that were to dwell over the whole face of the earth." New Testament, Acts 17: 22-23

22 "The sacred inclination to love God above all things has remained in us, as well as the natural light by which we recognize that His Sovereign Goodness is loving over all." St. Francis deSales (1567-1622), Doctor of the Church, founder of a humanistic school of mysticism

23 "And in all his works and in all things, man should consciously use his reason and always have a reasonable insight into himself, into his inner being, and grasp God within all things in the highest possible sense." Meister Eckhart (1260-1327)

24 "All [mystics] have the same message about that very thing which no soul can utter; the immediate experience of God."

25 "Hold for certain that what happens to you internally and externally is for the best." J. P. deCaussade (1675-1751), French priest, teacher

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite