List of points

Conscious of our duties, can we let a whole day go past without remembering we have a soul?

In our daily meditation, we have always to put things right so as not to depart from the way.

If you abandon prayer you may at first live on spiritual reserves… and after that, by cheating.

Practise meditation for a fixed period and at a fixed time.

—Otherwise we would be putting our own convenience first; that would be a lack of mortification. And prayer without mortification is not at all effective.

You lack interior life: that is because you do not consider in your prayer other people’s concerns and proselytism; because you do not make an effort to see things clearly, to make definite resolutions and fulfil them; because you do not have a supernatural outlook in your study, in your work, in your conversations, and your dealings with others…

—Are you living in the presence of God? For that is a consequence and a manifestation of your prayer.

You haven’t been praying? Why, because you haven’t had time?

—But you do have time. Furthermore, what sort of works will you be able to do if you have not meditated on them in the presence of the Lord, so as to put them in order? Without that conversation with God, how can you finish your daily work with perfection? —Look, it is as if you claimed you had no time to study because you were too busy giving lessons… Without study you cannot teach well.

Prayer has to come before everything. If you understand this and do not put it into practice, don’t tell me that you have no time: it’s simply that you do not want to pray!

Prayer, more prayer! —It may seem odd to say that now when you are taking examinations and working harder… But you need prayer, and not only the habitual prayer as an exercise of devotion; you also need to pray during odd moments, to pray between times, instead of allowing your mind to wander on silly things.

It does not matter if, in spite of your effort, you do not manage to concentrate and be recollected. That meditation may be of greater value than the one you made, with all ease, in the oratory.

Here is an effective custom for achieving presence of God: your first audience every day should be with Jesus Christ.

Prayer is not the prerogative of monks; it is a Christian undertaking of men and women of the world who know themselves to be children of God.

Certainly, you have to follow your way: a man of action… with a contemplative vocation.

A Catholic, without prayer? It is the same as a soldier without arms.

Thank the Lord for the enormous gift he has granted you by making you understand that “only one thing is necessary.” And, along with that thanksgiving, may no day go past without your offering a prayer of petition for those who don’t know him yet or have not understood him.

When they were fishing for you, you would ask yourself where they got that strength and fire which burned everything in sight. —Now as you pray you realise that this is the source that wells up within the true children of God.

The Rosary is most effective for those who use their intelligence and their study as a weapon. Because that apparently monotonous way of beseeching Our Lady as children do their Mother, can destroy every seed of vainglory and pride.

“Immaculate Virgin, I know well that I am only a miserable wretch, and all I do is increase each day the number of my sins… ” You told me the other day that was how you spoke to Our Mother.

And I was confident in advising you with assurance to say the Holy Rosary. Blessed be that monotony of Hail Marys which purifies the monotony of your sins!

A sad way of not praying the Rosary is to leave it for the end of the day.

If you say it when going to bed, it will be done at best badly and with no meditation on the mysteries. It will be difficult then to avoid routine, which is what drowns true piety, the only piety worth the name.

The Rosary is said not with the lips alone, muttering Hail Marys one after the other. That is the way over-pious old men and women rattle them off. —For a Christian, vocal prayer must spring from the heart, so that while the Rosary is said, the mind can enter into contemplation of each one of the mysteries.

You always leave the Rosary for later, and you end up not saying it at all because you are sleepy. —If there is no other time, say it in the street without letting anybody notice it. It will, moreover, help you to have presence of God.

“Pray for me,” I said as I always do. And he answered in amazement: “But is something the matter?”

I had to explain that something is the matter or happens to us all the time; and I added that when prayer is lacking, “more and more weighty things are the matter.”

Renew your acts of contrition during the day. You must realise that Jesus is being offended constantly, and unfortunately, these offences are not being atoned for at the same rate.

That is why I have so often said: “Acts of contrition, the more the better!” Echo my words with your life and your advice.

How lovable is the scene of the Annunciation. How often we have meditated on this! Mary is recollected in prayer. She is using all her senses and her faculties to speak to God. It is in prayer that she comes to know the divine Will. And with prayer she makes it the life of her life. Do not forget the example of the Virgin Mary.