List of points

You write: 'Simplicity is the salt of perfection. And that's what I lack. I want to acquire it, with his help and with yours.'

Neither his nor mine will fail you. — Use the means.

'Here is a man who started to build and was unable to finish!'

A sad commentary which, if you don't want, need never be made about you: for you possess everything necessary to crown the edifice of your sanctification: the grace of God and your own will.

And what of the means? — They are the same as those of Peter and of Paul, of Dominic and Francis, of Ignatius and Xavier: the Cross and the Gospel…

Don't they satisfy you?

In your apostolic undertakings you are right — it's your duty — to consider what means the world can offer you (2+2=4), but don't forget — ever! — that, fortunately, your calculations must include another term: God+2+2…

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.

There is a brilliant man whom you long to attract to your apostolate; there is another, a man of great influence; and a third, full of prudence and virtues…

Pray, offer up sacrifices, and work on them with your word and example. — They don't want to come! — Don't lose your peace; it's because they are not needed.

Do you think there were no brilliant and influential and prudent and virtuous contemporaries of Peter outside the apostolate of the first twelve?

Leaders!… Strengthen your will so that God can make a leader of you. — Consider the tactics of those infamous secret societies. They don't try to win over the masses. In their dens they form a number of demon-men who set to work stirring up the multitudes to madness, so that they will follow them to the precipice of all excess… and to hell. They spread an accursed seed.

If you wish, you will spread God's word, which is a thousand times blessed and can never fail. If you are generous…, if you respond, with your personal sanctification you will help to bring about the sanctification of others; the kingdom of Christ: omnes cum Petro ad Jesum per Mariam — 'all with Peter to Jesus through Mary.'

What conversations! What vulgarity and what dirt! And you have to associate with them, in the office, in the university, in the operating-theatre…, in the world.

Ask them if they wouldn't mind stopping, and they laugh at you. Look annoyed, and they get worse. Leave them, and they continue.

This is the solution: first pray for them, and offer up some sacrifice; then face them like a man and make use of the 'strong language apostolate'. — The next time we meet I'll tell you — in a whisper — a few useful words.

The Cross on your breast?… Very good. But the Cross on your shoulders, the Cross in your flesh, the Cross in your mind. Only then will you live for Christ, with Christ and in Christ; only then will you be an apostle.

If you want to give yourself to God in the world, rather than being scholarly (women needn't be scholars: it's enough for them to be prudent) you must be spiritual, closely united to our Lord by prayer: you must wear an invisible cloak that will cover each and every one of your senses and faculties: praying, praying, praying; atoning, atoning, atoning.

You have got to be a 'man of God', a man of interior life, a man of prayer and sacrifice. Your apostolate must be the overflow of your life 'within'.