List of points

How frankly you laughed when I advised you to put the years of your youth under the protection of Saint Raphael: 'so that he'll lead you, like young Tobias, to a holy marriage, with a girl who is good and pretty and rich', I told you, jokingly.

And then, how thoughtful you became!… when I went on to advise you to put yourself also under the patronage of that young apostle John; in case God were to ask more of you.

For you, who complain to yourself because you are treated severely and feel the contrast between this harshness and the conduct of those back home, I copy these lines from the letter of an army doctor: 'There are two ways of approaching each case: the conscientious professional attitude — cold and calculating, but objective and useful to the patient: or the tearful fussing of the family. At the height of a battle, when the stream of casualties begins to arrive and to accumulate because they can't be dealt with fast enough, what would become of a first-aid post if a family stood around each stretcher? One might just as well go over to the enemy.'

I have no need of miracles: there are more than enough for me in the Gospel. But I do need to see you fulfilling your duty and responding to grace.

Disappointment. You're downhearted. Men have just taught you a lesson! As long as they thought you did not need them, offers came pouring in. The possibility that they might have to help you with hard cash — a few miserable pennies — turned their friendship into indifference.

Trust only in God and in those who, through him, are united with you.

Ah, if you would only resolve to serve God 'seriously', with the same zeal with which you serve your ambition, your vanity, your sensuality!…

If you feel the urge to be a leader, let this be your aim: to be last among your brothers; and among others, the first.

Let's see: do you feel slighted in any way because 'So— and-so' is more friendly with certain persons whom he knew before or to whom he feels more attracted by temperament, profession, or character ?

Nevertheless, among yourselves, carefully avoid even the appearance of a particular friendship.

The choicest morsel, if eaten by a pig, is turned (to put it bluntly), into pigflesh!

Let us be angels, so as to dignify the ideas we assimilate.

Let us at least be men, so as to convert our food into strong and noble muscles, or perhaps into a powerful brain capable of understanding and adoring God.

But let us not be beasts, like so many, so very many!

So you are bored? Naturally, if you keep your senses awake and your soul asleep.

The charity of Jesus Christ will often lead you to make concessions. That is very noble. And the charity of Jesus Christ will often lead you to stand your ground. That too is very noble.

If you're not bad, and yet appear to be bad, then you are stupid. And that stupidity — source of scandal — is worse than being bad.

When you see people of uncertain professional standing acting as leaders at public functions of a religious nature, don't you feel the urge to whisper in their ears: Please, would you mind being just a little less Catholic?