In the divine Decalogue God says to men and He says it to all: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength."

Do we understand well this solemn Commandment? What does it mean to love God with all one’s soul? What else but to love Him spiritually. What does it mean to love Him with all one’s heart? What else but to love Him also with one’s sensible affections.

With the affection of children, with gratitude for all the favors we have received from Him, above all, for the Redemption. With the fidelity of a brother, with the fervor and delight of spouses for God, in the person of Jesus, Who is the Spouse of our souls, with the confidence of friends. This is to love God with one’s heart.

And what is it to love Him with all one’s mind? To love Him conscientiously, that is, to love Him because we meditate on Him, because we contemplate Him, because we comprehend Him with that sublime faculty He Himself gave us, precisely for this, to use it for the purpose of loving Him.

But. . .what does it mean to love Him with all our strength? This means to love Him with all our works. That all our actions might proclaim how much we love Him! To love Him with works, not only with affections, not only with words, but to demonstrate that love for Him in our works. Indeed, God requires this love of His creatures. Do we give it to Him?

Ah. . .how little the world loves its God! This world that lives forgetful of Him most of the time. And now, let us not speak of the world that hates Him openly, the world of the sworn enemies of God, but rather of those who call themselves children of the Church founded by Him, the Catholics of all parts of the world. Ah, how little they love Him. And in what a miserable love they have come to reduce themselves with respect to that "great love" they owe to their God! Those who, first, before God and above God, love: some, their money; others, some creature; the majority love themselves; others, their well-being; and there are those who love sin itself – rather than God. They love sin! For they do not want to give it up . . .knowing they offend God. And they call themselves Catholics and they call themselves pious ones and, at times, they are souls consecrated to His service, His Church. But in their actions they manifest more love for, more attachment to, their delights and whims, their disordered appetites, although they well know that they will lead them openly against their God, against what is commanded by Him in His Law! Oh grief. . .!

All of you souls predestined to contemplate this truth now. . .cry with Jesus, grieve for those offenses, and try to fill yourselves with affliction to compensate Divine Love with your generosity. All of you, His spouses, consecrated to His service, all of you, souls who have offered yourselves as victims, united to Him through love. . .give Him love. . .a great deal of love!

Love His Justice, so offended! All of you who long to atone!

Ah. . .come and hear from His own lips words surpassingly beautiful from which you will learn how to love Him, how He calls you to love Him, how He asks of you, of each one of you in particular, the practice of consecrating your heart to Him.

These are His words, for He wants them to reach all souls so He may be compensated by all for those who do not love Him, for those who repudiate Him or forget Him, for those who hate Him, too.

He has a program of love already prepared for all of you, for your own souls, where each one of you can find the taste of the love His Heart seeks, your own love and the love of everyone. For the love of God has all the elements, the most beautiful elements of love. Listen to Him. . .to the words of Jesus: "To some souls who give themselves to Me as daughters, I communicate My paternal love to them. To others, I am as a Brother for them and, as such, I treat them with the intimacy of My friendship. That is, as each of them feels affection for Me, I respond, always generously, and I give the soul who seeks Me what it comes to seek. I am, for each soul, the water that it seeks in its thirst for love, with the same taste of love the soul delivers to Me."

Have we heard Jesus? Have we listened to His very consoling words? He promises to give, to each one, the fulfillment of his longings for love. Now let us continue listening to this other, more intimate part, of His revelation. It is not solely a manifestation of what He will give to souls but, rather, what He asks of them, what He longs for most, the kind of love He desires. He says: "I want virginal souls who consecrate themselves to Me as sacramental spouses in order to pour out on them My treasures of love. These souls will be like an atonement for the sacrileges of those who approach to receive Me with their hears mired in worldly delights."

Do you hear it? Jesus asks for "sacramental" souls, that is, souls who consecrate themselves to receiving Him worthily in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. And these He calls "sacramental souls."

He calls them "spouses" and He promises to pour out on them His treasures of love. Ah. . .let us consider this more slowly, let us meditate on it and let us understand the divine message in all its intensity.

It is an indisputable truth that each day the world is more indiscreet in its dealings with God our Lord for it is relinquishing its respect for Him. It offends Him. And not only those who are forgetful of Him and withdraw from Him but, rather, He is offended because, approaching Him, they do not draw near with the proper dispositions of reverence, of purity of life, that is, with the dispositions with which a miserable creature must approach all of a God: conscientiously, with reverence of soul and body, as the Holy Church tells us by means of its doctrine.

There are some souls who receive Him in Holy Communion through routine, without any spiritual fruit, without any fervor either and, thus, they wound rather than receive the Body of the Lord worthily. There are others who receive Him for human considerations, for "what they will say," to look good in the eyes of the world, perhaps through hypocrisy. . .so they may be considered good, so they may be judged well by others. And others who receive Him with devotion for doing something good in their life, without love for Him, without having as their prime purpose the uniting of themselves to Him by love, by receiving Him as a divine Guest in order to honor Him. Rather, forgetful of this, they go to Him for some interest, more or less paltry, to obtain from Him some favor. And, although their interest may be devout, it is not loving. It is not for Him, therefore, but for themselves, they go, as the poor man goes to the rich so he may help him, but neglectful of the conditions necessary to receive Communion worthily.

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