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When you are suffering or when you are feeling lonely...then take comfort in the fact that Jesus is with you and sees you suffering.

Oh, humility, humility! I know not why, but I am always tempted to think that persons who complain so much of aridities must be a little wanting in this virtue. However, I am not speaking of severe interior sufferings, which are far worse than a want of devotion.

I thank You, O my God, for all the graces You have bestowed on me, and particularly for making me pass through the crucible of suffering. It is with joy I shall behold You on the Last Day bearing Your scepter - the Cross; since You have deigned to give me for my portion this most precious Cross, I have hope of resembling You in Heaven and seeing the sacred stigmata of Your Passion shine in my glorified body.

I'm keeping a rendezvous with you in the shadow of the Cross to learn the science of suffering.

Whoever lives in the presence of so good a friend and excellent leader, who went ahead of us to be the first to suffer, can endure all things. The Lord helps us, strengthens us, and never fails.

...you have only to stay close to the crucified and your suffering is the best prayer.

If you know how to accept the trials, worries, sufferings, and fatigue arranged by God throughout the days and hours of life, you will practice a lot of asceticism, and you will not have to look for more of it.

Terrible trials are suffered because we don’t understand ourselves, and that which isn’t bad at all but good we think is a serious fault. This lack of knowledge causes the afflictions of many people who engage in prayer; complaints about interior trials, at least to a great extent, by people who have no learning; melancholy and loss of health; and even the complete abandonment of prayer.

Our suffering never makes Him happy. He sends it to us and, as it were, turns His head while so doing, but suffering is a thing that is necessary for us.

What did You possess, my Lord, but trials, sufferings, and dishonor?...In sum, my God, it does not fit those of us who want to be your true children, and hold on to their inheritance, to flee suffering. Your heraldry consists of five wounds.

True spirituality seeks for bitterness rather than sweetness in God, inclines to suffering rather than consolation. It knows that this is to follow Christ and deny self, while the other course is perhaps nothing but seeking oneself in God, which is the very opposite of love.

The soul suffers many trials, for the Lord wants the poor gardener to think that all the trouble he has taken in watering the garden and keeping it alive is lost. Then is the proper time for weeding and rooting out the smaller plants, and this must be done, however small they may be, if they are useless; for we know that no efforts of ours are availing if God withholds from us the water of grace, and we must despise ourselves as nothing and as less than nothing. By doing this we can gain great humility and then the flowers will begin to grow afresh.