List of points

As you never seem to manage to set off, consider what a brother of yours wrote to me: “It takes an effort, but once you have ‘made up your mind’, how you gasp with happiness when you find yourself firmly on your way!”

“These days”, you were saying, “have been the happiest in my life.” —And I answered you without hesitation: that is because you ‘have lived’ with a little more self-giving than usual.

The Lord’s calling — vocation — always presents itself like this: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Yes: a vocation demands self-denial, sacrifice. But how pleasant that sacrifice turns out to be — gaudium cum pace, joy and peace — if that self-giving is complete!

The more generous you are for God, the happier you will be.