Courage

         As Jesus fell three times on the road to Calvary, would you not then fall a hundred times, if necessary, to prove your love of Him by getting up with greater strength than before you fell?

     Many souls say: "But I do not have the strength to achieve such a sacrifice." They should do as I did: make a great effort. God never refuses this first grace which gives the courage to act, after that the heart is strengthened and one can go from victory to victory.

     You make me think of the little child who begins to stand, but still cannot walk. Wanting to join its mother at the top of the stairs, it lifts its little foot to take the first step. In vain! It always falls down without being able to go forward. Well, be content to be like this little child. By the practice of the virtues, lift your little foot to climb the staircase of Holiness. You will not even arrive at the first step, but God will only ask of you the right intention. Soon, you will overcome your vain efforts, He will come down Himself, and you, wrapped in his arms, will be carried to His kingdom.

     My little way is to be always happy, always smiling, as when I fall I am victorious.

     Real happiness on earth is to apply ourselves to finding the delights which Jesus gives us.

Love

     Christ is my love, He is my whole life.

     To love You as You love me I would have to borrow Your love, only then could I rest.

     For me, I do not know any other way to arrive at perfection other than 'love' . . . To love; our hearts are well made for that! .

     To love is to give all and to give all of one's self.

     Oh! This religion of ours is beautiful, instead of restricting hearts, as the world thinks, it elevates them and makes them able to love, to love almost infinitely, since it must continue after this life.

     Yes this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for You other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love.

     My mortifications consisted in breaking my will, always so ready to impose itself on others, in holding back a reply, in rendering little services without recognition.

     I do not want to pile up merits for myself in Heaven, I want to work only for Your love, with the single aim of pleasing You, of consoling Your Sacred Heart by making You known to the hearts You love.

     In order not to judge everyone else, I want to have charitable thoughts, for Jesus said: "Do not judge and you shall not be judged."

     Jesus does not look so much at the size of our actions nor their difficulty as at the love with which they were done.

     In all that Jesus asks of us, He does not need our works, but only our love.

     I understand that without love, all works mean nothing, even the brightest . . .

     I understood that if the Church had a body composed of different members, the most necessary and most noble of all could not be lacking to it, and so I understood that the Church had a heart and that this heart was burning with love.

     I understood that love made the members of the Church act. Love comprised all vocations, that love was everything, that it embraced all times and places . . . in a word, that it was eternal! O Jesus, my love, my vocation, at last I have found it, my vocation is Love!

Mercy

     What a sweet joy it is to think that God is Just, i.e., that He takes into account our weakness, that He is perfectly aware of our fragile nature. What should I fear then?

     I feel that if you found a soul weaker and littler than mine, which is impossible, You would be pleased to grant it still greater favors, provided it abandoned itself with total trust to Your Infinite Mercy.

     Yes, I feel it; even though I had on my conscience all the sins that can be committed, I would go, my heart broken with sorrow, and throw myself into Jesus' arms, for I know how much He loves the prodigal child who returns to Him . . .

 Our Smallness

     You are mistaken if you think that little Thérèse always goes with ardor along the path of virtue. She is weak and very weak. Everyday she makes a new experiment of it. But Jesus likes to teach her, as in St Paul, the science of glorifying in her infirmities. This is a great grace and I ask Jesus to teach it to you, because only there will one find peace and rest for the heart. When one sees one's self as miserable, one does want to be considered and one looks only to the Well-Loved!...

     Sometimes we surprise ourselves by wishing for something brilliant. Then we humbly place ourselves with the imperfect ones, believing in our little hearts that it is necessary for God to support us at every moment; when we are well convinced of our nothingness, it closes the hand; yes, it is enough to humiliate one's self, to gently support its imperfections. This is true holiness!

     Before, it seemed to me that I stood for nothing, but since I understood the words of Jesus, I see that on occasion I am quite imperfect.

     When I myself fall like a child, it again shows me my nothingness and I say to myself: what would I make, what would I become, if I were relying on my own powers?

     I beg You to take from me the freedom to displease You, if through weakness I sometimes fall soon Your Divine gaze will purify my heart consuming all my imperfections, like the fire which transforms everything into itself.

     No, I do not believe that I am a great saint! I believe myself to be a very small saint, but I think that the Good Lord was pleased to put in me things which created goodness within me and in others.

     To believe one's self to be imperfect and to find others perfect, this is happiness.