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Only the person who renounces self-importance, who no longer struggles to defend or assert himself, can be large enough for God's boundless action.

God would have you keep back nothing from Him, little or great. He will have it all; in proportion to what you know you have given will your reward be great or small.

What do you think serving God involves other than avoiding evil, keeping His commandments, and being occupied with the things of God as best we can? When this is had, what need is there of other apprehensions or other lights and satisfactions from this source or that.

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.

On another occasion when I was engaged in the laundry, the Sister opposite to me, who was washing handkerchiefs, kept splashing me continually with dirty water. My first impulse was to draw back and wipe my face in order to show her that I wanted her to be more careful. The next moment, however, I saw the folly of refusing treasures thus generously offered, and I carefully refrained from betraying any annoyance. On the contrary I made such efforts to welcome the shower of dirty water that at the end of half an hour I had taken quite a fancy to the novel kind of aspersion, and resolved to return as often as possible to the place where such precious treasures were freely bestowed.

You will never be commonplace if you are vigilant in love! But in the hours when you feel only oppression and lassitude, you will please Him even more if you faithfully believe that He is still working, that He is loving you just the same, and even more: because His love is free and that is how He wants to be magnified in you; and you will let yourself be loved "more than these".

For years I have not belonged to myself, I have surrendered myself wholly to Jesus, and He is free to do with me whatsoever He pleases.

Abide in peace, banish cares, take no account of all that happens, and you will serve God according to his good pleasure and rest in him.

Let us sanctify ourselves for the sake of souls and since we are members of one and the same body, in the measure in which we possess abundantly the divine life we shall be able to impart it to the great body of the Church. For me, all apostleship is summed up in two words: union and love.

(My God) What a joyous mystery is your presence within me, in that intimate sanctuary of my soul where I can always find you, even when I do not feel your presence. Of what importance is feeling? Perhaps you are all the closer when I feel you less.

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.

God is ready to pardon a sinner who humbles himself. He looks with more love on a soul who returns to Him in Humility, than on a faithful soul who finds pleasure in its virtues.