List of points

When you are preparing for a work of apostolate, make your own these words of a man who was seeking God: “Today I start to preach a retreat for priests. God grant we may draw profit from it — and, first of all, myself!”

—And later: “I have been on this retreat for several days now. There are a hundred and twenty on it. I hope that Our Lord will do good work in our souls.”

A priest who was saying the Divine Office prepared himself for prayer in this way: ‘I will follow the rule of saying, when I start: “I want to pray as the saints pray”, and then I will invite my Guardian Angel to sing the Lord’s praises with me.’

Try this in your own vocal prayer, and also as a way of increasing your presence of God in your work.

By a process of assimilation we should make these words of Jesus our own: Desiderio desideravi hoc Pascha manducare vobiscum: I have longed and longed to eat this Passover with you. There is no better way to show how great is our concern and love for the Holy Sacrifice than by taking great care with the least detail of the ceremonies the wisdom of the Church has laid down.

This is for Love: but we should also feel the need to become like Christ, not only inside ourselves but also in what is external. We should act, on the wide spaciousness of the Christian altar, with the rhythm and harmony which obedient holiness provides, uniting us to the will of the Spouse of Christ, to the Will of Christ himself.

I have been thinking of all the priests throughout the world. Help me to pray for the fruitfulness of their apostolates.

—“My brother in the priesthood, please speak always about God and, when you really do belong to him, your conversations will never be monotonous.”

Preaching — the preaching of Christ crucified — is the word of God.

Priests need to prepare themselves as best they can before carrying out such a divine ministry, the aim of which is the salvation of souls.

Lay people should listen with very special respect.

It made me very happy to hear what they said about that priest: “He preaches with all his soul… and with his body too.”