List of points

Interior mortification. I don't believe in your interior self-denial if I see that you despise, that you do not practise, mortification of the senses.

The eyes! Through them many iniquities enter the soul. — What experiences like David's! — If you guard your sight you have assured the guard of your heart.

Why look around if you carry 'your world' within you?

It has been well said that the soul and the body are two enemies who can't get away from one another, and two friends who cannot get along.

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'.

A strict fast is a penance most pleasing to God. But, what with one thing and another, we have become a bit too easy-going. There is no objection — on the contrary — if you, with the approval of your Director, fast frequently.

Enter into the wounds of Christ Crucified. There you will learn to guard your senses, you will have interior life, and you will continually offer to the Father the sufferings of our Lord and those of Mary, in payment of your debts and the debts of all men.

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

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.