List of points

More is achieved by whoever goes up closer to plead… That is why you must get close to God and be intent on becoming a saint.

I like to compare the interior life to clothing, to the wedding garment the Gospel speaks about. The cloth is woven from all the habits or acts of piety which, like threads, together give strength to the cloth. And so, just as a torn dress is rejected even though the rest of the material is in good condition, if you pray and work… but are not penitent (or the other way round) your interior life is not (so to speak) complete.

When will you realise that your only possible way is to seek sanctity seriously.

Make up your mind — don’t be offended — to take God seriously. That levity of yours, if you do not fight against it, could end up by becoming a sad and blasphemous mockery.

You sometimes allow the bad side of your character to come out, and it has shown itself, on more than one occasion, in an absurd harshness. At other times, you do not bother to prepare your heart and your head so that they may be a worthy dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity… And you invariably end up by remaining rather distant from Jesus, whom you know so little.

—If you go on like this, you will never have interior life.

Iesus Christus, perfectus Deus, perfectus Homo — Jesus Christ, perfect God and perfect Man.

There are many Christians who follow Christ and are astonished by his divinity, but forget him as Man… And they fail in the practice of supernatural virtues, despite all the external paraphernalia of piety, because they do nothing to acquire human virtues.

Personal sanctity is a remedy for everything! —That is why the saints have been full of peace, of fortitude, of joy, of security…

Until now you had not understood the message that we Christians bring to the rest of men: the hidden marvel of the interior life.

What a wonderful new world you are placing in front of them!

How many new things you have discovered! And yet you are sometimes rather naive and think you have seen everything, that you have found out everything already. As time goes by, you will be able to reach out and touch the unique and unfathomable treasures of the Lord, who will always show you new things, if you respond with love and sensitivity. Then you will realise that you are only beginning, because holiness consists in identifying oneself with God, with that God of ours who is infinite and inexhaustible.

It is through Love rather than study that one comes to understand the things of God.

That is why you have to work, you have to study, you have to accept illness, you have to be sober — lovingly!