List of points

“We cannot be sectarian”, they told me with an air of reasonableness, referring to the way the Church’s doctrine remains firm.

Afterwards, when I let them see that whoever is in possession of the Truth cannot be sectarian, they realised their mistake.

I thought the comment on loyalty you had written to me was very appropriate to all those moments in history which the devil makes his business to repeat: “I carry with me every day in my heart, in my mind and on my lips, an aspiration: Rome.”

I shall never share the idea, either in the ascetical or the juridical field, of those who think and live as if serving the Church were equivalent to climbing to the top.

It hurts you to see that some use the technique of speaking about the Cross of Christ, only so as to climb and obtain positions. They are the same people who consider nothing they see as clean if it does not coincide with their own particular standards.

—All the more reason, then, for you to persevere in the rectitude of your intentions, and to ask the Master to grant you the strength to repeat: Non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat! — Lord, may I fulfil your Holy Will with love!

Every day you must grow in loyalty towards the Church, the Pope and the Holy See… with a love that should be always more theological.

You have a great desire truly to love the Church: and all the greater, when you see that those who wish to make her appear ugly are more active. —This seems very natural to me: because the Church is your Mother.

Sooner or later, those who do not wish to understand that the faith demands service to the Church and to souls, invert the terms, and end up by having the Church and souls serving their own personal ends.

May you never fall into the error of identifying the Mystical Body of Christ with a particular personal or public attitude of any of its members.

And may you never let other people with less formation fall into that error.

—Now you realise the importance of your integrity, of your loyalty!

Although it seems a paradox, those who call themselves sons of the Church may often be precisely those who sow greater confusion.

You became very thoughtful when you heard me say: I want the blood of my Mother the Church to run in my veins; not Alexander’s, or Charlemagne’s, nor that of the Seven Sages of Greece.

Among Catholics it might perhaps be that some have little Christian spirit; or so it might seem to those who have dealings with them at some particular moment.

But if you were to be scandalised by this fact, you would show that you knew very little about human wretchedness and… about your own wretchedness. Furthermore, it is neither just nor loyal to use the example of the weaknesses of a few to speak ill of Christ and his Church.

“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!”