List of points

We are children of God. —Bearers of the only flame that can light up the paths of the earth for souls, of the only brightness which can never be darkened, dimmed or overshadowed.

—The Lord uses us as torches, to make that light shine out… It depends on us that many should not remain in darkness, but walk instead along paths that lead to eternal life.

Many people ask with an air of self-justification: Why should I get involved in the lives of others?

—Because it is your Christian duty to get involved in their lives, in order to serve them!

—Because Christ has got involved in your life and in mine!

Renew each day the effective desire to empty yourself, to deny yourself, to forget yourself, to walk in novitate sensus, with a new life, exchanging this misery of ours for all the hidden and eternal grandeur of God.

If God’s Love has chosen you out and called you to follow him, you have a duty to respond to him… and it is also your duty, an equally serious duty, to lead and to contribute to the holiness and good progress of other men, your brothers.

To be a Christian in the world doesn’t mean isolating oneself — on the contrary! It means loving all mankind and burning with a desire to enkindle in everyone the fire of the love of God.

We Christians, with a spirit of youthfulness, have come to collect the treasures of the Gospels, which are always new, so that we can make them reach every corner of the earth.

Saint Ambrose has some words that fit the children of God marvellously well! He is speaking of the ass’s colt, tethered to its dam, which Jesus needed for his triumph: “Only an order of the Lord could untie it”, he says. “It was set loose by the hands of the Apostles. To do such a deed, one needs a special way of living and a special grace. You too must be an apostle, to set free those who are captive.”

—Let me comment on this text for you once more. How often, upon a word from Jesus, will we have to loosen souls from their bonds, because he needs them for his triumph! May our hands be apostles’ hands, and our actions, and our lives also. Then God will give us an apostle’s grace, too, to break the fetters of those who are enchained.

We can never attribute to ourselves the power of Jesus who is passing by amongst us. Our Lord is passing by: and he transforms souls when we come close to him with one heart, one feeling, one desire: to be good Christians. But it is he who does it: not you nor I. It is Christ who is passing by!

—And then he stays in our hearts — in yours and in mine! — and in our tabernacles.

—Jesus is passing by, and Jesus comes to stay. He stays in you, in each one of you, and in me.

As a bookmark for whatever book he happened to be reading, he always used a strip of paper with this motto written on it in a bold and energetic hand: Ure igne Sancti Spiritus! —You could almost say that, rather than writing the words, he had engraved them: Inflame with the fire of the Holy Spirit!

O Christian, engraved on your soul and burning on your lips and caught fast in your works, I would like to leave that divine fire.

Those of us who bear in our hearts the truth of Christ have to put this truth into the hearts, and minds and lives of others. Not to do so would show a love of comfort and bad tactics too.

Think it over once again: Did Christ ask you permission before coming into your soul? He left you free to follow him, but he was the one who sought you out, because he chose to.

I beg you, don’t be so shocked! As a Christian you have the right and the duty to provoke a wholesome crisis in souls so that they live their lives with their eyes on God.

Let this be your prayer, apostolic soul: Lord, may I know how to lean on people and get them all to burn like fires of Love, which will then become the driving force of all our undertakings.