I Was Like a Person Who is Blind

"I could not use my imagination, as other people do, who can make pictures to themselves and so become recollected. Of Christ as Man I could only think: however much I read about His beauty and however often I looked at pictures of Him, I could never form any picture of Him myself. I was like a person who is blind, or in the dark: he may be talking to someone, and know that he is with him, because he is quite sure he is there - I mean, he understands and believes he is there - but he cannot see him. Thus it was with me when I thought of Our Lord."

- St. Teresa of Avila, Life, ix; Peers, I, 55