Supernatural life

Most people have a plane-like vision, stuck to the earth, of two dimensions. When you live a supernatural life, God will give you the third dimension: height, and with it, perspective, weight and volume.

If you lose the supernatural meaning of your life, your charity will be philanthropy; your purity, decency; your mortification, stupidity; your discipline, a whip; and all your works, fruitless.

Silence is the door-keeper of the interior life.

Paradox: sanctity is more attainable than learning, but it is easier to be learned than to be a saint.

A change! You say you need a change!… opening your eyes wide so as to take in better the images of things, or almost closing them because you are short-sighted.

Close them altogether! Have interior life, and you will see, in undreamt-of colour and relief, the wonders of a better world, of a new world: and you will draw close to God…, and know your weakness…, and be deified… with a deification which, by bringing you nearer to your Father, will make you more a brother of your fellow-men.

Ambition: to be good myself, and to see everyone else better than I.

Conversion is the matter of a moment. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.

There is nothing better in the world than to be in the grace of God.

Purity of intention. You will have it always if, always and in everything, you seek only to please God.

Enter into the wounds of Christ Crucified. There you will learn to guard your senses, you will have interior life, and you will continually offer to the Father the sufferings of our Lord and those of Mary, in payment of your debts and the debts of all men.

Your holy impatience to serve him does not displease God. But it will be fruitless if it is not accompanied by a real improvement in your daily conduct.

To rectify. A little each day. — This must be your constant concern if you really want to become a saint.

Your duty is to sanctify yourself. Yes, even you. Who thinks that this task is only for priests and religious?

To everyone, without exception, our Lord said: 'Be ye perfect, as my heavenly Father is perfect.'

Your interior life has to be just that: to begin… and to begin again.

In your interior life, have you slowly considered the beauty of 'serving' with ever-renewed willingness?

The plants lay hidden under the snow. And the farmer, the owner of the land, observed with satisfaction: 'Now they are growing on the inside.'

I thought of you: of your forced inactivity…

Tell me: are you too growing 'on the inside'?

If you are not master of yourself — though you may be powerful — your air of mastery moves me to pity and laughter.

It is hard to read that question of Pilate's in the holy Gospel: 'Whom do you wish me to release to you, Barabbas, or Jesus, who is called Christ?' — It is more painful to hear the answer: 'Barabbas!'

And more terrible still when I realize that very often by going astray I too have said 'Barabbas!' and added 'Christ?… Crucify him!'

All that, which worries you for the moment, is of relative importance. What is of absolute importance is that you be happy, that you be saved.

New lights! What joy you feel that God has let you 'discover' an old discovery!

Make the most of the occasion: it is the moment to break into a hymn of thanksgiving: it is also the moment to clean up odd corners of your soul, to get out of some rut, to act more supernaturally, to avoid giving bad example to your neighbour.

In a word: let your gratitude show itself in some concrete resolution.

Christ has died for you. — You… what ought you do for Christ?…

Your personal experience — those feelings of restlessness, despondency and bitterness — makes you realise the truth of those words of Jesus: no one can serve two masters!

References to Holy Scripture
References to Holy Scripture
References to Holy Scripture
This chapter in another language