October 13, 1946prev home
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Two Hours, Though, after the Explanation of Holy Mass
A secret lesson on the merit an infirm person can obtain even from peacefully enduring the thought “On my account, A cannot go to Mass and B cannot rest,” and so on. To endure, too, what they are pained to see as a burden for others is always a virtue. And God is able to draw a motive for a reward for the sick and those who because of them are prevented from doing different things.
And as an explanation for those who in due course will read these brief allusions to secret lessons, I shall say that Most Holy Jesus told me (September 25) not to write his intimate instructions for my soul any more as a punishment of those who are unable to recognize that it is He who is speaking to me or who lie by saying they do not recognize Him in order to discourage my soul with their lack of charity and sincerity. And I have done so since September 25, limiting myself, as He wills, to noting down the topic and the date of the secret instruction.
4 p.m.
Can violence be done to Fire when it flares up and to God-Love when He wants to love? To love in a sensibly perceptible way? No. And I am experiencing it.
Today there fell upon me one of the most violent hours of divine love I had ever known. I felt it coming.... And it was not an oppressive weight - though an immense wave - but a force attracting, tearing away from the earth and leading up, up, up.... I felt it coming, more and more enrapturing, and before being left oblivious by its inexpressible sweetness, mindful of my prayer and offering on August 15, I entreated, “Not for me! Not for me! For them. So that they will love You.” The desire to renounce my mystical joys - provided they see and understand - is always in me.
But with a more intense sweetness in the already immeasurable sweetness, from the ocean of Light and Fire dominating me, descending from the Heavens, there emerged the inexpressible Voice of the Triune God, saying: “No. You refuse Me in vain for a sacrifice of love. I want you. I want to give Myself to you. I seek relief for Myself. I seek a heart that loves Me. I do not want knowledge, but love. I do not want to discuss, but to possess. I do not want to reproach, but to love. I want you. Satisfy Me. Console Me. Love Me. I pour Myself out wherever I find someone understanding Me in my infinite desire to communicate Myself. Write and then come....”
And there remained only abandoning oneself... and hearing oneself be told, ‘You must love for them, too. I want to be satisfied by you with the love they are unable to give Me just as I want it. And I want to penetrate you with Myself so that you will come to love them just as I loved my executioners: measurelessly. For when one loves with perfection, the most unfortunate are loved measurelessly - the ones who are our pain. Without this love of ours they would be lost.”
And I became inebriated and burned in a way which it is not licit to describe and loved God and in God the whole creation, with the inhabitants of Heaven, with those living on earth, with those suffering in Purgatory - all of them, all of them, and... oh, they would not believe it even if I told them so! - and I loved them as a mother can love sick children, who, if not cared for with the utmost love, may perish and are suffering because they are ill, even though they do not think they are sick or are suffering.
Lord, not so violent, if I am to serve You...! You know my complete weakness...! But when I returned to being a poor creature, with a peaceful sweetness as a reminder of the hurricane of love which had seized me, I felt that God had not heeded my prayer and my heart had resisted only by his will, but it was now beating as wearily as a bird that had risen too high and sung too loudly.... But if my Lord was consoled, if my nothingness was able to serve the All, long live love, and the suffering of my weary heart is sweet.... To die, too, from the violence of love! What do living and dying amount to? All that counts is to make God happy.258
258 We omit seven handwritten pages, dated October 20, 1946, containing Azariah’s commentary on the Mass for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost.