January 1—“The keynote: Hope in your God—boundless hope.”
“Lord, may these words inscribed by You on these white pages, as on solid walls, be as many springs of love where my brothers and sisters on earth may quench their thirst.”
January 5—Le Fresne.
Looking out on the Loire River and a leaden sky.
“You see how the trees and flowers await the sap that is preparing to bring back life. Everything is gloomy and dead now. But ever so gently along comes the spring.
“Give yourself up to grace. Grace and you: the sail billowing in the breeze, and the boat. What a gentle alliance!
“You hear the murmur of the Loire as it flows beneath your walls, and the breeze brushing the window panes. But you don’t catch the sound of the divine power that carries you along when you put the rudder of your life into His hands. Sometimes you stop and say to yourself, ‘Isn’t that He?’ It’s always I . . .
“Then be like your trees, like your flowers. Be all-expectancy for My life-giving powers. Look for ways of reaching Me. Hold out your life to Me. There are still blank pages in it. Ask Me to guide your hand and we’ll write in it together. That’s how it was when you were little. And you are always little.”
January 12—Holy Hour.
As I was marveling how quickly the first edition of Lui et moi (He and I) sold out.
“That’s because I wanted it to be so, and the sorrowful and immaculate heart of My mother shared My desire. Do you know what we’re doing in writing these pages? We’re removing the false idea that this intimate life of the soul is possible only for the religious in the cloister. In reality My secret and tender love is for every human being living in the world. There is not one who does not have a mysterious yearning for it. And how true it is that each one wants to see someone live My love so that he may discover the means of reaching Me.
“My child, what a joy for Me and for you if at last all people became My faithful friends, trustfully calling for Me and offering Me the most secret chamber of their hearts for My permanent home. You can imagine what outpourings I’d draw from their souls’ depths—there where so many things have been instinctively hidden, awaiting the coming of a friend worthy of their esteem.
“When they have understood that Christ, the Savior, not only could be, but longed to be their unique friend, this friend whom no words can ever describe, this friend who begs and thanks; when they have guessed at His happiness at being welcomed by His child whom false humility has kept at a distance, what transports of young joy they feel as they fill their life to the brim with love to honor the God who lives in them! How they keep on begging Him to increase their poor, weak love that seems but of yesterday, exposing it like ice close to a furnace, no longer counting on themselves but trusting boundlessly in Christ who watches tenderly for the feelings of newly awakened souls.
“Beloved children, you who are still afraid, dare to believe, dare to hope, dare to love. Lead other souls into the chain of love. And may this movement go on right to the end of time, gathering more and more speed like the last wave of the sea.”
January 19—Holy Hour.
“It’s a long time since we loved each other—I mean in the heart-to-heart communion of a Holy Hour: eight days. . . .
“Take many a moment for spontaneous and joyous outpourings of your love, as you did when you were little. You jumped up to throw your arms around the necks of those you loved when you had a little recreation. And when you left the city for your beloved country home and reached it some beautiful evening in your holidays, didn’t you recapture all the enchantment of your youth as you caught that first glimpse again of the Loire and its islands?
“So when you put aside the duties of the world and material things to enter into your heart for a few moments, give Me the joyous effusion of your spiritual childhood rapidly, lovingly, wholeheartedly, going away afterward to continue your work among others for My service.
“Don’t be timid when it comes to loving Me since you comfort Me for the coldness of others. I may have been counting on you for a long time. Are you going to disappoint Me? Don’t forget that I am Man also. I too have My dreams and hopes. May I say to you, ‘Respond to all My dreams for you, for your pilgrimage among men and for your influence, as though you took from Me to give to others.’ Even the stars impart their light to one another; have you noticed this?
“When you keep yourself before Me, My Gabrielle, look at Me with great tenderness and think that it is just as sweet to be seen as to see.”
January 26—Holy Hour.
The cold was intense and to honor the holy year I had not lit my fire.
“What a small deprivation, My child, if in exchange you bring back a sinner to Me!
“You don’t feel yesterday’s cold any more and you can’t yet feel the cold of tomorrow. So it’s only a question of this present moment. And what is a moment of discomfort in exchange for the salvation of a soul who will praise Me eternally? You too will know that person’s joyous gratitude but you will give all the glory to My compassionate heart, since you know that without My help you could have done nothing.
“It is for you all to catch My inner promptings, to let them unfold in your minds, to ponder over them and strive to your utmost to fulfill them gratefully. Then the Spirit will come and remind you of all that I have told you.
