List of points

There are souls who seem bent on inventing sufferings, on torturing themselves with their imagination.

Afterwards, when objective sorrows and contradictions come their way, they do not know how to be like the Most Holy Virgin at the foot of the Cross with her eyes fixed on her Son.

Sacrifice, sacrifice! It is true that to follow Jesus Christ is to carry the Cross — He has said so. But I don’t like to hear souls who love Our Lord speak so much about crosses and renunciations, because where there is Love, it is a willing sacrifice — though it remains hard — and the cross is the Holy Cross.

—A soul which knows how to love and give itself in this way, is filled with peace and joy. Therefore, why insist on “sacrifice”, as if you were seeking consolation, if Christ’s Cross — which is your life — makes you happy?

We could get rid of so much neurosis and hysteria if people were taught — together with Christian doctrine — really to live as Christians: loving God and knowing how to accept things that annoy us as a blessing from His hand!

Do not pass by a neighbour’s affliction with indifference. That person — a relative, a friend, a colleague… someone you don’t know — is your brother.

—Remember the Gospel story you have heard so often with sadness: not even the relatives of Jesus trusted Him. —Make sure the scene is not repeated.

Imagine that on earth there was only God and you.

—Thus it will be easier to bear with mortifications and humiliations. And, in the end, you will do the things God wants and in the way He wants.

That sick person, consumed by a zeal for souls, said: sometimes the body protests a little and complains, but I also try to transform “those moans” into smiles, because then they become very effective.

An incurable illness restricted his movements. And yet he cheerfully assured me: “The illness suits me well and I love it more all the time. If I were given the choice, I would be born again this way a hundred times!”

Jesus came to the Cross, after having prepared himself for thirty three years, all his life!

—His disciples, if they really want to imitate him, have to convert their existence into a co-redemption of Love, with their own active and passive self-denial.

The Cross is present in everything, and it comes when one least expects it. —But don’t forget that, normally, the beginning of the Cross and the beginning of efficacy go together.

The Lord, the Eternal Priest, always blesses with the Cross.

Cor Mariae perdolentis, miserere nobis! — Invoke the Heart of Holy Mary, with the purpose and determination of uniting yourself to her sorrow, in reparation for your sins and the sins of men of all times.

And pray to her — for every soul — that her sorrow may increase in us our aversion to sin, and that we may be able to love the physical or moral contradictions of each day as a means of expiation.