List of points

Some people do only what lies within the capacity of poor human creatures to accomplish, and consequently waste their time. What Peter experienced is repeated once more, word for word: Praeceptor, per totam noctem laborantes nihil cepimus. — Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.

If they work on their own, without being united with the Church, not reckoning with the Church, what possible effectiveness could their apostolate have? None at all!

—They need to be convinced that on their own they can achieve nothing. You should help them to go on listening to the rest of that Gospel story: in verbo autem tuo laxabo rete — at your word I will let down the net. It is then that the catch will be plentiful and effective.

—How beautiful it is to mend our ways when we find we have, for whatever reason, done apostolate on our own account!

To have a Catholic spirit means that we should feel on our shoulders the weight of our concern for the entire Church — not just of this or that particular part of it. It means that our prayer should spread out north and south, east and west, in a generous act of petition.

So you will understand the cry — the aspiration — of that friend of ours, faced by the little love of so many people towards our Holy Mother: “I suffer for my Church!”

Pray to God that in the Holy Church, our Mother, the hearts of all may be one heart, as they were in the earliest times of Christianity; so that the words of Scripture may be truly fulfilled until the end of the ages: Multitudinis autem credentium erat cor unum et anima una — the company of the faithful were of one heart and one soul.

—I am saying this to you in all seriousness: may this holy unity not come to any harm through you. Take it to your prayer!

He came on earth because omnes homines vult salvos fieri, he wants to redeem the whole world.

—While you are at your work, shoulder to shoulder with so many others, never forget that there is no soul that does not matter to Christ!

Pray for everyone, for people of every race and tongue and of every creed, for those who have only a vague idea about religion and for those who do not know the faith .

—And this zeal for souls, which is a sure and a clear sign that we love Jesus, will make Jesus come.

When they heard of work with souls in far-off lands, how their eyes sparkled! They seemed ready to cross the ocean in one leap. And indeed the world is very small when Love is great.

When a Christian understands what catholicity means and practises it, and he realises the urgent need to proclaim the Good News of salvation to all creatures, he knows that as the Apostle teaches, he has to make himself “all things to all men, that all may be saved.”

At times, fifty per cent of the work is lost because of in-fighting stemming from a lack of charity, and from tales and back-biting among brothers. Furthermore, yet another twenty-five per cent of the work is lost by constructing buildings which are unnecessary for the apostolate. Gossip should never be allowed and we shouldn’t waste our time building so many houses. People will then be apostles, one hundred per cent.

My child, all the seas of this world are ours and the places where it is harder to fish are the places where it is all the more necessary.