List of points

Don't let your life be barren. Be useful. Make yourself felt. Shine forth with the torch of your faith and your love.

With your apostolic life, wipe out the trail of filth and slime left by the corrupt sowers of hatred. And set aflame all the ways of the earth with the fire of Christ that you bear in your heart.

If in order to save an earthly life it is praiseworthy to use force to stop a man from committing suicide, are we not to be allowed use the same force — holy coercion — to save the Life (with a capital) of many who are stupidly bent on killing their souls?

So you are a nobody. And others have done wonders, are still doing them, in organisation, in publicity, in the press. And they have all the means, while you have none? Well then, Just remember Ignatius.

Ignorant, among the doctors of Alcala; penniless, among the students of Paris, persecuted, slandered…

That is the way: to love and to believe and… to suffer! Your Love and your Faith and your Cross are the infallible means to give effect — eternal effect — to the longing for apostolate that you bear in your heart.

So you couldn't care less? Don't try to fool yourself. This very moment, if I were to ask you about certain people and undertakings in which for God's love you put your soul, I know that you would answer me eagerly, with the interest of one speaking of what is his own.

It's not true that you don't care. It's just that you're not tireless, and that you need more time for yourself: time that will also be for your activities since, after all, you are the instrument.

Don't you long to shout to those young men and women all around you: Fools, leave those worldly things that shackle the heart and very often degrade it…, leave all that and come with us in search of Love?

You lack drive. That's why you sway so few. You don't seem very convinced of what you gain by giving up those things of the earth for Christ.

Just compare: a hundredfold and life everlasting! Would you call that a poor bargain?

The search for fellow-apostles. It is the unmistakable sign of true zeal.

You have but little love if you are not zealous for the salvation of all souls. You have but poor love if you are not eager to inspire other apostles with your craziness.

Through the world still echoes that divine cry: 'I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already!' And you see: it has nearly all died out…

Will you not help to spread the blaze?

I can understand how you love your country and your people so much, and that, in spite of these ties, you long for the moment when you will cross lands and seas — far away — for your heart is consumed by the thought of the harvest.

Raise magnificent buildings? Build sumptuous palaces? Let others raise them! Let others build them!…

Souls! Let us give life to souls, for those buildings and palaces!

What fine houses are being prepared for us!

Apostolic zeal is a divine craziness I want you to have. Its symptoms are: hunger to know the Master; constant concern for souls; perseverance that nothing can shake.