Jesus to Sr. Josefa Menendez on His Heart of Compassion and Mercy for Sinners

“Now, I want something more, for if I long for love in response to My own, this is not the only return I desire from souls: I want them all to have confidence in My mercy, to expect all from My clemency, and never to doubt My readiness to forgive. I am God, but a God of love! I am a Father, but a Father full of compassion and never harsh. My Heart is infinitely holy but also infinitely wise, and knowing human frailty and infirmity, stoops to poor sinners with infinite mercy. I love those who after a first fall come to Me for pardon . . . I love them still more when they beg pardon for their second sin, and should this happen again, I do not say a million times but a million million times, I still love them and pardon them, and I will wash in My Blood their last as fully as their first sin. Never shall I weary of repentant sinners, nor cease from hoping for their return, and the greater their distress, the greater My welcome. Does not a father love a sick child with special affection? Are not his care and solicitude greater? So is the tenderness and compassion of My Heart more abundant for sinners than for the just. This is what I wish all to know. I will teach sinners that the mercy of My Heart is inexhaustible. Let the callous and indifferent know that My Heart is a fire which will enkindle them, because I love them. To devout and saintly souls


I would be “The Way,” that making great strides in perfection, they may safely reach the harbor of eternal beatitude. Lastly, of consecrated souls, priests and religious, My elect and chosen ones, I ask, once more, all their love and that they should not doubt Mine, but above all that they should trust Me and never doubt My mercy. It is so easy to trust completely in My Heart.” (June 11, 1923).

Diary of St. Faustina...on Prayer for a Dying Soul..

Diary No. 314

"When I went to the garden one afternoon, my Guardian Angel said to me, ‘Pray for the dying.’ So I began at once to pray the Rosary with the gardeners for the dying. After the Rosary, we said different prayers for the dying. After the prayers, the wards began to talk among themselves. In spite of that noise, I heard these words in my soul, ‘Pray for me.’ But as I could not understand these words very well, I moved a few steps away trying to think who it could be was asking me to pray. Then I heard the words, ‘I am Sis. (blank).

The sister was in Warsaw while I was at the time in Vilnius. The sister said, ‘Pray for me until I tell you to stop. I am dying at this moment.’ Immediately, I began to pray fervently for her to the Expiring Heart of Jesus. I kept praying from 3 o’clock until 5. At five I heard the words, ‘Thank you, sister’, and I understood that she had died. During the holy mass on the following day, I continued to pray fervently for her soul. In the afternoon, a postcard came saying that Sister had died at such and such a time. I understood that it was at that same hour when she had said to me, ‘Pray for me.’"

Thoughts from St. Claude de La Columbiere (Spiritual Director to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque)

The Master: Meek and Humble of Heart

"Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of Heart," [St. Matthew 11:29] said Jesus in the Gospel. It is therefore by contemplating Him that we can learn true humility.

It is a great illusion to want all you hear about and all you see in books, as well as to burden yourself with so many devotional practices. Read very few books and make a great study of Jesus Christ crucified. [L. 100]

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May the Heart of Jesus Christ be our school! Let us make our abode there . . . Let us study its movements and attempt to conform ours to them. Yes, O Divine Jesus, I want to live there and pour all my gall into Your Heart, which will rapidly consume it. I am not afraid that impatience will come to attack me in that retreat. There I will practice silence, resignation to Your Divine will, and invincible constancy. There I will go daily to pray to You and thank You for my crosses, and to ask Your forgiveness for those who persecute me. [Saint Claude de La Colombière suffered numerous and painful contradictions in his efforts to obtain what the Heart of Jesus desired: propagation of the devotion and the establishment of a special feast.] There I will labor once and for all at acquiring patience. I realize that this is not a short task, but it suffices for me to know that I can attain it by working at it. I ask for Your prayers, O sweet Jesus; You offered them for Your enemies, so do not refuse them to me, for I hope to love You, and love even the cross and my enemies for love of You. [Meditations on the Passion (M.P.), 3]

Diary of St. Faustina...taking shelter in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Pains of Jesus

1287 + Despite the peace in my soul, I fight a continuous battle with the enemy of my soul. More and more, I am discovering his traps, and the battle flares up anew. During interludes of calm, I exercise myself and keep watch, lest the enemy find me unprepared. And when I see his great fury, I stay inside the stronghold; that is, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.


1288 September 19, [1937]. Today, the Lord told me, My daughter, write that it pains Me very much when religious souls receive the Sacrament of Love merely out of habit, as if they did not distinguish this food. I find neither faith nor love in their hearts. I go to such souls with great reluctance. It would be better if they did not receive Me.

