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… build the little cocoon. Let us renounce self-love and self-will, care for nothing earthly, do penance, pray, mortify ourselves, be obedient, and perform all the other good works of which you know. …die as the silkworm does when it has fulfilled the office of its creation, and you will see God and be immersed in His greatness, as the little silkworm is enveloped in its cocoon.

Without any need for us, He created us. Every work of His power was directed to mankind. Everything has been put at our disposal.

Run a thousand miles from such expressions as: "I was right." "They had no reason for doing this to me." "The one who did this to me was wrong." God deliver us from this poor way of reasoning. Does it seem to have been right that our good Jesus suffered so many insults and was made to undergo such injustice?

God has no need of anyone to carry out His work of sanctification, but just as He allows a skillful gardener to raise rare and delicate plants, so does He wish to be aided in sanctifying souls.

...yet true humility is not attended with trouble; it does not disturb the soul; it causes neither obscurity nor aridity: on the contrary, it consoles. It is altogether different, bringing with it calm, sweetness, and light. It is no doubt painful; but, on the other hand, it is consoling, because we see how great is the mercy of our Lord in allowing the soul to have that pain, and how well the soul is occupied.

It benefits me little to be alone making acts of devotion to our Lord, proposing and promising to do wonders in his service, if I then go away and when the occasion offers itself do everything the opposite. If his Majesty showed us his love by means of such works and frightful torments, how is it you want to please him only with words?

Your wisdom, O Word, is like the bush you showed to Moses, which burned, but was not consumed...Those who seek and go after the wisdom that is human abhor your wisdom, but to God human wisdom is foolishness....In addition, by abhorring your wisdom, they deny themselves union with you, for by offending you they deprive themselves both of you and of it....

How people delude themselves as to the real meaning of union with God! There are those who think they have reached it because they enjoy sensible consolations; they make one think of children playing with ashes which the wind blows away. No. no! True union lies not in enjoyment, but in self-abnegation.

Look at him at the tomb of Lazarus. And listen to what he says of the Magdalene: "Much has been forgiven her, because she has loved much." What do you discover in these flashes from the Gospel except a heart that is good, gentle, tender, compassionate; in other words, the heart of a God?

To be a child of God, that means to be led by the hand of God, to do the will of God, not one's own will, to place every care and every hope in the hand of God and not to worry about oneself or one's future. On this rests the joy of the child of God.

His Majesty gave us, as I have said, the manna and nourishment of His humanity that we might find Him at will and not die of hunger, save through our own fault. In no matter how many ways the soul may desire to eat, it will find delight and consolation in the most Blessed Sacrament.

I long to behold the light of his gaze.
Oh! What splendor must shine in his eyes!
In contemplating this Only Begotten of the Father
I will have the Three and I will have all of Heaven!
He will make his light shine in my soul,
He will purify me in divine flames.

O my adored Word
Luminous Beauty,
Look upon me!