January 1—“The keynote? Serve. Find your joy in serving God and your neighbor.”
January 6—Holy Hour.
“Who is like God? My little girl, can you find any comparison? Have you a greater friend? A friend more tender, more wealthy, more powerful? And if it is impossible to compare Him with anything that you know, how can you fail to give yourself wholly to Him? You hold something back, don’t you? Why are you afraid to abandon yourself?
“In life as in death, stretch out your arms to My all-loving immensity. You see the picture—one going to meet the other.
“I want you to realize that I am grateful to you for flying willingly to Me despite the gravitation of earthly things. I am the Benefactor who feels happy when someone is eager to accept His gifts.
“You remember that Canadian who offered you a handsome gift and said, ‘Thank you for the honor you give me by accepting it.’ You were utterly taken aback. Then when I offer Myself to you, repeating the same words, humble yourself. Be filled with gratitude. You find it difficult to believe in the generosity of your Lord. ‘He . . . I . . . Can it be possible?’ you ask.
“Everything is possible in love. So come boldly. You will always find Me waiting for you.”
January 13—Holy Hour.
“What is lacking is loving desire for My glory—enthusiasm. Your thoughts and actions are monotonous without this intention of pleasing Me, of giving Me your love as one stretches out a caressing hand. This would be living for Me and not for yourselves.
“You lift up your heads, but then you fall back again on your self-center. Even the best of you do this, and I am the one who is set aside. Sometimes I’m the Sunday one. I want to be the one of all your moments.
“I am your root. Long for the blossoming I’m preparing for you. Long for the fruit—so that you may distribute it. Keep watch on your influence. If you don’t share with others, should I give? Serve others even if they don’t serve you.
“Even were I not to love you, love Me. And love Me for Myself, not for yourself.
“Offer Me all that I have given you. My tenderness is so great that I’ll have the impression that everything comes to Me from you.
“Take a look back over My past; you’ll understand Me better. See Me as a child on earth—My candor, My faithfulness, My spirit of sacrifice. And yet I was only a child among other little ones. Your soul is only a little soul. Keep it very simple. Why be complicated? Respond to the simplicity of your Lord, and come every moment, unceasingly. Have you discovered what hinders you from coming? Discover and destroy.”
January 20—Holy Hour. Flu.
“Use these discomforts for My cause. Offer them within My sufferings. The divine essence will make them fruitful. And what better fruit, what fruit more urgently needed than those of the mission that will soon take place in your parish? Use your body and mind for it. Ask Me to shower new grace upon everyone, the aged and the active, women and children. And when you ask in the name of the Son, believe that the Father grants your request. Keep on asking and I’ll keep on giving. While Moses prayed on the mountain, his arms raised toward heaven, the armies fighting in the plain won the victory. But when he grew weary of asking, the men on the field lost ground.
“God wants a mediator. He wanted even His Christ. You My brothers, continue My work. Work for your neighbor. You should love him as your own body and mind. And if he sees your loving concern for him, what will not be his astonishment and joy! Won’t he be ready to do all that you tell him? Don’t you think that at least three quarters of the people who do wrong fell into their way of life because they were not loved enough? How much an affectionate look, an outstretched hand, might have done in this or that circumstance. . . .
“Acquire the delicate art of letting your neighbor feel that you stretch out the arms of your heart to him. Should this be so difficult if we think of God in him?
“It is late . . . the hour of conversion has struck many times for this parish. So many priests, so many retreats, so many Easters. I am there, and I am waiting. I am patient, for I am eternal. Even if all who are expected don’t come. Even if half of them are not there, if a single repentant sinner were to find heaven again, your prayers would be changed into joy as the tears of the woman who has given birth to a Son.”
January 27—Holy Hour (at home).
I was adoring Him in spirit during the Forty Hours at St. Donatien.
“Are you sure that I alone count in your life and your death? What means most to Me is that My children give Me the preeminence in the life of the soul—this first life that they offer Me before their own, so that outside of Me nothing exists for them and they consider only their nothingness. These people enthrone Me everywhere and in everything. Their heart is ingenious for My Glory and there I truly find My rest—this rest that I call My delight and that makes Me forget the insults of so many.
“My child, give Me the first place and that is enough. This assures Me of you, and you feel Me to be greater than all the powers within you. The first place for Me. Ask the Spirit to establish this order in you.
“It’s the order of creation.
“It’s the order of revelation.
“It’s the order of love.”
February 3—Holy Hour.
“Fan the flame of your confidence. Don’t you need it along your way? Keep it burning in Me. I want you to be happy, so come back again and again to this feeling of trust until you are never without it. Trust is an aspect of love. Don’t you grasp the fact that if you love Me and believe in My love, you surrender your whole self into My hands like a little child who doesn’t even ask, ‘Where are you taking me?’ but sets off joyously, hand in hand with his mother. How many blessings this happy confidence wins for you My children.
“Keep going blindly. Take delight in knowing nothing about the future for the sole purpose of seizing an opportunity of abandoning it to Me. I know how to lead the blind by the best paths. And when this blind person knows that he is My son, won’t he be glad of his infirmity, since it is his power over My heart? As for Me, I’ll be tempted to thank him for his trust which is like a pledge of his love—a special favor.
“In all this, see My tenderness. It is everlasting.
“This life of ours: I-you—is a life without death. Cultivate it. Do your part. Call it forth often by your loving desire. Let it be like your very breathing. And don’t find this is too much. As for Me—and I am in you—I always ask, ‘Is it enough?’ ”
February 10—I was giving the response: ‘That we may be worthy of the merits of Jesus Christ.’
“No one is worthy unless it be those who keep themselves unwaveringly in My love, because you see, it is I who am your worthiness. Then strive to the utmost to make our union straightforward and faithful at every moment of the day and night.
“You are Mine—Mine without any interruption. Then why should you create these interruptions in your love, in your silence and adoration, in your intention to please Me? Don’t return to yourself. Since you gave yourself to Me in the morning and throughout the day, make Me your dwelling place. Shut yourself in and give Me the key. So that when you speak to your neighbor you will still be speaking from your home in Me, and your words and actions will spring forth from your inner life with more perfection and love.
“My child, even the angels envy this beautiful life of ours—this oneness. Oh, this intimacy in time that leads straight to eternity . . . this heartwarming way of consoling your God! Since you love Him, could you ever fail to make every effort to cultivate this life with Him by the help of His grace? There are the weaknesses of your nature, of course; sometimes you are careless. I know all about this. But don’t be afraid. I am your Creator, your Savior. My suffering was complete. May the joy you give Me also be complete. It’s not difficult. You know very well that I look at the soul’s intent in every action rather than the action itself. What I want in you is a spirit of love and humility, one that is constant and independent of created things, freed from the earth and ready for heaven at my first call. Joyously ready. Without joy the departure would be without love. Joy is the song of departure that leads to the élan. The soul already rejoices even though the body still holds it back.
“Death with joy—this is the death worthy of Jesus Christ.”
February 23—After Communion.
“You forgive Me for wanting you to be wholly Mine? I need all of your faculties as though they were necessary to My faculties as a man. Remember that I was a man among men even though I was also God.
“I need your acts of self-denial too, your discomforts and your bodily sufferings, just as though Mine were not complete and I had to wait for yours in order to bring salvation to the world. You see My need for union? You see My love? Perhaps you cannot understand it yet. But know this, that My power is restrained by your will. Of your own free will you come to Me or you fly from Me. I say ‘fly,’ so speedily do some go away when they hear Me call. And so I dare not return for fear of adding to their fault. I wait . . . because I know how to wait for that moment of remorse that sometimes comes with the fear of death. You see, My child, the sufferings and hopes of the garden of My agony? My hour had come. But that hour is always now before the eyes of the Father, who sees all time in the eternal present.
