Since self-love is the origin and mother of evil, when this is eradicated all the things which derive from it are eradicated as well. For when self-love is absent, not the slightest trace or form of evil can exist in any way at all.
Wherever we are and whatever our circumstances, the enemy always tries to prevent us from actively responding to the call. Pray for help. For help that you may never fail to respond. And beware lest, having received help and having done the right deed because of it, you should grow proud and acquire the habit of condemning others, in the secret chambers of your heart. Beware! For this would make all the fruits of your good works wither.
Unceasing prayer means to have the mind always turned to God with great love, holding alive our hope in Him, having confidence in Him whatever we are doing and whatever happens to us. That is the attitude that the Apostle had when he wrote: ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril? Neither death nor life nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.’ [cf. Rom. 8:35-38]
If you harbor rancor against anybody, pray for him and you will prevent the passion from being aroused; for by means of prayer you will separate your resentment from the thought of the wrong he has done you. When you have become loving and compassionate towards him, you will wipe the passion completely from your soul.
When the intellect is pure, sometimes God Himself approaches and teaches it; and sometimes the angelic powers, or the nature of the created things that it contemplates, suggests holy things to it.
Have great care of your children. We live at a time when much freedom is given to the expression of thought, but little care is taken that thoughts should be founded on truth. Teach them to love truth.
Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.
Remember that a good action is always either preceded or followed by temptations. God permits this so that the virtue, exercised in that particular action, may be confirmed, consolidated, steeled.
He who busies himself with the sins of others, or judges his brother on suspicion, has not yet even begun to repent or to examine himself so as to discover his own sins...
A small affliction borne for God's sake is better [before God] than a great work performed without tribulation, because affliction willingly borne brings to light the proof of love.
Do not disregard your conscience, which always counsels you of the best. It puts before you divine and angelic advice; it frees you from the hidden stains of your heart, and will make you the gift of free speech with God at the time of your departure.
The most important thing during illness is to offer to God patience and thanksgiving for His merciful visitations. Sickness purifies sins and gives one time to meditate on the past.
