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Saint! Saint!
Saint! Saint!

Please mother,
open the door!
The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself Chapter 29
The true impulses are very different. We do not pile the wood beneath the fire ourselves; it is rather as if it were already burning and we were suddenly thrown in to be consumed. The soul makes no effort to feel the pain caused it by the Lord’s presence, but is pierced to the depths of its entrails, or sometimes to the heart, by an arrow, so that it does not know what is wrong or what it desires. It knows quite well that it desires God. and that the arrow seems to have been tipped with some poison which makes it so hate itself out of love of the Lord that it is willing to give up its life for Him.
ibid., Chapter 29
In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated my entrails. When he pulled it out, I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one's soul then content with anything but God. This is not a physical, but a spiritual pain—though the body has some share in it—even a considerable share.
ibid., Chapter 30
It is my intellect and my imagination, I think, that are harming me here. My will, I believe, is good, and well-disposed to all that is good. But this intellect of mine is so wild that it seems like a raving lunatic. Nobody can hold it down, and I have not sufficient control over it myself to keep it quiet for a single moment. Sometimes I laugh at myself, and am aware of my wretched state. Then I observe my intellect, and let it alone, to see what it will do; and, miraculously – glory be to God! – it never turns to things that are really wrong, only to indifferent matters, and casts around here, there, and everywhere, for something to think about. I then become more conscious of the very great favour that God bestows on me when he binds this madman in the chains of perfect contemplation.
Tiresias
Teresa
“On these lonely hills and dales her quiescent glide was of a piece with the element she moved in. Her flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural processes around her till they seemed a part of her own story. Rather they became a part of it; for the world is only a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they were. The midnight airs and gusts, moaning amongst the tightly-wrapped buds and bark of the winter twigs, were formulae of bitter reproach. A wet day was the expression of irremediable grief at her weakness in the mind of some vague ethical being whom she could not class definitely as the God of her childhood, and could not comprehend as any other. (Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy)
Tess
By trying to save her, he loses her. By doing 'good'! By trying to save him, by doing 'good,' the world that she loved turned against her. / But the 'good' will always be recognised... somewhere! (Lars von Trier, "Director's Note - This Film is About 'Good'")
Bess
—It's actually... the souls of the trees that we see in the winter. I think they look like human souls.
—You're right.
They do look like human souls.
—Twisted souls, regular souls, crazy souls. All depending on the kind of lives human beings lead.
I found my tree, my soul tree.
This is my tree.
It's not an ash tree.
No, it's an oak tree.
—My father found his soul tree,
but I've... I've never found mine.
"You will know it when you see it," that's what he said.
(Nymphomaniac, Vol. II, Lars von Trier)
Joe
Like two hot-headed lovers, the aging celibate nun Teresa and the celibate young priest John had a passionate and tumultuous connection. Many years into their relationship, John, a natural renunciate, came to the conclusion that he was overly attached to Teresa and so he systematically burned a treasury of letters documenting their friendship. Teresa both revered John’s penetrating insight and resented his unapologetic critique of her dramatic spiritual episodes. ("Introduction," The Interior Castle, trans. Mirabai Starr)
San Juan de la Cruz
Noche oscura del alma

En una noche oscura,
con ansias en amores inflamada
¡oh dichosa ventura!
salí sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.

A oscuras y segura,
por la secreta escala, disfrazada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!
a oscuras y en celada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.

En la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que nadie me veía,
ni yo miraba cosa,
sin otra luz y guía
sino la que en el corazón ardía.

Aquesta me guiaba
más cierto que la luz del mediodía
a donde me esperaba
quien yo bien me sabía,
en parte donde nadie parecía.

¡Oh noche, que guiaste!
¡Oh noche amable más que la alborada!
¡Oh noche que juntaste
Amado con amada
amada en el Amado transformada!

En mi pecho florido,
que entero para él solo se guardaba,
allí quedó dormido,
y yo le regalaba,
y el ventalle de cedros aire daba.

El aire de la almena,
cuando yo sus cabellos esparcía,
con su mano serena
en mi cuello hería,
y todos mis sentidos suspendía.

Quedé y olvidéme,
el rostro recliné sobre el Amado;
cesó todo, y dejéme,
dejando mi cuidado
entre las azucenas olvidado.