“Offer Me, in offering yourself. I offered you as I offered Myself—you, My intimate friends, for our brothers, the prodigal ones. Your brothers, whom you should carry every day in your love, as I carried you with My cross.
“There was the visible cross of Good Friday. But there was also the invisible cross of all the days of My life of thirty-three years. Haven’t you yours too, My beloved children? Oh, in this world of suffering, may these forests of crosses, lifted to heaven with Mine in the midst, be in the eyes of the Father an appeal for grace for those who don’t believe in Him!”
February 24—Holy Hour.
I was waiting for His words. “Tell me if you want to speak to me, Lord, and I’ll listen. But if You would rather I prayed, I’ll pray. Above everything else I want to do Your will.”
“And I’ll accept your loving will as a very tender tribute to My Father. So often My life said ‘Fiat.’ Let it be so since You have wished it.
“You see it is your first intention that gives a new color to your entire day, your entire life. Since you have this intention, be more trusting than ever, more certain than ever that God loves you. Isn’t that magnificent? Nothing on earth can ever be compared with it. Try to enjoy it in all its fullness and you’ll be richer than a queen. And can you believe it? You will enrich your God. If you could only keep thinking of this joy, what new glory you would offer to love that is not loved.”
February 26—My birthday.
“You will draw water joyously from the Savior’s springs.”
March 3—Holy Hour.
“Look at Me often. When one is in love, what sweetness there is in a look! As for Me, I keep you always before My face. Tell Me that you long to give Me the same love-token. Oh, I realize you’re carried away by a hundred and one things in life. But make it your first concern to be with Me. As though your roots, plunged into Me, would give the flowers and fruit of your actions a fragrance that would rise to your Christ.
“Come nearer and nearer to Me and bring others nearer. What new meaning this gives to your brief life on earth! I often call your attention to the swiftly passing days, because this is a reality, both for the days of repentant deeds and those of wrongdoing. When the end comes, what joy there will be for those who have tried to live only to please Me. And what remorse for those who have lived only to please themselves. The end does come, and with the speed of a torrent that carries off everything at once.
“My little instrument, never serve yourself before Me, and you will find that it is I who serve you. As I did yesterday. Wasn’t it surprising—that meeting with your businessman, and that other one with your tenant just when you needed him, and all that came of this? I have all the threads of life’s weaving in My hand. I can look after everything. Do you firmly believe this?
“Even without any thought of reward, serve Me for the joy of serving Me. Be the very little servant of My heart: the handmaid of the Lord.”
March 10—Retreat.
“Such showers of grace are being poured out in this parish at the moment. Ask Me that each soul may benefit generously, humbly.
“If, with immense love and a great longing to give joy, a wealthy man took pleasure in enriching poor people and they looked upon his gifts somewhat contemptuously, wouldn’t the benefactor be deeply wounded? He would have the right to ask himself whether it was a good thing to go on helping such ungrateful people, wouldn’t he? But if some responded with zeal and devotion, the benefactor would continue to give to all just because of the dedication of these few souls. If you but knew the power of a single elevated soul over My heart! Didn’t I choose only twelve apostles to convert the world? You remember what I said, ‘You are the salt of the earth.’ So don’t be timid when you speak of Me, but love one another with a love full of peace and great warmth. Isn’t the life of God something you share?”
March 17—Holy Hour.
“Don’t you feel new yearnings? The retreat is coming to an end. Come close to your goal. Isn’t your goal union with God at every moment of your duty, and in all your relations with others whom you love for My sake? Close in on your goal so that you may be more sure of attaining it. Open your eyes—your physical eyes and the eyes of your heart. Have foresight and aspire with all your powers.”
March 24—Holy Hour. The angel Gabriel’s feastday.
“Do you remember this prayer, ‘Pray for me so that, like You, I may serve God on earth’?
“Is that the way you feel, too? Take a good look within yourself. Do you give joy to everyone you approach as the angel Gabriel did? He consoled Daniel, the three young men in the fiery furnace, and Zachariah. He filled the heart of the Virgin with divine happiness when he announced the coming of the Savior.
“Have you offered material or moral help to others? Do you weigh the word you should speak and the one you should withhold? Are you quick to do a favor? Are you full of loving enthusiasm for the glory of God? Do you keep yourself constantly before His face? Singing in your mind, ‘Holy, holy, holy’? Ask the Archangel to teach you to sing, to serve, to scatter joy—the joy that is God-Power. But ask often. What keeps you from persisting if you believe? He is like a father. Be thankful. Isn’t believing the greatest happiness of all?
“Oh, My little children, what a grace faith is! Could you ever compare yourselves with those who have lost it? You who are rich, give to the poor. Give them all your power to pray and to love; and your longing to love more.
“‘How can one love more?’ you asked the missionary. And he replied, ‘By living only to please God.’ Mirror this often within your heart. Do I live to please God or to please myself? All the distance between heaven and earth is there, all the distance between all-ness and nothingness.”
March 28—After Communion.
“When He shall come to judge the living and the dead. . . . That will be the day of the great judgment. But now is the time of great mercy, and I come to love. Above all, live this present moment.” (My mind was going back to the past or on into the future.)
March 30—In my bedroom.
“My child, ponder more often on the value of the present moment, the danger of going back over the past and the uselessness of gazing into the future. Just live the little moment that you hold in your hands. Simply and lovingly.”
March 30—Holy Hour.
“Take note of your thoughts. Don’t you see that they occupy the greatest part of your existence. They belong to an interior realm that you must learn to rule since from them comes what is worthy and unworthy in your days. Keep them constantly in the climate of God, of His glory, His will, His mercy, and all the qualities that make Him what He is. Live with these qualities and you will get to know Him better and attach less importance to yourself. You remember . . . ‘When shall I be perfectly one with You, Lord, and so lost in You that I shall no longer be aware of myself?’ It is with thoughts of our oneness that you will discover your duty to give happiness to those I have placed around you. Don’t believe in chance, but learn to see the hand of your Father, your friend—the one who never leaves you—in everything that happens.
“If, instead of giving joy, you were to hurt others, if you failed to diffuse the Light of Christ, the Comforter, would you have the right to think that you have placed your mind in the mind of God? Then see that your thoughts are all goodness and indulgence; see that they be full of loving enthusiasm for My cause. You are free to control them, and it is your duty to choose Me. If you didn’t choose Me, could you call Me your greatest friend, your most beautiful love, your beloved being who never ceases to live in your being?
“You don’t see Me but you know I’m there. And since you know I’m there, give Me the loving thoughts of your blind trust.”
April 7—Holy Hour.
“Why should you be astonished at having a soul ordained of God since I, your brother, am the eternal Priest? I came to earth to offer worship to My Father, and you share in it. You have a share in everything that I am. Worship, you know, is adoration, obedience, love that leads to zeal and the desire to win others.
“When your mind is busy with My Father’s affairs, can it be occupied with the things of the earth that matter to you personally? Aren’t you so impressed by the magnitude of this thought that you want to submit everything to Him? The Father will accept your efforts made with the earnest desire to please Him, and He will make you feel His action. Not that feelings matter except as encouragement for a child.
