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Nothing is accomplished without effort, wihtout struggle. In our better moments, we no longer shed tears over our own weaknesses or over those of others, but we recall what was interiorly said to St. Paul: My grace is sufficient for you; in union with me you can do all things.

Lay all your cares about the future trustingly in God's hands, and let yourself be guided by the Lord just like a little child...

A love of pleasure, and attachment to it, usually fires the will toward enjoyment of things that give pleasure. A more intense enkindling of another, better love (love of the soul's Bridegroom) is necessary for the vanquishing of the appetites and the denial of this pleasure. By finding satisfaction and strength in this love, it will have the courage and constancy to readily deny all other appetites.

Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with him continually, and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.

If individuals resolutely submit to carrying the cross, if they decidedly want to find and endure trial in all things for God, they will discover in all of them great relief and sweetness.

My Jesus, pardon me. I am so proud that I do not know how to accept with humility the slightest humiliation. Dear Jesus, teach me humility and send me humiliations, even though I am unworthy of them.

I already told you elsewhere that sometimes the devil gives us great desires so that we will avoid setting ourselves to the task at hand, serving our Lord in possible things, and instead be content with having desired the impossible. Apart from the fact that by prayer you will be helping greatly, you need not be desiring to benefit the whole world but must concentrate on those who are in your company, and thus your deed will be greater since you are more obliged toward them.

God deliver us from spiritual people who are so spiritual that they want to turn everything into perfect contemplation, come what may. It would be a bad business for us if we could not seek God until we were dead to the world. Neither Magdalene, nor the woman of Samaria, nor the Canaanite woman was dead to the world when she found him.

...how all the Saints remain in the shadows when we look at the Blessed Virgin's light!

Do not refuse work even though it seems that you cannot do it. Let all find compassion in you.

The people of Israel did not find the manna sweet above all else, although it was so in fact, because they would not limit their desires to it alone. The sweetness and nourishment of the manna was not perceived by them, not because it was lacking, but because they longed for other foods beside it.

Since this flame is a flame of divine life, it wounds the soul with the tenderness of God's life, and it wounds and stirs it so deeply as to make it dissolve in love. What the bride affirmed in the Song of Songs is fulfilled in the soul. She was so moved that her soul melted, and so she says: As soon as he spoke my soul melted [Sg. 5:6]. For God's speech is the effect he produces in the soul.