"Pure love" for our holy Father John of the Cross means loving God for his own sake, with a heart that is free form all attachment to anything created: to itself and to other creatures, but also to all consolatins and the like which God can grant the soul, to all particular forms of devotion, etc.; with a hear tthat wants nothing more than that God's will be done, that allows itself to be led by God without any resistance. What one can do oneself to attain this goal is treated in detail in the Ascent of Mount Carmel. How God purifies the soul, in the Dark Night. The result, in the Living Flame and the Spiritual Canticle. (Basically, the whole way is to be found in each of the volumes, but each time one or the other of the stages is predominant.)
Edith Stein, Self Portrait in Letters, 1916-1942, Koeppel, tr., ICS Publications (Washington, DC: 1993) Letter 311 (to Sr. Agnella Stadtmüller), p. 318.
