Poverty

Let us look at the poverty of Bethlehem, at the humiliation of the Word of the Father and then confront our own pretensions, our own haughtiness: what a contrast!

Discouragement

Let us never become discouraged over troubles, never let ourselves be dominaed by discouragement. Life is brief. What is even a hundred years compared to eternity? We must completely detach ourselves from this earth in which we are exiles.

Let us recommend ourselves to the Blessed Mother that she may keep her holy hand upon our head always. Let us make this pact with Her: that she may come to us when we are on our deathbed and carry us up into Heaven.

Blessed Virgin--Our Mother

The Blessed Virgin is our Mother. Depend on the Blessed Virgin for everything, as Jesus did. Imitate her in her conformity to the will of God. Bow your head and say: "God's will be done." At times something unexpected comes up, but let us always be docile, prompt in doing the will of God.

Queen of Apostles

O Queen of Apostles, pray for us!

Pray for us,

your daughters who entrust ourselves entirely to you.

Pray for us, so that we may never offend Jesus,

but may love Him with all our hearts.

Beneath your mantle, O Mother,

we your daughters take refuge daily.

Make us worthy of your maternal gaze,

make us all yours.

All that we have is yours.

Teach us,

guide us,

sustain us,

defend us from every danger as you have done till now.

And after this exile,

show us Jesus,

the blessed fruit of your womb.

Our Blessed Mother

Do everything with our Blessed Mother, for her, with her, through her. With our Mama, everything is done more willingly, with Mama everything is easier. Our Blessed Mother makes even difficult things easy. Many things are little in themselves, but they are difficult for us. Why? Because we have little virtue yet. Then it is that our Blessed Mother helps us, takes us by the hand, and even carries us, if necessary.

Spirit of Faith

Live a life of faith, live with our mind on God.

The more we distrust in ourselves and trust in God, the more graces we will have. We must await everything from Him, from His goodness.

Always look upward, to Heaven! That is our real homeland, our very own place, prepared for us by the Divine Master. To it we must aspire, there we must arrive at any cost whatsoever--and not any place whatsoever, but aspire to a high place, our place.

Hence we must never become discouraged. Always distrust ourselves but always trust in God.

Charity

Never think evil. Some can see nothing but evil around them. This is a sign of an evil mind.

With regard to thinking evil of others, let us think of what we have heard so often, that is, if we wish to receive favourable sentence at God's judgement, if we want to avoid this judgement completely--we must never judge others, never think evil. Jesus himself, in fact, said it. No matter what we see or hear, we must never judge or think evil, because we do not know how that person whom we wish to judge stands in the eyes of God; we do not know what her intentions are.

St. Francis de Sales says: "If you cannot excuse the action, at least excuse the intention."

Forget past faults.

Fervour

Work a complete change in our lives: from tepidity to fervour, from a life which is not totally of God to one which is. Fervour is fervour of spirit. Activity alone is not fervour.

If we are not fervent, what are we doing? It is easy to fall into tepidity.

When our heart is full of love of God, we will of necessity pass this love on to others because it is a fire which must spread. But if we do not possess love of God, how can we communicate it to others?

Let us not dream of doing big things (martyrdom, for example). Let us rather take advantage of the little opportunities we have to offer something to the Lord. Those little sacrifices of the day--let us offer them all to Him. This will be our blood shed drop by drop for God. Let us not scatter the treasures we have, the precious peals of which we can dispose. Let us not lose time, which is so precious. Time is worth as much as God is worth!