John Joseph Wynne

“ John of the Cross, or the darkness of the soul in a state of purgation, without light, amid many uncertainties, risks, and dangers. It is also misused to express a quietistic condition of the soul, which excludes not only all personal effort, but even desires, and disposes one to accept evil with the fatalistic motive that it cannot be helped. ”

“ Aërius fell out with Eustathius, upbraided him for having deserted ascetic practices, and began to preach new doctrines, insisting that there was no sacred character distinguishing bishop or priest from laymen, that the observance of the feast of Easter was a Jewish superstition, and that it was wrong to prescribe fasts or abstinences by law, and useless to pray for the dead. According to some, Aërius was inspired to teach these doctrines by his jealousy of Eustathius. ”

“ It implies the passive purification through which one passes by accepting trials and sufferings permitted by God to turn souls to Him. It implies also the desolation which comes upon the soul when relinquishing what it prizes inordinately in creatures, the surrender of natural consolations in order to seek God, and the loss for a time of the consciousness of strong and ardent impulses of the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity ”