Those who have arrived at perfection, and especially true contemplatives, do not ask the Lord to free them from trials and temptations. They rather desire and value them as worldlings value gold and jewels, for they know that these are to make them rich. - Saint Teresa of Avila
Saint Catherine of Genoa once said in the midst of extreme pain and severe torture: "O Lord! it is thirty-six years since Thou first gavest me spiritual light, and ever since, I have desired nothing but sufferings, interior and exterior."
The Venerable Anna Maria of Saint Joseph, a Discalced Carmelite and a person of no ordinary piety, exercised herself continually in the sharpest penances and austerities. When the others tried to turn her away from these practices, she replied: "No, I will never cease until the Lord satiates me with His griefs and reproaches." She often said, too, that she wished for neither relics, nor rosary, nor a cell, nor anything but a cross upon which to crucify herself. Saint Francis Xavier, when he had a cross, used to make this prayer: "O Lord, do not take it away from me, unless to give me a greater."
- text taken from A Year with the Saints, composed by an unknown Italian, translated by a member of the Order of Mercy; it has the Imprimatur of Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan, Archdiocese of New York, New York, 21 January 1891