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Pray that the best portion of your life may not be overshadowed by idle fears. We have only life's brief moments to spend for the glory of God, and well does Satan know it. That is why he employs every ruse to make us consume them in useless labour. Dear sister, go often to Holy Communion, go very often-that is your one remedy.

Ah! dear little sister, far from complaining to Jesus about the Cross He is sending us, I cannot understand the infinite love that has drawn Him to treat us in this way ... The Martyrdom is beginning. Let us enter the arena together.

O Jesus, Who in Thy cruel Passion didst become the "Reproach of men and the Man of Sorrows," I worship Thy Divine Face. Once it shone with the beauty and sweetness of the Divinity: now for my sake it is become as the face of a leper. Yet in that disfigured Countenance I recognize Thy infinite Love, and I am consumed with the desire of loving Thee and of making Thee loved by all mankind.

The more interior the suffering is and the less apparent to the eyes of creatures, the more it rejoices You, O my God!

Great deeds are forbidden me. I cannot preach the Gospel nor shed by blood-but what does it matter? My brothers toil instead of me and I, a little child, keep close by the throne of God and I love for those who fight.

On another occasion when I was engaged in the laundry, the Sister opposite to me, who was washing handkerchiefs, kept splashing me continually with dirty water. My first impulse was to draw back and wipe my face in order to show her that I wanted her to be more careful. The next moment, however, I saw the folly of refusing treasures thus generously offered, and I carefully refrained from betraying any annoyance. On the contrary I made such efforts to welcome the shower of dirty water that at the end of half an hour I had taken quite a fancy to the novel kind of aspersion, and resolved to return as often as possible to the place where such precious treasures were freely bestowed.

I have often said to you, and I repeat it again, forsake and resign yourself, and you shall enjoy a great inward peace.

I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love.

I understand clearly that through love alone can we become pleasing to God, and my sole ambition is to acquire it.

You are the true peace of the heart, You are its only rest; outside of You all things are hard and uneasy.

It is that much harder to let what belongs to us be taken without asking for it back. But the moment we accept this, we feel how light the burden is.

I realize that we aren't all made alike. For me, God's infinite mercy is the quality that stands out in my life, and when I contemplate and adore God's other perfections, it's against this background of mercy all the time.