List of points

When you start out each day to work by Christ’s side and to look after all those souls who seek him, remember that there is only one way of doing it: we must turn to the Lord.

—Only in prayer, and through prayer, do we learn to serve others!

If you persevere in your prayer, with “personal perseverance”, God Our Lord will give you all the means you need to be more effective and to spread his kingdom in the world.

—But you have to keep faithful: asking, asking, asking… Are you really behaving this way?

Mortification is a necessary premise for any apostolate, and for the perfect carrying out of each apostolate.

Holiness is attained with the help of the Holy Spirit, who comes to dwell in our souls, through grace given us by the sacraments and as a result of a constant ascetical struggle.

My son, let us not have any false illusions about this. You and I — I will never tire of repeating it — will always have to struggle, always, until the end of our lives. So we will come to love peace, and we will spread peace around us, and we will receive our everlasting reward.

To draw closer to God, to fly all the way to God, you need the strong and generous wings of Prayer and Expiation.

God wants the works he entrusts to men to go ahead on the basis of prayer and mortification.

During a war, the courage of the soldiers facing the enemy would be of little use if there were not others who seem to take no part in the struggle but who supply the fighting men with armaments and food and medicines…

—Without the prayer and sacrifice of many souls there would be no genuine apostolate of action.

Just as all the powerful machinery in dozens of factories is brought to a standstill and rendered useless when the electricity fails, so does apostolate cease to bear fruit when prayer and mortification fail, for they are what move the Sacred Heart of Christ.

You asked me what you could do to prevent the loneliness of that friend of yours.

—I will tell you what I always say, because we have at our disposal a marvellous weapon which is the answer to everything: prayer. In the first place, you must pray. And then you must do for him what you would like others to do for you if you were in similar circumstances.

Without humiliating him, you must help him in such a way that what he finds difficult is made easy .