List of points

Do not become alarmed or discouraged to discover that you have failings… and such failings!

—Struggle to uproot them. And as you do so, be convinced that it is even a good thing to be aware of all those weaknesses, for otherwise you would be proud. And pride separates us from God.

Be filled with wonder at God’s goodness, because Christ wants to live in you. Be filled with wonder also when you are aware of all the weight of your poor wretchedness, of this poor flesh, of all the vileness of this poor clay.

—Yes, but then remember too that call from God: Jesus Christ, who is God and Man, understands me and looks after me, for he is my Brother and my Friend.

Your life is happy, very happy, though on occasions you feel a pang of sadness, and even experience almost constantly a real sense of weariness.

—Joy and affliction can go hand in hand like this, each in its own “man”: the former in the new man, the latter in the old.

Humility is born of knowing God and knowing oneself.

Lord, I ask for a gift from you: Love… a Love that will cleanse me. — And another gift as well: self-knowledge so that I may be filled with humility.

The saints are those who struggle right to the end of their lives: those who always manage to get up each time they stumble, each time they fall, and courageously embark on their way once more with humility, love and hope.

If your mistakes make you more humble, if they make you reach out more urgently for God’s helping hand, then they are a road to sanctity: Felix culpa! — O happy fault!, the Church sings.

It seems incredible that a man like you — who say you know you’re nothing — should dare to place obstacles in the way of God’s grace.

Yet this is what you’re doing with your false humility, your “objectivity”, your pessimism.

True faith shows itself in humility.

Dicebat enim intra se — that poor woman said to herself: Si tetigero tantum vestimentum eius, salva ero — if I can but touch the hem of his garment, I shall be healed.

—What humility she showed, a result and a sign of her faith!

Imitate the Blessed Virgin. Only by fully admitting that we are nothing can we become precious in the eyes of our Creator.

We will never achieve true supernatural and human cheerfulness, real good humour, if we don’t really imitate Jesus: if we aren’t humble, as he was.

Are you able to undergo those humiliations which God asks of you, in matters of no importance, matters where the truth is not obscured? You are not? Then you don’t love the virtue of humility.