Father with this word I express my certainty that someone is there who hears me, who never leaves me alone, who is always present.

This is the point of the story that Cassian tells us about the old man who was attacked by a mob of pagans in Alexandria.

Let us imagine our confusion when we appear before God and understand the reasons why he sent us the crosses we accept so unwillingly.

We should plant prayers throughout the day like vines.

Of the three marks of Lent — prayer, fasting and almsgiving — almsgiving is surely the most neglected.

Before fasting passes into prayer, and the one can no longer do without the other, it will have to burrow out new depths in a person's heart.

There is not a moment in which God is not present with us under the cover of some pain to be endured, some obligation or some duty to be performed, or some consolation to be enjoyed.

The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.

Today people have become used to thinking: what is sin? God is great, he knows us, so sin does not count; in the end God will be kind to us all.

In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.