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I have made more acts of faith during the past year than in all the rest of my life. Whenever my enemy provokes me to combat, I try to behave like a gallant soldier. Aware that a duel is an act of cowardice, I turn my back on the foe without once looking him in the face; then hastening to my Savior I tell Him that I am ready to shed my blood as a witness to my belief in Heaven. I tell Him that if He will deign to open it for eternity to poor unbelievers, I am content to sacrifice during my life all joyous thoughts of the Home that awaits me.

The cross...It is the path from earth to heaven. It will lift one who embraces it in faith, love, and hope into the bosom of the Trinity.

To die with Christ on the cross, to rise again with Him, is translated into reality for all the faithful and especially for every priest in the sacrifice of the Mass. In those who celebrate it or participate in it with lively faith, is reenacted what happened on Golgotha.

O illustrious people! Open your eyes for the love of God; behold that the true knights of Jesus Christ and the princes of His Church, a St. Peter and a St. Paul, did not follow the road you follow. Do you think perhaps there will be a new road for you? Do not believe it.

Believe, daughter, that My Father gives greater trials to anyone whom He loves more; and love responds to these. How can I show you greater love than by desiring for you what I have desired for Myself? Behold these wounds, for your sufferings have never reached this point. Suffering is the way of truth.

What hope can we have of finding rest outside ourselves if we cannot be at rest within...well, believe me, if we don't obtain and have peace in our own house we'll not find it outside. Let this war be ended.

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.

St Paul says that ‘our God is a consuming fire’ (Heb. 12:29). If we remain continually united to Him by means of a simple, loving gaze of faith, if, like our adored Master, we can say at the end of each day, ‘I do always the things that please Him’ (Jn. 8:29) He will know well how to consume us and, like two little sparks, we shall go and lose ourselves in the immense fire, there to burn at our ease throughout eternity.

Faith is obscure knowledge; it thus leads us to knowledge of something, but this something we do not get to see. This is the reason why it must also be said that the end we attain by way of faith is also itself a night: God, even in ecstatic union, remains hidden to us on earth. The eye of our soul is absolutely unable to sustain His dazzling light for which it gropes as in a dark night.

The light of faith is like the light of the sun which blinds our eyes because its light is stronger than our powers of sight. So the light of faith transcends our comprehension.

Let us place all our trust in God, and let us remember that it is of faith that God gives us strength in proportion to the work.

When I accepted the fact that I might spend my life suffering from these troubles and anxieties-which in no way diminished the trust I had in God and served only to increase my faith-I found myself changed all at once. And my soul, until that time always in turmoil, experienced a deep inner peace as if it had found its center and place of rest.