List of points

Let us drink to the last drop the chalice of pain in this poor present life. What does it matter to suffer for ten years, twenty, fifty… if afterwards there is heaven for ever, for ever… for ever?

And, above all — rather than because of the reward, propter retributionem — what does suffering matter if we suffer to console, to please God our Lord, in a spirit of reparation, united to him on his Cross; in a word: if we suffer for Love?…

Motives for penance? — Atonement, reparation, petition, thanksgiving: means to progress: for you, for me, for others, for your family, for your country, for the Church… And a thousand motives more.

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.

Don't be content to ask Jesus pardon just for your own faults: don't love him just with your own heart…

Console him for every offence that has been, is, or will be done to him. Love him with all the strength of all the hearts of all those who have most loved him.

Be daring: tell him that you are crazier about him than Mary Magdalen, than either of his two Teresas, that you love him madly, more than Augustine and Dominic and Francis, more than Ignatius and Xavier.

Child, enkindle in your heart an ardent desire to make up for the excesses of your grown-up life.

Our will, strengthened by grace, is all-powerful before God. If, for instance, as we travel in a bus, we are struck by the thought of so many offences against God and say to Jesus, backing our words with our will 'My God, i wish I could make an act of love and reparation for every turn of the wheels carrying me', in that very instant, in the eyes of Jesus, we really have loved him and atoned just as we desired.

Such 'nonsense' is not pushing spiritual childhood too far: it is the eternal dialogue between the innocent child and the father doting on his son:

'Tell me, how much do you love me?'… And the little lad pipes out: 'A mil-lion mil-lion ti-mes!'