I know well, Monsieur, how much you have to endure in your present duty, and I ask Our Lord to strengthen you in your difficulties. It is in such circumstances that we acquire virtue; where there is no suffering, there is little merit. My wish is that God may grant us great indifference with regard to duties. O Monsieur, how sure we would then be of doing His Holy Will, which is our sole aspiration, and how much peace and contentment we would enjoy, or so it seems to me!

When we receive with an entire and perfect resignation the afflictions which God sends us they become for us favors and benefits; because conformity to the will of God is a gain far superior to all temporal advantages.

. . . 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.

Your soul will be blessed, Sister, if you bear patiently the troubles of mind and body His Providence sends you, or which come to you from within and without.

Peace is worth far more than anything they might take from you.

God has seen fit that, since our services are useful to many persons, everyone approves them, but only when they are carried out in the spirit of Our Lord.

If your men grow weary of the work or balk at obedience, you must bear with them. Get what you can gently from them. True, it is good to be firm in attaining your goal, but use appropriate, attractive, and agreeable means.