finished a book: The Context of Holiness

My spiritual director recommended The Context of Holiness by Marc Foley, OCD. It's a look at the life of St. Therese from a psychological angle. At first I was wary of the whole idea - how can you analyze St. Therese? But Foley does a fantastic job showing how Therese's life - her struggles, weaknesses and strengths - were the context in which she became a saint.


A couple of great quotes:

Therese's experience of the ocean could have been only an aesthetically pleasing experience. But it was more than that. She brought it into the inner chamber of her will and made a resolution to stay close to God. She fused together in her mind her desire to do good with an experience of beauty.
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"[Never] have an emotion at a concert, without expressing it afterward in some active way ..."
If we fail to link our experiences of beauty to goodness, then aesthetic experiences can degenerate into mere sentimentality and insulate us from life instead of connecting us to it.
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Love and suffering are inseparable. If we are unwilling to suffer, then we cannot love.