“Surrender yourself to the Father as if you had received the indescribable sacrament of ordination, knowing that you belong utterly to God.”
April 14—Holy Thursday.
“Stay very close to Me today. This is the day of My great love. Celebrate its anniversary in your simplest, most affectionate way. See love first. Give love first. Seek love first, and you’ll fulfill My desire for you. My poor little girl, all the rest is nothingness. Don’t you feel this? Make others feel it, and you will advance in your vocation as an apostle.
“What a joy for Me if all your moments were filled with love and what a reverent response to My life on earth! You see I can’t talk to you about anything else today. Have you ever thought of the burden of love that made Me institute the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist—this perfect harmony between that which is within and that which is without. I burned with desire to belong to all of you, to remain in your possession right to the end of time, to be something you could take, eat, and drink. To be shut into your church to wait for you there, to listen to you, to console you in the most intimate union of all.
“Won’t you love Me more for that? What language must I speak to make you understand Me? If your faith is too weak to find burning words, ask Me to speak to Myself in you—Myself to Myself. Place your heart between My fingers as a harp with its strings tuned and stretched and I’ll make music that will ravish earth and heaven. Would you like to be that instrument again?”
“Yes, Lord, and with such joy!”
“Our voices will blend together in the same tones, ‘O Father, we give You thanks for having made this day dawn.’
“And you will repeat it like a poor child learning the alphabet of love.”
Good Friday—“Why should you use long sentences and difficult words to speak to Me? Just talk with the utmost simplicity as you do with your family and intimate friends. I belong to the inner circle don’t I?”
April 21—Holy Hour.
“Today you wanted to live with My loving-kindness. Keep it by you all day long. Adore it. Love it. Let it be your very gentle companion, so that those around you feel the effects of it. Express it by smiles full of goodness. Try to judge no one today. Say all the good you can about others and don’t mention their faults. My child, how I long for you to be holy and above what you are now. How My heart yearns for you to become My sister through gentleness and humility.
“Learn this science. Delve deep into it and don’t ever grow weary of doing so. When a pupil is learning his lesson, you know how often he goes over it in his memory until it becomes part of himself. Poor little pupil studying goodness . . . Don’t lose time. Progress, progress. Pass your examination this evening with Me, near Me. Don’t be afraid of the effort it costs; just look upon it as nothing. Think of the prize-giving day.”
April 28—En route to Paris.
“Think often about Me, My little girl. Think often. With so little you give Me so much joy. Your free will with all its opportunities will no longer exist in heaven, you understand? Here you may choose; you may be for yourself or for Me. You think perhaps that this very small thought that comes winging to Me is of little importance? But for Me it is the keynote of an entire life. A thought is a soul’s glance. Let yours be natural, warm, frequent, you can never come to an end of thinking about Me. Do you know all My loving-kindnesses? Try to see them. And My sufferings? And My love? Adore it; hail it.
“Believe that everything in your life is arranged expressly for you. Believe and you will honor Me. If you never grow weary of looking at Me like this, you may be sure that it will be like an allurement to you to imitate your Christ.
“May this look at Me form as it were a divine being in you. You know how a mother takes care to keep herself in the presence of beauty so that the child she is carrying may take the imprint of it?
“Then be saturated with Me in My life on earth where you can follow Me. Your earthly life will not go on much longer. Make haste to join Me.
“Be to others what I was. Be your Christ for others. Give yourself because I gave Myself. I am your reason for living; let this be enough.”
May 12—“When you come to Me, come quickly, with that warmth that is the heartbeat of love. If you are slow, if you find it difficult to tear yourself away from what you are doing, where is the joy of love, where is its eagerness? Don’t keep me waiting—I was going to say ‘too long,’ for I’m always waiting for you. Are you ready to leave yourself to come to Me? Don’t deprive Me of the pleasure of calling you. When you wait for a friend, aren’t you full of the joy of anticipation? But if she doesn’t come, if she has forgotten, or if she has preferred to go to see someone else, wouldn’t you be disappointed and hurt? I am still more sensitive, My friend. You know those hurts that one hesitates to speak about because they are too distressing.
“Love Me for yourself. Love Me for others, as though you gathered many loves within yourself and gave them to Me as one.”
May 19—“Do you think that you could keep going very long without Me? Don’t you feel that you should cry out your need to Me? Don’t you understand that I need this cry of yours?
“I am here with treasures. If you don’t ask Me for them, how can I give them to you? If you didn’t tell Me often that you love Me, where would be My joy? I am the Father, the bridegroom, the matchless friend, and My heart claims life that comes from you, from you alone to Me alone. Each one of you has a direct ray that no one else can give Me. Don’t fail to give Me yours, for no other ray could take its place. What you give Me is everlasting. The presents you give to one another on earth disappear. But what is given to Me becomes part of Me, and in Me nothing dies.”
May 29—“Do you know what I’m going to ask you today? To learn to speak of the good in others. It’s a sublime habit. What an example you would set! And how it would please Me! There are always good points, even in those who seem to be full of faults. Would you like to try today and go on trying all through your tomorrows until your death?”
“Yes, Lord, but I don’t know how to go about it. It’s always the disparaging words that come first.”
“You remember those high carriages with two wheels? When the horse bolted, the driver took a grip on the brake and tightened the reins. In the same way, take a grip on yourself and hold your thoughts in check. It will be for Me. Can anything cost too much effort when it is for Me?”
June 2—Holy Hour.
“Don’t you have the impression that you still think of Me as being the distant and severe one? Smile when you speak to Me, believing that this makes Me happy. And if you think of the joy you give Me, won’t you come closer and more happily to Me, as though you were in My heart?
“You see, you mustn’t expect happiness from the things of the earth, but solely from your way of communing with God.
“Of course it’s not pride to believe that I always follow you with love, and that as I watch you live I love every gesture you make with the thought of pleasing Me.
“Look simply at the depths of My tenderness. Don’t be like those children who keep at a distance from their father for fear of being punished. Be like those who find such joy in flinging themselves into His arms.
“Now that you are writing down My words, try to receive them as though you were leaning on My heart. This was John’s gesture. Again yesterday, didn’t you see couples full of love for each other living like that and finding great comfort in it?
“Love grows by loving. Don’t calculate; practice the direct outpouring of the heart whether you pray or thank, or whether you ask for My kingdom and My glory. There is no pride in this, since everything comes from Me. Doesn’t it calm you to gaze on Me. It’s as though you entered into My peace.
“Thank Me for having invented this beautiful story of Creation. And for your second life—the life of heaven in this oneness with Me. There are so many ways of saying thank you. Let your love flow out to meet My tenderness. It will be the repetition of the first symphony heard by God and Adam.”
June 8—Traveling.
“Up to the present, your union with Me was ‘as though it were real.’ One step further now: be one with Me in reality. No longer the realm of imagination, but the assurance of faith.”
In the train.
“I fathom each heart. I read every motive. Nothing ever escapes Me. I take what you give Me and I keep it. You will find it later on in My heart, adorned by My merits.
“When you pray for sinners, imagine that you are stretching out your right hand to Me to help Me.”
Paris. In the metro.
“Of course it gives Me more pleasure when you come to Me in the crowds than when you are alone in your room. The crowds in Paris leave Me alone as though I were still dead.”
June 9—At a “taking of the veil.”
“See the simplicity of love in everything, even in the very little things. Why shouldn’t the little things be as precious as the big ones if they belong to your love-life?”
June 10—Anniversary of my first Communion.
