We are still tossed about by the disturbances of this life, which is like a stormy sea, where those who are not attached to J[esus] C[hrist] and the duties of their state, as was our dear departed, are shipwrecked.

May God be pleased to make it known to you, and fill you increasingly with His Spirit, so that through you it may be poured into the souls you guide, and your own soul may be more greatly sanctified!

Far from being a bad thing to seek advice, you must, on the contrary, do so when the matter is of any importance, or when we cannot come to a clear decision on our own.

If you grant asylum to so many refugees, your house may be sacked sooner by the soldiers; I see that clearly. The question is, however, whether, because of this danger, you should refuse to practice such a beautiful virtue as charity.

Our Lord is pleased to deprive us of temporal goods; may it please His Divine Goodness to give us spiritual ones!

Oh! how happy the man of means who uses his wealth and his life for the greater glory of God, from whom he has received them!

. . . It is God's plan that those who are to help others spiritually fall into the temptations of mind and body by which others can be tormented. . . . Scorn both these evil suggestions and the wickedness of their author, who is the devil.