The Need for Humility

I was telling you that I wanted to relate to you certain words that my Jesus told me at the beginning of my conversion, and you will see how He scolded me for my attachments and frivolity in which I lived bound for some time—and then, since I am such a little thing before Him, that this alone would be enough for Him to fling me far away from Him; but no! He is infinite mercy, to the point that, as it says in this doctrine: His Justice is converted into love, when someone gives himself up to Him, accusing himself of his miseries, and He heaps him with gifts and favors, charisms, that he could never merit.

Yes, my brothers and sisters, so it is. So, if we live for some time alienated from God, it is because we do not know how to have recourse to Him with full confidence, and we do not recognize, with humility, our lack of merit; but scarcely does He see us well disposed, and He pours himself out in our souls!

I have some very early notes here, but I am going to copy some of the oldest for you, to prove the aforementioned.

To be associated with his legion of victim souls, Our Lord does not require us to be great saints, only that we have the sincere longing to become one, that we are disposed to work for that ideal constantly and without weakening, with the help of His divine grace. And that this longing have no other goal than to please Him.

The first condition for a victim soul must be to accept humbly all the crosses that he finds in his path daily, and to suffer them lovingly, and offer them to divine Justice in atonement.

Thus, once when I, at the very beginning, was repelled many times by certain trials that came to me, very hard trials, He himself came to exhort me, saying to me: "Be good, my beloved, my little one. It will not cost you a great deal to humiliate yourself; it is your proper place. Look: It was only that which attracted me to you."

Who would believe it? The abyss of misery attracts the heights of magnificence and of grandeur, that is God! On that particular occasion, He was exhorting me to humiliate myself on a thing that was costing me a great deal; but that was why He permitted it, and then He reminded me that I would see how it would not cost me much to humiliate myself, since I was nothing itself. It was on that occasion that He said to me: "When everything goes wrong for you, believe that you have deserved it. Let My will suffice, and praise Me always. My daughter, I love you so, and if you have My love, what else are you looking for?"

But when Jesus spoke to me clearly of my unworthiness, it was on one occasion on which He said to me: "My daughter and most beloved spouse, I have put you in this house (that of my parents) with the mission of sanctifying those close to you, especially your father." Our Lord speaks precisely about what was, for me, my highest ideal; and not because my family had no virtues; indeed, they had them, and very singular ones. It was I who was in need of those virtues. They had simply withdrawn from pious practices, and my father had absolutely lost the faith—as he himself said—and outwardly he was not practicing any work of piety, although he was a just man and even very charitable and honest. The words of my Jesus on that occasion follow: "I want to make use of you Myself to grant you this grace you have asked of Me so often. Look: I have shed so many graces over them, as many graces as you have had desires, and he has resisted my love and scorned my graces."

Again I make a parenthetical remark here to comment and to explain what I understood then concerning this argument. I asked my God constantly to give lights to their understanding, inspirations for good desires to practice and frequent the sacraments, to increase prayer, to withdraw from vanities which were their major worldly amusements, for in other aspects they had no defect. That is why Our Lord answered me, that he had given them what I asked, but they did not make use of it.

This filled me with sorrow and bitterness; but it did not discourage me, rather, on the contrary, it gave me fortitude, and filled me with fervor to continue onward, putting all my confidence in God alone. I continue with the words of my Jesus: "If this time they do not yield to the influx of My gifts, I will abandon them; especially your father, because he resists Me with the worst of vices: pride, and the greatest malice: incredulity."

I remember, my brothers and sisters, that when my Jesus told me such things, I cried abundantly for days on end; and they scolded me and asked me the reason for such crying, and they punished me, and they held me to be ridiculous and eccentric, and even wanted to take me to a psychiatrist… ah! What difficult times those were! But it was necessary for me to suffer everything; I had my divine Master who was teaching me the science of victory, by means of sorrow borne in peace and without complaint. Thus He also told me: "When you were converted to Me, in the sight of my Justice, all your house was an incitement to divine anger! And you, My chosen one, walked far from Me, and wrapped in the tatters of your miseries and stained with sin, and your heart occupied in a thousand attachments. It was an excess of My love and the mediation of my Mother, that drew you from your abjectness; and if I have shed my graces on you, it is because I want to make manifest through you the marvels of My love of Justice, to attract many souls to My Heart."

Comment: My brothers and sisters, I beg you to heed the text of this paragraph that I have presented to you, so you may meditate on it: Our Lord wants us only to dispose ourselves to receive His gifts—He does not seem to take into account our littleness or our unworthiness! For that exactly is the meaning of these words, that He said to me on that occasion. And He referred to my adolescent imprudence, that was vain and loved ostentation, jewels and adornment, and all those things that serve no purpose but to pervert, as Scripture says: "For the bewitching of vanity overturneth the innocent mind." (Wis. 4, 12).

The divine words continue: "But it is necessary for you to be faithful in offering yourself to Me, to share in My works, which will be extended according to My power. I will manifest many secrets of My Heart to you, and those that I reserve to Myself, I will make you perceive as a light infused in the depths of your soul; but you, remember your nothingness, because at the slightest movement of pride, I would fling you from me!"

What a terrible counsel, but—how beautiful… that in the course of my life I have seen fulfilled. Then, that same day and moment He said: "Now I am going to undertake the decisive battle against the enemies of that soul (my father’s) who has, in my eyes, many good works, but so imperfect that they cannot have much value, given the kind of sin in which he lives. But since you have given yourself to Me, my Justice will be repaid in you, reserving to Myself the money with which I will be paid. Indeed, I want you to know that the only path for the salvation of that soul is the overcoming of his pride, and you will help achieve that goal, if you want to see him saved."

My brothers and sisters, I must offer additional reflections in this respect, because I must assure you that my father was a man who never gave indication of pride, but much to the contrary: he was a noble soul, he knew how to forgive, and with what exemplary nobility; then how could God call a soul like that of my father proud? Remember that just a short time ago, Our Lord told me, and said it several times very explicitly: "Incredulity is derived from malice and pride." It is then another kind of pride, not human pride, like the passion of the human being, but diabolical pride that Satan infuses in souls, with the temptation to incredulity. And this Our Lord calls: pride.

The words of Jesus on that same occasion continue: "You will value this grace that I am giving you today, as one of the greatest liberalities of My love; and if you will be faithful to Me, I promise to draw from it for you, whatever the result will be, success and great goods, with a great deal of glory for Me. I tell you all this because, knowing your weakness, it is necessary that I bolster your will. And confide this to your confessor, so that the devil does not come and encompass you; for I want you to know that he is a friend of independent souls, whom he has made fall in spite of the great sanctity they already possessed; but when he sees a soul subject to obedience, he cannot make it suffer."

Suffering in Silence

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