List of points

With God’s grace, you have to tackle and carry out the impossible… because anybody can do what is possible.

Get rid of that human prudence which makes you so very cautious, so — sorry to be so blunt! — cowardly.

—Let us not be narrow-minded. Let us not be infantile men or women, who are nearsighted and lack a supernatural breadth of vision…! Could we be working for ourselves? Of course not!

Well then, let us say quite fearlessly: Dearest Jesus, we are working for you, and… are you going to deny us the material means we need? You know full well how worthless we are; still, I would not treat a servant working for me in that way…

Therefore, we hope and are sure you will give us all we need to be able to serve you.

The solution is to love. Saint John the Apostle wrote some words which really move me: qui autem timet, non est perfectus in caritate. I like to translate them as follows, almost word for word — the fearful man doesn’t know how to love.

—You, therefore, who do love and know how to show it, you mustn’t be afraid of anything. So, on you go!

Jesus has died. He is a corpse. Those holy women had no expectations. They had seen how he had been abused, and how he had been crucified. How vivid in their minds was the violence of the Passion he had undergone!

They knew, too, that the soldiers were keeping watch over the place. They knew that the tomb was sealed shut: “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door?” they asked themselves, for it was a massive slab. But all the same…, in spite of everything, they went to be with him.

Look: difficulties, large and small, can be seen at once… But if there is love, one pays no heed to those obstacles: one goes ahead with daring, with conviction, with courage. Don’t you have to confess your shame when you contemplate the drive, the daring and the courage of these women?

Encourage your noble human qualities. They can be the beginning of the building of your sanctification. At the same time, remember what I have already told you before, that when serving God, you have to burn everything, even “what people will say”, and even what they call reputation, if necessary.

With a sense of profound humility — strong in the name of our God, and, as the Psalmist says, not “in the numbers of our chariots and of our horses” — we have to make sure, without regard for human considerations, that there are no corners of society where Christ is not known.

Defend the truth with charity and firmness when the things of God are at stake. Practise holy shamelessness in denouncing errors, even though at times they are no more than insinuations; at other times they will be odious utterances of the most blatant ignorance, and, normally, a sign of man’s frustration at not being able to endure the fruitfulness of the word of God.