Select Works, Book 2

We have grown indeed, but in worldly wisdom, and the unquestioning and undivided love we vowed to God when we were little has been scattered to the winds. We found it would cost us a great effort, and a life-long one, to love God as we should and to keep on loving Him as children do, so we compromised the matter. We no longer receive and retain the Kingdom of God, the Gospel teaching, “as a little child”, and so we cannot penetrate therein. This Kingdom of God on Earth, which is the mystical life, the knowledge of God by love, the enjoyment of Him, and the marvelous sanctification of the soul consequent thereto, are denied to us, because the conditions necessary to their acquirement are lacking in us. In reality, what takes place is this: God is working that precious material, the mystic soul, which has become plastic and passive in His hands. He is scooping it out, pressing it from inside, and, as it were, extending its walls and boundaries.