Another sign of the right spirit and that these desires [for holiness] come from the Holy Ghost is their sanctifying action in the soul. In the first place, the soul's intentions and desires are purified so that its love for God is most pure and disinterested, intent solely upon His glory and good pleasure. Moreover, the more intense the soul's desires for sanctity become, the greater its longings for purification, and the more the soul is purified, the more does it yearn for still greater purity of heart. Its greatest concern and solicitude is to beg God to bestow upon it that "perfect spirit" (Ps. 50:14), that disposition and those characteristics which are most pleasing to Him. Its constant prayer can briefly be stated thus: "Make me what Thou dost want me to be, O Lord, so that I may please Thee in all things. I ask nothing more for myself, for I do not know what is best for me. All I ask is that Thy will be accomplished in me and that Thou be glorified in me and in all things." The greatest yearning of these souls, the desire that inflames and consumes them, is the desire to glorify God and to please Him in all things. What they want and what they base all their happiness upon is God's interests, not their own. So we see the importance of these lofty desires and the great role they play in the work of our sanctification.
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Source: Fr. Victorino Osende, Fruits of Contemplation, trans. by a Dominican Sister (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1963), 29.
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