Saint Teresa Benedicta | Her Wisdom in 25 Quotes

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a woman whose tremendous intellect and thirst for truth brought her from avowed atheism to belief in Christ, is a model of humility and heroic virtue. May we follow her example in fully devoting ourselves both intellectually and spiritually to do the Father's will. Below are 25 quotations reflecting St. Teresa Benedicta's great love for the Church and for God.

In order to be an image of God, the spirit must turn to what is eternal, hold it in spirit, keep it in memory, and by loving it, embrace it in the will.

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My longing for truth was a single prayer.

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On the question of relating to our fellowman - our neighbor’s spiritual need transcends every commandment. Everything else we do is a means to an end. But love is an end already, since God is love.

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The limitless loving devotion to God, and the gift God makes of Himself to you, are the highest elevation of which the heart is capable; it is the highest degree of prayer. The souls that have reached this point are truly the heart of the Church.

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One could say that in case of need, every normal and healthy woman is able to hold a position. And there is no profession which cannot be practiced by a woman.

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The nation... doesn’t simply need what we have. It needs what we are.

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Those who join the Carmelite Order are not lost to their near and dear ones, but have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede to God for everyone.

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Let go of your plans. The first hour of your morning belongs to God.

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God Himself teaches us to go forward with our hand in His by means of the Church’s liturgy.

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For by doing what God demands of us with total surrender of our innermost being, we cause the divine life to become our own inner life. Entering into ourselves, we find God in our own selves.

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If anyone comes to me, I want to lead them to Him.

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As for what concerns our relations with our fellow men, the anguish in our neighbor’s soul must break all precept. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself, because God is love.

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Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every single soul ‘prays in us with unspeakable groanings’.

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I had given up practising my Jewish religion when I was a 14-year-old girl and did not begin to feel Jewish again until I had returned to God.

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I always have to think of Queen Esther, who was taken away from her people for the express purpose of standing before the king for her people. I am the very poor, weak and small Esther, but the king who selected me is infinitely great and merciful.

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One cannot desire freedom from the cross when one is especially chosen for the cross.

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Whoever seeks the truth seeks God, whether he is conscious of it or not.

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In the heart of Jesus, which was pierced, the kingdom of heaven and the land of earth are bound together. Here is for us the source of life. This heart is the heart of the Triune Divinity, and the center of all human hearts... It draws us to itself with secret power, it conceals us in itself in the Father's bosom and floods us with the Holy Spirit. This heart, it beats for us in a small tabernacle where it remains mysteriously hidden in that still, white host.

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Whatever was not planned by me, was planned by God.

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The more lofty the degree of loving union to which God destines the soul, so much more profound and persistent must be its purification.

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God Himself teaches us to go forward with our hand in His by means of the Church’s liturgy.

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God is there in these moments of rest and can give us in a single instant exactly what we need. Then the rest of the day can take its course under the same effort and strain, perhaps, but in peace. And when night looks back and you see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it to Him – really rest – and start the next day as a new life.

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There is a state of resting in God, an absolute break from all intellectual activity, when one forms no plans, makes no decisions and for the first time really ceases to act, when one simply hands over the future to God’s will and ‘surrenders himself to fate’.

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