From the letter to her niece, Giuseppina, recalled by her mother to the paternal house for a few days, to verify her vocation to religious life, wanting to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows founded by her aunt:
“If you were alone, I would be the first to fear, since of ourselves we have nothing but weakness, powerlessness, and misery, but our Lord is with you from morning to evening and from evening to morning!
Are you suffering? It is the divine hand that gives you His cross. When you work He is there to bear half of your pain; when you cry, He comes closer to you to dry your tears; when you pray, it is He who prays in you. But it is not necessary for you to be aware of this. Be happy because you know that the good Lord loves you, because you know that we have heaven before us, and because – despite our weaknesses, our miseries, and our mountains of defects – we progress towards God every day, and we may advance the most on days when we are least aware of it. Giuseppina, your heart must be a channel; no created thing can remain there. All those who enter, even your father and mother, have to pass through the heart of Jesus. The more God enriches your heart, the more sensitive He makes it, but also the more He demands that it be absolutely detached for love of Him. How beautiful it is to suffer and how happy are the victims!
The only thing not envied is the last place, and only in it is there no vanity or affliction of spirit. Let us humbly number ourselves among the imperfect; let us consider ourselves little souls that God has to sustain at every moment… if we try to do some great thing, God will leave us on our own, even if we do it from motives of zeal. It is enough to humble ourselves and to willingly endure our imperfection. This is what true sanctity is for us.
Love! The exercise of acquiring divine love is nothing else than great abasement, that is, humiliation; in exchange for an act of love or of any other virtue that passes in a moment, you can gain a degree of glory that will endure for all eternity.”
