List of points

May you know how to put yourself out cheerfully, discreetly and generously each day, serving others and making their lives more pleasant.

—To act in this way is the true charity of Jesus Christ.

Habitual and customary mortifications are a good thing, but don’t become one-track minded about them.

—They need not necessarily be the same ones all the time. What should be constant, habitual and customary — without your getting accustomed to it — is to have a spirit of mortification.

Sanctity has the flexibility of supple muscles. Whoever wishes to be a saint should know how to behave so that while he does something that involves a mortification for him, he omits doing something else — as long as this does not offend God — which he would also find difficult, and thanks the Lord for this comfort. If we Christians were to act otherwise we would run the risk of becoming stiff and lifeless, like a rag doll.

Sanctity is not rigid like cardboard; it knows how to smile, to give way to others and to hope. It is life — a supernatural life.

If only you could manage to fulfil that resolution you made: “to die a little to myself each day.”

Even the most insignificant mortification seems an epic to you. Sometimes Jesus uses your “peculiarities” and silly little fads, to help you mortify yourself, by making virtue out of necessity.

We need to smooth off the rough edges a little more each day — just as if we were working in stone or wood — and get rid of the defects in our own lives with a spirit of penance. And with small mortifications, which are of two types: active mortifications — the ones we ourselves look for, like little flowers we gather up during the course of the day — and passive mortifications, which come from outside and we find difficult to accept. Jesus Christ will later make up for whatever is still lacking.

—What a wonderful figure of the crucified Christ you will become if generously and cheerfully you give your all!

A spirit of penance is to be found first of all in taking advantage of the many trifling occasions — deeds, renunciations, sacrifices, services rendered… — which we find daily along our way and we then convert into acts of love and contrition, into mortifications. In this way we shall be able to gather a bouquet at the end of each day — a fine bunch of flowers which we can offer to God!

The best spirit of sacrifice is to persevere in the work begun: when it is exciting and when it proves an uphill struggle.

Submit your plan of mortifications to your spiritual Director, for him to ‘moderate’ them.

—But to ‘moderate’ will not always mean to diminish. It can also mean increasing them, if he thinks fit. — Either way, accept his advice!

Mortification has to be constant, like the beating of the heart. In this way we will have dominion over ourselves and the charity of Christ for others.

If we join our own little things, those insignificant or big difficulties of ours, to the great sufferings of Our Lord, the Victim (He is the only Victim!), their value will increase. They will become a treasure, and then we will take up the Cross of Christ gladly and with style.

—And then every suffering will soon be overcome: nobody, nothing at all, will be able to take away our peace and our joy.