List of points

Suffering overwhelms you because you take it like a coward. Meet it bravely, with a christian spirit: and you will regard it as a treasure.

If they have witnessed your faults and weaknesses, will it matter if they witness your penance?

How beautiful it is to give up this life for that Life!

You are afraid of penance?… Of penance, which will help you to obtain Life everlasting. And yet, in order to preserve this poor present life, don't you see how men will submit to all the cruel torture of a surgical operation?

If you feel the Communion of Saints — if you live it — you will gladly be a man of penance. And you will realize that penance is gaudium, etsi laboriosum, joy, in spite of its hardship. And you will feel yourself 'allied' to all the penitent souls that have been, that are, and that ever will be.

'So I bear it all for the sake of those who are chosen, so that in the end they may have the salvation that is in Christ Jesus'.

What a way to live the Communion of Saints!

Ask our Lord to give you this spirit of Saint Paul.

Have you not heard the Master himself tell the parable of the vine and the branches? Here you can find consolation. He demands much of you, for you are the branch that bears fruit. And he must prune you 'to make you bear more fruit'.

Of course: that cutting, that pruning hurts. But, afterwards, what richness in your fruits, what maturity in your actions.

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.

Come now I After so much of 'the Cross, Lord, the Cross!' it is obvious that it is a cross to your own taste that you wanted.