Once a soul has been consumed

in the depths of God's love

and has tasted the sweet delight

of God's intellective graces,

it can no longer bear to stay frozen

in its own former condition

but is impelled to rise ever higher to the heavens.

The higher it ascends through the Spirit,

and the deeper it sinks into the abyss of God,

the more it is consumed by the fire of longing

and searches out the immensity

of the even deeper mysteries of God,

strenuously trying to come into that blessed light,

where every intellect is caught up into ecstasy,

where the heart knows it can finally rest

from all its strivings

and find its rest in joy.

-- Niketas Stethatos