List of points

The storm of persecution is good. What is the loss? What is already lost cannot be lost. When the tree is not torn up by the roots — and there is no wind or hurricane that can uproot the tree of the Church — only the dry branches fall. And they… are well fallen.

All right: that person has behaved badly towards you. But, haven't you behaved worse towards God?

Jesus: wherever you have passed no heart remains indifferent. You are either loved or hated.

When an apostle follows you, carrying out his duty, is it surprising that — if he is another Christ — he should arouse similar murmurs of aversion or of love?

Once again they have spoken, they have written: in favour, against; with good and with not so good will; faint praise and slander; panegyrics and plaudits; hits and misses…

Don't be a fool! As long as you are making straight for your goal, head and heart intoxicated with God, why worry about the voice of the wind, or the chirp of the cricket, or the mooing or the grunting or the braying?

Besides, it's inevitable; don't waste time answering back.

Tongues have been wagging and you have suffered rebuffs that hurt you all the more because you were not expecting them.

Your supernatural reaction should be to pardon, — and even to ask pardon, — and to take advantage of the experience to detach yourself from creatures.

When you meet with suffering, contempt, the Cross, your thought should be: what is this compared with what I deserve?

Are things going against you? Are you going through a rough time? Say very slowly, as if relishing it, this powerful and manly prayer:

'May the most just and most lovable will of God be done, be fulfilled be praised and eternally exalted above all things. Amen, Amen.'

I assure you that you will find peace.

You suffer in this present life, which is a dream, a short dream. Rejoice, because your Father-God loves you so much, and if you put no obstacles in his way, after this bad dream he will give you a good awakening.

It hurt you not to have been thanked for that favour. Answer me these two questions: Are you so grateful towards Christ Jesus? Did you actually do that favour in the hope of being thanked for it on earth?

I don't know why you're amazed: Christ's enemies were never very reasonable.

When Lazarus was raised from the dead, they might have been expected to give in and confess the divinity of Jesus. But no! 'Let us kill him who gives life', they said!

And now, as then.

In the moments of struggle and opposition, when perhaps 'the good' fill your way with obstacles, lift up your apostolic heart: listen to Jesus as he speaks of the grain of mustard-seed and of the leaven. And say to him: 'Explain the parable to me.'

And you will feel the joy of contemplating the victory to come: the birds of the air lodging in the branches of your apostolate, now only in its beginnings, and the whole of the meal leavened.

If you accept difficulties with a faint heart you lose your joy and your peace, and you run the risk of not deriving spiritual profit from the trial.