List of points

The power of your name, Lord! As a heading to my letter I had written, as always, 'May Jesus watch over you.'

And he replies: 'The "May Jesus watch over you" of your letter has already helped me out of more than one tight corner. May he also watch over all of you.'

Communion of Saints. — How shall I explain it? You know what blood-transfusions do for the body? Well that is more or less what the Communion of Saints does for the soul.

Live a special Communion of Saints: and, in the moments of interior struggle just as in the hours of professional work, each of you will feel the joy and the strength of not being alone.

Son, how well you lived the Communion of Saints when you wrote: 'Yesterday I felt that you were praying for me'!

Someone else who knows of this 'pool' of supernatural riches, tells me: 'That last letter did me a world of good: I could feel everyone's prayers behind it… and I need their prayers very much!'

If you feel the Communion of Saints — if you live it — you will gladly be a man of penance. And you will realize that penance is gaudium, etsi laboriosum, joy, in spite of its hardship. And you will feel yourself 'allied' to all the penitent souls that have been, that are, and that ever will be.

You will find it easier to do your duty if you think of how your brothers are helping you, and of the help you fail to give them if you are not faithful.

'So I bear it all for the sake of those who are chosen, so that in the end they may have the salvation that is in Christ Jesus'.

What a way to live the Communion of Saints!

Ask our Lord to give you this spirit of Saint Paul.

Absence, isolation: trials for your perseverance. Holy Mass, prayer, sacraments, sacrifices, Communion of Saints: weapons to conquer in the trial.