List of points

Why that fitful character? When are you going to apply your will to something definite? Drop that craze for foundation-stones, and put the finishing touch to just one of your projects.

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.

You worry only about building up your knowledge. And what you have to build up is your soul. Then you will work as you ought — for Christ. In order that he may reign in the world, there must be some people who, with their eyes fixed on heaven, seek to acquire prestige in all human activities, so that they can carry out quietly — and effectively — an apostolate within their professions.

Add a supernatural motive to your ordinary work and you will have sanctified it.

When you see people of uncertain professional standing acting as leaders at public functions of a religious nature, don't you feel the urge to whisper in their ears: Please, would you mind being just a little less Catholic?

Purity of intention. The suggestions of pride and the impulses of the flesh are not difficult to recognize… and you fight and, with grace, you conquer.

But the motives that inspire you, even in the holiest actions, do not seem clear; and deep down inside you hear a voice which makes you see human reasons in such a subtle way that your soul is invaded by the disturbing thought that you don't act as you should — for pure Love, solely and exclusively to give God all his glory.

React at once each time and say: 'Lord, for myself I want nothing. All for your glory and for Love.'

'My enthusiasm is gone', you write. You have to work not out of enthusiasm but out of Love: conscious of duty, which means self-denial.