On the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Words From St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

"And He showed me that it was His great desire of being loved by men and of withdrawing them from the path of ruin into which Satan hurls such crowds of them, that made Him form the design of manifesting His Heart to men, with all the treasures of love, of mercy, of grace, of sanctification and salvation which it contains, in order that those who desire to render Him and procure for Him all the honor and love possible, might themselves be abundantly enriched with those divine treasures of which this Heart is the source.

He should be honored under the figure of this Heart of flesh, and its image should be exposed...He promised me that wherever this image should be exposed with a view to showing it special honor, He would pour forth His blessings and graces. This devotion was the last effort of His love that He would grant to men in these latter ages, in order to withdraw them from the empire of Satan which He desired to destroy, and thus to introduce them into the sweet liberty of the rule of His love, which He wished to restore in the hearts of all those who should embrace this devotion."..... "The devotion is so pleasing to Him that He can refuse nothing to those who practice it."

Diary of St. Faustina...Jesus desires to pour graces into us...

Jesus to St. Faustina, "The flames of mercy are burning Me. I desire to pour them out  upon human souls. Oh, what pain they cause Me when they do not want to accept them!... How painfully distrust of My goodness wounds Me!...

"The graces of My mercy are drawn by the means of one vessel only, and that is trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive. Souls that trust boundlessly are great comfort to Me, because I pour all the treasures of my graces into them. I rejoice that they ask for much, because it is My desire to give much, very much. On the other hand, I am sad when souls ask for little, when they narrow their hearts " (Diary, 1074, 1076, 1578).

Our Lady of Fatima warns that Hell exists...

On Friday, July 13, 1917 Our Lady appeared at Fatima and talked to the three seers. Our Lady never smiled. How could She smile, for it was on this day that She was to show the children the vision of Hell ?

She said "Pray, pray very much because many souls go into Hell." Our Lady opened Her hands and suddenly the three children saw a hole in the ground. That hole, said Lucy, was like a sea of fire in which we saw the souls in human forms, men and women, burning, shouting, and crying in despair. Lucy said demons looked like ugly and unknown animals. The children were so terrified that Lucy screamed. She was so afraid that she thought she would die. Mary said to the children: "You have seen Hell  where sinners go when they do not repent."

Diary of St. Faustina...on the Pains of her heart

929 When I had rested near His sweetest Heart, I told Him, "Jesus, I have so much to tell You." And the Lord said to me with great love, Speak, My daughter. And I started to enumerate the pains of my heart; that is, how greatly concerned I am for all mankind, that "they all do not know You, and those who do know You do not love You as You deserve to be loved. I also see how terribly sinners offend You; and then again, I see how severely the faithful, especially Your servants, are oppressed and persecuted. And then, too, I see many souls rushing headlong into the terrible abyss of hell. You see, Jesus, this is the pain that gnaws at my heart and bones. And, although You show me special love and inundate my heart with streams of Your joys, nevertheless, this does not appease the sufferings I have just mentioned, but rather they penetrate my poor heart all the more acutely. Oh, how ardently I desire that all mankind turn with trust to Your mercy. Then, seeing the glory of Your name, my heart will be comforted."

Jesus listened to these outpourings of my heart with gravity and interest, as if He had known nothing about them, and this seemed to make it easier for me to talk. And the Lord said to me, My daughter, those words of your heart are pleasing to Me, and by saying the chaplet you are bringing humankind closer to Me. After these words, I found myself alone, but the presence of God is always in my soul.

Intimacy with God......Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity

I leave you my faith in the presence of God, of the God who is all Love dwelling in our souls.

I confide to you:  it is this intimacy with Him 'within' which has been the beautiful sun illuminating my life,

making it already an anticipated heaven.

 

I think that in heaven my mission will be to draw souls, by helping them go out of themselves to cling to God by a wholly simple and loving movement, and to keep them in this great silence within, that will allow God to communicate Himself to them and transform them into Himself.
 
"It is there, right in the depths, in the Heaven of my soul, that I love to find Him since He never leaves me.
God in me, I in Him, oh! that is my life!"

"He is always there, although you don't feel it; He is waiting for you and wants to establish a 'wonderful communion' with you".

Diary of St. Faustina...on the Indwelling Presence of God

“I am aware that You are dwelling in me, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, or rather I am aware that it is I who am living in You, O incomprehensible God! (...) I have come to know You within my heart, and I have loved You above all things that exist on earth or in heaven” (Diary, 478). “I look for no happiness beyond my own interior where God dwells. I rejoice that God dwells within me; here I abide with Him unendingly; it is here that my greatest intimacy with Him exists; here I dwell with Him in safety; here is a place not probed by the human eye. The Blessed Virgin encourages me to commune with God in this way” (Diary, 454).

