St. John Climacus | May this ladder teach you the spiritual combination of the virtues...

And this queen (or I think I might more properly say king), as if appearing to me from heaven and as if speaking in the ear of my soul, said: Unless, beloved, you renounce your gross flesh, you cannot know my beauty.

May this ladder teach you the spiritual combination of the virtues. On the top of it I have established myself, as my great initiate said:

And now there remain faith, hope, love—these three; but the greatest of all is love.

St. John Climacus