“Thank you dear God, for all the blessings of that first Communion, and for all the others right up to this morning—twenty thousand times, perhaps?”
“And perhaps more?
“When I give Myself entirely it is for always—unless I am refused. Then do you find it surprising that I want you in your offering of each little moment of your lives? If we are everything to one another all the time, we have great joy and nothing can take it from us.
“My life was spent entirely for others. I loved and I saved. You child, love and save the honor of My name of Savior.
“Win souls. Work for souls. Prayers, yes, but also sacrifices. Few of you think of this. Many laugh at it. And yet it is the money that buys and redeems. But do everything in a gladsome way. Be joyously in love.
“Love is like a sacred forest where secluded paths lead out to the crossroads of joyous union. The high green foliage sways in the gentle breezes of the Spirit, and song birds moved by His divine inspiration complete the harmony that is but happiness in the sacrifices of the moment. How fleeting and small the earthly sacrifices are! Do you know that the saints in heaven would envy you: their time of sacrifice is over.
“Don’t lose any time, since you told Me that everything was for Me.”
June 16—Corpus Christi (As I awakened.)
“Happy Feast Day, my dear God.”
. . . “Can you seek Me and not find Me? Here or there, am I not always waiting for you? Since I love you so dearly, just let yourself be loved and come to meet My love. Then it will really be Corpus Christi, My feast.
“You know, there need not be any interruption between Corpus Christi on earth and Corpus Christi in heaven. The procession never stops. The last Altar of Repose is in heaven—the heart of God where My blessed ones live. So begin right now to sing and thank and adore. Do you know what an Altar of Repose is? It’s an élan of love and joy, an outburst of enthusiasm. So put altars of repose into your life, into each one of your days. Take a moment to love Us better. To talk to Me about yourself, above all about your weaknesses. I know them well, but in telling Me about them you wipe them out, just as though you wrote them on the moving sand of the great desert that the wind never ceases to restore, smooth, and unwrinkled. This is what My love does. It never ceases to act. Leave yourself to Me. Be the clay and let Me be the potter. Often—I was going to say, ‘always.’ ”
June 23—Holy Hour.
“You and I. Together we make only one.
“It is time to see Me in a new light—the powerful light of reality.
“Even when you are doing the most ordinary things I am with you, because while I am the greatest, I am also the humblest, and nothing is ever deadly dull to Me. What is most obscure and despised only attracts Me more. So don’t be afraid that I’ll leave you at certain moments, for I love you all the time. Tell Me that at last you do believe in the faithful company of My love. Keep strengthening your belief by the little words of your heart; they are like the wood that you throw on the fire. And I quicken.
“You realize now, don’t you, that without Me, your End, your life is empty. So meet Me more often. Enter more joyfully into your Savior-God. Oh, if only you could remain there forever! This solitude of ours is such wealth that even the angels envy it—they who have never received Holy Communion. Your entire being is saturated with Me. Consecrate yourself in your heart’s outpouring and I’ll bind you the more closely to Me—even to unity.
“Why shouldn’t you come to Me as gaily as you go to meet a very dear friend?”
June 28—From the garden came the exquisite notes of a blackbird.
“You know why he is singing so sweetly? Is it because the sky is blue? No, it’s because he’s answering another.”
And I heard the voice of the other bird in the distance as I thought of the voice of my God in my heart.
In the street I was saying, “Praised and loved be the Eucharistic Heart.”
“Every time you express that wish, I feel impelled to answer you. It’s as though I increased My glory just to please you.”
July 4—After Communion I said to Him, “I’m most ashamed to think that you are placed on a useless and often unkind tongue.”
“I know it, but I come all the same. Even when you don’t believe in all My grace, I give it. Even when you are quite unaware that I’m appearing in you, I appear, for I am in you. Even when you stammer out your short-lived feelings to the Father, I prolong them. This is my role as Savior. You don’t see it clearly, but the elect know about it. As they gaze on Me they have a true understanding of their redemption and cry aloud for joy, praising Me. Join in their praise from time to time as you ponder on My work in you. Try to discover it in My life and yours.
“Oh, precious faith! Use every manner and means of increasing it. Seek it as one who beams a light into dark, unexplored corners. Faith is what brings the Creator and the creature in touch with each other. And when you have affirmed all the powers of your faith, your hope and love increase to tighten the bonds of union. Then you are faithful in the little as well as the big deeds since we are one and share everything. And all is so simple in the ever-present God.
“We’re together. We’re together. Say it over and over again like the rhythm of love’s breathing.”
July 7—I was thanking Him for blessings He had given to my neighbor.
“Thank Me, if only to show Me that you believe that they were sent from Me in answer to your prayer. Don’t you pray every day, ‘Lord, may torrents of blessings never cease to flow to those who need them’? I hear you and I love what you say to Me as a father loves to listen to his child. It isn’t so much the words that matter as the child who says them. Believe this, and you will come to Me more sincerely and gaily (you notice how I repeat that word) because you will realize that you give Me joy.
“A man had two daughters both devoted to him. The elder was actively engaged in her father’s business not only for the love of him but also for the love of the work, which wholly absorbed her attention. The other daughter was so closely united with her father, her mind constantly in tune with his, that her work never hindered her from thinking of him with ever-increasing tenderness. Which of these two daughters, do you think, was the greater comfort to her father?
“Nothing is more precious to Me than My children’s remembrance, this remembrance of Me when you stand and when you sit. Many times a thought from one of you is a cry, and I listen to it. Oh, cry often so that I can answer you, My very little ones. My Benjamins all down the centuries, believe in your Listener so much that you give thanks even while you are asking, and everything will be done to give you the joy that you yourselves have given Me.”
July 14—“My little girl, there is nothing to be compared with My joy. And every joy comes from Me, even in the midst of suffering if you suffer for My sake. The pleasures of the world diminish man; My joy increases him. It gives him new power and love. Do you realize that I love man so much that I am ready to thank him for learning to savor My joy? For to savor My joy is to savor Me.
“Ask Me for this hunger for Me. It will increase your zeal in the service of your God. Can you evoke the name of God without a feeling of mysterious charm? What perfection could be lacking? Then what can you not expect from Him? And if you depend on God for everything, never cease to call Him so that He may act and speak in you as the tongue of a bell, the breath of a flute, or the vibration of a harp string.
“Be willing for Me to be in you. Yearn for this. Sometimes the spirit of the world seizes a man and lives in him in spite of himself. The Spirit of God bends to man’s will. Love—expectant . . . waiting . . . Oh, the vehemence of a love that waits before seizing!
“My child, if you could only comprehend these transports of desire for God—this unutterable longing to possess Him—the meeting would be simple and you would never cease to lay hold of Him.
“Place My name before you, and . . . en route!”
July 21—“You believed in the affection of your mother and father. Then believe in Mine; I am both Mother and Father. I gave them what they gave you. Imagine My joy when you believe as I want you to believe! Just the wish to give me this joy could help you. Say often to Me, ‘Lord, I believe; increase My faith,’ and I’ll answer you. You know that I pay attention to what you ask Me. Even before you speak My ear is against your lips. As for My heart, there is no one on earth who can listen to you as avidly as I do. No heart but Mine could ever know how to treasure your words, complete them, and make them more beautiful. Doesn’t everything you say to Me need to be intensified, purified, amplified? And who can do this if not the one who lives your life? Don’t you ask Me every morning to make you live? I died for My own so that My life might live in them. Then don’t be afraid of anything, but abandon yourself often to the wisdom of the one who in-dwells you, because He loves you. All these things that are beyond your understanding—He takes them and looks after them. He is forever merging with you. You belong to His human nature. You are one of His family. You’re descended from Him. So look more often at the closeness of your union with Him and hope for everything from it. Have boundless hope.
