List of points

Listen to me carefully and echo my words: Christianity is Love; getting to know God is a most positive experience; concern for others — the apostolate — is not an extra luxury, the task of a few.

—Now that you know this, fill yourself with joy, because your life has acquired a completely different meaning; and act in consequence.

Don’t tell me that you care for your interior life, if you are not carrying out an intense and ceaseless apostolate. The Lord — whom you assure me you are close to — wishes all men to be saved.

Christ expects a lot from your work. But you will have to look for souls, as the Good Shepherd went after the hundredth sheep: without waiting to be called. Then make use of your friends to do good to others. Tell each one of them that nobody can feel at ease with a spiritual life which, after filling him, does not overflow with apostolic zeal.

Religion cannot be separated from life, either in theory or in daily reality.

I understand perfectly when you write to me about your apostolate: “I am going to pray for three hours, studying Physics. It will be a bombardment so that another position, which is on the other side of the library table, falls — you have met him already when he came round here.”

I remember how happy you were when you heard me say that prayer and work can easily go together.

Do not be scandalised because there are bad Christians who are active but do not practise. The Lord, says the Apostle, “will render to every man according to his works”; to you for yours, and to me, for mine.

—If you and I make up our minds to behave well, there will be two fewer scoundrels in the world for a start.

You say you are a Catholic… That is why I feel so sorry for you when I see that your convictions lack the solidity needed to let you practise Catholicism in action, without introducing reservations or compartmentalising your life.

So often it seems impossible for the truth to be true! Above all because it always has to be lived consistently.

Don’t behave like a fool. No one is ever a fanatic for wanting to know better every day, and love more, and defend with greater conviction the truth he has to know, love and defend.

On the other hand — I say this without fear — those who oppose this reasonable behaviour in the name of a false liberty become sectarian.

It is as easy now as it was at the time of Jesus Christ to say No, to deny or to put to one side the truth of faith. You who call yourself a Catholic have to start from Yes.

Later, after some study, you will be able to explain the reasons for your certainty, and that there is no contradiction — there can be none — between Truth and science, between Truth and life.

Please don’t abandon the task, don’t deviate from the way, even though you have to live with people who are full of prejudices: as if you thought the basis of arguments or the meaning of words were fixed by their behaviour or by their assertions.

—Do try to get them to understand you… but if you don’t manage it, carry on anyway.

You explained your ideals and your sure, firm way of behaving as a Catholic, and he seemed to accept and understand your way. But afterwards you were left doubting whether he might not have smothered his understanding under his not very well-ordered habits…

—Seek him out again, and explain to him that one accepts truth in order to live by it or try to live by it.