List of points

Many who would willingly let themselves be nailed to a Cross before the astonished gaze of a thousand onlookers cannot bear with a christian spirit the pinpricks of each day! Think, then, which is the more heroic.

We were reading — you and I — the heroically ordinary life of that man of God. —And we saw him struggle, for months and years (what 'accounts' he kept in his particular examination!), at breakfast time: today he won, tomorrow he was beaten… He noted: 'Didn't take butter…; did take butter!'

May we too — you and I — live our... 'butter tragedy'.

That supernatural mode of conduct is a truly military tactic.

You carry on the war — the daily struggles of your interior — far from the main walls of your fortress.

And the enemy meets you there: in your small mortifications, your customary prayer, your methodical work, your plan of life: and with difficulty will he come close to the easily-scaled battlements of your castle. And if he does come, he comes exhausted.

Venial sins do great harm to the soul. — Therefore God says in the Song of Songs: 'Catch the little foxes that make havoc of the vineyards'.

Let yours not be a noisy virtue.

The enemy: Will you obey… even in this 'ridiculous' little detail? You, with God's grace: I will obey… even in this 'heroic' little detail.

The day you leave the table without having done some small mortification you have eaten like a pagan.

You cannot 'rise'. It's not surprising: that fall!

Persevere and you will 'rise'. Remember what a spiritual writer has said: your poor soul is like a bird whose wings are caked with mud.

Suns of heaven are needed and personal efforts, small and constant, to shake off those inclinations, those vain fancies, that depression: that mud clinging to your wings.

And you will see yourself free. If you persevere, you will 'rise'.