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Don't be terrified by the new life that is opening up to you, for being a child of Mary, she will cover you with her mantle.

Mary, who kept all God's words in her heart, in the fullness of grace granted her, understood the great value of suffering. While the apostles fled, she went out to meet the Savior on the way to Calvary and stood beneath the cross, in order to share His grief and shame to the end. And she carried Him to the grave, firmly trusting that He would rise.

I have understood that the thing that separates me most from God is my pride. I propose to be humble. Without humility the other virtues are hypocrisy. ... Humility gains us similarity to Christ, peace of soul, holiness and intimate union with God.

Let us believe in love with the beloved Apostle, John (1 Jn. 4:16) and since we possess Him within us, what matter the nights which may darken our sky? If Jesus seems asleep, let us rest near Him; let us be very calm and silent and not wake Him, but wait in faith.

To secure a hearing there is no need to recite set prayers composed for the occasion. . . . I have not the courage to search through books for beautiful prayers; they are so numerous, that it would only make my head ache, and besides, each one is more lovely than the other. Unable either to say them all or to choose between them, I do as a child would do who cannot read-I say just what I want to say to God, quite simply and He never fails to understand.

Jesus is a hidden treasure which few souls can find, for it is hidden and the world loves what sparkles.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

That which is truly great grows unnoticed, and silence at the right moment is more fruitful than the constant activity that only too easily degenerates into spiritual idleness. In the present age, we are all possessed by a strange restlessness that suspects any silence of being a waste of time and any kind of repose as being negligence. We forget the real mystery of time, the real mystery present in growth and activity. That mystery involves silence and stillness. Even in the religious sphere we tend to expect and hope for everything from our own activity. We use all kinds of exercises and involvements to evade the real mystery of interior growth before God.

The Redemption was decided in the eternal silence of the divine life and in the hiddenness of the tranquil dwelling of Nazareth; the power of the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin while she was praying alone, and it brought about the Incarnation of the Redeemer.

. . . you must not build upon foundations of prayer and contemplation alone, for, unless you strive after the virtues and practice them, you will never grow to be more than dwarfs.

It is easier to have oneself nailed to the cross with Christ, than to become a stammering babe with Him.

Nevertheless, God usually imparts to those whom he brings into this night the humility and the readiness, even though they feel displeasure, to do what is commanded of them for his sake alone, and they become detached from many things because of this lack of gratification.