“In this present century people forget to make these acts of self-sacrifice. Wouldn’t it be better to do them of your own free will than to be compelled to do them? Always be joyful about it, for joy is the luster of self-denial. It is love’s sweet intimacy.
“A bride had done a long piece of work for her bridegroom, and as it required the utmost patience and perseverance, he expressed all his surprise and admiration for the many weary hours she had spent on it. ‘But I loved you so much in every moment of fatigue,’ she replied, ‘that my joy outweighed all my suffering.’
“Isn’t that a little the way you feel near your empty hearth? . . . Can you guess what I feel for you, My little sister-companion in work? The embrace of the kiss of peace.”
January 28—At a big reception.
“The more you suffer, the more you serve.”
February 2—After a meeting in a room full of friends.
“You’ve noticed, haven’t you, that it’s not so much what you say as the way you say it that gives weight to your remarks. It’s like that when you talk to Me. So discover the loving way within you, the delicate shade of trust—and I’m vanquished. Since you know what your special weapons are, why not use these instead of any others? At this moment I am like the man who put into the hands of his enemy the sword that could wound him more deeply. And I say to you, ‘Aim straight.’ Quicken your feelings. Tell Me of your sorrow for your shortcomings, not so much because they have sullied you as because they have pained Me.
“For you had the sad courage to hurt a Man-God who gave His life for you. And yet you knew. . . . You disregarded it, and before His eyes that followed you with distress, you resisted His will and did what you pleased.
“Feel grief for it—tearless grief—and your renewed resolution will lead you to humble love and a sense of your nothingness. Then I’ll swoop down like the eagle and carry you away to the secluded paths of the ‘garden enclosed.’ When you try to speak to Me of the past, I’ll place My hand over your mouth and you will hear words of tenderness and mercy that will melt your heart. You will thirst for a new life and be ready to run in search of it. But humbly now, fully aware of your dependence on Me, you will surrender your faculties to Me one by one, all your faculties. And we’ll walk together, patiently striving day by day.
“My very little one, understand Me: it’s the patient daily efforts that give value to small things.”
Holy Hour.
“You don’t ask Me for enough. Why are you so timid? Why don’t I hear your voice? Don’t you yet understand the joy I have in making your cup run over? But even if you don’t understand, try to go deeper into the reality. Some explorers travel on the run, while others stop to study the details. Explore the boundless needs of My heart in order to seek the better to satisfy them. You will find that I’m waiting for your requests on a bigger scale—humble but powerful, contrite but full of assurance.
“Be My delivery messenger, standing by until your arms are filled. My angels will carry the gifts from door to door. But it must be you who procure them. There are the sinners I’m waiting for you to lift from the mire again and again. And there are the missions—the pagans in France and other lands. My priests too need your help to persevere in My likeness. And My bishops, so that they may be fatherly. And all the people in your time, so that they will desire to be intimate with Me at every moment. Haven’t I deserved it? Haven’t I suffered more atrociously than words can describe? If you could only know! But at least remember this: a word of love pays Me. And when you bring your lives close to My life and to heaven and the Eucharist, I cannot but carry you in My arms and cover you with My merits.
“Each person has his own way of asking. Let yours be warm and long, joyous as though you already had the answer, loving because you are sure that you are loved, generous as always, and charming, since you are full of My gifts. Be repentant too, but audacious, because it is in My name that you are asking.
“I’ll listen to you with such joy that it will flow over into you, and this will give you new courage to call upon Me for victory after victory. And when you ask even more than your highest hope, speak to your Christ-Man and your Christ-Man will make your wants known to God the Father by the Spirit of love. After that, can you ever imagine that your requests will go unanswered?”
Paris. On the boulevards.
“Am I not your friend? Then why don’t you speak to Me joyously?”
Auteuil.
“It’s in the evening of your life that you’ll begin to live, just when you think that you are going to die.”
Paris. On awakening. “What’s new today?”
“God.”
Paris. In my bedroom.
“When you have just heard My voice, the silence that follows is still full of Me.”
The chapel in the rue de la Source. At the Sanctus.
“You who have asked Me to do what you do, do what I do surrounded by My angels:
“Praise: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’ Adore. Love.”
At the Louvre.
“Imagine how I say your name within Me and try out the same love as you say Mine within you.”
Alone in the streets.
“There is no solitude anywhere since I am everywhere.”
Notre-Dame des Victoires. Near someone who was praying.
“The soul . . . what was the use of giving that one a coat of flesh. You can see, can’t you, that it can never be imprisoned there?”
Paris. Window shopping.
“Never allow futile things to clutter your mind to the point of hindering it from seeing Me. It would be like wearing a mask on your soul.”