“Let your upsoarings of love and trust be greater than any you have ever known before. What a beautiful loss to be lost in Me, never to find yourself again! Since I enfold you, don’t hunt any further. You’ve arrived.”
July 28—Holy Hour.
In my bedroom in the country.
“Do you know what you mean to Me? You were My reason for living and dying on this earth. It is you, little one, who tore Me from the splendors of My Father to go all the lengths of human shame.
“When I look at you I see My horrible sufferings again and all the cruel inventions of My love even before you were born. And now that you have received the breath of God and His likeness, what are you going to do for Me in the few days that remain for you on earth? Are you going to awaken your heart to a new life so that it turns toward Me? Or will you keep to your ordinary little trial flights without ever showing Me other warmer upsoarings, more direct?
“I lived so strenuously—I was going to say, so painfully—for you. Then you can understand, can’t you, how deeply I long for the loving response of your life? I have an absolute need for the return-sacrifice of your body, and, much more, of your faculties that you received from Me. Above all, of your thoughts; they move your heart and make you act for Me or without Me. Your thoughts can lay hold of Me and keep Me and they are proof to Me of you. They can lead you to heroism and enable you to put Me on as raiment that fits you in every detail. And when your thoughts reach Me, joyous because they are tender, what wouldn’t I give you for their confidence!
“I didn’t leave you during the thirty-three years of My life nor throughout eternity. Then may I not ask you never to leave Me deliberately, to stay with Me right to your last moment on earth, that moment of our meeting? How well you will understand then that to quicken your heartbeats you had to hold Me closely in your very breathing.”
July—I was having great difficulty in accomplishing a work of charity.
“Don’t you want to begin to be happy to suffer a little for Me?”
August 3—After Communion (absentminded)
“I’m here.” (In a tone of gentle reproach.)
August 4—Holy Hour.
“When you are at My feet praying or meditating, why not be one in spirit with all the pure in heart who are praying and meditating? You aren’t a little church all by yourself. You are part of the great activity of Christ in the breath of the Spirit. And in isolating yourself you would break the chain. So be linked together with other fervent people and aware of My desire for you all to be one. You remember My seamless robe?
“Become humble enough to lose yourself in everyone else and eager enough for merits to seek to benefit by the merits of your brothers, since I permit this. I am the Father who has found a way to help His children get rich quickly. And having explained this to them, I wait for them to profit by it, for I suffer more than they do from their poverty. My little girl, you don’t see how poor you are. If your eyes were opened, how careful you would be to cover your dress with someone else’s garment in order to be pleasing in My sight.
“Do you want to think more often of this daily union with all My Christians in the world at this moment? The suffering ones, the persecuted, the abandoned, those in exile and in prison, those who are martyred for My name’s sake, the souls in ruined bodies who continue to bless Me, to serve Me, and to call Me with all their love right to their very last breath? Unite with them so that you may lose nothing of all this. Try to grasp the fact that these new treasures bring you ever nearer to Me. This is your goal: to reach Me. And I am so eager to have you that I stoop down, stretching out My two hands to you. Don’t turn away. It’s the proud who refuse a free gift. How I long for you to do Me the favor of accepting My help. I’ll be even tempted to say, ‘Thank you!’ ”
August 11—Holy Hour.
“Isn’t it as though you had-two different houses, one outside and one inside. And don’t you find balm when you withdraw into the rooms of secret intimacies to wait for your beloved who is waiting for you to wait for Him so that He can be there with all His gifts? Don’t you take a present when you are invited to a friend’s home? And if your wealth were unlimited wouldn’t your gifts be fabulous? Mine are like that. And as a friend who is fearful of burdening another with too great a sense of gratitude, I offer them so delicately that you take them for granted without always appreciating their value.
“Your interior wealth should shine through you and make even the outside beautiful. You have no right to bury My light. It is time that the King’s secret reach from soul to soul so that the heart of the King be better understood and loved. These words of Mine are not for one alone, even though one is as dear as all. My flames are like a prairie fire. They sweep along with torrential speed setting alight as they go, in order to reach the outermost parts of the earth. Only then, as a hunter satisfied in the chase, shall I rest in the rest that souls will find. My task as Savior will be ended. At the last day, the day of triumph, I’ll appear before My Father in the midst of these sheep of Mine fed in My pastures.
“My child, outside and inside, let everything about you speak of Me, give Me, make Me understood among the ignorant, the baffled, the hungry, the fearful, and the suffering ones. Tell them that I am there for every state of soul. Tell them to come to Me and I’ll never let them go. A God who loves . . . Just think of it!”
August 18—There was a question of a surgical operation for me.
“Whatever happens, what does it matter? Since you are Mine, since you live in My love? And since your pathway on earth leads to everlasting life, let everything take you to it.
“Ask Me to go this last part of the journey side by side with you. Make it the most intimate and the most joyous, since we’ll be going at the same pace. You have your marching song—the will of God. No other song can raise your spirits like that one. Well sing it together.
“You know very well that I don’t go away when My friends suffer. My presence is such a comfort to them that some want to suffer always. So keep Me very near you. We’ll travel along better that way. O beautiful road that leads to eternity. Don’t be sad; it would pain Me if you were, since to die is to come to Me, and in losing yourself you find Me. You are eager, aren’t you, to come face to face with Me at last?”
August 25—“If you are weary, rest. But take this rest on My heart. In no other place will you find the same love. Am I not the eternal response? I bought it with pain, you know, when I gave Myself up. I’ve known everything. I’ve earned everything. For you. Then since it is for you, don’t be afraid to accept. Don’t be so timid and heedless. Offer My merits to the Father just as though they were your very own. How few make use of them. How few desire them. Yet they are there for the taking—all of them.
“If a man had sent out an invitation to every passerby to come to a sumptuous feast that he had been to great trouble to obtain, wouldn’t he be wounded in the depths of his heart if, instead of eagerly accepting his invitation, people overlooked it with contempt?
“And if those who called themselves his intimate friends came only on rare occasions because of their forgetfulness (forgetfulness is in itself a wound to love), don’t you think that this generous man would be deeply offended and that he would have every right to close his door?
“I am this generous man. But My banquet is free to all right to the end of time.
“Then come, all of you who have not yet felt the tenderness of the invitation, and bring your friends too. All of them. Come and take My riches and give to the poor in confidence, the poor in desires, the poor in vision, for they think they are rich. The more you give, the more munificent your part will be.
“My merits never come to an end. They are fitted to everyone’s needs. They only multiply as you take them. For My merits are Myself.”
September 8—At the hospital after an operation.
“I could have come for you, couldn’t I? And you would have let yourself be taken joyously. But you still want to do a little work for My glory, don’t you? Gaily too? Isn’t it true that nothing is worth living for except service for Me? And do you believe that I wait upon you so that you may wait upon Me? I’ll keep on giving you all you need in your mind and heart. Have I ever failed you? Don’t fail Me.
“Together we’ll weave the last threads of your life-pattern. Together . . . always. Isn’t that power?
“When you feel weak as you do today, take your brother’s power to love, to praise, to thank our Father. Don’t deprive Him of any smile. A smile is a happy amen. And give the same to the people around you. They need joy and kindness so much. Don’t ever have to accuse yourself of having given begrudgingly, but go eagerly, go with power. Go as though you were going to God.”
