We should spend as much time in thanking God for his benefits as we do in asking him for them.

You say you experience great difficulty in the mission. Alas! Monsieur, there is no lot in life where there is nothing to be endured.

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!

Nature makes trees put down deep roots before having them bear fruit, and even this is done gradually.

What you are saying is true of those who want everything to give way to them, nothing to oppose them, everything to go their way, people to obey them without comment or delay and, in a manner of speaking, to be adored.

People are made in such a way that even the holiest ones are liable to offend one another.

Our Lord and the saints accomplished more by suffering than by acting.