List of points

Bring out your spirit of mortification in those nice touches of charity, eager to make the way of sanctity in the middle of the world attractive for everyone. Sometimes a smile can be the best proof of a spirit of penance.

Beg the Lord for his grace so that you may be purified by his Love… and by constant penance.

Invoke the Lord, and beg him for the spirit of penance of one who conquers himself every day, and offers him this constant victory unassumingly and perseveringly.

Be clever, spiritually clever. Don’t wait for the Lord to send you setbacks; go out to meet them with a spirit of voluntary atonement. — Then you’ll receive them not so much with resignation (an old-sounding word) as with Love — a word which is forever young.

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.

It is not the spirit of penance to do great mortifications some days, and nothing on others.

—The spirit of penance means knowing how to overcome yourself every single day, offering up both great and small things for love, without putting on show.