List of points

How you long to be extraordinary! —The trouble with such an ambition is how very vulgar it is.

You found yourself with two books in Russian, and you felt an enormous desire to learn that language. You imagined the beauty of dying like a grain of wheat in that nation, now so arid, which in time will yield great harvests of wheat.

—I think that those ambitions are good. But, for now, dedicate yourself to the small task and great mission of every day, to your study, your work, your apostolate, and, above all, to your formation. This, since you still need to do so much pruning, is neither a less heroic nor a less beautiful task.

Allow your soul to be consumed by desires — desires for loving, for being forgotten, for holiness, for Heaven. Do not stop to wonder whether the time will come to see them accomplished, as some pseudo-adviser might suggest. Make them more fervent every day, for the Holy Spirit says that he is pleased with men of desires.

Let your desires be operative and put them into practice in your daily tasks.

An impatient and disordered anxiousness to climb up the professional ladder can mask self-love under the appearances of “serving souls”. It is a lie — and I really mean that — when we seek to justify our actions by saying that we must not miss certain opportunities, certain favourable chances.

Turn your eyes back to Jesus; he is “the Way”. During his hidden years, there were also “very favourable” chances to advance his public life — when he was twelve years old, for instance, and the doctors of the law were in amazement at his questions and at the answers he gave. But Jesus Christ fulfils the Will of his Father, and he waits. He obeys!

—Do not lose that holy ambition of yours to lead the whole world to God, but when those ideas present themselves (they might show perhaps a desire to desert) remember that you too have to be obedient and work away at that obscure job, which does not seem at all brilliant, for as long as God asks nothing else of you. He has his own times and paths.

I think it is very natural for you to want the whole world to know Christ. But start with the responsibility of saving the souls of those who live with you and sanctifying each one of your fellow workers or fellow students. That is the principal mission that the Lord has entrusted to you.

Understand that holy things, when they are looked at and done every day in a holy manner, do not become “everyday” things. Everything Jesus Christ did on this earth was human — and divine!