(The following words, taken from ‘Love, peace and joy: a month of the Sacred Heart according to St. Gertrude’, will be of immense profit to all those who put these words into practice. The fruits derived from this practice are so great that you might well wish the whole world knew these words.)
It seems, however, that the Heart of Jesus desires, above all, that we shall unite our sufferings to His, in order that He may communicate to them His infinite merits. There is nothing that He recommends so frequently. One day, when St. Mechtilde felt that her infirmities rendered her, as it were, useless in the service of God, Jesus said to her:
“Place all thy sufferings in My Heart, and I will give them the highest perfection for the utility of the whole Church. Even as My Divinity has united to itself the sufferings of My humanity, in order to make them Divine, so I wish to unite thy sufferings to Myself, in order to render them perfect.
Offer them to My love, saying: O Love, to Thee do I entrust my sufferings, with the same intention with which Thou hast brought them to me from the Heart of my God; and I beseech Thee, with my deepest gratitude, to receive them again when Thou hast given them their highest perfection. Thy heart will thus unite itself to the love which makes Me embrace the Cross with My whole Heart, and to the gratitude with which I thanked My Father for having permitted Me to suffer for those I love ; and even as My Passion has borne infinite fruits, both in Heaven and on earth, thy sufferings, even the most trivial, when united to My Passion, will bear such fruits that the citizens of Heaven will receive from them an increase of glory; the just an increase of grace; sinners their pardon; and the souls in Purgatory an alleviation of their pains.
What is there, in fact, that My Divine Heart cannot change for the better, since all that is precious in Heaven and on earth has its source in the goodness of My Heart?”
And why should not we also, in all, even the most trivial of our sufferings, assure to ourselves the incomparable fruits which union with the Heart of Jesus secured for our Saint? Why should not we also receive them with the love and gratitude which she drew from the Saviour’s Heart? It is so sweet and easy to do so! It is not a question of suffering more, but of suffering better, with more consolation and fruit. We have only to suffer all in union with the Heart of Jesus. May it be henceforth our habitual practice!
Is it not evident that if we thus place our trials in the Heart of Jesus, they will at once be greatly alleviated? On one occasion, as St. Mechtilde was praying for a person in affliction, Our Lord said to her:
“Let her, with childlike simplicity, bring all her troubles to Me; let her seek her consolation in My compassionate Heart, and I will never abandon her.”
“Jesus”, adds the Saint, “has bestowed on us the gift of His Heart, in order that we may, when in sorrow, seek our refuge and our consolation therein.”
Littlest Souls 