Piety

Our life is a battle, a war, a war of peace, which we always have to wage in gaudio et pace.³⁸ We will have this peace and joy if we are men or women of the Work, that is, if we are sincerely pious, learned (each in our own field of work), and hard-working, while having a sporting spirit in our spiritual lives. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable (1 Cor 9:24-25).

For this reason we are contemplative souls in a constant dialogue, conversing with the Lord all the time, from the first thought of our day to our last thought at night. Because we are in love and we live by Love, we have our heart set continually on Jesus Christ our Lord, reaching him through his Holy Mother Mary, and then through him coming to the Father and the Holy Spirit.

If we ever experience lack of peace or anxiety or restlessness, we go to our Lord and tell him that we place ourselves in his hands, like a small child in the arms of his or her father. This is a surrender that requires faith, hope, trust, and love.

Fulfilment of the Norms

I can assure you that whoever fulfils our Norms of life, or at least struggles to fulfil them, in health and in sickness, in youth and in old age, in sunny weather and in stormy, when it is easy and when it is difficult, that child of mine is predestined, if he or she perseveres to the end: I am certain of their sanctity.

God loves his creatures so much ‒ deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum (Prov 8:31), my delight is to be with the children of men ‒ that, if at any time we have been unfaithful to the Lord, he has nevertheless been watching and waiting for us. Just as a mother forgets about her son’s previous thoughtlessness when he approaches her with affection, so Jesus overlooks the things we have done wrong when we finally go to him affectionately, repentant and cleansed by the sacrament of penance.