“I pray to the Spirit, not vaingloriously with this title, as titles aren't the most important in life, but the fraternal service of love. What is decisive, what makes us worth more, is to love God and our neighbor.”

Foreword
My Turn (1989)
Context: In 1981, when Ronnie and I moved to Washington, I never dreamed that our eight years there would be a time of so much emotion. But life in the White House is magnified: The highs were higher than I expected, and the lows were much lower.
While I loved being first lady, my eight years with that title were the most difficult years of my life. Both of my parents died while Ronnie was president, and my husband and I were both operated on for cancer. Before we had even settled in, Ronnie was shot and almost killed. Then there was the pressure of living under the intense scrutiny of the media, and the frustration of frequently being misunderstood. Everything I did or said seemed to generate controversy, and it often seemed that you couldn’t open a newspaper without seeing a story about me — my husband and me, my children and me, Donald Regan and me, and so on.
I don’t think I was as bad, or as extreme in my power or my weakness, as I was depicted — especially during the first year, when people thought I was overly concerned with trivialities, and the final year, when some of the same people were convinced I was running the show.
In many ways, I think I served as a lightning rod; and in any case, I came to realize that while Ronald Reagan was an extremely popular president, some people didn’t like his wife very much. Something about me, or the image people had of me, just seemed to rub them the wrong way.

The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

Fifth Mansion, Ch. 3, translated by the Benedictines of Stanbrook (1921), revised and edited by Fr. Benedict Zimmerman (1930); reprinted (2003) by Kessinger Publications, p. 109
Interior Castle (1577)
Context: We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reason for thinking so; but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbor or not. Be sure that, in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing your love of God, for His Majesty bears so tender an affection for us that I cannot doubt He will repay our love for others by augmenting, and in a thousand different ways, that which we bear for Him.

[2005, Stations of Wisdom, World Wisdom, 94, 978-0-94153218-1]
God, Reverential fear and love

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 175.

Source: The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives

Art Psalms (2008), The Vast Expanse