Volume One-Study/Formation
VOLUME 1-Study # 1
Detachment from people.
The Divine Master began and set His hands to the work of detaching my heart from all creatures, and with an interior voice He said to me:
“I am the only One who deserves to be loved.
Look, if you do not remove this little world that surrounds you—that is, thoughts of creatures and imaginings—I cannot freely enter your heart. This murmur in your mind is an obstacle*:
• to letting you hear my voice more clearly,
• to pouring mygraces into you, and
• to making you truly fall in love with Me.
Promise Me to be entirely Mine and I Myself will set My hands to the work. You are right that you can do nothing, but do not fear; I will do everything. Give Me your will, and that is enough for Me.”
And this happened more frequently during Communion; and I promised to be entirely His, asked His forgiveness if until then I had not been so, told Him that I truly wanted to love Him, and begged Him never again to leave me alone without Him.
And the voice continued:
“No, no; I will stay with you to observe all your actions, your movements, and your desires.”
And all day long I felt Him upon me; He reproved me for everything. For example, if I spent more time chatting with the family about indifferent or unnecessary things, the interior voice would say to me:
“These conversations fill your mind with things that do not belong to Me; they surround your heart with dust, so that my grace is felt as weak in you, no longer alive. Ah! imitate Me when I was in the house of Nazareth: my mind was occupied with nothing other than the glory of my Father and the salvation of souls; my mouth spoke nothing but holy conversation; with my words I sought to repair the offenses against my Father, to dart hearts and draw them to my love—first of all my Mother and Saint Joseph. In a word, everything spoke of God, everything was done for God, and everything referred to Him. Why can you not do the same?”
I was left mute and utterly confused, and then I tried to remain alone as much as possible. I confessed my weakness to Him and asked for help and grace to do what He wanted, for by myself I knew how to do nothing but evil.
Suggestions:
Alejandra Acuña
• Reread, reflecting on each phrase—for example, the first one: “I am the only one who deserves to be loved.” Reflect on the immense Divine love for each person: He is the only One who has loved us even before we were conceived; He created everything for you, preserved it; He redeemed you, etc. Then continue with the next phrase: “if you do not remove this little world… thoughts… imaginations…” Reflect on it and try to exercise greater control over our thoughts and imaginations… etc.
• Speak with Jesus—like Luisa—making good resolutions regarding thoughts, imaginations, and conversations that are unnecessary, entrusting everything to Him, giving Him your will, asking for His help…
• During the day, make the effort to remove useless thoughts and words and replace them with the thought of Jesus; to give Him your will and your thoughts, to love Him, to thank Him, to pray for others, etc.
• Imagine yourself living in Nazareth with the Holy Family; reflect on how They carried out Their actions, how They offered them; model my own actions after Theirs, perform them, and offer them united with Theirs.
Way of Loving People in God.- Study # 2
(Vol. 1)
In the previous passage of Volume 1, Jesus taught us how to detach ourselves from all creatures and to focus our heart and our love solely on Him (“you shall love God with all your being and above all things”). Now, in this passage, He teaches us how to love our neighbor in an ordered and supernatural way – by Him, with Him, and in Him (“…and you shall love your neighbor…”)
Luisa writes:
“One morning, after Communion, my Beloved Jesus gave me a light so clear about the great love He had for me, and about the fickleness and inconstancy of creatures, that my heart was so convinced as to be incapable, from that time on, of loving anyone (in the human way).
He taught me how to love people without detaching myself from Him – that is, by looking at creatures as images of God, in such a way that:
- if I received good from creatures, I was to think that God alone was the prime author of that good and that He had used the creature in order to send it to me; so my heart would be bound more to God.
- If then I received mortifications, I was to look at them also as instruments in the hands of God for my sanctification; so my heart would not be resentful of my neighbor.
- -In this way, it happened that I would look at all creatures in God.
- -Whatever defect I might see in them, I would never lose esteem for them.
- If they mocked me, I felt obliged, thinking that they were allowing me to make more gains for my soul;
- if they praised me, I received these praises with contempt, saying: ‘Today this, tomorrow they may hate me’, considering their inconstancy.
In sum, my heart acquired such freedom, that I myself cannot explain it.
