W]hen you do confess, you should do so in this manner:
In regard to thoughts and imaginings (whether they concern judgments, or other inordinate objects or representations, or any other motions) that occur without being desired or accepted or deliberately adverted to: Do not confess them or pay attention to them or worry about them. It is better to forget them no matter how much they afflict the soul. At most, you can mention in general any omission or remissness as regards the purity and perfection you ought to have in the interior faculties: memory, intellect, and will.
In regard to words: Confess any want of caution in speaking with truthfulness and rectitude, out of necessity, and with purity of intention.
In regard to deeds: Confess any lack of the proper and only motive—God alone without any other concern.
By such a confession you can be content and need not tell any other particular thing, however much it may battle against you. Receive Communion on Pentecost in addition to those days on which you usually receive.
When something distasteful or unpleasant comes your way, remember Christ crucified and be silent.
Live in faith and hope, even though you are in darkness, because it is in these darknesses that God protects the soul.
Cast your care on God, for he watches over you and will not forget you. Do not think that he leaves you alone; that would be an affront to him.
Read, pray, rejoice in God, both your good and your salvation. May he grant you this good and this salvation and conserve it all until the day of eternity. Amen. Amen.
SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS
Letter 20 to a Discalced Carmelite nun suffering from scruples
Shortly before Pentecost, 1590
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