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Therefore the whole perpetual sacrificial offering of Christ at the cross, in the holy Mass, and in the eternal glory of heaven can be conceived as a single great thanksgiving as Eucharist: as gratitude for creation, salvation, and consummation. Christ presents himself in the name of all creation, whose prototype he is and to which he descended to renew it from the inside out and lead it to perfection. But he also calls upon the entire created world itself, united with him, to give the Creator the tribute of thanks that is his due.

Pray that the best portion of your life may not be overshadowed by idle fears. We have only life's brief moments to spend for the glory of God, and well does Satan know it. That is why he employs every ruse to make us consume them in useless labour. Dear sister, go often to Holy Communion, go very often-that is your one remedy.

Ah! dear little sister, far from complaining to Jesus about the Cross He is sending us, I cannot understand the infinite love that has drawn Him to treat us in this way ... The Martyrdom is beginning. Let us enter the arena together.

Death can hold no bitterness for the soul that loves. It brings with it all the sweetness and delights of love. There is no sadness in the remembrance of it when it opens the door to all joy.

Through the annihilation and calming of my faculties, passions, appetites, and affections, by which my experience of God was base, I went from my human operation and way of acting to God’s operation and way of acting.

O Jesus, Who in Thy cruel Passion didst become the "Reproach of men and the Man of Sorrows," I worship Thy Divine Face. Once it shone with the beauty and sweetness of the Divinity: now for my sake it is become as the face of a leper. Yet in that disfigured Countenance I recognize Thy infinite Love, and I am consumed with the desire of loving Thee and of making Thee loved by all mankind.

And should by chance you do not know
Where to find Me,
Do not go here and there;
But if you wish to find Me,
In yourself seek Me.
Soul, since you are My room,
My house and dwelling,
If at any time,
Through your distracted ways
I find the door tightly closed.
Outside yourself seek Me not,
To find Me it will be
Enough only to call Me,
Then quickly will I come,
And in yourself seek Me.

Or look upon Him bending under the weight of the Cross and not even allowed to take breath: He will look upon you with His lovely and compassionate eyes, full of tears, and in comforting your grief will forget His own because you are bearing Him company in order to comfort Him and turning your head to look upon Him.

The more interior the suffering is and the less apparent to the eyes of creatures, the more it rejoices You, O my God!

Wherein lies the highest perfection?... In the conformity of our will to the will of God, so that there shall be nothing we know He wills that we do not will ourselves with our whole will...

Nevertheless, we can converse and speak with You as we like, once the first fright and fear in beholding Your majesty passes; although the fear of offending You becomes greater. But the fear is not one of punishment, for this punishment is considered nothing in comparison with losing You.

The highest perfection obviously does not consist in interior delights or in great raptures or in visions or in the spirit of prophecy but in having our will so much in conformity with God's will that there is nothing we know He wills that we do not want with all our desire, and in accepting the bitter as happily as we do the delightful when we know that His Majesty desires it. This seems most difficult (not the doing of it, but this being content with what completely contradicts our nature); and indeed it truly is difficult. But love has this strength if it is perfect, for we forget about pleasing ourselves in order to please the one we love.