List of points

“Pray”, you said, “that I may be generous, that I may progress, and come to change in such a way that one day I may be useful in something.”

Good. —But what means are you using so that these resolutions can be effective?

Do you see? With Him you have been able. Why are you surprised?

—Be convinced: there is nothing to be surprised about. If you trust in God — really trust! — things work out easily. And, what is more, you always go further than you imagined you could.

It is such a waste of time and such a human way of looking at things, when everything is reduced to tactics of a sort, as if the secret of being effective lay there.

—They forget that God’s tactic is charity, the Love without limits: thus it was that He bridged the unbridgeable gap that man, through sin, opens up between Heaven and earth.

Vocations to the apostolate are sent by God. But you must not cease to make use of the means: prayer, mortification, study or work, friendship, supernatural outlook… interior life!

Never put your trust in organisation alone.

Holy Purity is the humility of the flesh! You asked the Lord for seven bolts on your heart. And I advised you to ask for seven bolts for your heart and eighty years of gravity as well, for your youth…

And be watchful, for a spark is much easier to extinguish than a fire. Take flight… for in this it is low cowardice to be “brave”; a roving eye… does not mean a lively spirit, but turns out to be a snare of satan.

Yet human diligence, with mortification, the cilice, disciplines and fasting are all worthless without you, my God!

A paradox: I have had fewer worries on my mind every day since I decided to follow the advice of the psalm: “Cast your cares upon the Lord, and he will sustain you.” And at the same time, once we have done whatever needs doing, everything can be solved more easily!

In certain surroundings, especially in the intellectual sphere, one sees and feels a sort of conspiracy of “cliques”, not infrequently assisted even by Catholics. With cynical perseverance they maintain and spread slanders to cast a shadow over the Church, or over certain individuals and organisations within it. All this is done against all truth or reason.

Pray each day with faith: “Ut inimicos Sanctae Ecclesiae” — enemies, because that is what they proclaim themselves to be — “humiliare digneris, te rogamus audi nos.” Confound, Lord, those who persecute you, with the clarity of your light, which we are ready to spread.

A Christian always triumphs from the Cross, through his self-renunciation, because he allows God’s omnipotence to act.