List of points

Sanctity is to be found in struggling, in knowing that we have defects and in heroically trying to overcome them.

Sanctity, I insist, consists in overcoming those defects… although we will still have defects when we die; because if not, as I have told you, we would become proud.

We need to smooth off the rough edges a little more each day — just as if we were working in stone or wood — and get rid of the defects in our own lives with a spirit of penance. And with small mortifications, which are of two types: active mortifications — the ones we ourselves look for, like little flowers we gather up during the course of the day — and passive mortifications, which come from outside and we find difficult to accept. Jesus Christ will later make up for whatever is still lacking.

—What a wonderful figure of the crucified Christ you will become if generously and cheerfully you give your all!

Our life — a Christian’s life — has to be as ordinary as this: trying every day to do well those very things it is our duty to do; carrying out our divine mission in the world by fulfilling the little duty of each moment.

—Or rather, struggling to fulfil it. Sometimes we don’t manage, and when night comes, in our examination, we’ll have to tell Our Lord, “I am not offering you virtues; today I can only offer you defects. But with your grace I will be able to count myself a victor.”