September 15—Convalescent. Holy Hour.
“Let your return to life be a return to love—a love that keeps closer to Me and that never wanders away. I’ve asked you for this for a long time, haven’t I? Don’t you think that a little effort of your mind is all that is necessary, and that this very little effort would bear much fruit: uninterrupted union, transforming your life like magic fingers that light up everything they touch.
“The law of love is to keep on growing. Don’t you feel a burning regret for the little that you give Me for all that I have given you? This fire that sometimes torments you is love itself. You must accept its torments and its joys, for to long for one or the other is the same as to long for love. Don’t limit your longings. Desire to desire. Ask for this thirst, beg for it, let it be part of your life. Don’t breathe without it; you could lose it.
“Take great care of your love, since it is I.”
September 22—The priest came to hear my confession in my sickroom.
“You see, I came right here to pardon you. You needed this new enfolding of My love, didn’t you? You don’t know all My kind attentions. But they never surprise you, do they? Recognize them with the same joy you had the first time you noticed them. Aren’t they always new? So it is with My grace. You might think that it was always the same, but the truth is that just as the sun, at every instant, sends out the right ray for the delicate posture of the flower, so there flows from Me to you exactly what you need for each passing moment. Oh, My child, what all-attentive love! How it anticipates your desires, sees each detail, is ever on the lookout for you! Nothing in you escapes it, because it knows you better than you know yourselves.
“Get the picture of My love brooding over you as the Spirit brooded over the waters.”
September 29—Convalescence.
“You see the difference, don’t you, between the life you offered Me before the trial and the one you want to offer Me now? Wasn’t it good for you to feel yourself approaching the end of life so that you could see in the full light of reality the difference between life on earth and eternal life?
“You can believe, can’t you, that your God used this trial as a new way of getting your attention so that you would take a firmer grip on Him?
“My child, how creative My love is, how I long to take hold of My children swiftly, and how many slip away and escape Me. But you—let yourself be taken captive. And exhausted as you are—for you have suffered—rest on My heart. Do you think I don’t know about the trial I’ve asked you to bear?
“The main thing, you see, is that you didn’t doubt love and that you said ‘Fiat,’ abandoning yourself to whatever might come. And that’s where God lets His children prevail against His power. It is you then who lead heaven by your complete and perfectly trusting surrender.
“Now we shall no longer leave each other. I close your life in on all sides. I am your globe. If you burn, it is in My fire. Your footsteps are mine. I am your breathing.
“You see how a joyous acceptance of My will can melt a soul into a new mold never before suspected. You see how necessary it is to say ‘Thank You’ with all the strength of your heart, and to let Me have My own way in your lives. For in the path I have prepared for you there are sudden turnings that you never dreamed of. And when faith or love’s look at you has made you understand, you offer your Father a joy that you know nothing about—this Father, who in your times of sorrow or happiness is love and love alone.”
October 6—I was trying to hold back someone who was being carried away by a terrible passion.
“You can’t succeed alone. Call My mother. She will see Me in this man. She will take hold of him. But pray.
“How much you need to ask for the salvation of souls. All your little unused minutes—give them to Me for your brothers in danger. Be one with those who pray on the earth like a society of souls that draws its strength from Me. Be one, as the Father and I are one.
“Be like God. Always strive to be the faithful image of Himself that He sketched in creating you. Do you make every effort to do this? Do you ponder on your living Model every day in order to reflect Him? He keeps His face before you. He gives you a glimpse of His qualities, ever so gently, so as not to overwhelm you. He is humble enough to make Himself smaller in order to help you realize how accessible He is, like the fowlers who devise ways to avoid startling their prey.
“Take a long look at My face when I was redeeming men—the face of one who wills to give His life. You may imagine what love it can express.
“Outreach yourself. Reach Me.”
October 13—Holy Hour.
“My dear Christ, once again I’ve fallen into the same pride and the same selfishness.”
“Why are you astonished, My child? Hasn’t your life always been one continual beginning again? I love you this way, humbled, but ready to do better for love of Me. It’s then that I come to your help. And the Spirit fills you because your eyes are open to your own worthlessness, and empty of self, you are ready at last to let Him take complete possession of you.
“Take a look at your usual incapability. Acknowledge your poor judgment. See how little you are inclined to make any effort, as though you lost interest in My glory. Show Me your inadequacies, especially the most discouraging ones, such as your lack of perseverance in keeping watch on your bad habit. Tell me how it distresses you, but be sure that this distress is because of My distress. Then try to make amends with words of love, silences, upsoarings of your heart, repentance in your simple, sincere way—with new resolutions. Take My mother into your confidence. She’ll help you keep watch. It will be easier with both of you, won’t it?
“And take a long look at Me. Doesn’t one love to gaze at the face of a matchless friend? Isn’t there power in a look at Him? And if this friend is your ideal in every kind of virtue, if He is the resplendence of every perfection, each time you look, won’t you find strength to imitate Him? Won’t you be lured toward the highest good, not because of anything in yourself, but by His tenderness and affectionate pity?
“Love . . . You realize, don’t you, that the hallmark of every Christian life is love. But you haven’t yet heard all the tones, all the symphonies—not just the unfinished ones, but others not even begun. Discover a new love with every day that dawns, a love as yet untold, a love that will conjure up within you impulses and feelings you have never known. It will be as though you were speaking to a new God, seen and adored in another light, a God who would reveal new aspects of Himself to you each morning, to exploit every last note of your heart’s music in vivid concertos of union. For God is infinite.
“Enter into Him as into a deep forest where silence full of mystery thrills in the depths of your being.”
October 20—Holy Hour.
“Lord, my perseverance slips away like sand between my fingers.”
“Aren’t you a poor little girl? Should your weakness astonish you? Don’t you see that you must give Me your hand continually? That you must call Me and accept the joy I bring? Joy is power. Sing in your heart. That’s the way you should go to meet a sacrifice—singing. I recited the Psalms and it was like a hymn within Me rising to My Father.
“My very little one, don’t be afraid to come and drink at the fount of My power. It never runs dry; nothing ever comes to an end in Me. Does anyone diminish the ocean by taking water from it? Doesn’t the next tide often rise higher than the one before? What riches do I lack? Do the blessings I give now seem to be fewer than the ones I have been giving since the beginning of Creation? Would I be God if in giving I became poorer? And because I have been generous to one of Mine, does that mean that I shall not give him any more? Should he remain shy and aloof? Let him only venture to think that what he has received up until now is nothing at all for Me, and that I find My happiness in showering blessings upon him ‘according to My means,’ as people say. Let him strive to meditate on the length and breadth and height of these means that cannot be compared with anything on earth. And if that child suspects that besides the power, I also have the longing to give—for what lover is not happy to adorn his beloved—he will lose his fear of imposing upon God’s kindness or of being too daring with Him. Fully aware of his littleness he will understand His joy in being great for him.
“How often I have had abundant treasures in My tabernacle all ready to give, but no one came to ask Me for them. Yet a good many people came into the church for a short visit—absentminded and aloof, as though My body were dead in the Eucharist and My soul still in heaven.
“Make an effort to think of My Real Presence; it will help you to love Me. Does the life of stillness within you need your senses? Aren’t you beginning to be more sure of the invisible than the visible? Aren’t there moments when the certainty of faith suddenly breaks in upon you? It is at those moments that We descend into you, because you respond to Our purpose in creating you.
