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I made the resolution never to consider whether the things commanded me appeared useful or not.... it is love alone that counts. Forget about whether something is needed or useful; see it (the demand, rule, obligation, etc.) as a whim of Jesus.

It is in prayer that the soul learns to know Jesus and thus to love him. Since love cannot be satisfied with difference but with equality, the result is union in similarity.

I have abandoned my free will to You so that henceforth You alone will be the possessor of my heart and Your holy Will the rule of my actions. I desire to love You with a patient love, a love dead to self - that is, a love which completely abandons me to You; an active love; to sum it all up, a solid love with no division within itself and which will stand regardless of what may happen.

To belong wholly to God, to give oneself to Him, to His service, for love, this is the vocation, not only of all the elect but of every Christian; whether consecrated or not, man or woman.

What does it profit you to give God one thing if he asks of you another? Consider what it is God wants, and then do it. You will as a result satisfy your heart better than with something toward which you yourself are inclined.

For it loves Him so much that it cares about naught beside; when, therefore, it sees itself to be so wretched that it cannot believe that God loves it...it is grieved to see in itself reasons for deserving to be cast out by Him for Whom it has such great love and desire.

Let yourself be loved...without fearing that any obstacle will be a hindrance to it...This love can rebuild what you have undone.

Our good God ardently desires to give us the great treasure of His love; but He wants us to ask Him for it insistently, and to act in such a way that each work we perform will be a request for this love.

Is there any freedom greater than the freedom to serve God? Is there any freedom more complete than union with Him? Does He not free us from ties of money and property and selfishness, of avarice and pride and inconstancy? Is He not the only true Emancipator? Who is free who does not love God?

It benefits me little to be alone making acts of devotion to our Lord, proposing and promising to do wonders in his service, if I then go away and when the occasion offers itself do everything the opposite. If his Majesty showed us his love by means of such works and frightful torments, how is it you want to please him only with words?

Look at him at the tomb of Lazarus. And listen to what he says of the Magdalene: "Much has been forgiven her, because she has loved much." What do you discover in these flashes from the Gospel except a heart that is good, gentle, tender, compassionate; in other words, the heart of a God?

O my beloved Spouse and loving Word, you engender the Body of the holy Church in a way which you alone know and understand...By means of your Blood, you make a well-organized, well-formed body of which you are the head. The angels delight in its beauty, the archangels admire it, the seraphim are enraptured by it, all the angelic spirits marvel at it, and all the souls of the blessed in heaven rejoice in it. The Blessed Trinity takes delight in it in a manner beyond our comprehension.