List of points

Wherever we may be, Our Lord urges us to be vigilant. His plea should lead us to hope more strongly in our desires for holiness and to translate them into deeds. 'Give me your heart, my son,' he seems to whisper in our ear. Stop building castles in the air. Make up your mind to open your soul to God, for only in Our Lord will you find a real basis for your hope and for doing good to others. If we don't fight against ourselves; if we don't rebuff once and for all the enemies lodged within our interior fortress — pride, envy, the concupiscence of the flesh and of the eyes, self-sufficiency, and the wild craving for licentiousness; if we abandon this inner struggle, our noblest ideals will wither 'like the bloom on the grass; and when the scorching sun comes up the grass withers, and the bloom falls, and all its fair show dies away'. Then, all you need is a tiny crevice and discouragement and gloom will creep in, like encroaching poisonous weeds.

Jesus is not satisfied with a wavering assent. He expects, and has a right to expect, that we advance resolutely, unyielding in the face of difficulties. He demands that we take firm, specific steps; because, as a rule, general resolutions are just fallacious illusions, created to silence the divine call which sounds within our hearts. They produce a futile flame that neither burns nor gives warmth, but dies out as suddenly as it began.

You will convince me that you sincerely want to achieve your goals when I see you go forward unwaveringly. Do good and keep reviewing your basic attitudes to the jobs that occupy you each moment. Practise the virtue of justice, right where you are, in your normal surroundings, even though you may end up exhausted. Foster happiness among those around you by cheerfully serving the people you work with and by striving to carry out your job as perfectly as you can, showing understanding, smiling, having a Christian approach to life. And do everything for God, thinking of his glory, with your sights set high and longing for the definitive homeland, because there is no other goal worthwhile.

I ought to put you on your guard against a trick that Satan does not hesitate to use in order to rob us of our peace. He never takes a holiday! A time may come when he sows doubts in our minds, tempting us to think that we are slipping sadly backwards and are making scarcely any progress. The conviction may grow upon us that, in spite of all our efforts to improve, we are getting worse. I can assure you that normally this pessimistic judgement is mere fantasy, a deception that needs to be rejected. What has happened, as a rule, is that our soul has become more attentive, our conscience more sensitive, and our love more demanding. It can also be that the light of grace is shining more intensely and exposing to our view many details that would otherwise remain unnoticed in the shadows. In any case, we have to examine our uneasiness carefully, because through these insights Our Lord is asking us to be more humble or more generous. It is good to remember that God in his providence is continuously leading us forward and he spares no effort, whether in the form of portentous signs or of tiny miracles, to make his children progress.

Militia est vita hominis super terram, et sicut dies mercenarii, dies eius. Man's life on earth is warfare, and his days are spent under the burden of work. No one escapes this law, not even the easygoing who try to turn a deaf ear to it. They desert the ranks of Christ, and then take up other battles to satisfy their laziness, their vanity, or their petty ambitions. They become enslaved to their every whim.

Since to be in a state of struggle is part and parcel of the human condition, let us try to fulfil our obligations with determination. Let us pray and work with good will, with upright motives and with our sights set on what God wants. This way our longing for Love will be satisfied and we shall progress along the path to sanctity, even if we find at the end of the day that we still have a long way to go.

Renew your decision each morning, with a very determined Serviam!, I will serve you, Lord! Renew your resolution not to give in, not to give way to laziness or idleness; to face up to your duties with greater hope and more optimism, convinced that if we are defeated in some small skirmish we can overcome this setback by making a sincere act of love.

The virtue of hope assures us that God governs us with his all powerful providence and that he gives us all the means we need. Hope makes us aware of Our Lord's constant good will towards mankind, towards you and me. He is always ready to hear us, because he never tires of listening. He is interested in your joys, your successes, your love, and also in your worries, your suffering and your failures. So do not hope in him only when you realise you are weak. Call upon your heavenly Father in good times and in bad, taking refuge in his merciful protection. And our conviction that we are nothing (it doesn't take a high degree of humility to recognise the truth that we are nothing but a row of zeros) will turn into irresistible strength, because Christ will be the one to the left of these zeros, converting them into an immeasurable figure! 'The Lord is my strength and my refuge; whom shall I fear?'

Get used to seeing God behind everything, realising that he is always waiting for us, that he is contemplating us and quite rightly demands that we follow him faithfully without abandoning the place assigned to us in the world. In order not to lose his divine company, we must walk with loving vigilance and with a sincere determination to struggle.

From his position in the multitude a man asks Our Lord a question. He was one of those learned men who were no longer able to understand the teaching that had been revealed to Moses, so entangled had it become because of their own sterile casuistry. Jesus opens his divine lips to reply to this doctor of the law and answers him slowly, with the calm assurance of one who knows what he is talking about: 'You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and your whole soul, and your whole mind. This is the greatest of the commandments and the first. And the second, its like, is this, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments all the law and the prophets depend.'

Let us now consider the Master and his disciples gathered together in the intimacy of the Upper Room. The time of his Passion is drawing close and he is surrounded by those he loves. The fire in the Heart of Christ bursts into flame in a way no words can express and he confides in them, 'I give you a new commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.'

If you wish to get close to Our Lord through the pages of the Gospels, I always recommend that you try to enter in on the scene taking part as just one more person there. In this way (and I know many perfectly ordinary people who live this way) you will be captivated like Mary was, who hung on every word that Jesus uttered or, like Martha, you will boldly make your worries known to him, opening your heart sincerely about them all no matter how little they may be.

One of its first expressions is to initiate the soul into the ways of humility. When we sincerely see ourselves as nothing; when we understand that, without God's help, the weakest and most puny of creatures would be better than we are; when we see we are capable of every kind of error and every kind of abomination; when we realise we are sinners, even though we are earnestly struggling to turn our back on our many infidelities, how could we possibly think badly of others? Or how could we harbour fanaticism, intolerance or haughtiness in our hearts?

Humility leads us as it were by the hand to treat our neighbour in the best way possible, that is, being understanding towards everyone, living at peace with everyone, forgiving everyone; never creating divisions or barriers; and behaving — always! — as instruments that foster unity. Not in vain is there in the depths of man's being a strong longing for peace, for union with his fellow man, for a mutual respect for personal rights, so strong that it seeks to transform human relations into fraternity. This longing reflects something which is most deeply imprinted upon our human condition: since we are all children of God, our fraternity is not a cliche or an empty dream; it beckons as a goal which, though difficult, is really ours to achieve.

As Christians we must show that affection of this kind is in fact possible whatever the cynics or sceptics, those disappointed in love or those with a cowardly outlook on life might say. It may be quite difficult to be truly affectionate, for man was created free and he can rebel against God in a useless and bitter way. But it is possible and people can attain it, because it flows as a necessary consequence of God's love for us and our love for God. If you and I want it, Jesus also wants it. Then we will obtain a full and fruitful understanding of the meaning of suffering, sacrifice and unselfish dedication in ordinary life.