List of points

Any job, no matter how hidden, no matter how insignificant, when offered to the Lord, is charged with the strength of God’s life!

Don’t create more obligations for yourself than… God’s glory, his Love, his Apostolate.

Don’t expect people’s applause for your work.

—What is more, sometimes you mustn’t even expect other people and institutions, who like you are working for Christ, to understand you.

—Seek only the glory of God and, while loving everyone, don’t worry if there are some who don’t understand you.

We are not good brothers to our fellow men if we are not ready to continue behaving correctly, even when those around us may interpret our actions badly or react in an unpleasant manner.

We will dedicate all the exertions of our life, great and small, to the honour of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

—I am moved when I recall the work of those brilliant professionals — two engineers and two architects — cheerfully moving furniture into a student residence. When they had put a blackboard into a classroom, the first thing those four artists wrote was: Deo omnis gloria! — all the glory to God.

—Jesus, I know that this pleased you greatly.

We do not live for the world, or for our own honour, but for the honour of God, for the glory of God, for the service of God. It is this that should be our motive!

Rectitude of intention consists in seeking “only and in all things” the glory of God.

Whenever the worrying thought enters your head that you lack rectitude of intention — sometimes it may come like a flash of lightning, at other times like a filthy pestering fly which you brush off but which keeps coming back — always make acts of the opposite virtue straight away… and carry on working calmly for Him and with Him.

—At the same time, even though you might feel you are only pronouncing the words mechanically, say slowly: Lord, I want nothing for myself. May everything be for your glory and for your Love.

Make those reflections of your friend your own. He wrote: “I was considering how good God was to me and, full of interior joy, I was ready to shout out loud, there in the street, for everyone to know about my filial gratitude: ‘Father! Father!’ And though not in fact shouting out loud, I kept calling him so —‘Father!’ — in a low voice, many times, quite certain that it pleased him.

—I seek nothing else. I only want to please him and give him Glory. Everything for him. If I desire my salvation and my sanctification it is because I know that he desires it. If in my Christian life I hunger for souls, it is because I know that he has this great hunger. I say this in all truth: I will never set my sights on the prize. I don’t desire a reward: everything for Love!”

How good it is to live on God’s bounty! How good it is to desire nothing other than his Glory.