“A man will leave everything—every material thing—to follow God alone, the one he loves without having seen Him. This, My child, is the whole secret of the delight that a soul can give its God.”
“But Lord, even when I speak to you in faith within my soul, my poor words are not very beautiful.”
“What does it matter, since it is you?”
October 25—(On the terrace.)
“Don’t be like the October butterflies that can’t fly anymore because it’s autumn and the wind is intractable. As your life goes on, go higher, ever higher.”
October 27—Holy Hour. In my bedroom.
“When I see that you are looking for Me, do you think I’m going to run away? When you call Me anxiously, won’t I answer? Have I changed from the God I was in the first mornings of Creation? You remember how the first man, splendid and upright, waited to pour out his heart to Me and found unutterable fullness of joy in those first conversations with the Father of his body and soul. And there was Moses too, on Sinai. And the prophets. And the Man-God in his nightly and daily solitudes. Didn’t I come close to them with My fatherly comfort?
“And since the Man-God allowed Himself to be crucified in cruel torture for your sake, don’t I see Him still in each one of you? My Christ, My only Son. Your voice and His; Jacob taking the place of Esau. My blessing descends on all of you forever if you are faithful to Me. Then believe with all your heart and don’t deprive Me of any call. Could you ever bear for Me to desert you? Can you conceive of even half a day without Me? Or a morning without Communion? Or a joy without sharing it with Me? Or a heartache that you couldn’t confide in Me? And yet—just think of it—in the world at this very moment there are beloved children of Mine who want to be total strangers to Me. Pray for them in their terrible poverty. Pray with the riches that you have received expressly to help others. Think of it and pray for them as though you were praying for your Christ.
“It’s a strange thing, isn’t it, but all My children are other Christs. Ponder on this. You don’t work for conversions because you don’t see them. But the day will come when these people who enter heaven by your help will cry aloud their love and gratitude to you, for love reigns in heaven.
“Oh, My child, honor the body of Christ. Take care of His members. Glorify His bride, the Church. There is nothing in the whole world greater, or more precious, or more excellent than the holiness of the bridegroom and the Church, His Bride, if not the splendor of the Trinity that enfolds and illumines everything belonging to It.”
November 3—Holy Hour.
. . . “Lord, I have loved You so long, but I don’t know yet how to love You.”
“To love the Father and the Spirit, borrow My heart, and to love your Christ, offer Him His passion.”
November 10—Holy Hour.
“Lord, there always seems to be a thick curtain between You and me, that hinders me from running to You.”
“Fix it firmly in your mind that this presence of Me in you is not an allegory or a fantasy or a metaphor. It’s not a story you listen to or something that might have happened to someone else. It has to do with you and Me. It has to do with a reality to be lived.
“Then live with assurance and gladness. You will find so much happiness in this and you will give Me so much joy. Greet Me in you often in your own way, in all sorts of ways. I’ll love you in every one of these ways of yours.
“Run after Me in you. Never give up the chase. Seek Me as Father, bridegroom, Savior. See Me looking at you. You know I’m waiting for you. Don’t be heedless of the moments. Take a flying leap in your free thinking, just as you would if someone said, ‘The gates of heaven are wide open.’ Heaven is Myself. And it is I who am in you. Do you thoroughly grasp this?
“The saints live for Me alone. Get used to living now as you will later on among the all-joyous ones. Make an effort. Come out of your five senses. Seek fellowship with Me in your heart-center. Submit every earthly tie to Me, since there is still time and since it would please Me. There are always two paths, one that goes down toward selfish distractions and one that goes up to Me, for Me. The choice is yours: either you or I. Ask the saints to help you to come very close to the One who loves you so much and to make your home in Him. You know of course that you can go in without knocking? Aren’t we both at home together?”
November 17—Holy Hour.
“Why do I ask you to pray? Because prayer is to grace as the lighted match to the candle. You get the picture: the first effort is man’s; then comes God. Always oneness. Never God alone. Never man alone. But God and man working together. This is the law of My love. Isn’t it beautiful? Why should you try to escape it? Wouldn’t you find greater joy in hastening our reunion by your calling desires and your cries of love? What delight it gives Me to be invited by your hearts!
“So don’t be reticent. If you want Me, tell Me so. I mean pray—sink deep down into the remembrance of Me and talk to Me in a direct look. That’s what prayer is—the prayer that asks, the prayer that praises and thanks, the prayer that loves. Don’t you think that the direct look of love is very eloquent?”
“Lord, what we miss is not seeing the one we love, so that we love almost in the twilight.”
“Don’t you have a detailed account of My life and My death? Can’t you lay hold upon Me in this or that page of My gospels? Doesn’t your faith need practice and opportunities to win victories? Blessed are those who believe and love without ever having seen. I belong to them—I, who am the kingdom of the saints. And what can be said of those who have helped others to know Me? The missionaries, the preachers, the writers? They will find, as it were, two banquets—theirs and that of their beneficiaries. Even the one who has taught the Our Father to a single child, who has taught him to say, ‘My God, I give You my heart’—that one will know My joy and gratitude. He will experience a new heaven because He will have increased Me.
“O My child, pray without ceasing. Remember your Christ in His life. For whom did He pray? You too, pray for others and God will take care of you.”
December 1—Holy Hour.
“Concentrate on going higher, always higher in the Holy Trinity. This is your family, your end, and your center. Your home, too, so you must take up your residence there. . . .
“Be grateful to be invited to it. Dwell on the thought of it with praise and song, remembering your nothingness and the tenderness of the invitation. It’s been a long time since the invitation was sent out, hasn’t it? Don’t you think you should respond by focusing all your desires on this one end? What a blessed home—the heart of the Trinity opening up all its unutterable delights for you in the love untold of the Father and the Son! How can you refrain from thinking of it every day with impetuous longing?
“Ask your heavenly mother who understood better to lead you there. She is the bride of the Spirit, the mother of the Son, the daughter of the Father on whom her immaculate heart was forever centered. Let her go with you before the Holy Trinity to whom you belong, free though you are.
“You are thinking, ‘But these three Persons are so great. What can I say—I, who am so little?’
“Have you forgotten that it is your weakness that attracts your God? Then give Him your utmost confidence—boundless trust, you understand? He can give you everything. He owns everything and is only waiting for your call. Be sure of Him. Aspire to reach Him. Thirst for Him with a thirst that can never be quenched. Your loving insistence honors Him greatly. Don’t be like the silent ones who consider themselves too unworthy to ask for magnificent favors. I tell you, they will never overcome their unworthiness. Be like the humble ones who expose their poverty and count on their Christ to transform them at each confession, because He hears their cry of regret and turns it into a hymn for His glory. Don’t restrain your heart’s upsoarings, My child. Come more often into the secret place of the Most High. That’s where your permanent home will be.”
December 8—Holy Hour.
“Why don’t you offer everything by the hands of your mother, by her sorrowful and immaculate heart today and in your living and your dying? You know that she loves those two titles because I gave her first her very pure conception, then suffering for the greater part of her life. And everything that God gave her she received so very humbly with love and respect. Then you can believe, can’t you, that the three divine Persons must have lived in her with all the joy they anticipated in creating her, so perfectly did she respond to love’s demands. And for this she attained to heaven’s royalty. Child, give yourself to Mary so that you may walk in her ways. She is ready to help you because she knows God and His desires, and she knows you in your difficulties, almost all of which come from human pride. So give yourselves often from the depths of your heart. You must admit that with such a Father, mother, and brother you are greatly helped along life’s way.”
