List of points

You feel happier. But this time it is a fidgety sort of happiness, a bit impatient. With it comes the clear feeling that something is being wrested from you as a sacrifice.

Listen to me carefully: here on earth there is no perfect happiness. That is why, now, immediately, without complaining or feeling a victim, you should offer yourself as an oblation to God, with total and absolute self-surrender.

Grace, like nature, normally acts gradually. We cannot, properly speaking, move ahead of grace. But in all that does depend on us we have to prepare the way and co-operate when God grants grace to us.

Souls have to be encouraged to aim very high; they have to be impelled towards Christ’s ideal. Lead them to the highest goals which should not be reduced or made weaker in any way. But remember that sanctity is not primarily worked out with one’s own hands. Grace normally takes its time, and is not inclined to act with violence.

Encourage your holy impatience, but don’t lose your patience.

It is not a matter of fulfilling your obligations in a hurry, but of bringing them to a finish without a pause, at God’s pace.

Sometimes it is a duty to feel annoyed; sometimes it is a weakness. But let it last only for a few minutes. Moreover, make sure there is always charity there: affection!

There is a remedy for those anxieties of yours. Be patient, have rectitude of intention and look at things from a supernatural perspective.