List of points

You are certain it was God who made you see quite clearly that you must return to the more childlike little things of your earlier interior life, and persevere for months and even years in those heroic trivialities. (You needn’t take into account your feelings here since they are so often slow to recognise the good.) Your will may be cold but let it be ready to fulfil those little duties out of Love.

There are moments in which you are deprived of that union with Our Lord which enabled you to pray continually, even when you were asleep. You seem almost to be wrestling with God’s Will.

—It is weakness, as you well know. Love the Cross, love the lack of so many things which everyone thinks necessary, the obstacles as you start or… as you go along on your way, your very littleness and spiritual wretchedness.

—Offer — with a desire that is effective — all you have, and all that belongs to those who are yours. Humanly speaking, it’s quite a lot, but from a supernatural point of view, it’s nothing.

At times, someone has told me: “Father, I feel tired and cold; when I pray or fulfil some other norm of piety, I seem to be acting out a farce…”

To that friend, and to you, if you are in the same boat, I answer: A farce? —What an excellent thing, my child! Act out that farce! The Lord is your audience — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Blessed Trinity is contemplating us in those moments when we are “acting out a farce”.

Acting like that in front of God, out of love, in order to please him, when our whole life goes against the grain: how splendid, to be God’s juggler! How marvellous it is to play one’s part for Love, with sacrifice, without any personal satisfaction, just in order to please Our Lord!

—That indeed is to live for Love.

You became a bit frightened when you saw so much light, so bright that you thought it would be difficult to look, or even to see.

—Disregard your obvious weaknesses, and open the eyes of your soul to faith, to hope and to love. Carry on, allowing yourself to be guided by God through whoever directs your soul.