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Just as the Lamb had to be killed to be raised upon the throne of glory, so the path to glory leads through suffering and the cross for everyone chosen to attend the marriage supper of the Lamb. All who want to be married to the Lamb must allow themselves to be fastened to the cross with him. Everyone marked by the blood of the Lamb is called to this, and that means all the baptized. But not everyone understands the call and follows it.

When night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed, just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God's hands, and leave it with Him. Then you will be able to rest in Him - really rest - and start the next day as a new life.

The deeper a soul is bound to God, the more completely surrendered to grace, the stronger will be its influence on the form of the church. Conversely, the more an era is engulfed in the night of sin and estrangement from God the more it needs souls united to God.

Human activities cannot help us, but only the suffering of Christ. It is my desire to share in it.

But can we still say 'Thy will be done' when we are no longer certain what God's will would have of us?
Do we still have the means to hold to his ways when the inner light dies out?

There are such means, indeed such strong means... He knows our nature; He takes it
into consideration and therefore He has given us everything which can help us to reach our goal.

Have we truly prayed "in the name of Jesus," i.e., not just with the name of Jesus on our lips, but with the spirit and in the mind of Jesus, for the glory of the Father alone, without any self-seeking?
The day on which God has unrestricted power over our hearts we shall also have unrestricted power over his.

When under the action of detachment and spiritual darkness, faith plants firm roots in the soul, hope and charity likewise flow into it; a charity that logically does not manifest itself by giving a sensation of sweetness, but rather by producing in the soul a strength, a more decisive courage, a vigor hitherto unknown.

It is a great school of humility to have to do continually things that cause great fatigue and that turn out very imperfect.

The more a person lives recollected in the interior of his soul, the stronger is that radiation which he sheds around him and which draws other souls into his circle.

So I will go to the altar of God. Here it is not a question of my minute petty affairs, but of the great offering of reconciliation. I may participate in that, purify myself and be made happy, and lay myself with all my doings and troubles along with the sacrifice on the altar.

He who does not hold the reins of his whole being tightly in his hand is not at all at the height where he can make his decisions with true Freedom: on the contrary he will always be subject to exterior influences.

The darkness that leads to God is, as we already know, faith. It is the only means that leads to union because it sets God before our eyes as he is: as infinite, as triune. Faith resembles God in that both blind the intellect and appear to it as darkness. "The greater one's faith the closer is one's union with God."