Archive

It is a good proof and test of our love if we can bear with such faults and not be shocked by them. Others, in their turn, will bear with your faults, which, if you include those of which you are not aware, must be much more numerous.

I keep thinking of Queen Esther who was taken away from her people precisely because God wanted her to plead with the king on behalf of her nation. I am a very poor and powerless little Esther, but the King who has chosen me is infinitely great and merciful. This is great comfort.

Oh Jesus, I feel that if You found a soul feebler than mine- though that's impossible- You would delight in heaping even greater favors on it, if it abandoned itself with supreme confidence to Your infinite mercy.

Nothing goes well for me this year. But God is merciful when He burdens us with crosses.

It is He alone who wants to work in you, even though you will have done nothing to attract this grace except that which a creature can do: works of sin and misery ... He loves you like that. He loves you "more than these," He will do everything in you. He will go to the end: for when a soul is loved by Him to this extent, in this way, loved by an unchanging and creative love, a free love which transforms as it pleases Him, oh, how far this soul will go!

However wretched and imperfect my good works have been, this Lord of mine has been improving them, perfecting them and making them of greater worth, and yet hiding my evil deeds and my sins as soon as they have been committed.

When God finds a soul penetrated by an intense faith He pours out His grace in abundance.

You are not the only one to make mistakes day after day -- we all do it. But the Lord is patient and full of mercy. In his household of grace he can use our faults, too, if we lay them on the altar for him.

Oh, would that I could tell everyone what sources of strength, of peace and also of happiness they would find if they consented to live in this intimate union with Him. Only they do not know how to wait. If God does not bestow Himself in a manner they can feel, they leave His holy presence and when He comes to them, laden with graces, He finds nobody there. The soul has gone away into exterior things; it no longer dwells in its center. Recollect yourself from time to time.

Our Lord's love is revealed as perfectly in the most simple soul that resists His grace in nothing as in the most excellent soul...

Nothing is accomplished without effort, wihtout struggle. In our better moments, we no longer shed tears over our own weaknesses or over those of others, but we recall what was interiorly said to St. Paul: My grace is sufficient for you; in union with me you can do all things.

"Do you know the souls that most enjoy my Goodness?," said our Lord (to a chosen soul). "The ones who trust in me the most. Trusting souls are the ones who steal away my graces. I am all Love, and the greatest pain one can give my Heart is to doubt my Goodness."