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Now I realize that true charity consists in putting up with all one’s neighbor’s faults, never being surprised by his weakness, and being inspired by the least of his virtues.

Sometimes the need to be silent makes itself so strongly felt that one would wish not to know how to do anything else save remain at the Master’s feet with Magdalen, eager to hear everything, to penetrate ever more deeply into the mystery of love which He came to reveal to us.

I always feel the same fearless certainty that I shall become a great saint. I’m not relying on my own merits, as I have none, but I put my hope in Him who is goodness and holiness Himself. It is He alone who, satisfied with my feeble efforts, will raise me to Him, will clothes me with His infinite merits, and will make me a saint.

May You be blessed, my God, forever! How obvious it is that You loved me much more than I did myself! How many times, my Lord, have You freed me from so dark a prison, and how often have I put myself in it again against Your will!

The mirror in which we ought to look at ourselves that we may reach divine union is Jesus Christ, because no one can attain it except by means of and through the merits of Jesus Crucified.

Before the divine fire is introduced into and united to the substance of the soul through a person's perfect and complete purgation and purity, its flame, which is the Holy Spirit, wounds it by destroying and consuming the imperfections of its bad habits. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit, in which He disposes it for the divine union and transformation in God through love.

I know that He is better pleased to see you stumbling in the night upon a stony road, than walking in full light of day upon a path carpeted with flowers, because these flowers might hinder your advance.

So Sisters, if you love Him, strive that what you say to the Lord may not amount to mere polite words; strive to suffer what His Majesty desires you to suffer. For otherwise, when you give your will, it would be like showing a jewel to another, making a gesture to give it away, and asking that he take it; but when he extends his hand to accept it, you pull yours back and hold on tightly to the jewel.

Run a thousand miles from such expressions as: "I was right." "They had no reason for doing this to me." "The one who did this to me was wrong." God deliver us from this poor way of reasoning. Does it seem to have been right that our good Jesus suffered so many insults and was made to undergo such injustice?

To obtain an answer to the requests we bear in our hearts, there is no better means than to concentrate the strength of our prayer upon what is more pleasing to God.

The sorrow which casts us down is the hurt to our self-love...To brood gloomily over our own imperfections paralyzes our soul.

So, my Sisters, since in some way we can enjoy heaven on earth, be brave in begging the Lord to give us His grace in such a way that nothing will be lacking through our own fault; that He show us the way and strengthen the soul that it may dig until it finds this hidden treasure. The truth is that the treasure lies within our very selves.