“Lord, grant that I may never forget this. My thoughts are forever carried away by the trifling things of this world.”
“Draw the curtain across your interior stage. You know how important it is at the theater for the curtain to fall at the right moment? In the same way, let the curtain come down between the moments for the temporal things of the earth and the moments for God alone. Your mother will help you—she who above all knew God’s moments. Then fill each instant for your God with perfect love. Come to Me to buy perfect love, for I possess it. You will purchase it with longings and prayers and with intimate love. You see how we always come back to the same words: ‘intimate love.’ This is what I want from you, for this love of yours is My joy. And it’s the entire program of life from birth to death. Even the fear of Me wounds Me-in-you. I need your gesture of total surrender and trust, My beloved and intimate friends.”
December 9—“Couldn’t you put an end to all these little useless thoughts that do nothing for you or your neighbor or God, and substitute others of loving adoration, or desire for My kingdom, or zeal for the salvation of your brothers? All of this would be like the plants that brighten up reception rooms.”
December 11—End of the novena to the Immaculate. I was deeply moved by the Mass sung in five parts.
“What will you say in heaven when you hear My praises sung in billions of parts? Each of the blessed ones has his own particular melody.”
December—I was hearing of the enthusiastic remarks made by readers of Lui et moi (He and I).
“Thank You, Lord, for all these choice graces that You are scattering about in secret.”
“You don’t know them all. Only in heaven will you learn about them and what joy this will be for you! I like to explore hearts by means of our little book. Many people read and are pierced by one of My straight arrows. Others dare not believe in so much love and remain on the border of reality. A few close the book without wanting to understand. But believe Me, many are utterly astonished and try to imitate this intimate love that never strays but seeks all ways and means of charming, consoling, and rejoicing Me with new tenderness.
“I told you, didn’t I, that when it comes to Me, you can never exaggerate, even if you seem foolish. Didn’t I love you beyond all reason? And could you ever respond in the same way?
“Near as I am to your hearts, I am so poor. There is so much indifference, so much hostility that those who understand Me better try to enrich Me every day, even if only by a feeling of pity. It takes very little pity from you to comfort Me. Even the desire to come nearer to Me brings My heart ease. An upsoaring of love, however momentary in the midst of your activities, pleases Me. And if one of you reaches the point of living for Me alone, I heap that one with favors even in this life, for he offers Me a refuge on earth. But don’t imagine that there are many like that.
“Read the gospels. Look at your Model. From the love of others draw zeal for the Father’s service and oneness with the Spirit so that He may breathe upon you when He wishes and as much as He wishes. And if He tests and tries you, don’t say, ‘That’s enough!’ Surrender your whole being to Him so that He may take you where He wishes. And He will lead you to the heights. Since you have found Me, don’t you wish to honor Me with your gentle love? Even in the midst of visits, travels, distractions, open the door to the tabernacle of your heart. My throne is there.”
December 15—Holy Hour.
Coming back from Mass in the dark at 7 AM in the freezing rain. “This too, Lord, may I offer for Your sinners of this Marian year?”
“I take all sufferings little and big, and place them in the treasury of the Church—the treasury used for the making of saints. You forget your past sufferings, but they continue to bear fruit in My sight. You have already forgotten your travel weariness, weather annoyances, desert thirst, the fears, exile in distant countries, the slow journeys back, the long tests of endurance, times of illness. But remember that you offered Me everything and that I’ve kept everything.
“You love to look at the precious jewels in your mother’s jewel box, or your favorite books in your library, or the unusual souvenirs given to you during your long tours. Often it’s only a trifle, something that hasn’t cost the donor much. You remember the Muslim’s terebinth, the Indian’s moose glove, and the pressed leaf given to you in Larache? You treasure these things because those who gave them to you wanted to please you. For the same reason I have found joy in all the little presents given to Me by My children. Even if they have not cost you very much, even if you gave them to Me only because My Father put them into your hand by some circumstance other than your own free choice, you offered them to Me like good and affectionate children. And so I treasure them as though they were a part of you. Such is your power over Me! You bind Me to you by a single hair of your head. And the more you believe, how utterly disarmed I am by your love, the more My unfathomable tenderness overflows to you. The great wrong is to lack faith in it.
“Then offer Me everything—every gesture, every thought.” . . .
Looking at the preparations for Christmas.
“Thank You, Lord. How could You come down to earth, knowing that You were going to suffer so much?”
“And if I had not come down, should I have had the joy of instituting My Eucharist where I remain right to the end of the centuries?”
December 22—Holy Hour.
“Lord, may nothing in me hinder your voice from reaching others!”
“Echo it back with all your loving warmth and you will give them joy. And this very joy will make them much more sensitive to My voice, these poor people, so often troubled with regard to Me or consumed by earthly worries. How much more freely they will breathe if you talk with them about Me!
“I’ll be there, though unseen, and you will feel the sweetness of My Presence. In heaven it is I who am the center and circumference for everyone, and the blessed ones exult. Isn’t it from the fullness of the heart that the mouth speaks? This is why I rejoice when you mention My name. It’s like a cherished secret that you disclose because you can no longer keep it. It’s as though you said, ‘Let us talk about God, the one who is my entire life, the one who alone is worthy of my every heartbeat.’ This glorifies Me, and to glorify Me is to love Me. You’re thinking. ‘Religion is always love, nothing but love.’ Haven’t I explained to you that you will be judged according to the measure of your love—on that alone?
“Every sin is a mockery of love, just as every virtue is the choice of love. And I am love. Try to understand the greatness of the principle. Get rid of your small self. Be My Self. It’s as though I said, ‘Don’t think of yourself any more. Think of Me.’ The saints thought only of Me all their lives. Accept the help of My mother for this, and think of Me with all the tenderness of which you are able. Tenderness honors Me more than reverence. It consoles Me. I was going to say it pays Me.
“My tender care is ever around My children. But they don’t see it. They look upon all the happy incidents in their lives as only natural and are inclined to attribute them to chance. Yet a word of happy thanks would bring Me such joy that My joy would redound to them in new gifts.
“Oh, when evening falls may they think of coming to My embrace, their hearts overflowing with gratitude, asking Me to come again with new blessings. And I will come again. And in this way we shall approach the end of life and the last of My blessings.
“For this last blessing, My child, give Me your tender thanks now.”
December 29— . . .
“Lord, I should so love to put into practice all that You have told me this year. Instead of running, I’m dragging along.”
“Do you remember this sentence: ‘The weight of your favors has been part of my burden?’ This is because the more I give, the more clearly you see your wretchedness, and this is the light of reality. Be sorry that you have reached only this poor impasse in your efforts to do better. But keep trusting, since you can do everything in your Christ who strengthens you.
“And remember that I want your perfection more than you do. Do you ask Me for this every day? Those who are thirsty never stop asking for a drink. Are you saddened by your usual mediocrity? If you weren’t, how could I help you? Your cry, full of hope, would be music to Me. So learn, learn to cry to Me, My child. Rouse yourself from the apathy of lifeless souls. Say to Me, ‘Lord, let me sacrifice myself with joy for You. Let me live in You, in Your sight and in the sight of others. And let me treat them with the same great kindness that You show me. In this way I’ll reach You.’
“Yes, of course, every time you go to others to speak to them about Me, I’m there among you and you feel the ever-increasing overflow of My tenderness.
“Never doubt My power. Never doubt My love, my poor little creature; you don’t look at Me often enough.
“Listen carefully to Me. I’m always there.”