God calls the heart and makes it exult; then he disappears; and then he reveals himself again. By the test of renunciation and a more lively “feeling” of God, a person escapes gradually from the attacks of evil: light penetrates and protects his or her nature more and more. But God refuses to provide an overwhelming proof of his presence. If he did, he would actually be destroying the very possibility of a meeting and the free offer of his love. God introduces the soul that has been made holy to a rhythm of alternate ecstasy and contentment and of a yearning for an irreducible otherness, so that the soul does not cease to renew its love and spread itself in the inexhaustible store of God’s riches.

Olivier Clement (1921 – 2009)