“The reason we cannot have this sort of peace in this life is that our desire is not completely satisfied until we reach this union with the divine Being. As long as we are pilgrim travelers in this life we have only desire and hunger: desire to follow the right path, and hunger to reach our final destination. This desire makes us run along the way, the road cemented by Christ crucified. For if we had no longing for God as our destination, we would have no concern for wanting to know the way. I want you, then, to have an ever greater true holy desire to follow this way, the road that will bring you to your destination. . .
Take your lesson from Christ, who in his restlessly yearning hunger and thirst for our salvation cried out from the wood of the most holy cross, ‘I thirst!’ It is as if he were saying: ‘I am more longingly thirsty for your salvation than I can show you through this finite suffering.’ Yes, he is tortured with physical thirst, but that suffering is finite. It is the pain of holy desire, shown us in his thirst for the human race, that is infinite.”
(St. Catherine of Siena)