List of points

You are ambitious: for knowledge, for leadership, for great ventures.

Good. Very good. But let it be for Christ, for Love.

To love God and not venerate his Priests… is not possible.

This tying of one's life to a plan, to a timetable, you tell me, is so monotonous! And I answer: there is monotony because there is little Love.

I had to smile at the impatience of your prayer. You were telling him: 'I don't want to grow old, Jesus… To have to wait so long to see you! Then, perhaps I won't have a heart as inflamed as mine is now. "Then" seems too late. Now, my union would be more ardent for I love you now with the pure Love of youth.'

Surely God's Love is worth any love.

That Christ you see is not Jesus. It is only the pitiful image that your blurred eyes are able to form… — Purify yourself. Clarify your sight with humility and penance. Then… the pure light of Love will not be denied you. And you will have perfect vision. The image you see will be really his: his!

You've done well…, even though you have fallen so low. You have done well, because you humbled yourself, because you put things right, because you filled yourself with hope, and that hope brought you back again to his Love. Don't look so amazed: you have done well! You rose up from the ground: 'Surge — arise,' the mighty voice cried anew, 'et ambula! — and walk!' Now — to work!

Don't be afraid to call our Lord by his name — Jesus — and to tell him that you love him.

You know that there are 'evangelical counsels.' To follow them is a refinement of Love. It is said to be the way of few. At times I feel it could be the way of many.

Don't worry if people say you have esprit de corps. What do they want? A brittle instrument, that falls to pieces the moment it is grasped?

Don't be content to ask Jesus pardon just for your own faults: don't love him just with your own heart…

Console him for every offence that has been, is, or will be done to him. Love him with all the strength of all the hearts of all those who have most loved him.

Be daring: tell him that you are crazier about him than Mary Magdalen, than either of his two Teresas, that you love him madly, more than Augustine and Dominic and Francis, more than Ignatius and Xavier.

May the fire of your love not be a will-o'—the-wisp: an illusion, a dying fire, that neither sets ablaze what it touches nor gives off any heat.

'Timor Domini sanctus. The fear of God is holy.' Fear which is the veneration of a son for his Father; never a servile fear, for your Father-God is not a tyrant.

Love and sorrow. Because he is good. Because he is your friend, who gave his life for you. Because every good thing you have is his. Because you have offended him so much… Because he has forgiven you… He!… you!

Weep, my son, with Love-sorrow.

If a man had died to save me from death!… God died, And I remain indifferent.

Crazy! Yes, I saw you in the bishop's chapel — alone, so you thought — as you left a kiss on each newly-consecrated chalice and paten: so that he might find them there, when he came for the first time to those eucharistic vessels.

Don't forget that Sorrow is the touchstone of Love.

An upright heart and good will. With these, and with your mind intent on carrying out what God wants, you will see your dreams of Love come true and your hunger for souls satisfied.

How joyfully the holy guardian Angels must have obeyed that soul who said to them: 'Holy Angels, I call on you, like the Spouse of the Song of Songs, ut nuntietis ei quia amore langueo, to tell him that I languish with love.'

Everything seems to touch you on the raw…, to make you suffer in your mind and in your senses. And everything is temptation to you…

Be humble — I insist. You will see how quickly all this passes; and the pain will be turned into joy: and the temptation, into firm purpose.

But meanwhile, strengthen your faith; fill yourself with hope; and make constant acts of Love, even though you can feel them only on your lips.

You talk of dying 'heroically'. Do you not think that it is more 'heroic' to die a bourgeois death, in a good bed, unnoticed… but to die of love-sickness.

May no other attachment bind you to earth than the divine desire of giving glory to Christ and, through him and with him and in him, to the Father and the holy Spirit.

Tell him — yes, him — that I need fifty men who love Jesus Christ above all things.

Sometimes we feel inclined to act as little children. What we do then has a wonderful value in God's eyes and, so long as we don't let routine creep in, our 'little' actions will indeed be fruitful with the unfailing fruitfulness of Love.