‘Abide in me, and I in you (John 15:4).’
“(1) He who meditates on the extent of My goodness will keep close to Me forever. (2) … those who, like you, are joined to the trunk, desiring Me alone, shall never be separated from it. (3) … Your will and desire to avoid sin carefully, as much as you can, is for Me as it were a link which binds and united Me to you more inseparably. (4) … Correspond exactly to all the tender attentions of My love, which is unwilling to be separated for a single instant from your soul.”
1. Words of Our Lord to St. Mechtilde
2. Words of Our Lord to His servant, Armelle
3. Words of Our Lord to St. Mechtilde
4. Words of Our Lord to Madeline Vigneron
(These revelations have received the Imprimatur. They can be found in the writings of Rev. Auguste Saudreau – an excellent author on mystical and ascetical theology.)
Marie Brotel, a great mystic, tells us that she experienced the fatherly gaze of our Heavenly Father, “that annihilated me with love,” she writes. “My daughter,” He said to her, “men do not know Me, and that is why they serve Me with servile fear and as if I were extremely severe; but you see My love for My creatures and My desire to see them happy.”
Yes, God hates sin – it is an unspeakable evil; but His love for us is so great, and His grace so powerful, that if we give ourselves to Him like little children, He will preserve us from serious sin; He will press us close to His bosom and protect us with jealous care.
How He longs for us to go to Him with confidence; with open hearts; and with gratitude! How He longs for us to remain united to Him. “Humility attracts Me; purity receives Me, prayer nourishes Me, poverty makes My delight, obedience binds Me and charity embraces Me.” (Our Lord to St. Catherine of Siena).
If we fear God in a servile way, it can only be because we do not truly know Him. Ask Our Lady that you might know “the tendernesses of the love of Jesus for a little soul” – the title of Sr. Benigna Consolata’s biography (recommended to her by Jesus Himself). Our Lady is instrumental in bringing souls to know Jesus, to love Him, and to give themselves to Him without reserve.
Here is an anecdote that ought to inspire us with confidence in Jesus’ love for us, which is the SOLE CAUSE of any goodness in us, and should therefore be the SOLE CAUSE of our hope:
“One of the many souls who regard Jesus a tyrant was preparing to make a general confession for the hundredth time. Restlessly, she spent the days of her retreat writing down the sins of her whole life. She neither meditated nor prayed; she was entirely absorbed in an examination which stifled her.
At last she went into the confessional. She read out the list of her sins, repeating and explaining over, and over again, in fear and trembling. When at length she thought she had finished, a voice was heard which very gently and very sadly said,
“You have forgotten something very important.”
“I thought I must have,” she answered, terror-stricken, and hastily prepared to read it all again.
“Your sin is not in your notes,” continued the Voice, “and it offends me much more than all that you have said. Accuse yourself of lack of trust.”
The voice moved her to the depths and she sought to ascertain if it were really her confessor’s. The Confessional was empty! Jesus had come to give her a supreme lesson.”
(Taken from ‘Jesus, King of Love’ by Fr. Mateo Crawley–Boevey)
Pax Christi.
Littlest Souls 