The excerpt below comes from Saint Faustina’s diary. Saint Faustina was a Polish nun and mystic. She reported having several visions and conversations with both Jesus and Mary, capturing these encounters in her diary, writing in it till she could no longer physically write, due to illness. Through her, we received gifts from God such as the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and the Image of the Divine Mercy.
“O my Jesus, You are the life of my life. You know only too well that I long for nothing but the glory of Your Name and that souls come to know Your goodness. Why do souls avoid You, Jesus? — I don’t understand that. Oh, if I could only cut my heart into tiny pieces and in this way offer to You, O Jesus, each piece as a heart whole and entire, to make up in part for the hearts that do not love You! I love You, Jesus, with every drop of my blood, and I would gladly shed my blood for You to give You a proof of the sincerity of my love. O God, the more I know You the less I can comprehend You, but this ‘non-comprehension’ lets me realize how great You are! And it is this impossibility of comprehending You which enflames my heart anew for You, O Lord. From the moment when You let me fix the eyes of my soul on You, O Jesus, I have been at peace and desired nothing else, I found my destiny at the moment when my soul lost itself in You, the only object of my love. In comparison with you, everything is nothing. Sufferings, adversities, humiliations, failures and suspicions that have come my way are splinters that keep alive the fire of my love for You, O Jesus.
My desires are mad and unattainable. I wish to conceal from You that I suffer. I want (23) never to be rewarded for my efforts and my good actions. You Yourself, Jesus, are my only reward; You are enough, O Treasure of my heart! I want to share compassionately in the sufferings of my neighbors and to conceal my own sufferings, not only from them, but also from You, Jesus.
Suffering is a great grace; through suffering the soul becomes like the Savior; in suffering love becomes crystallized; the greater the suffering, the purer the love.”—Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul
