List of points

Are you misunderstood? He was the Truth and the Light, but not even those close to him understood him. —As I have asked you so often before, remember Our Lord’s words: “The disciple is not greater than his Master.”

For a son of God, contradictions and calumnies are what wounds received on the battlefield are for a soldier.

They say this and that about you… But what does your good name matter?

In any case don’t feel ashamed or sorry for yourself, but for them: for those who ill-treat you.

We could get rid of so much neurosis and hysteria if people were taught — together with Christian doctrine — really to live as Christians: loving God and knowing how to accept things that annoy us as a blessing from His hand!

If you are convinced of your “poor quality” — if you know yourself — you will react to events supernaturally. Joy and peace will take a firmer root in your soul, in the face of humiliations, being despised, calumnies…

In these cases, after saying fiat — Lord, whatever you want — you should think: “Is that all he said? He obviously does not know me, otherwise he wouldn’t have left it at that.”

Being convinced that you deserve worse treatment, you will feel grateful to that person, and rejoice at what might have made somebody else suffer.

“As long as they don’t make me sin!” said that poor man bravely when he had been almost ruined, in his private life and in his earthly and Christian ambitions, by powerful enemies.

—Meditate on this and learn to say: “As long as they don’t make me sin!”

They ignored what you call your “rights”, which I translated for you as your “right to be proud”. What a grotesque figure you cut. Because your attacker was powerful you could not defend yourself and you felt the pain of a hundred blows. And despite it all, you have not learned to humble yourself.

Now your conscience accuses you, calling you proud… and cowardly. —Give thanks to God because you are beginning to catch a glimpse of your “duty to be humble”.

Everything may collapse and fail. Events may turn out contrary to what was expected and great adversity may come. But nothing is to be gained by being perturbed. Furthermore, remember the confident prayer of the prophet: “The Lord is our judge, the Lord gives us our laws, the Lord is our king; it is he who will save us.”

—Say it devoutly every day, so that your behaviour may agree with the designs of Providence, which governs us for our own good.

To help you keep your peace during those times of hard and unjust contradictions I used to say to you: “If they break our skulls, we shall not take it too seriously. We shall just have to put up with having them broken.”

Don’t be worried by those contradictions and all that talk. It is true that we are working in a divine undertaking, but we are men… And it is natural that as we walk we raise dust along the road.

If anything bothers you or hurts you… make use of it for your purification and, if necessary, to straighten out your own behaviour.

Gossip is a very human thing, they say. —And I reply: we have to live in a divine manner.

The evil or flippant word of only one man can create a climate of opinion, and even make it fashionable to speak badly about somebody… Then that thin mist of slander rises from below, reaches a high level and perhaps condenses into black clouds.

—But when the man persecuted in this way is a soul of God, the clouds shower down a beneficial rain, come what may; and the Lord ensures that he is exalted by the very means with which they tried to humiliate or defame him.

Be on guard against the propagators of scandal and innuendo, which some take in through lack of reflection while others do so through bad faith. They destroy a calm atmosphere and poison public opinion.

Sometimes true charity demands that such abuses and their promoters should be denounced. Otherwise, with their devious or badly-formed consciences, they or those who listen to them could think: “They keep quiet, so they must agree.”