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O my God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage and strength to serve You. Enkindle Your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me. I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon now closes down, a new prospect will prospect will open before me, and I shall meet it with peace.

I cannot say I love suffering in itself, but I love it because it conforms me to Him who is my Bridegroom and my Love. Oh, you see, that bestows such sweet peace, such profound joy on the soul, and you end up putting your happiness in everything that is irritating. Little Mama, try to put joy – not the joy you can feel but the joy of your will into every irritation, every sacrifice...

It is not a refreshing peaceful fire, but a consuming and searching one that makes the soul grieve at the sight of itself. The soul perceives its own smallness in comparison with the immensity of the flame.

My God, no one has sinned as I. And therefore do I rejoice and hope much, for the extent of Your mercy will be all the more clearly seen in me.

Virtue does not consist in apprehensions and feelings of God, however sublime they may be, or in any similar experience. On the contrary, it comprises... deep humility, contempt for themselves and all things. All heavenly visions, revelations, and feelings are not worth as much as the least act of humility. Consequently souls should not look for their happiness in these supernatural apprehensions.

The more you feel your weakness, your difficulty in being recollected, the more the Master seems to hide Himself, the more you should rejoice, for then you are giving Him something, and is it not better to give than to receive, when one loves?

We object when He hands us the chalice of His suffering. It is so difficult for us to resign ourselves to suffering. To rejoice in it strikes us as heroic. What is the value of our offering of self if we unite ourselves each morning only in word and gesture, rather than in thought and will, to that offering which we, together with the Church, make of Him with whom we are in the one body?

But because being one with Christ is our sanctity, and progressively becoming one with him our happiness on earth, the love of the cross in no way contradicts being a joyful child of God. Helping Christ carry his cross fills one with a strong and pure joy, and those who may and can do so, the builders of God's kingdom, are the most authentic children of God.

When things that are irritable or disagreeable befall me, instead of assuming an air of sadness, I respond by a smile. At first I was not always successful, but now it is a habit which I am very happy to have acquired.

I am the happiest creature in the world. God is infinite joy.

I know I am being sustained and herein lies my tranquility and security- not the conscious security of the man who is on firm ground with his own strength, but the sweet and beautiful security of a child upheld by a strong arm- which in practice is a security not less reasonable. Could you call that child reasonable who would live in constant fear that its mother would let it fall?

Today I had the joy of offering Jesus several sacrifices with respect to my dominant fault, but how much they cost me! There I recognized my weakness. When I am unjustly reproved, I feel as though the blood were boiling in my veins. My whole being rises in revolt! ... but Our Lord was with me. I heard His voice deep down in my heart and then I was ready to bear everything for love of Him.