The Faith

Feb 28, 2026

(17) The path of faith is the only good and secure one. It is by this path that souls who wish to advance in virtue must walk, closing their eyes to all that belongs to the senses or to their own understanding, however enlightened it may be.

(18) When inspirations come from God, they are always ordered according to motives drawn from the law of God and from faith; and it is through the perfection of faith that the soul draws ever nearer to God.

(19) The soul that faithfully adheres to the lights and truths of faith walks securely, without danger of error. For it may be held as a general rule that a soul goes astray only by following its own inclinations, tastes, reasonings, and ideas, which almost always cause it to sin either by excess or by deficiency, inclining it toward what is unfitting for the service of God.

(20) With faith, the soul advances without having to fear the devil, its strongest and most cunning enemy. Thus Saint Peter found no more powerful help against the devil, and said to the faithful: Resist him by the firmness of your faith.

(21) For a soul to draw near to God and be united with Him, it is better that it proceed without understanding than with understanding, and in total forgetfulness of creatures; exchanging what is comprehensible and changeable in creatures for the immutable and incomprehensible who is God Himself.

(22) Light is useful to us in this visible world, to prevent us from falling. But in the things of God, on the contrary, it is better not to see; and there the soul finds greater security.

(23) Since it is certain that in this life we know God more by what He is not than by what He is, the soul, in order to go to Him, must proceed by rejecting every perception, natural and supernatural, as far as possible.

(24) No perception or understanding of supernatural things can help us grow in divine love as much as the smallest act of living faith and hope in God, completely stripped of all light.

(25) Just as, according to the laws of natural generation, no being can assume a new form without losing the one it previously had, so the animal life and the life of the senses must be destroyed in the soul in order to make room for the pure life of the spirit.

(26) Do not seek the presence of creatures if you wish to keep clear and pure the features of the divine Face in your soul. Rather, free and empty your mind of every created object. Thus you will walk among the lights of God, who bears no resemblance to any creature.

(27) Faith is the surest refuge of a soul; and the Holy Spirit Himself is then its light. For the purer and richer a soul is in the perfections of a living faith, the more abundantly it possesses the infused charity of God, and the more it receives supernatural lights and gifts.

(28) One of the most distinguished favors the Lord grants a soul during this life—though it is not lasting but passing—is to bestow upon it such a clear knowledge and such an exalted sense of His divinity that it understands and sees very plainly that it is impossible to have here below full knowledge and feeling of it.

(29) When a soul relies on its own knowledge, or on its tastes and feelings, in order to go to God—failing to see that such means are without value and without proportion to so great an end—it easily goes astray or stops along the way, for lack of clinging blindly to faith alone, which is its true guide.

(30) It is astonishing what happens in our days. When a soul has scarcely the least measure of reflection on divine things, and hears within itself the sound of some interior word in a moment of recollection, it immediately takes this to be something sacred and divine; and without the least doubt: “God has spoken to me,” it says, “God has answered me.” Yet this is not true; it is the soul itself speaking and answering itself, through the very effect of its desire.

(31) Whoever in our days would wish to ask God for some vision or revelation would, it seems to me, do an affront to the Lord, not fixing his eyes solely on His Christ. And God would have the right to answer: “Behold, you have My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him, and do not seek new modes of teaching; for in Him and through Him I have told and revealed to you all that you can desire and ask of Me, giving Him to you as brother, as master, as friend, as ransom, and as reward.”

(32) In all things we must guide ourselves by the doctrine of Jesus Christ and of His Church, seeking there the remedy for our ignorance and spiritual weaknesses; for it is there, indeed, that we shall find for all our ills a sure and ever-present remedy. Whoever would depart from this way would be guilty not only of vain curiosity but of intolerable presumption.

(33) Nothing should be believed or accepted by means of a supernatural communication unless it is in accord with the doctrine of Jesus Christ and the word of His ministers.

(34) The soul that desires revelations sins at least venially; and those who encourage it in this desire or consent to it sin likewise, even if it be for a good end, because in all this there is no necessity: natural reason and the doctrine of the Gospel are sufficient to guide us in all things.

(35) The soul that desires revelations diminishes by so much the perfection it had acquired by guiding itself solely by faith; and thus it opens the door to the devil, allowing him to come and deceive it by other revelations entirely similar, which he knows how to disguise marvelously and make appear equally good.

(36) All the wisdom of the saints consists in knowing how to direct their will firmly toward God, fulfilling perfectly His holy law and His divine counsels.