List of points

You tell me, yes, that you want to. Very good: but do you want to as a miser longs for gold, as a mother loves her child, as a worldling craves for honours, or as a wretched sensualist seeks his pleasure ?

No? Then, you don't want to.

What zeal people put into their earthly affairs: dreaming of honours, striving for riches, bent on sensuality. Men and women, rich and poor, old and middle— aged and young and even children: all of them the same.

When you and I put the same zeal into the affairs of our souls, we will have a living and operative faith: and there will be no obstacle that we cannot overcome in our apostolic undertakings.

To you, who like sports, the Apostle's argument should appeal: 'All the runners at the stadium are trying to win, but only one of them gets the prize. You must run in the same way, meaning to win'.

'Here is a man who started to build and was unable to finish!'

A sad commentary which, if you don't want, need never be made about you: for you possess everything necessary to crown the edifice of your sanctification: the grace of God and your own will.

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.

You are suffering, and you want to bear it in silence. It does not matter if you complain, — it is the natural reaction of our poor flesh, — as long as your will, now and always, wants for yourself only what God wants.

We are blocks of stone that can move and feel, that have a perfectly free will.

God himself is the stone-cutter who works on us, chipping off the rough edges, shaping us as he desires, with blows of the hammer and chisel.

Don't let us try to draw aside, don't let us want to escape his will, for in any case we won't be able to avoid the blows. We will suffer all the more, and uselessly— and instead of polished stone, ready for the work of building, we will be a shapeless heap of gravel that people will trample contemptuously under foot.

Your own will, your own judgment: that is what worries you.