Well-beloved was Himself the only object which attracted
my heart. I could not contemplate His attributes. I knew nothing else,
but to love and to suffer. Ignorance more truly learned than any
science of the doctors, since it taught me so well Jesus Christ
crucified and brought me to be in love with His holy cross. I could
then have wished to die, in order to be inseparably united to Him who
so powerfully attracted my heart. As all this passed in the will, the
imagination and the understanding being absorbed in it, I knew not what
to say, having never read or heard of such a state as I experienced. I
dreaded delusion and feared that all was not right, for before this I
had known nothing of the operations of God in souls. I had only read
St. Francis de Sales, Thomas a'Kempis, _The Spiritual Combat_, and
the Holy Scriptures. I was quite a stranger to those spiritual books
wherein such states are described.

Then all those amusements and pleasures that are prized and esteemed
appeared to me dull and insipid. I wondered how it could be that I had
ever enjoyed them. And indeed since that time, I could never find any
satisfaction or enjoyment out of God. I have sometimes been unfaithful
enough to find it. I was not astonished that martyrs gave their lives
for Jesus Christ. I thought them happy, and sighed after their
privilege of suffering for Him, I so esteemed the cross that my
greatest trouble was the want of suffering as much as my heart thirsted
for.

This respect and esteem for the cross continually increased. Afterward
I lost the sensible relish and enjoyment, yet the love and esteem no
more left me than the cross itself. Indeed, it has ever been my
faithful companion, changing and augmenting, in proportion to the
changes and dispositions of my inward state. O blessed cross, thou hast
never quitted me, since I surrendered myself to my divine, crucified
Master. I still hope that thou wilt never abandon me. So eager was I
for the cross, that I endeavored to make myself feel the utmost rigor
of every mortification. This only served to awaken my desire for
suffering, and to show me that it is God alone that can prepare and
send crosses suitable to a soul that thirsts for a following of His
sufferings, and a conformity to His death. The more my state of prayer
augmented, my desire of suffering grew stronger, as the full weight of
heavy crosses from every side came thundering upon me.

The peculiar property of this praye