List of points

You must be constant and demanding with yourself in your regular practices of piety, also when you feel tired or they seem to be arid. Persevere! Those moments are like the tall red-painted poles which serve as markers along the mountain roads when there are heavy snowfalls. They are always there to show where it is safe to go.

Interior life is strengthened by a daily struggle in your practices of piety, which you should fulfil — or rather which you should live! — lovingly, because the path we travel as children of God is a path of Love.

At times, someone has told me: “Father, I feel tired and cold; when I pray or fulfil some other norm of piety, I seem to be acting out a farce…”

To that friend, and to you, if you are in the same boat, I answer: A farce? —What an excellent thing, my child! Act out that farce! The Lord is your audience — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Blessed Trinity is contemplating us in those moments when we are “acting out a farce”.

Acting like that in front of God, out of love, in order to please him, when our whole life goes against the grain: how splendid, to be God’s juggler! How marvellous it is to play one’s part for Love, with sacrifice, without any personal satisfaction, just in order to please Our Lord!

—That indeed is to live for Love.