List of points

If your selfishness leads you away from the ordinary desire for the holy and healthy well-being of mankind, if you count the cost or if you are not moved by the wretched material or moral condition of your neighbour, you force me to reproach you strongly, so that you can do something about it. If you do not feel a holy fraternity with your fellow men, and you live on the margin of the great Christian family, you are just a pitiful waif.

It is sad to see what some people understand by almsgiving: a few pennies or some old clothes. They seem not to have read the Gospel.

Don’t be over-cautious: help people to acquire sufficient faith and fortitude to be ready to deny themselves generously, in this life, what they need.

And to those who lag behind, explain that it is neither very noble nor very graceful, even from an earthly point of view, to wait for the last moment, when they will be obliged to take nothing with them.

“Whoever lends anything, never gets it back; if he does get it back, it will never be the full amount; and if so, it won’t be exactly right; but if it is exactly right, he’ll be an enemy for life.”

Well then?… Give!, without counting the cost, and always for God. In this way you will live, even humanly speaking, closer to the rest of humanity, and you will make your contribution and the number of the ungrateful will be less.

I saw a blush on the face of that simple man; he was almost in tears. He had contributed generously to good works, giving honest money which he himself had earned, and then he heard that “good people” had called his actions dishonest.

With the candidness of a beginner in these battles of God, he murmured: “They see that I make a sacrifice… and they still sacrifice me!”

—I talked to him slowly: he kissed my crucifix, and his natural indignation was changed into peace and joy.

Hominem non habeo — I have no one to help me. This —unfortunately! — could be said by many who are spiritually sick and paralytic, who could be useful — and should be useful.

Lord: may I never remain indifferent to souls.

The masses have been going off down “the road of a justified discontentment” and continue to do so.

It hurts… but, how many we have caused to be disaffected among those who are spiritually or materially in need!

—Christ may once more be set among the poor and the humble: it is precisely with them that he is more at ease.

Teacher: may you be eager to make your pupils understand quickly what has cost you hours of study to see clearly.

Those who zealously keep a “list of grudges” show themselves to be very narrow-minded souls! Such poor wretches are impossible to live with.

True charity neither keeps account of the necessary services it renders all the time, nor takes note of the effronteries it has to put up with. Omnia suffert — it endures all things.

All right, I agree! That person has behaved badly; his behaviour has been reprehensible and unworthy; he shows no merit at all.

—Humanly speaking he deserves to be utterly despised, you added.

—I understand what you mean, I can assure you, but I do not share this concluding view of yours. That life which seems so mean is sacred. Christ has died to save it. If He did not despise it, how can you dare to?

Forbearance is proportional to authority. A simple judge has to condemn — even if he takes into account extenuating circumstances — the convicted criminal who has admitted being guilty. The sovereign power of the country may sometimes grant a pardon or amnesty. God always forgives a contrite soul.

“I know some men and women who don’t even have the strength to ask for help”, you tell me with sorrow and disappointment. —Don’t leave them in the lurch. Your desire to save yourself and them can be the starting point for their conversion. Furthermore, if you think about it carefully you will realise that someone also had to lend you a hand.

The people of that land, so far away from God and lost, reminded you of the Master’s words: “They are like sheep without a shepherd.”

—And you too were filled with a strong feeling of compassion deep within you… Make up your mind, where you are now, to give your life as a holocaust for all.