Among the orphans of Auteuil.
“Don’t be just half saintly. This would only prove that the other half was full of defects. To be a Christian is not only to be born of God. It is to be reborn to Him unceasingly. It is not just to live in His sight. It is to be His living and His dying.
“When a saint comes into the world, he comes to the entire world.
“Never stop having desires and ask Me for whatever you lack. Whom else would you ask?
“How can men who know the joy of being a father ever forget that they are also sons—sons of God?”
February 19—The Luxembourg Gardens.
“Don’t you think that I love you a great deal more than you ever imagined? Can you compare My powers with yours? This is why I so often say, ‘Love Me with My love.’ We’ll act together always in the future, won’t we? Isn’t it I who live your life? It’s so simple. A Father . . . your entire being is of His very substance. And this is better. Up until now what made you think you were alone? Why did you want to be alone? When I was burning with the desire to make all your actions divine?
“Never forget that without Me you are nothing. Are you ashamed of this? But since it is your extreme poverty that attracts Me. . . . Count on Me moment by moment. When you call Me, I’m there. Scarcely have you pronounced My name when I hear it. It’s like a memory, as though you had called Me long, long ago. Always I yearn for you, do you understand? Forgive Me for often finding you late. It’s as though I said, ‘Forgive Me for loving you so.’
“Never grow weary of Me. Don’t become accustomed to our conversations. I want them to be always new to you, as new as that first day when you were not sure . . . and so amazed by this sudden contact that you trembled as though you had done wrong. Moses trembled too, before God. And in the presence of Christ, Saul fell to the ground. Who can escape Me when I want to take captive? And yet I respect your freedom. And when you yield it to Me it is the greatest gift that you can offer Me and the one that gives Me the greatest joy. Your freedom makes Me think of Mine that I yielded so utterly to you when I was on earth. Listen to what I have to say. You will sacrifice your freedom even more completely to Me at the moment of your death. That will be love to the uttermost: its supreme effort. And I’ll receive your death as a palm.”
March 2—Holy Hour. Nantes.
“I plant everything you need in your thoughts. So take them one by one as you pluck off the petals of a daisy, and from Me they will go to others, filled with My life-giving fragrance. You know what this fragrance is? It’s the feeling that God loves you and that He looks after all of you with the greatest care. Every line in our book tells about it and awakens your trust. The confidence of His children is God’s glory. And their love is His kingdom.
“Understand this: When you say ‘Lord, I love you,’ you can go no farther, for you’ve said everything; you can only repeat. And the Lord reigns over you. When the whole earth has declared its love, then His kingdom will come and ‘the times’ will be fulfilled. But you must pray. You don’t yet know the power of prayer. It’s like a strong arm helping Mine since I allow you to help Me. You remember Simon, the Cyrenean?
“Together, you with Me. My tenderness is imperious, isn’t it? You have seen mothers hug their children as though they wanted to lock them in their hearts? What is that compared with My love? Haven’t I asked you to eat Me every day? Poor little ones; you don’t understand. At least offer Me your good will and try to love Me a little more. Come a step nearer every morning. Picture My outstretched arms. Who is keeping you from covering the last distance between us? Oh, may it not be fear!
“Call Me and I’ll take hold of you as I took hold of Peter. You remember? I had called him ‘Man of little faith.’ And I said, ‘If you had faith even as a grain of mustard seed, you could move mountains.’
“Never cease to quicken your faith and hope, and you will never leave Me again. Can anyone leave Me once he has found Me?”
March 6—Nantes.
“How free you are, My child, when you are sure of God!”
March 9—(Very busy.)
“The more you advance in life, the more I want you in Me. You know how much swifter the little streams flow as they get near the sea—just as though they were in a hurry to lose themselves. Come to Me in the same way, gaily, in your wholeness as though you said, ‘I take You. I give myself.’ And in this way you rock your soul in God as a child rocks in its cradle, and you bind yourself closer to Him.
“Keep on enlarging the picture that you have of God. See perfection in all His qualities and powers. See strength and grace. See His will to be good to His children in measureless measure. You are sure of this; you have the details of His passion. What you can’t see is the munificence of His rewards for your poor little acts of goodwill. So give Him your boundless trust. Expect the infinite—in other words, expect Him. What else would you expect but love? Don’t look for more, for love is fullness. Give thanks and give yourself.”
“Lord, I find nothing in myself worthy to offer You.”
