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!

The children of our Lord walk gladly in his ways; they have confidence in him, and so when they fall, they rise again; and if, instead of stopping to grumble about the stone they have tripped over, they humble themselves at their fall, this helps them to advance with great strides in his love.

Let us be submissive to Providence, He will see to our affairs in His own time and in His own way

God allows us to give rise to the practice of two beautiful virtues: perseverance, which leads us to attain the goal, and constancy, which helps us to overcome difficulties.

Peace is never so complete that we may not have something to suffer. . . . Since it is impossible to please all of [those you serve], they offer you the occasion for practices which increase your merit in the measure that you make them meritorious by your patience.

We must be full reservoirs in order to let our water spill out without becoming empty, and we must possess the spirit with which we want them to be animated, for no one can give what he does not have.

I have never made any distinction between those who have taken vows and those who have not; some should not be overburdened in order to spare others.