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God desires the smallest degree of purity of conscience in you more than all the works you can perform.

I have made more acts of faith during the past year than in all the rest of my life. Whenever my enemy provokes me to combat, I try to behave like a gallant soldier. Aware that a duel is an act of cowardice, I turn my back on the foe without once looking him in the face; then hastening to my Savior I tell Him that I am ready to shed my blood as a witness to my belief in Heaven. I tell Him that if He will deign to open it for eternity to poor unbelievers, I am content to sacrifice during my life all joyous thoughts of the Home that awaits me.

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.

In truth, it is impossible that a heart which can find rest only in contemplation of the Tabernacle-and yours is such, you tell me- could so far offend Our Lord as not to be able to receive Him. . . . What does offend Jesus, what wounds Him to the Heart, is want of confidence.

Along how many paths, in how many ways, by how many methods You show us love!

You know well that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them.

Knowing, O my God, that my sins made Your cross so heavy that You had to sink beneath it, this makes me even more convinced that I must carry my cross together with You and that I should not shy away from it, even should I sink beneath its weight.

Oh, ask Him that I may be equal to my vocation and not abuse the graces He lavishes on me; if you knew how fearful that makes me sometimes...Then I cast myself on Him whom Saint John calls 'the Faithful and True,' and I beg Him to be Himself my fidelity!

Our Lord kept nothing for Himself when He loved me from the wood of the Cross. And will I give myself to Him by halves?

As soon as you try to please Him in everything and have an unshakable trust He purifies you every moment in His love and He lets no sin remain.

The cross...It is the path from earth to heaven. It will lift one who embraces it in faith, love, and hope into the bosom of the Trinity.

As soon as God sees that, having co-operated with His initial grace, we are capable of receiving His grace, His free goodness is ready to bestow upon us the gift that makes us resemble Him. Our aptitude to receive grace depends upon the interior integrity wherewith we move towards Him, and when He brings His gifts, God can also bestow Himself, stamp His likeness upon us, absolve and deliver us.