“Haven’t I told you that I’m a collector of miseries. I am like one who mends china and is only happy when he is practicing his art on the thousand and one fragments of some beautiful object. I’m like a painter who takes pleasure in touching up the colors of a faded canvas. I’m a surgeon who has put together broken limbs. Nothing, no one is beyond My care. And it’s all free. I’m paid when My people pay attention to My commandments and say with simple and childlike tenderness, ‘Thank you, dear God.’ Is it too difficult?”
(In the depths of my soul:)
“Lord, live in me. I need You, but you don’t need me.” (Quickly and eagerly:)
“Yes, yes, I do need you. My love needs you.”
March 16—Holy Hour. (Tired.)
“When you feel weak, give Me your weakness. I take it into My power and unite it with all My weariness on earth. Even before My crucifixion, in My journeys and My work I suffered much physical fatigue, sometimes moral depression too, in the midst of so much human misunderstanding. So, weak and depressed, come close to Me as though you had chosen to be at the end of your resources just in order to reach Me. We’ll be like two patients in the same room, praising the Father, longing for His coming, joyously listening and wondering whether the bell will toll for you soon.
“You remember when the last siren sounded on the great liners, you use to think, ‘To leave! To leave is to live.’ Have this same thought as you leave the earth. You are going away to live and to live in the real New World. It is waiting for you. Its people are waiting for you too. In New York the people were on the pier—a cheering crowd of them. That was only the world’s poor welcome. But the ecstatic cries from the heavenly city, the love, the radiant joys—who could ever express it in the language of men?
“So be filled with joy at the thought of approaching it, as you were in the airplane when you asked, ‘Shall we be arriving soon?’ And someone said, ‘Keep on looking at the horizon and you’ll be able to tell when the plane is about to land.’ And if some of your dear ones were waiting for you, your heart leapt with joy. My child, the one who is waiting for you is your Creator and Savior. Go gaily to meet Him as if you were going to a festival. Lovingly prepare your ‘going away’ costume, the one ornamented with the jewels you have received from Him. And besides this, borrow the radiant colors—your heavenly mother’s and your beloved’s raiment. You must take the habit of adorning yourself in them every day. They are holding them out to you because they want to see their own beauty in you. Give them your humble smile, the smile of a child happy to be going home.”
March 24—Ill.
“How good it is for you from time to time to feel near the gate leading out of this life. Your vision of the past is so clear now, isn’t it? Things have lost the gloss of the world’s opinion. You can see the real motive now—usually selfishness, indifference to the glory of God when that alone should be your goal, unconcern for the salvation of your brothers when the desire for it should set your very thoughts on fire. What sadness, My child, if you were to arrive alone! Provide yourselves, all of you, with a cortege of companion-souls saved because of your solicitude, whether they be in faraway missions or close to your home. In the luminous evenings of the East, as at Nazareth, when you were meditating on the terrace of the Franciscans, you noticed how some stars slipped alone into space and others seemed to be set in discs of light. If only your souls could each become one of a constellation led by you into the home of the Father of the family, What acclamations there would be!”
“What must I do?”
“Mention their names often to Me: your protégés, your unbelievers, your deaf-mutes, I’ll hide them beneath My seamless robe steeped in My blood.”
March 30—Ill.
“Why not use this time of solitude in bed as though you were in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. What is there to hinder you? It only takes a little effort. And why not transmute these thirty days of prison into thirty days of joy, since all sickness destroys your body a little and brings your soul nearer to the gate of life.
“Why not offer the Father your steady decline so that your words and writings may bear fruit and nourish your brothers? Somewhat in the way that I wanted you to feed on Me and take strength in My power. And you were fed by Me too, in the first stages of My agony when the moon shed its white light on the garden awaiting My sweat of blood. . . .
“May even the far-off first fruits of your death bring help and joy to your brothers. You can imitate Me in so many details, My dear little ones, so distracted by the world. And if I want you to try to imitate Me, it is because this brings us closer and you are more Myself. When will they be able to say, ‘To see a Christian is to see Jesus Christ?’ What a powerful example, what a silent testimony! You remember what I said: ‘He who has seen Me has also seen My Father?’ When I said that don’t you think that My voice was filled with an all-engulfing love?
“Oh, My child, rise above your little ways. Gain altitude. Give to God directly, without the slightest human fear.”
March 31—The Communion of the sick.
“I illuminate the nothing that you are so that you may have a clear picture of your nothingness.”
April 6—Holy Thursday.
In bed, I was mentally visiting all the altars of repose in the city, the country, and foreign lands.
“A Host—both of us.”
April 8—Holy Saturday.
“I have only little things to offer You since I am ill.”
“A little thing with great love adds up to a big thing.”
