List of points

You asked me if I had a cross to bear. And I answered, “Yes, we always have to bear the Cross.” —But it is a glorious Cross, a divine seal, the authentic guarantee of our being children of God. That is why we always walk along happily with the Cross.

Don’t be narrow-minded men or women who are immature, short-sighted and incapable of embracing our supernatural Christian outlook as children of God. God and daring!

Thank the Lord for the paternal and maternal tenderness he continues to show for you.

You always had those dreams of great adventures, and you have committed yourself to a wonderful enterprise…which leads you to holiness.

I repeat: thank God for this by leading an apostolic life.

I copy for you from a letter: “I am enchanted by evangelical humility. But what infuriates me is the timid, sheepish and irresponsible way by which some Christians discredit the Church. That atheist author must have had them in mind when he wrote that Christian morality is the morality of slaves.” In fact we are servants: servants raised to the rank of children of God, who do not wish to behave as if enslaved by their passions.

A good son of God has to be very human. But not to such an extent that he becomes uncouth and bad-mannered.

A son of God cannot entertain class prejudice, for he is interested in the problems of all men. And he tries to help solve them with the justice and charity of Our Redeemer.

The Apostle already pointed it out when he wrote that the Lord is no respecter of persons. I have not hesitated to translate his words thus: there is only one race of men, the race of the children of God!

Through your behaviour as a Christian citizen, show people the difference between living sadly and living cheerfully; between being timid and being daring; between acting cautiously, with duplicity — hypocritically — and acting as men of simplicity and integrity. In a word, between being worldly and being children of God.

Far away on the horizon heaven seems to meet the earth. Do not forget that where heaven and earth really meet is in your heart of a child of God.

The Apostle also wrote that “there is no more Gentile and Jew, no more circumcised and uncircumcised; no one is barbarian or Scythian, no one is a slave or a free man; there is nothing but Christ in any of us.”

Those words are as valid today as they were then. Before the Lord there is no difference of nation, race, class, state… Each one of us has been born in Christ to be a new creature, a son of God. We are all brothers, and we have to behave fraternally towards one another!

A calm and balanced character, an inflexible will, deep faith and an ardent piety: these are the indispensable characteristics of a son of God.

Children of God! A condition which transforms us into something that goes far beyond our being people who merely put up with each other. Listen to what the Lord says: Vos autem dixi amicos! We are his friends who, like him, give our lives for each other, when heroism is needed and throughout our ordinary lives.

God wants his children to be on the offensive. —We cannot just ‘wait and see’. Our business is to fight, wherever we may be, as an army in battle array.