Cataracts of Light

come into the soul through prayer.  Here's a description of how Teresa of Avila came to know this.  Excerpts:

...Teresa, although a pious religious, had come to dread deep prayer.  She was experiencing something that everyone experiences in varying degrees in their relationship with the Lord.  At a certain stage along the way, something in us resists the grace of prayer.  But to resist such a grace is to resist love, and to resist love, this is to resist our own humanity.  Always degrading, unchecked dark tendencies of which we are scarcely aware take hold.  In Teresa's case, these included pride, her desire to be in control, and the joy she placed in being highly regarded by others.   If the Lord did not intervene, her hard heart would limit his ability to show her the truth and restore the image of his glory He created her to be.

Thus, her experience on the way to chapel when she saw a statue of Jesus was a very important moment.  She had begun to glimpse her mediocrity and all the ways she had failed to fully follow the Lord, but how to move beyond the comfortable life she made for herself?  She had no idea.  She wanted a deeper devotion, a more authentic relationship with the Lord.  Yet such a friendship seemed impossible because she felt she had been unfaithful to his many generous and undeserved invitations.

The statue showed the Lord after the scourging that the pillar.  She had probably passed by it before and not even noticed it.  But this time, as she walked by - it was as if the statue was looking right at her, or better, as if Jesus was looking at her through the statue.  The look was not one of condemnation.  Rather, it was a gaze of love.  She suddenly realized that He who was scourged for her sake was gazing on her with love, and love alone.  He was awaiting her, searching for her heart, longing for her friendship.  This look pierced her to the core - it shattered her pride, made her surrender her desire to be in control, and made the esteem of others completely irrelevant.  She fell on her knees, tears flowed, and her heart surrendered...