First step: prepare yourself In the morning, as I wake up, I prepare myself by saying: «Today I shall await Him.» I don’t know what the day will bring, but I know that in an unforeseen way, Jesus Forsaken will come to me: in the difficulties, disappointments, perhaps also in my shortcomings, and in bad and painful news. I declare that He will come, and that I am awaiting him.
Second step: recognise him During the day, almost always in an unexpected manner, I meet the negativity around me or in me. At these moments it is important to recognize him immediately without hesitation. He, in his abandonment, is already present in every need or fault: in such a way that every pain is “his sacrament” and what matters, within the sign of this pain, is to recognise the countenance of the Crucified and Abandoned, loving and adoring him immediately.
Third step: call him by his name Upon meeting him, I am not only aware, but observe and greet him. I call him by his name. Giving a name to every countenance of Jesus Forsaken is a precious exercise and much more than a superficial act. It is no longer “a thing” but a “You.” Precisely in this way, every action of mine becomes contemplation.
Fourth step: welcome him warmly Prepare a feast for Jesus Forsaken. By this I mean welcoming him not only hesitatingly, as if it were an inevitable fact, or like welcoming someone who, despite being a friend, drops by at the wrong moment. Furthermore, I don’t want him to sit in the waiting room even for an instant, but will welcome him right away, in the heart of my love and joyful willingness. This is the transition of pain to love, passing through the abandonment in Easter. Only through one who loves in this way will the Forsaken give joy to the world. The feast we prepare for the Forsaken is that feast day which will not see the sunset, because Love never sets.
VOL 14, February 26, 1922- How Jesus covered us with beauty in Redemption.
"I was thinking about the great good that Jesus had done to us by redeeming us; and He, all goodness , told me:" My daughter, I created the creature beautiful , noble, with eternal and divine origin, full of happiness and worthy of Me. Sin ruined him from top to bottom, it made him decay from his nobility, it deformed him, and rendered him the most unhappy creature, unable to grow, because sin stopped his growth and covered him with wounds, such as to be repugnant to the mere sight. Now, my redemption ransomed the creature from sin, and my Humanity acted just like a tender mother with her newborn baby: since there is no other food with witch she can give life to her baby, she opens her breast and attaches her baby to it ; and from her own blood, converted into milk, she administers to him the nourishment to give him life. More than mother , my Humanity made many holes be opened in Itself by blows of lash, which , almost like many breasts,, sent out rivers of blood, so that my children , by attaching themselves to them ,might suckle the food to receive life and develop their growth. With my wounds I covered their deformities, rendering them more beautiful than before. And if, in creating them, I made them like clearest and noble heavens, in Redemption I adorned them, studding them with the most refulgent stars of my wounds so as to cover theirugliness and make them more beautiful. To their wounds and deformities I attached the diamonds, the pearls, the jewels of my pains in order to hide all their evils and cloth them with such magnificence as to surpass their state of origin" .
Thank you Jesus for giving your life to embellish ours. May we correspond with your same love on behalf of all souls and for all souls ....fiat always