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The door by which we can enter this castle is prayer. It is absurd to think that we can enter Heaven without first entering our own souls -- without getting to know ourselves, and reflecting upon the wretchedness of our nature and what we owe to God, and continually imploring His mercy.

When we keep little we recognize our own nothingness and expect everything from the goodness of God, exactly as a little child expects everything from its father. Nothing worries us, not even the amassing of spiritual riches.

Life is passing, Eternity draws nigh: soon shall we live the very life of God. After having drunk deep at the fount of bitterness, our thirst will be quenched at the very source of all sweetness.

Because the light and wisdom of this contemplation is very bright and pure, and the soul in which it shines is dark and impure, a person will be deeply afflicted on receiving it.

God desires the smallest degree of purity of conscience in you more than all the works you can perform.

I have made more acts of faith during the past year than in all the rest of my life. Whenever my enemy provokes me to combat, I try to behave like a gallant soldier. Aware that a duel is an act of cowardice, I turn my back on the foe without once looking him in the face; then hastening to my Savior I tell Him that I am ready to shed my blood as a witness to my belief in Heaven. I tell Him that if He will deign to open it for eternity to poor unbelievers, I am content to sacrifice during my life all joyous thoughts of the Home that awaits me.

It is in prayer that the soul learns to know Jesus and thus to love him. Since love cannot be satisfied with difference but with equality, the result is union in similarity.

In truth, it is impossible that a heart which can find rest only in contemplation of the Tabernacle-and yours is such, you tell me- could so far offend Our Lord as not to be able to receive Him. . . . What does offend Jesus, what wounds Him to the Heart, is want of confidence.

Along how many paths, in how many ways, by how many methods You show us love!

You know well that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them.

Knowing, O my God, that my sins made Your cross so heavy that You had to sink beneath it, this makes me even more convinced that I must carry my cross together with You and that I should not shy away from it, even should I sink beneath its weight.

Oh, ask Him that I may be equal to my vocation and not abuse the graces He lavishes on me; if you knew how fearful that makes me sometimes...Then I cast myself on Him whom Saint John calls 'the Faithful and True,' and I beg Him to be Himself my fidelity!