Love of the Cross makes us undertake voluntary afflictions, such as fasting, and makes us renounce pleasures, honors, and riches. The love found in such exercises is completely agreeable to the beloved. It is still more so when we patiently, gently, and contentedly accept pains, torments, and tribulations in consideration of God’s will, which sends them to us. Love reaches its most exalted state when we accept afflictions not only easily and patiently, but even cherish, like, and embrace them because of that divine good pleasure from which they come.
—St. Francis de Sales