List of points

You persist in being worldly, superficial, scatter-brained, because you are a coward. What is it but cowardice not to want to face yourself?

You never want to get to the heart of the matter. Sometimes, through politeness. Other times, most times, through fear of hurting yourself Sometimes again, through fear of hurting others. And, always, through fear!

As long as you are so afraid of the truth you will never be a man of sound judgment, a man of worth.

Don't be afraid of the truth, even though the truth may mean your death.

'One must compromise' I Compromise is a word found only in the vocabulary of those who have no will to fight — the lazy, the cunning, the cowardly — for they consider themselves defeated before they start.

Don't show the cowardice of being 'brave'; take to your heels!

Suffering overwhelms you because you take it like a coward. Meet it bravely, with a christian spirit: and you will regard it as a treasure.

Your indolence, your carelessness, your laziness, are easygoing cowardice — so your conscience tells you continually, — but they are not 'the way'.

Courage! You… can! Don't you see what God's grace did with sleepy-headed Peter, the coward who had denied him…, and with Paul, his fierce and relentless persecutor?

Wanting, without really wanting: that is your attitude as long as you don't put the occasion firmly aside. Don't try to fool yourself telling me you are weak. You are… a coward, which is not the same thing.

'Duc in altum. Put out into deep water!' Throw aside the pessimism that makes a coward of you. And pay out your nets for a catch!

Don't you see that you, like Peter, can say: 'In nomine tuo, laxabo rete': Jesus, if you say so, I will search for souls?

It has been a hard experience: don't forget the lesson. Your big cowardices of the moment correspond — clearly — to your little cowardices of each day.

You 'have not been able' to conquer in big things, because you 'did not want' to conquer in little ones.

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus visit Jesus privately when things are normal and also in the hour of triumph.

But they are courageous in the face of authority, declaring their love for Christ audacter, boldly, in the hour of cowardice. Learn from them.