List of points

I would like you to behave as Peter and John did — speaking to Jesus about the needs of your friends, colleagues… as you pray. And then with your example you will be able to say to them: Respice in nos! — look at me!

Think what would happen if we Christians chose not to behave as such… and then rectify your behaviour.

A saint! A son of God should exaggerate in practising virtue — if exaggeration is possible here… Because other people will see themselves reflected in him, as in a mirror, and it is only by our aiming very high that others will reach a middling level.

Live your Christian life with naturalness! Let me stress this: make Christ known through your behaviour, just as an ordinary mirror reproduces an image without distorting it or turning it into a caricature. — If, like the mirror, you are normal, you will reflect Christ’s life, and show it to others.

You need interior life and doctrinal formation. Be demanding on yourself! As a Christian man or woman, you have to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, for you are obliged to give good example with holy shamelessness.

The charity of Christ should compel you. Feeling and knowing yourself to be another Christ from the moment you told him that you would follow him, you must not separate yourself from your equals — your relatives, friends and colleagues — any more than you would separate salt from the food it is seasoning.

Your interior life and your formation include the piety and the principles a child of God must have, to give flavour to everything by his active presence there.

Ask the Lord that you may always be that good seasoning in the lives of others.

You need to imitate Jesus Christ and make him known through your behaviour. I want you not to forget that Christ assumed our human nature so as to raise all men to a divine way of life; and so that, united to him, we might live the commands of Heaven both individually and as members of society.

When I speak to you of good example, I mean to tell you, too, that you have to understand and excuse, that you have to fill the world with peace and love.

Christian: you have the obligation of being an example in all fields: including being an example as a citizen, in your fulfilment of the laws directed to the common good.

You are very demanding. You want everyone else, including those who work in the public service, to carry out their obligations. “It is their duty!” you say. Have you then ever thought about whether you respect the timetable of your work and do it conscientiously?

Carry out all your duties as a citizen. Do not try to get out of any of your obligations. Exercise all your rights, too, for the good of society, without making any rash exceptions.

—You must give Christian witness in that also.

Face up to the problems of this world with a sense of the supernatural, and following the principles of ethics. They do not threaten or undermine your personality: they channel it.

—In this way you will bring to your behaviour a living strength which will win people over; and you will be confirmed in your progress along the right path.

You are an ordinary citizen. It is precisely because of that secularity of yours, which is the same as, and neither more nor less than, that of your colleagues, that you have to be sufficiently brave — which may sometimes mean being very brave — to make your faith felt. They should see your good works and the motive that drives you to do them.