How great is my torment when I reflect on what the soul will experience, which was always in dignity and loved and served and honored and gifted, when it is dying and sees that it is forever lost. And when it clearly understands that this state will never end!
Oh, Lord, my God! I mourn the time when I did not understand this. And since You know, my God, how it pains me to see so many who do not want to understand it, may at least one, Lord, at least one, for whom I now pray, come to Your light, through which many will then have it. Not for me, Lord, for I do not deserve it, but for the merits of Your Son.
Look upon His wounds, Lord, and since He forgave those who caused them, forgive us as well.
(Teresa of Jesus, A Soul's Call to God, 11,1.3)