(Later in the day.) . . . “Go in search of sinners and bring them to Me. Take care of My Mystical Body. Offer Me in the tomb where I lay, broken for all the unfortunate ones who are afraid to be Mine.”
April 13—Ill.
“Is there a day or an hour in your life that could be kept from Me? Can you set aside this week or this month? Don’t you see that My requirements as head of the household extend even to your quarter-seconds? And don’t you feel a burning desire to surrender yourself utterly to My ownership?
“In the grip of fever suffer for Me. In your interrupted sleep, rest in Me and find a flame of courage.”
April 20—Ill.
“I’m placing all these acute sufferings as flowers in your crown. There must be roses on your head as well as thorns. Unite your oppression with Mine. I suffocated in My agony. I suffocated when I was bound by the soldiers; and when they made sport of Me at the court of Annas; and when they mocked Me at Herod’s palace; and while they scourged Me beneath Pilate’s judgment hall. I suffocated as I carried My cross. And when it was planted upright, and all through the hours that I hung upon it, there were the suffocations of the battle with death, right to the very last gasps, right to the cry of all-triumphant love that carried away My soul.
“In this illness when your body lacks air, oh, may your soul breathe God. Yes, My friend, take Him to give Him. He will give you your share.”
April 25—Fever.
“See Me above everything and see Me everywhere.”
April 27—Still in bed. “As you wish . . .”
“It is good for you to abandon yourself to My tenderness. Life or death, what does it matter? You are in My heart. You are in My will. It isn’t enough just to accept; your acceptance must be charged with the utmost love. Unfold this love like a flexible cloth to the very extremity of My desire. Then your work and Mine are one in the Father’s sight and you are all-powerful.”
May 4—The seventh week of illness.
“Lean upon my courage for your courage. Remind yourself that alone you are nothing. Can you acquire this beautiful habit of always being with Me? Together always. . . .
“Invite Me often to be present in your life, as though you gave Me a ticket for a concert. And keep Me a place of honor in the front row, as if you were concerned that I miss nothing of the spectacle, this spectacle of your daily acts, all lived for Me.
“Dear child of My heart, what beautiful things we’ll do together. Keep this word ever before you: ‘Together.’ ”
May 5—Suffocations. “Lord, is this the last illness?”
“Magnificat.”
May 6—Suffocations.
“Why be anxious? You know that it is I. Offer this present moment with all the power of your love—this little moment that you can’t even hold in your hand. Borrow My love, My mother’s love, that of all the saints who are still on earth, and offer it all to Me with your present moment. I’m waiting for it as one who waits for the love of a beloved child.”
May 12—During the Anointing of the Sick.
“You are all hidden under the robe of My merits and that of My mother’s. Doesn’t that give you a sense of security?”
Weaker.
“Lord, is your cross big enough for me to stretch out beside You?”
“My poor little child, just think—I call the whole universe to it.”
May—“Lord, is this my last Holy Hour on earth?”
“May all your hours be Holy Hours now. There are so few before the last.
“You are white as snow through the Anointing and its graces. . . . My love has washed away every stain. . . . If I love you at all times, I am even more moved in this great moment when the last visitor comes. May she do all she should for you. But rest in My arms while you wait for the final moment when the very last veil will be rent.
“Now, My friend, here is your work: Regret, regret, regret your sins. And love, love, love ever more and more the one whose name is love.”
“Lord, take my little flame in Your fire.”
May 13—Weaker.
“Yes, I take your body like the wheat to be ground. It is for your brothers.”
“For my brothers—with You.”
May 15—Weaker.
“Most tender Lord, give me Your arms. I am returning to our home with the tiny steps of a small child.”
May 18—Ascension Day.
“Don’t love’s preparations already bring joy to the heart of love? . . . What are you going to say to Me on arriving? What am I going to say to you? Oh, this moment of the meeting! Put your whole soul into it. Believe in the infinite tenderness. You realize that you are too timid. Then venture out on My love. Hope. Come, My beloved, come and tell Me everything you have not dared to say.”
May 23—Communion of the Sick.
“Poor little soul, you’ve waited to the very last minute of your life to believe in My boundless compassion, in the final forgiveness. Have no more fear of anything. It would wound Me if you were afraid. Surrender your whole being to love, my beloved.”
May 24—“No more strength. I can scarcely see. I’m scarcely able to love You.”
“Take My eyes. Take My voice. Take My love.”
May 25—“Have I come to the end of my life? Is this the moment when I celebrate my first and last Mass? Where are You, loving Presence? . . . And afterward, what will it be?”
“It will be I. It will be I.
“Forevermore.”