List of points

Here is a recipe for your way as a Christian: pray, do penance, work without rest, fulfilling your duty lovingly.

You are a Christian and, as a Christian, a son of God. You should feel a grave responsibility for corresponding to the mercies you have received from the Lord, showing careful vigilance and loving firmness, so that nothing and nobody may disfigure the distinctive features of the Love he has imprinted on your soul.

This is the truth of a Christian’s life: self-giving and love — love of God and, for God’s sake, love of one’s neighbour — founded on sacrifice.

Baptism makes us fideles, faithful. This is a word that was used — like sancti, the saints — by the first followers of Jesus to refer to one another. These words are still used today: we speak of the faithful of the Church.

—Think about this.

If you help him, even with a trifle, as the Apostles did, He is ready to work miracles; to multiply the bread, to reform wills, to give light to the most benighted minds, to enable those who have never been upright to be so, with an extraordinary grace.

All this he will do… and more, if you will help him with what you have.