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O illustrious people! Open your eyes for the love of God; behold that the true knights of Jesus Christ and the princes of His Church, a St. Peter and a St. Paul, did not follow the road you follow. Do you think perhaps there will be a new road for you? Do not believe it.

Devotion to the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament was, and still is, for me a source of patience, perseverance, refuge and consolation; literally, the very spring of my life. Without this mystery of our Savior's love, which he has left for us in the Church, I would have perished long since.

We are like so many foolish peasant lads: we think we know something of Thee, yet it must be comparatively nothing, for there are profound secrets even in ourselves of which we know naught.

Our knowledge is piecemeal. When our will and action build on it alone, they cannot achieve a perfect structure. Nor can that knowledge, because it does not have complete power over the self and often collapses before reaching the goal. And so this inner shaping power that is in bondage strains toward a light that will guide more surely, and a power that will free it and give it space. This is the light and the power of divine grace.

Finally, misguided joy in their own works "makes them incapable of taking counsel and of receiving reasonable instructions" about what they ought to do. "Such souls become very slack in charity toward God and neighbor for the self-love contained in their works makes them grow cold in charity."

quoting St. John of the Cross

There You will show me
What my soul has been seeking,
And then You will give me,
You, my Life, will give me there
What You gave me on that other day:

The breathing of the air,
The song of the sweet nightingale,
The grove and its living beauty
In the serene night,
With a flame that is consuming and painless.

What does it matter if I fall at every moment! In that way I realize my weakness, and the gain is considerable. My God, You see how little I am good for, away from Your divine arms; and if You leave me alone, well, it is because it pleases You to see me lie on the ground. Then why should I be troubled?

The highest perfection obviously does not consist in interior delights or in great raptures or in visions or in the spirit of prophecy but in having our will so much in conformity with God's will that there is nothing we know He wills that we do not want with all our desire, and in accepting the bitter as happily as we do the delightful when we know that His Majesty desires it. This seems most difficult (not the doing of it, but this being content with what completely contradicts our nature); and indeed it truly is difficult. But love has this strength if it is perfect, for we forget about pleasing ourselves in order to please the one we love.

God came to redeem us, to unite us to himself, with one another, and to conform our will to his. He knows our nature; he takes it into consideration and therefore he has given us everything which can help us to reach our goal.

Since He is always with me, prayer, the heart to heart exchange, should never end...I think that we must be so simple with God!

I have understood that the thing that separates me most from God is my pride. I propose to be humble. Without humility the other virtues are hypocrisy. ... Humility gains us similarity to Christ, peace of soul, holiness and intimate union with God.

What is there for you to fear if God has promised to hear us each time we have recourse to Him?