“I want to become a saint, but it won't be easy. I have a lot to work on, the wood is hard as rock. I should have started this earlier, when it wasn't so difficult, but better late than never.”
“I hope that [firstborn daughter] Marie will be a good girl, but I would like her to be a saint and I would like you to be a saint too, my Pavlina. I also want to become a saint, but I don't know where to start; there is so much that hinders me from fulfilling that wish. I often say during the day: 'My God, how I would like to be a saint!' And then I can't finish my work! And so it goes all day long...”
“You tell me not to lose hope, and that is exactly what I am doing. I know very well that the Holy Virgin can heal me, but I can't help but feel afraid that she doesn't want to, and I will say straight out, it seems to me that no miracle will happen. I have decided that I will behave as if I were to die. It is absolutely necessary that I do not waste the time I have left, because these are days of salvation that will never return, and I want to make use of them.”
(Zélie Martin /1831–1877/, excerpts from correspondence from the years 1873, 1876, and 1877)
