List of points

It is no use trying to please everyone. There will always be people who disagree, who complain. The way popular wisdom sums it up is: “What is good for the sheep is bad for the wolves.”

Are you misunderstood? He was the Truth and the Light, but not even those close to him understood him. —As I have asked you so often before, remember Our Lord’s words: “The disciple is not greater than his Master.”

For a son of God, contradictions and calumnies are what wounds received on the battlefield are for a soldier.

They say this and that about you… But what does your good name matter?

In any case don’t feel ashamed or sorry for yourself, but for them: for those who ill-treat you.

Sometimes they didn’t want to understand: it is as if they were blind… But sometimes it has been you who did not manage to be understood properly. You must change that!

It is not enough to be right. You have to know how to prove it and others should want to recognise the truth.

However, state the truth whenever necessary, without bothering about “what they will say”.

If you frequent the Master’s school, you will not be surprised at also having to fight against the misunderstandings of so very many people who could help you a great deal if only they made the effort to be a bit more understanding.

You have not ill-treated him physically… But you have ignored him so often; you have looked at him with indifference, as if he were a stranger.

—Isn’t that harm enough!

Without wanting to, persecutors sanctify… —But woe to these “sanctifiers”!

On earth, one is very often rewarded with calumny.

We cannot simply fold our arms when a subtle persecution condemns the Church to die of starvation, putting it outside the sphere of public life, and above all obstructing its part in education, culture and family life.

These are not our rights; they are God’s rights. He has entrusted them to us Catholics so that we may exercise them!

A gentle wind is not the same as a hurricane. Anyone can resist the first: it is child’s play, a parody of struggle.

—Gladly you bore small contradictions, shortages and little urgent problems. And you enjoyed the interior peace of thinking: now I am really working for God, because here we have the Cross!…

But now, my poor son, the hurricane has come, and you feel you are being shaken by a force that could uproot century-old trees. You feel this from without and within. But you must remain confident, for your Faith and your Love cannot be uprooted, nor can you be blown from your way… if you remain with the “head”, if you maintain unity.