The more I withdraw into God and with God into silence, the closer I feel to everyone and the more I find everyone. The more I make my little efforts to help others by practicing my calling, the more fruit I bear, albeit without seeing a single fruit. I must live my life with naked and pure faith, giving everything without seeing anything. What holy peace and joy this gives to my soul! Even if all I give is worth no more than a penny, how pleasing it is to God, because what counts is the slightest effort to give one's all, and how great is the reward: God's all.
Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Either we have hope within or we don't; it is a
dimension of the soul not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the
world or estimate of the situation. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the
heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored
somewhere beyond its horizons.