. . . Our Lord humbles in order to raise up, and allows the suffering of interior and exterior afflictions in order to bring about peace. He often desires some things more than we do, but wants us to merit the grace of accomplishing them by several practices of virtue and to beg for this with many prayers.

O Monsieur de Sergis, how important a matter is submission of spirit to a superior!

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.

If you no longer have any income, you will not be neglected-you will not starve to death. . . . We panic at first, but God does not always allow the evil that is feared to happen.

. . . Our Lord humbles in order to raise up, and allows the suffering of interior and exterior afflictions in order to bring about peace. He often desires some things more than we do, but wants us to merit the grace of accomplishing them by several practices of virtue and to beg for this with many prayers.

I have made to God the offering you made to me of your heart and have asked him to unite mine with yours in that of Our Lord.

We must hold as an irrefutable maxim that the difficulties we have with our neighbor arise more from our immortified moods than from anything else.