List of points

Servite Domino in laetitia! — I will serve God cheerfully. With a cheerfulness that is a consequence of my Faith, of my Hope and of my Love — and that will last for ever. For, as the Apostle assures us, Dominus prope est!… — the Lord follows me closely. I shall walk with Him, therefore, quite confidently, for the Lord is my Father, and with his help I shall fulfil his most lovable Will, even if I find it hard.

A piece of advice I have insisted on repeatedly: be cheerful, always cheerful. —Sadness is for those who do not consider themselves to be children of God.

“You are all so cheerful, and one doesn’t expect that,” I heard someone say.

It has been happening for a long time; insistently and with diabolical determination, Christ’s enemies never tire of complaining that the people who give themselves to God are all sullen. And, unfortunately, some of those who wish to be ‘good’ have lent support to those words, with their ‘sad virtues’.

—We give you thanks, Lord, because you have chosen to count on our cheerful, very happy lives to erase that false caricature.

—I also ask You that we may not forget it.

May no one read sadness or sorrow in your face, when you spread in the world around you the sweet aroma of your sacrifice: the children of God should always be sowers of peace and joy.

The cheerfulness of a man of God, of a woman of God, has to overflow: it has to be calm, contagious, attractive…; in a few words, it has to be so supernatural, and natural, so infectious that it may bring others to follow Christian ways.

“Happy?” —The question made me think.

—Words have not yet been invented to express all that we feel — in the heart and in the will — when we know ourselves to be children of God.

Christmas time. You write: “Together with the holy expectation of Mary and Joseph, I also impatiently await the Child. How happy I shall feel at Bethlehem! I have a feeling that I won’t be able to contain this joy without bounds. Yes! but, with Him, I also want to be born anew.”

—I hope you really mean what you say!

The scene of the parable is being repeated: it is the same as with those people who were invited to the wedding feast. Some are afraid, others have their own concerns, many… make up stories or give silly excuses.

They put up resistance. That is why they feel the way they do: fed up, all in a muddle, listless, bored, bitter. And yet how easy it is to accept the divine invitation at every moment, and live a happy life, full of joy!

With God, I thought, every day seems more attractive. I can see “little bits” at a time. One day I notice some wonderful detail; on another, I discover a sight I had not seen before… At this rate, it is impossible to say what will happen next.

Then, I noticed that He was reassuring me: “Your happiness will grow greater every day, for you will be drawn deeper and deeper into that divine adventure, into that great ‘complication’ with which you have become involved. And you will realise that I will never abandon you.”

Some people feel embittered all the time. Everything makes them uneasy. They go to sleep with a physical obsession: that this sleep, the only possible escape, is not going to last very long. They wake up with the unwelcome and disheartening feeling that they now have another day in front of them.

Many have forgotten that the Lord has placed us in the world on our way to eternal happiness. They do not realise that only those who walk on earth with the joy of the children of God will be able to attain it.

Don’t make a tragedy out of death, for it is not one. Only unloving children do not look forward to meeting their parents.