Although I generally manage to keep him at arm’s length, the ‘natural man’ still makes himself felt at times in certain hellish dreams in which I find myself entangled unawares.  In short, I am still the same, a great proud sinner.  What a humbling thought!

And to think that God still bears with me and seems not to notice my sins.  How can I disappoint Him?  Why am I not carried away by the desire to love Him and make Him love me?  The most Holy Virgin of Sorrows weeps because Jesus is not loved but sinned against: perhaps I too make Him weep.  Oh console yourself, Mary, preserve ever alive in me the most burning desire to love your Son and enable me, as far as lies within my power, to soothe your bitter sorrows by drawing souls to Jesus and you.  To obtain your help, I dedicate to you all my actions tomorrow.  Purify them, give them that perfection they so much need, and let the rosary be said at least once as I have never said it yet.

–Angelo Roncalli as a young seminarian, future Pope John XXIII ‘Journal of a Soul’