Occupy yourself in beholding and bewailing your own imperfections rather than contemplating the imperfections of others.

Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections.

So with that will prompt and prepared to serve all those whom I perceive to be servants of my Lord, I will speak of three things with simplicity and love as if I were speaking to my own soul.

Above all, remember that God looks for solid virtues in us, such as patience, humility, obedience, abnegation of your own will - that is, the good will to serve Him and our neighbor in Him. His providence allows us other devotions only insofar as He sees that they are useful to us.

Some indeed have tears naturally, when the higher motion of the soul makes itself felt in the lower, or because God our Lord, seeing that it would be good for them, allows them to melt into tears. But this does not mean that they have greater charity or that they are more effective than others who enjoy no tears.

One rare and exceptional deed is worth far more than a thousand commonplace ones.