samen - 4

Who can say how frightened I was at such announcement? 

I felt my blood freeze, my hair curl, my imagination filled by black ghosts that seemed to want to devour me alive. It seemed to me that, before putting me in that painful state, the Lord gave freedom to everything I was to suffer, and I saw myself surrounded by all this. 

So I turned to Him, and said to Him: 

“Lord, have pity on me! O please! do not leave me alone and abandoned. I see that the rage of the demons is such that they will leave not even the dust of me—how will I be able to resist them? My misery, and how bad I am, is well known to You. 

Therefore, give me New Grace that I may not offend You. My Lord, the pain that most torments my soul is to see that You too must leave me. Ah! to whom will I say a word any more? Who will teach me? However, may Your Will be always done—I Bless Your Holy Will.”

And He, benignly, continued to say: 

“Do not afflict yourself so much. Know that I will never allow them to tempt you beyond your strengths. If I allow this, it is for your good.

I never put souls in battles so that they may perish. First I measure their strengths, I give them My Grace, and then I put them in. And if some souls fall, it is because they do not remain united to Me by means of prayer. No longer feeling the sensitivity of My Love, they go begging for love from creatures, while I alone can satiate the human heart. 

They do not let themselves be guided by the sure path of obedience, believing more in their own judgment, than in those who guide them in My Place. So, what is the wonder if they fall?

Therefore, what I recommend to you is prayer. Even if you should suffer pains of death, you must never neglect that which you are used to doing. Even more, the more you see yourself in the abyss, the more you will invoke the help of the One who can free you. 

Still more, I want you to place yourself, blindly, in the hands of the confessor, without examining what is being said to you. You will be surrounded by darkness, and will be like one who has no eyes, and who needs a hand to guide her. The eye for you will be the voice of the confessor, which, like light, will clear the darkness from you. The hand will be obedience, which will be your guide and support to make you reach a safe harbor. 

~bron~