List of points

We could see, while we talked, the lands of that continent. A light was enkindled in your eyes, your soul was filled with impatience, and, thinking about those peoples, you said: Could it be possible that on the other side of those seas, the grace of God is rendered ineffective?

You then answered your own question: In his infinite goodness, He wishes to use docile instruments.

What compassion you feel for them!… You would like to cry out to them that they are wasting their time… Why are they so blind, and why can’t they perceive what you — a miserable creature — have seen? Why don’t they go for the best?

—Pray and mortify yourself. Then you have the duty to wake them up, one by one, explaining to them — also one by one — that they, like you, can find a divine way, without leaving the place they occupy in society.

You began in good heart. But little by little your spirit has shrunk… And you are going to end up in your own poor shell, if you continue to let your horizons become smaller and smaller.

—You have to allow your heart to expand more and more, with real hunger for the apostolate! Out of a hundred souls we are interested in a hundred.

Thank the Lord for the paternal and maternal tenderness he continues to show for you.

You always had those dreams of great adventures, and you have committed yourself to a wonderful enterprise…which leads you to holiness.

I repeat: thank God for this by leading an apostolic life.

When you launch out into the apostolate, be convinced that it is always a question of making people happy, very happy: Truth is inseparable from true joy.

People from different countries, different races, and very different backgrounds and professions… When you speak to them about God, you become aware of the human and supernatural value of your vocation as an apostle. It is as if you are re-living, in its total reality, the miracle of the first preaching of Our Lord’s disciples. Phrases spoken in a strange tongue, which open up new ways, have been heard by each one, in the depth of his heart in his own language. And in your mind you can see that scene taking on a new life, in which “Parthians, Medes and Elamites” have come joyfully to God.

Listen to me carefully and echo my words: Christianity is Love; getting to know God is a most positive experience; concern for others — the apostolate — is not an extra luxury, the task of a few.

—Now that you know this, fill yourself with joy, because your life has acquired a completely different meaning; and act in consequence.

Naturalness, sincerity and cheerfulness are indispensable conditions for the apostle to attract people.

The way Jesus called the first twelve could not have been simpler: “Come and follow me.”

Since you are always looking for excuses not to keep on with your task, there is one consideration that fits you like a glove: the human knowledge of those first apostles was very poor, and yet what an impact they made on those who listened to them!

—Never forget this: it is He who continues to do the work through each one of us.

Vocations to the apostolate are sent by God. But you must not cease to make use of the means: prayer, mortification, study or work, friendship, supernatural outlook… interior life!

When I speak to you about “apostolate of friendship”, I mean a personal friendship, self-sacrificing and sincere: face to face, heart to heart.

In the apostolate of friendship and trust, the first step has to be understanding, service — and holy intransigence in doctrine.

Dig further every day into the apostolic depths of your Christian vocation. He unfurled a banner to be followed twenty centuries ago, for you and me to proclaim aloud to men. It is indeed meant for all those who have a sincere heart and are capable of loving… What clearer invitations do you need than these: Ignem veni mittere in terram — I have come to bring fire to the earth, and the thought of those two thousand five hundred million souls who still do not know Christ!

Hominem non habeo — I have no one to help me. This —unfortunately! — could be said by many who are spiritually sick and paralytic, who could be useful — and should be useful.

Lord: may I never remain indifferent to souls.

Ask with me for a new Pentecost, which will once again set the world alight.

“If any man comes to me without hating his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life too, he can be no disciple of mine.”

Every day I see more clearly, Lord, that family ties, if they do not pass through your most lovable Heart, are, for some, a permanent source of the cross; for others they are a cause of more or less direct temptation against perseverance; for others again, the reason why they are totally ineffective; and, for all, a dead weight which impedes their total surrender.

The ploughshare that breaks up the earth and opens up the furrow sees neither the seed nor the harvest.

When you made up your mind, you would discover something new every day. Do you remember how it used to be when you constantly asked yourself: “How should this be done?”... But you then kept on experiencing doubts or disappointments…

Now you always find an exact answer which is clear and fully reasoned. And, when you listen to the answers you get to your often childish questions, you think: “Jesus must have looked after the first Twelve like this.”

Vocations, Lord, more vocations! It doesn’t matter whether I did the sowing or someone else: it was You, Jesus, who sowed the seed with our hands! All I know is that you have promised that the fruit will ripen; et fructus vester maneat — and your fruit will endure.

Be honest. If there are people who tell you that you have been trying “to catch them”, admit that this is what you want to do. But there is no need for them to worry! Because, if they haven’t got a vocation — if He does not call them — they won’t come; and if they have, what a shame for them to end up like the rich young man in the Gospel: alone and sad.

As an apostle you have a great and beautiful task. You find yourself at the place where grace and the freedom of each soul meet. You are also present at that most solemn occasion in the life of some men: their encounter with Christ.

It seems as if you have been individually picked, he said.

And that is right!

Be sure of this: you need to be fully formed to face the rush of people that is going to press upon us with a specific and urgent question: “Well then, what’s to be done?”

Here is a recipe to make your apostolic spirit effective: make definite plans, not for the whole week but for the day ahead, for this moment and the next.

How sad it is to realise that those who hate the Lord march arm-in-arm with some who claim they are in his service. They follow different passions, but are united against Christians, the children of God.

In certain surroundings, especially in the intellectual sphere, one sees and feels a sort of conspiracy of “cliques”, not infrequently assisted even by Catholics. With cynical perseverance they maintain and spread slanders to cast a shadow over the Church, or over certain individuals and organisations within it. All this is done against all truth or reason.

Pray each day with faith: “Ut inimicos Sanctae Ecclesiae” — enemies, because that is what they proclaim themselves to be — “humiliare digneris, te rogamus audi nos.” Confound, Lord, those who persecute you, with the clarity of your light, which we are ready to spread.

Is the idea of Catholicism old and therefore unacceptable? —The sun is older and has not lost its light; water is more ancient, and it still quenches the thirst and refreshes us.

No one, even with a good intention, should be allowed to falsify historical or biographical facts. —But it is a great mistake to put on a pedestal enemies of the Church who have spent their days persecuting her. Be sure of this: historical truth does not suffer because a Christian does not wish to collaborate in the construction of a pedestal which should not exist. Since when is hatred to be set up as a model?

The spreading of Christian teaching need not provoke antagonism, or harm those who do not know our doctrine. Caritas omnia suffert! — love bears all things. If one proceeds with charity, anyone who might otherwise have been opposed to Christianity and been deceived by error may easily and honestly end up committing himself to it. —However, there can be no giving ground in dogma in the name of a naive “breadth of belief”, for if anyone acted in this way he would risk putting himself out of the Church. Instead of winning a benefit for others he would harm himself.

Christianity is “unusual”; it does not sit easily with the things of this world. And that is perhaps its greatest “nuisance value” when it is used as a banner by the worldly.

Some people know nothing about God… because no one has talked to them about him in terms they can understand.

Pray that your holy ingenuity may achieve what your intelligence cannot attain, so that you may give more service of a better kind to everyone.

Believe me, the apostolate of giving doctrine usually has to be, as it were, capillary, spreading from one to another, from each believer to his immediate companion.

The children of God care about all souls, because every soul is important.

Seek refuge with the Blessed Virgin, Mother of Good Counsel, so that your lips may never utter any offence against God.