List of points

You laugh because I tell you that you have a 'vocation for marriage'? Well, you have just that: a vocation.

Commend yourself to the Archangel Raphael that he may keep you pure, as he did Tobias, until the end of the way.

Marriage is for the soldiers and not for the General Staff of Christ's army. For, whereas food is a necessity for each individual, procreation is a necessity for the species only, not for the individual.

Longing for children? Children, many children, and a lasting trail of light we shall leave behind us if we sacrifice the selfishness of the flesh.

How we should admire sacerdotal purity! It is their treasure. No tyrant can ever wrest this crown from the Church.

Holy purity is given by God when it is asked for with humility.

How beautiful is holy purity I But it is not holy, nor pleasing to God, if we separate it from charity.

Charity is the seed that will grow and yield rich fruit under the fertile rain of purity.

Without charity, purity is barren, and its sterile waters turn the soul into a swamp, into a cesspool from which rises the stench of pride.

'Purity?' they ask. And they smile. They are the very people who approach marriage with worn-out bodies and disillusioned minds.

I promise you a book — if God helps me — which perhaps I will call: 'Celibacy, Marriage and Purity.'

There is need for a crusade of manliness and purity to counteract and undo the savage work of those who think that man is a beast.

And that crusade is a matter for you.

Many live like angels in the midst of the world. Why not you…?

When you resolve firmly to lead a clean life, chastity will not be a burden for you: it will be a triumphal crown.

You, a doctor, an apostle, write to me: 'We all know by experience that we can be chaste, living vigilantly, frequenting the sacraments and stamping out the first sparks of passion before the fire can spread. And it so happens that among the chaste are found the finest men in every way. And among the lustful predominate the timid, the selfish, the treacherous and the cruel — characters of little manliness.'

How I would like — you told me — the young apostle, John, would take me into his confidence and give me advice: and encourage me to acquire purity of heart.

If you really would like it, tell him so: and you will feel encouraged, and you will receive advice.

Over-eating is the forerunner of impurity.

The battle front. A group of some twenty officers, singing together in gay and noble comradeship. The songs come quickly, one after another.

That young lieutenant with the brown moustache only heard the first:

'I have no use

for divided hearts:

I give mine whole,

and not in parts.'

'What reluctance to give my whole heart!' And his prayer rose up in a broad and peaceful flow.

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.

You frequent the Sacraments, you pray, you are chaste, but you do not study. Don't tell me you're good: you're only 'goodish'.

How great the value of humility! — Quia respexit humilitatem… It is not of her faith, nor of her charity, nor of her immaculate purity that our Mother speaks in the house of Zachary. Her joyful hymn sings:

'Since he has looked on my humility, all generations will call me blessed.'