False Visions and the devil.........St. John of the Cross

St. John of the Cross writes

"... the devil causes many to believe in vain visions and false prophecies; and strives to make them presume that God and the saints are speaking with them; and they often trust their own fancy. And the devil is also accustomed, in this state, to fill them with presumption and pride, so that they become attracted by vanity and arrogance, and allow themselves to be seen engaging in outward acts which appear holy, such as raptures and other manifestations. Thus they become bold with God, and lose holy fear, which is the key and the custodian of all the virtues; and in some of these souls so many are the falsehoods and deceits which tend to multiply, and so inveterate do they grow, that it is very doubtful if such souls will return to the pure road of virtue and true spirituality."

Bloggers Note:  Today there are many false visionaries and prophets in the world. Those visionaries or mystics who are genuine are always those who are completely obedient to the Church authorities (no matter how harsh the  judgement), as St. Pio, St. Bernadette, St. Faustina and many others were.  They also have great humility, and usually suffer quite alot because of the revelations they receive.  They do not take money for their own personal use on the basis of being a visionary, healer or prophet.. 

Neither do they become Saints because of any 'spiritual experience' that they may have but only by the sanctification of their lives and through living out the virtues to an extraordinary degree.  It is always best for us to stay close to the Church and to what is already approved. 

One prime example of a false visionary is Magdalen of the Cross who was a Franciscan of Cordova, born in 1487, who entered a convent at age of 17. From the age of 5 the devil appeared to her as various Saints, led her to desire to be considered a saint. At 13 he said who he was, offered an agreement: he would spread her reputation for holiness, and give her at least 30 years of pleasures. She agreed, and it all came true--ecstasies, levitation, prophecies, simulated stigmata. She fooled many people in Spain, including Priests, Theologians, Bishops, Cardinals and Kings.  At the door of death she confessed. Exorcism was needed.

St. Faustinas Diary.... Gods love and the jealousy of satan

Diary 411

March 21, 1935. Often during Mass, I see the Lord in my soul; I feel His presence which pervades my being. I sense His divine gaze; I have long talks with Him without saying a word; I know what His divine Heart desires, and I always do what will please Him the most. 1 love Him to distraction, and I feel that I am being loved by God. At those times when I meet with God deep within myself, I feel so happy that I do not know how to express it. Such moments are short, for the soul could not bear it for long, as separation from the body would be inevitable. Though these moments are very short, their power, however, which is transmitted to the soul, remains with it for a very long time. Without the least effort, I experience the profound recollection which then envelops me-and it does not diminish even if I talk with people, nor does it interfere with the performance of my duties. I feel the constant presence of God without any effort of my soul. I know that I am united with Him as closely as a drop of water is united with the bottomless ocean.


Last Thursday, toward the end of my prayers, I felt this grace, and it lasted for an unusually long time, for it was throughout Mass, so that I thought I would die of joy. At such times, my knowledge of God and His attributes becomes more acute, and also I know my own self and my misery much better. I am amazed at the Lord's great condescension to such a miserable soul as mine. After Holy Mass, I felt completely immersed in God and am still conscious of His every glance into the depth of my heart. About midday I entered the chapel for a moment, ' and again the power of grace struck my heart. As I continued in a state of recollection, Satan took a flowerpot and angrily hurled it to the ground with all his might. I saw all his rage and his jealousy.

Sr. Josefa Menendez hears the Words of satan to other demons

Words of satan heard by Sr. Josefa Menendez  (From The Way of Divine Love)

'Insinuate yourselves by inducing carelessness in them. ..but keep in the background, so that you are not found out. ..by degrees they will become callous, and you will be able to incline them to evil. Tempt these others to ambition, to self-interest, to acquiring wealth without working, whether it be lawful or not. Excite some to sensuality and love of pleasure. Let vice blind them. ..As to the remainder. ..get in through the heart ...you know the inclinations of their hearts. .. make them love. ..love passionately. ..work thoroughly. ..take no rest. ..have no pity. Let them cram themselves with food! It will make it all the easier for us. ..Let them get on with their banqueting. Love of pleasure is the door through which you will reach them. ..' " (February 3, 1923).

Diary of St. Faustina .....on the Glory of Divine Mercy despite opposition

Diary 1659
Still, in order to write anything at all, I must make use of words, though they cannot render all of what my soul enjoyed on seeing the glory of God’s mercy. The glory of the Divine Mercy is resounding, even now, in spite of the efforts of its enemies and satan himself, who has a great hatred for God’s mercy. This work will snatch a great number of souls from him, and that is why the spirit of darkness sometimes tempts good people violently, so that they may hinder the work. But I have clearly seen that the will of God is already being carried out, and that it will be accomplished to the very last detail. The enemy’s greatest efforts will not thwart the smallest detail of what the Lord has decreed. No matter if there are times when the work seems to be completely destroyed; it is then that the work is being all the more consolidated.