Archive

I ask Him to give you that love for the Cross that makes saints.

I repeat, it is necessary that your foundation consist of more than prayer and contemplation. If you do not strive for the virtues and practice them, you will always be dwarfs.

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.

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.

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.

My father was fond of reading good books...These good books together with the care my mother took to have us pray and be devoted to out Lady and to some of the saints began to awaken me.

The soul in this state must remember that if it is not conscious of making progress, it is making much more than when it was walking on foot, because God Himself is bearing it in His arms. Although outwardly it is doing nothing, it is in reality doing more than if it were working, since God is doing the work within it. And it is not remarkable that the soul does not see this, for our senses cannot perceive what God does in the soul. . . if the soul stays in God's care it will certainly make progress.

There are many degrees and kinds of prayer.  The first is meditation which consists in reflecting on a truth.  The essential point of prayer is to inflame the will in the love of God, for if that is attained, one has the strength to practice virtues.

Life is long, and there are in it many trials, and we need to look at Christ our model, how He suffered them, and also at His apostles and saints, so as to bear these trials with perfection.

Let nothing disturb you, be it good or bad. Give up everything else except your peace of mind. When you feel restless, sad, sorrowful and embittered, look for the cause, and if it is not worth being sorry about (and nothing that does not offend God is worth being sorry about), get rid of your anxiety; if you do not see the causes but feel restless and dissatisfied all the same, put up with it, arm yourself with patience, let the storm pass, and your inner peace will return.

For these are souls who, instead of committing themselves to God and making use of His help, rather hinder God by the indiscretion of their actions or by their resistance; like children who, when their mothers desire to carry them in their arms, start stamping and crying, and insist upon being allowed to walk, with the result that they can make no progress; and, if they advance at all, it is only at the pace of a child.

I wish I could persuade everyone to be devoted to this glorious saint (St. Joseph), for I have great experience of the blessings which he can obtain from God. I have never known anyone to be truly devoted to him and render him particular services who did not notably advance in virtue, for he gives very real help to souls who commend themselves to him. For some years now, I think, I have made some request of him every year on his festival and I have always had it granted. If my petition is in any way ill directed, he directs it aright for my greater good.