I don’t ask you to take away my feelings, Lord, because I can use them to serve you with: but I ask you to put them through the crucible.

Sancta Maria, Stella maris — Holy Mary, Star of the sea, be our guide.

Make this firm request, because there is no storm which can shipwreck the most Sweet Heart of Mary. When you see the storm coming, if you get into that firm Refuge which is Mary, there will be no danger of your wavering or going down.

When you feel self—love — pride! — stirring within you, making you out to be a superman, it is time to cry out: No! In this way you will savour the joy of the good son of God who goes through life with faults, but doing good.

It is from clay I come and the earth is the inheritance of all my lineage.

Who but God deserves praise?

In moments of disappointment, that soul said to Our Lord: “My Jesus, what else could I give you apart from my honour, if I had nothing else? If I had had a fortune I would have given it to you. If I had had virtues, I would have built up each one to serve you better. The only thing I had was my honour and I have given it to you. May you be blessed! It’s clear that it was safe in your hands!”

I advise you not to look for praise, even when you deserve it. It is better to pass unnoticed, and to let the most beautiful and noble aspects of our actions, of our lives, remain hidden. What a great thing it is to become little! Deo omnis gloria! —All the glory to God.

Don’t lay so much stress on ‘my health’, ‘my family name’, ‘my career’, ‘my job’, or ‘my next step’… How annoying this can be! It would seem you have forgotten that you don’t have anything, that everything is His. How annoying this can be! It would seem you have forgotten that you don’t have anything, that everything is His.

When sometimes — perhaps without reason — you feel humiliated; when you think your opinion should prevail; when you notice that at every moment your “self” keeps cropping up: your things, your things, your things… convince yourself that you are killing time, and that what you need is someone to kill your selfishness.

If you really want to attain eternal life and honour, you must learn in many cases to put aside your own noble ambitions.

How good it is to live on God’s bounty! How good it is to desire nothing other than his Glory.

If I love, there will be no hell for me.