To turn souls away from aspiring to the graces of contemplative union, to deprive them of the teaching and advices of a Saint Teresa or a Saint John of the Cross, is to deprive them of the channels of life, to condemn them to a parching thirst. If anti-mystical tendencies were completely systematized, they would turn Christianity into a mere moral system, while it is, first of all, a theological communion [communion with God].
Jacques Maritain (1882–1973)