Archive

I know that the more rapidly one advances on the way of perfection, the further one considers one’s self from the goal.

He has suffered your committing a thousand ugly offenses and abominations against Him, and this suffering wasn't enough for Him to cease looking at you. Is it too much to ask you to turn your eyes from these exterior things in order to look at Him sometimes?

For this reason, the purer, simpler, and more perfect the general knowledge is, the darker it seems to be and the less the intellect perceives.

If you knew how good it is to love God and give Him what He asks, above all when it costs us something, you would not be so slow to listen to me.  At first you will be aware only of the sacrifice, but later you will experience a delightful peace.

It seems to me that if our sacrifices take Jesus captive, our joys make Him prisoner too. All that is needed to attain this is that, instead of giving ourselves over to selfish happiness, we offer to our Spouse the little joys He scatters in our path to charm our hearts and draw them towards Him.

Jesus is love. He loves us with an infinite love and at the same time with a human love. What joy it is to know that we are never strangers to him.

It is noteworthy that this general knowledge is at times so delicate (especially when purer, simpler, and more perfect), spiritual, and interior that the soul does not perceive or feel it, even though employed with it.

...if you see a person praised, the Lord wants you to be much happier than if you yourself were being praised. This, indeed, is easy, for if you have humility you will feel sorry to see yourself praised. But this happiness that comes when the virtues of the Sisters are known is a very good thing; and when we see some fault in them, it is also a very good thing to be sorry and hide the fault as though it were our own.

In tribulation immediately draw near to God with confidence, and you will receive strength, enlightenment, and instruction.

He teaches during the brief moments we spend in prayer; however lukewarm these moments may be, God esteems them highly.

Like the blind, they must lean on dark faith, accept it for their guide and light, and rest on nothing of what they understand, taste, feel, or imagine.

Do not let your weakness make you unhappy. When, in the morning, we feel no courage or strength for the practice of virtue, it is really a grace: it is the time to 'lay the ax to the root of the trees,' (Matt. 3:10) relying upon Jesus alone. If we fall, an act of love will set all right, and Jesus smiles. He helps us without seeming to do so; and the tears which sinners cause Him to shed are wiped away by our feeble love. Love can do all things.