List of points

You made up your mind after reflection, rather than with any burning enthusiasm. Although you would have very much liked to feel it, there was no room for sentiment: you gave yourself to God when you were convinced that that is what He wanted.

And, since then, you have felt no serious doubts; rather you experience a calm and peaceful joy, which sometimes overflows. It is thus that God rewards the daring feats of Love.

To be happy, what you need is not an easy life but a heart which is in love.

After twenty centuries, we have to proclaim with complete conviction that the spirit of Christ has not lost its redemptive force, which alone can satisfy the desires of the human heart. —Begin by feeding that truth into your own heart, which will be perpetually restless, as Saint Augustine wrote, for as long as you don’t place it entirely in God.

To love is… to cherish but one thought, to live for the person loved, not to belong to oneself, to be happily and freely, with one’s heart and soul, subjected to another’s will… and at the same time to one’s own.

You still do not love the Lord as a miser loves his riches, as a mother loves her child… You are still too concerned about yourself and about your petty affairs! And yet you have noticed that Jesus has already become indispensable in your life…

—Well, as soon as you correspond completely to his call, he will also be indispensable to you in each one of your actions.

Cry aloud — for that cry is the folly of one in love: “Lord, even though I love you… don’t trust me! Bind me to yourself, more closely every day!”

Don’t doubt it: the heart has been created to love. Let us therefore bring Our Lord Jesus Christ into all the love that we feel. Otherwise, the empty heart takes revenge and fills itself up with the most despicable vileness.

There is no heart more human than that of a person overflowing with supernatural sense. Think of Holy Mary, who is full of grace, Daughter of God the Father, Mother of God the Son, Spouse of God the Holy Spirit. Her Heart has room for all humanity and makes no distinction or discrimination. —Every person is her son or her daughter.

When someone has a very small heart, it seems as if he keeps his desires in a narrow, neglected drawer.

Each day you must behave to those around you with great understanding, with great affection, together, of course, with all the energy needed. Otherwise understanding and affection become complicity and selfishness.

That friend of ours with no false humility used to say: “I haven’t needed to learn how to forgive, because the Lord has taught me how to love.”

Forgiveness. To forgive with one’s whole heart and with no trace of a grudge will always be a wonderfully fruitful disposition to have!

—That was Christ’s attitude on being nailed to the Cross: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they are doing.” From this came your salvation and mine.

Do you feel as if goodness and absolute truth have been deposited with you, and therefore that you have been invested with a personal title or right to uproot evil at all costs?

—You will never solve anything like that, but only through Love and with love, remembering that Love has forgiven you and still forgives you so much!

Love good people because they love Christ… —Love those too who do not love him, because of this misfortune, and especially because Christ loves both kinds of people.

The people of that land, so far away from God and lost, reminded you of the Master’s words: “They are like sheep without a shepherd.”

—And you too were filled with a strong feeling of compassion deep within you… Make up your mind, where you are now, to give your life as a holocaust for all.

A friend of ours used to say: “The poor are my best spiritual book and the main motive of my prayers. It pains me to see them, and in each one of them, Christ. And because it hurts, I realise I love him and love them.”

If the love of God is put into friendships, they are cleansed, reinforced and spiritualised, because all the dross, all the selfish points of view and excessively worldly considerations are burned away. Never forget that the love of God puts our affections in order, and purifies them without diminishing them.

The thought of what has happened to you burns within you. Christ came to you when you were only a miserable leper! Until then, you had developed only one good quality, a generous concern for others. After that encounter you were given the grace to see Jesus in them, you fell in love with him, and now you love him in them… Now the altruism that used to impel you to help your neighbour in certain ways seems very small. You are right to think so!

Get accustomed to entrusting your poor heart to the Sweet and Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that she may purify it from so much dross, and lead it to the Most Sacred and Most Merciful Heart of Jesus.