List of points

Let yours not be a noisy virtue.

Call it by its name: grumbling, gossiping, back-biting, mischief making, tale-bearing, scandal-mongering, intrigue…, slander…, treachery?

Self-appointed critics sitting in judgment easily end up as 'gossiping old maids'!

You haven't got the spirit of poverty if, when you are able to choose in such a way that your choice is not noticed, you do not select for yourself what is worst.

Don't seek to be 'understood'. That lack of understanding is providential: so that your sacrifice may pass unnoticed.

'What shapes and gives life to the roots and branches is the sap, which always works on the inside.'

Your friend who wrote these words knew that you were nobly ambitious. And he showed you the way: discretion and sacrifice — 'working on the inside'!

I could never over-emphasize the importance of discretion.

It may not be the blade of your sword, but I would certainly describe it as the hilt.

How anxious people are to get out of place! Think what would happen if each bone and each muscle of the human body wanted to occupy some position other than that proper to it.

There is no other reason for the world's discontent. Persevere in your place, my son; there… what work you can do to establish our Lord's true kingdom!

'Non manifeste, sed quasi in occulto, quite privately, without drawing attention to himself': So Jesus goes up to the feast of Tabernacles. So will he go, on the way to Emmaus, with Cleophas and his companion. So is he seen, after his Resurrection, by Mary Magdalen.

And so will he appear — 'the disciples did not realise that it was Jesus' — at the miraculous catch of fishes, as Saint John tells us.

And more hidden still, through Love for men, is he in the Host.

Contempt and persecution are blessed signs of divine predilection, but there is no proof and sign of predilection more beautiful than this: to pass unnoticed.