Suggestions:
Alejandra Acuña
* Reread slowly, meditating on each phrase in order to understand it, and ask God for the grace to love all our neighbors in this way, to see them as His image, as a means for our purification and sanctification, in His hands.
* Make the resolution to actually live this out in daily life, especially with those who are more difficult for us.
* Pray, entrust to God, and ask graces for all people: those who have done us good and those who have caused us suffering. By carrying out these interior exercises daily, not only will we learn to love our neighbor according to God’s Will and as Jesus loves us, but it will also gradually heal the wounds we may carry within us…
VOLUME 1, Study #3
CORRESPONDENCE TO GRACE
• Inner purification and illumination
• Pleasing God alone. Removing “human respect”
• God has a great personal plan for each person
• Correspondence to Grace
• The core of the spiritual life in general, and even more so in the Divine Will: to be a perfect image of Jesus, embracing His entire life
• Jesus teaches us gradually, little by little
• Spiritual discipline
• Humility: recognizing that I can do nothing by myself. Example: a baby
• Removing spiritual pride, very subtle, common, and dangerous
Correspondence of Grace
When the Divine Master freed me from the external world, then He put His hand into purifying my interior, and through an interior voice He told me: “Now we are alone – there is no one left who may disturb us. Aren’t you happier now than before, when you had to content many upon many? You see, it is easier to content one alone. You must consider as if you and I were alone in the world; promise Me to be faithful, and I will pour such and so many graces into you, that you yourself will be amazed."
Then He continued, telling me:
“I have made great designs upon you, as long as you correspond to Me – I want to make of you a perfect image of Me, beginning from the moment I was born up to my death. I Myself will tea…
[6:59 PM, 1/30/2026] Mary Zirkle: Correspondence
(Vol. 2: August 2, 1899)
“See how many graces I was to pour upon the creatures, but since I find no correspondence, I am forced to retain them within Myself; even more, they make Me change them into chastisement.
Be careful, you, oh my daughter, to correspond to Me in the so many graces I am pouring into you, because correspondence is the open door to let Me enter into the heart and form in it my dwelling. Correspondence is like that good welcome, that esteem, which is used with people when they come to visit us, in such a way that, drawn by that respect, by those affable manners used with them, they are forced to come again, and reach the point of not being able to detach themselves. Everything is in corresponding to Me, and according to how souls correspond to Me and treat Me on earth, so will I behave with them in Heaven. Making them find the doors open, I will invite the whole Celestial Court to welcome them, and I will place them on the most sublime throne; but it will be all the opposite for those who do not correspond to Me.”
VOLUME 1 Study #4
Humility versus pride
I don’t remember for sure, but it seems to me that He told me that the first thing which was necessary in order to purify the interior of my heart, was the annihilation of myself – that is, humility. And He continued, telling me:
“See, so that I may pour my graces into your heart, I really want to make you understand that by yourself you can do nothing. I am very much wary of those souls who attribute what they do to themselves, wanting to make of my graces as many thefts.
On the other hand, with those who know themselves, I am generous in pouring my graces in torrents. Knowing very well
* that they can attribute nothing to themselves,
* they are grateful to Me,
* they hold it in that esteem which befits it,
* and they live with the continuous fear that, if they do not correspond to Me, I may take away from them that which I gave, knowing that it is not something of their own.
All the opposite in the hearts which reek of pride. I cannot even enter into their hearts because they are so swollen with themselves that there is no space in which to put Myself. The miserable ones take my graces into no account, and they go from fall to fall, up to their ruin.
Therefore, on this day I want you to make continuous acts of humility; I want you to be like a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, who can move neither a foot to take a step, nor a hand to work, but expects everything from his mother. In the same way, you will stay close to Me like a baby, always praying Me to assist you, to help you; always confessing to Me your nothingness – in sum, expecting everything from Me.”
I tried to do as much as I could to content Him – I would make myself smaller, I would annihilate myself, and sometimes I reached the point of feeling my being as almost undone, in such a way that I could not work, nor take one step, or even one breath if He did not sustain me.
Suggestions:
Alejandra Acuña
* Meditate on the harm caused by pride. Ask God for light to recognize where I am proud, so as to remove it.
* Meditate on attitudes of humility before God; ask Jesus for help to practice them and to be like that baby.
* Invite Jesus to act in me and together with me, with His Most Holy Will in everything.