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

Let him have a fixed determination not to allow himself to be beaten, for, if the devil sees that he has firmly resolved to lose his life and his peace and everything that he can offer him rather than to return to the first room, he will very soon cease troubling him.

How does one acquire this love? By being determined to work and to suffer, and to do so when the occasion arises. It is indeed true that by thinking of what we owe the Lord, of who He is, and what we are, a soul's determination grows, and that this thinking is very meritorious and appropriate.

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.

God is love, and love is goodness giving itself away. It is a fullness of being that does not want to remain enclosed in itself, but rather to share itself with others, to give itself to them and to make them happy.

Let us unite to make our days a continual Communion; let us awake in love, and all day long let us surrender ourselves to love by doing the will of God, under His eyes, with Him, in Him, for Him alone; let us give ourselves uninterruptedly and in whatever way He wills. Then when night comes, after a dialogue of love which has never ceased in our hearts, let us fall asleep still in love. It is a consuming fire; let us do our Purgatory in this fire!

Even though your obligations and duties are difficult and disagreeable to you, you should not become dismayed, for this will not always be so. And God, Who proves the soul by a precept under the guise of a trial, will after a time accord it the experience of its own blessing and gain.

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.

Charity liberates the will from everything, imposing as a duty to love God above all else. This however is possible only when anxious desire for creatures is removed.

One ought to be careful not to devote oneself wholly and with too much solicitude to exterior occupations, to which it is expedient only to lend oneself as much as is necessary, keeping the rest (namely the mind and heart) for God.

Well, come now, my daughters, don’t be sad when obedience draws you to involvement in exterior matters. Know that if it is in the kitchen, the Lord walks among the pots and pans helping you both interiorly and exteriorly.