List of points

You play around with temptations, you put yourself in danger, you fool around with your sight and with your imagination, you chat about… stupidities. And then you are anxious that doubts, scruples, confusion, sadness and discouragement might assail you.

—You must admit that you are not very consistent.

After the initial enthusiasm, there began the doubts, hesitations and fears. You are worried about your studies, your family, your financial situation, and, above all, the thought that you are not up to it, that perhaps you are of no use, that you lack experience in life.

I will give you a sure means of overcoming such fears — temptations coming from the devil or from your lack of generosity! Despise them: remove those recollections from your memory. The Master already preached this unequivocally twenty centuries ago: “Don’t look back…”

We have to foster in our souls a true horror for sin. Lord — say it with a contrite heart — may I never offend you again!

But don’t be frightened when you become aware of the burden of your poor body and of human passions: it would be silly and childishly naive to find out now that “this” exists. Your wretchedness is not an obstacle but a spur for you to become more united to God and seek him constantly, because He purifies us.

If your imagination bubbles over with thoughts about yourself and creates fanciful situations and circumstances which would not normally find a place in your way, then these will foolishly distract you. They will dampen your ardour and separate you from the presence of God. This is vanity.

If your imagination revolves around others, you will easily fall into the defect of passing judgement when this is not your responsibility. You will interpret their behaviour not at all objectively but in a mean way. This is rash judgement.

If your imagination hovers around your own talents and ways of speaking, or with the general admiration that you inspire in others, then you will be in danger of losing your rectitude of intention, and of providing fodder for your pride.

Generally, letting your imagination loose is a waste of time, and, if it is not controlled, it opens the door to a whole string of voluntary temptations.

—Do not leave off the practice of interior mortification for even a single day!

Do not be so stupidly naive as to think you have to go through temptations, to be sure that you are firm in your vocation. It would be like asking someone to stop your heart, to show you that you want to live.

Do not enter into dialogue with temptation. Allow me to repeat it: have the courage to run away and the moral strength not to dally with your weakness or wonder how far you can go. Break off, with no concessions!

You have no excuse whatsoever. You have only yourself to blame. If you are aware — and you know it well enough — that going along that path, reading those things, keeping that company, can bring you to a precipice, why do you persist in thinking that perhaps it is a short cut which will help you to develop or which makes your personality more mature?

You must change your plan radically, even though it demands a greater effort and means fewer amusements at your disposal. It is high time you behaved as a responsible person.

The irresponsibility of so many men and women who make no effort to avoid deliberate venial sins, pains Our Lord very much. It’s normal, they think, and seek to excuse themselves by saying that at those stumbling blocks we all fall!

Listen carefully: most of that mob, which condemned Christ and put him to death, also began only by shouting — just like the others — by going to the Garden of Olives — with the rest of them…

In the end, still carried along by what “everyone” was doing, they did not know how to draw back or did not want to… and they crucified Jesus!

—Now, after twenty centuries, we still have not learned.

Ups and downs. You have many, too many, ups and downs.

The reason is clear: till now, you have led an easy life, and you are reluctant to admit that there is a notable gap between “wanting to give” and “giving” oneself.

As, sooner or later, you are surely bound to stumble upon the evidence of your own personal wretchedness, I wish to forewarn you about some of the temptations which the devil will suggest to you and which you should reject straight away. These include the thought that God has forgotten about you, that your call to the apostolate is in vain, and that the weight of sorrow and of the sins of the world are greater than your strength as an apostle…

—None of this is true!

If you are really fighting, you need to make an examination of conscience.

Take care of the daily examination: find out if you feel the sorrow of Love, for not getting to know Our Lord as you should.

In the same way that many go to see first stones being laid, without bothering about whether the works then begun will ever be finished, sinners deceive themselves with their “last times”.