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Or look upon Him bending under the weight of the Cross and not even allowed to take breath: He will look upon you with His lovely and compassionate eyes, full of tears, and in comforting your grief will forget His own because you are bearing Him company in order to comfort Him and turning your head to look upon Him.

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

Wherein lies the highest perfection?... In the conformity of our will to the will of God, so that there shall be nothing we know He wills that we do not will ourselves with our whole will...

Nevertheless, we can converse and speak with You as we like, once the first fright and fear in beholding Your majesty passes; although the fear of offending You becomes greater. But the fear is not one of punishment, for this punishment is considered nothing in comparison with losing You.

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.

O Savior, I shall buy You with my tears and obedience, with humility and charity, with sacrifices and with death, with the purest love of neighbor. And when I do, I shall buy You for those who see You.

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.

A little drop of simple obedience is worth a million times more than a whole vase of the choicest contemplation.

In this detachment the spiritual soul finds its quiet and repose; for, since it covets nothing, nothing wearies it when it is lifted up, and nothing oppresses it when it is cast down, because it is in the center of its humility; but when it covets anything, at that very moment it becomes wearied.

Work, especially great work, is a burden and a pain, a suffering precisely because intense activity cannot fail to generate in us that disagreeable phenomenon that is called fatigue, which eventually degenerates into depression or prostration or some other form of real and actual suffering. This painful aspect of work renders it particularly adapted to share as an instrument in the work of our sanctification.

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.