Oh! How I would like to be able to make you understand what I feel! It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love…Does not fear lead to justice? Since we see the way, let us run together. Yes, I feel it, Jesus gives to us the same graces, He wills to give us His heaven gratuitously…I am sure that God would not give you the desire to be POSSESSED by Him, by His Merciful Love if He were not reserving that favor for you…or rather He has already given it to you, since you have given yourself to Him, since you desire to be consumed by Him, and since God never gives desires that He cannot realize. —From a letter to Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart (one of Thérèse’s novices) | September 1896

—from the book The Way of Simple Love: Inspiring Words from Therese of Lisieux by Father Gary Caster