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It is enough if we desire to be victims of love, but we must be willing to remain poor and weak – and that is the difficulty.

I say, daughters, that we should set our eyes on Christ, our Good, and on His saints. There we shall learn true humility, the intellect will be enhanced, as I have said, and self-knowledge will not make one base and cowardly.

Always think of yourself as everyone's servant; look for Christ Our Lord in everyone and you will then have respect and reverence for them all.

What does it matter if I fall at every moment! In that way I realize my weakness, and the gain is considerable. My God, You see how little I am good for, away from Your divine arms; and if You leave me alone, well, it is because it pleases You to see me lie on the ground. Then why should I be troubled?

Then gradually, he becomes very small and humble; he grows patient and indulgent toward the splinter in strange eyes because the beam in his own is brought into being; and, finally, he also learns to be patient with himself in the inexorable light of the divine Presence and to surrender himself to the divine mercy which can take care of all that ridicules our energy.

Who can free himself from the lowly manners and limitations if You do not lift him to Yourself, my God, in purity of love? How will a man begotten and nurtured in lowliness rise up to You, Lord, if You do not raise him with Your hand which made him?

Faith furnishes a certain but obscure knowledge to the understanding. In fact it shows us God as inaccessible light, as incomprehensible and infinite Being before whom every natural force gives way. And it is just for this motive that faith reduces reason to its intrinsic nothingness: to the realization of its impotence and of the grandeur of God.

Be convinced that where humility is truly present, God will give a peace and conformity — even though He may never give consolations — by which one will walk with greater contentment than will others with their consolations.

Humility consists in complete recognition of one's own nothingness in all things. A leather bag is best filled by being laid flat on the ground, and a bucket at a well does not fill with water unless it is lowered. As for me, I remain empty for want of being humbled.

The nothingness of me is strangely loved:
Sustaining ever
The all of love, my need is strangely here:
Departing never.

I've never acted like Pilate, who refused to listen to the truth. I've always said to God: O my God, I really want to listen to You; I beg You to answer me when I say humbly: What is truth? Make me see things as they really are. Let nothing cause me to be deceived.

You know it has ever been my desire to become a Saint, but I have always felt, in comparing myself with the Saints, that I am as far removed from them as the grain of sand, which the passerby tramples underfoot... Instead of being discouraged, I concluded that God would not inspire desires which could not be realized, and that I may aspire to sanctity in spite of my littleness. For me to become great is impossible. I must bear with myself and my many imperfections...