If it seems to you that God has given you some virtue, regard it as an undeserved gift that can be taken away from you, as often happens through special divine providence.
Have you never experienced this, sisters? I have!
Sometimes it seemed to me that I was not attached to anything, and when I was put to the test, I proved that it really was so. At other times, however, I felt that I was so attached to something that I hardly recognized myself, and it was even about things that I had mocked just the day before. (…)
Similarly, there have been times when it seemed to me that I did not pay attention to calumnies and complaints against me: and often I did manage it, so that I took pleasure in it. However, on other days, it took just one word for me to fall into such torment that I longed to die, as everything seemed to exhaust me.
And these changes are not experienced by me alone… I know that it is so.
(Teresa of Jesus, The Way of Perfection XXXVIII,5)
