List of points

A consequence of loyalty is your assurance that you are walking along the right road, without being unsettled or confused. You are also strengthened in this additional certainty: that good sense and happiness exist.

—See whether this is fulfilled in every instant of your life.

You told me that God sometimes fills you with light for a while and sometimes does not.

I reminded you, firmly, that the Lord is always infinitely good. That is why those bright days are enough to help you carry on; but the times when you see no light are good for you too, and make you more faithful.

The salt of the earth. Our Lord said that his disciples — you and I also — are the salt of the earth: to render immune to infection, to prevent corruption, to season the world.

But he also added: Quod si sal evanuerit… — if the salt itself becomes tasteless, it will be cast out and trampled underfoot by men.

—On seeing the many things happening which we lament, are you now beginning to find an explanation for what you could not explain before?

That passage of the Second Epistle to Timothy makes me shudder, when the Apostle laments that Demas has deserted him for love of this life and gone to Thessalonica. For a trifle, and for fear of persecution, this man, whom Saint Paul had quoted in other epistles as being among the saints, had betrayed the divine enterprise.

I shudder when I realise how little I am: and it leads me to demand from myself faithfulness to the Lord even in events that might seem to be indifferent — for if they do not help me to be more united to Him, I do not want them!

I thought the comment on loyalty you had written to me was very appropriate to all those moments in history which the devil makes his business to repeat: “I carry with me every day in my heart, in my mind and on my lips, an aspiration: Rome.”

What a great discovery! Something you barely half-understood turned out to be very clear when you had to explain it to others.

You had to speak very gently with someone, who was disheartened because he felt useless and did not want to be a burden to anyone… You understood then, better than ever, why I always talk to you about being little donkeys turning the water-wheel: carrying on faithfully, with large blinkers which prevent us personally seeing or tasting the results — the flowers, the fruit, the freshness of the garden — confident about the effectiveness of our fidelity.

Loyalty demands a real hunger for formation, because you are moved by a sincere love and you do not wish to run the risk of spreading or of defending, through ignorance, principles or attitudes which are very far from being in accordance with the truth.

“I would like”, you write, “my loyalty and perseverance to be so solid and so eternal, and my service so vigilant and loving, that you could be pleased with me, and I could provide a bit of solace for you.”

—And I answer: may God confirm you in your resolution, so that we may provide help and solace for Him.

It is true that some who become enthusiastic leave later on. Don’t worry: they are the needle God makes use of to draw the thread through the cloth.

—Oh, and pray for them, because perhaps one can manage to get them to keep giving an impulse to others.

For you who are wavering, I copy from a letter: “From now on I may continue to be the same inept instrument as ever. But in spite of that, I have changed my way of defining and solving the problem of my life, because there is in me a firm desire to persevere… for ever!”

—You must never doubt that He never fails.

Your life is service, but always with stalwart loyalty, laying down no conditions. Only thus shall we be able to give the Lord what he expects.

I shall never share the idea, either in the ascetical or the juridical field, of those who think and live as if serving the Church were equivalent to climbing to the top.

I have always thought that lack of loyalty out of human respect is lack of love — and a lack of personality.

Turn your eyes towards the Blessed Virgin and see how she practises the virtue of loyalty. When Elizabeth needs her, the Gospel says that she went cum festinatione — joyfully making haste. Learn from her!