At the conclusion of this year

Upon completion of this year I want to raise my eyes to you. You who live in heaven and you are always present on Earth. You, who are the only reason for my life, my life, my history and my vocation.Raised his eyes to Thee Heavenly Father, Father of mercies and God of all comfort. But most eyes lift up my heart. My heart filled with immense gratitude, so that words can not describe. Today is a wonderful day. And I know my God, eternal and true, I know that today is yesterday, ie tomorrow, ie forever. Yes, always, always, always, because they are always spilling your grace in abundance in all your children, even in those who are not even aware of it by. What grace! Much love! Much heaven on Earth! What a mercy! True eternal God is it time to take a test? Is it time to take stock of my life? Is it time to come face to face with? And an enlarged heart, enlarged and pounding to feel immensely loved by you. With a love that hurts to the core of the bowels. A love that calcined with a flame that is not extinguished and that is becoming more intense, more intense, more intense.My God! all I see, all I know is all I feel your loving presence I see the ocean of your Holiness and discover my sin and my poverty. The more you stare at your beauty, Your holiness, Your sovereignty and Your humility, the more I discover the immense need I have of you. Lord and my God! Sweet love of my soul! I fully realize that there is absolutely nothing in me that can attract your eyes, your love, your mercy and compassion, than the immense love I have, but my sin, my poverty, my lack of love make me unworthy You. However, it has been your goodness and compassion that has filled me with every grace and every gift. Today I can only say: thanks for the gift of each day. Thank you for my life, thank you for my death, thanks for my vocation, thanks for my brothers, thank you for the gift of so many people who profess no merit me a love, a love and a closeness that I speak of Thee Oh Lord Almighty . Thanks for the daily bread, your Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks for the food item that restores my strength and I prepared for combat. Thanks for the penalties that have been a source of joy. Thanks for making me discover that I'm just a poor instrument in your hands and that you and only you can do great and wonderful things. Thank you for my family. Thanks for all my friends, relatives, benefactors and acquaintances. Thanks for every one of those this year have crossed my path, and santifícalas Lord bless them. Thank you for the sun, moon, stars, rain, wind, snow and cold. Thank you for your love my God and my Lord. Amen!

He follows me everywhere

 
Dec. 31
I fully realize that there is nothing in me that can attract the attention of our sweet Jesus. It was only his goodness that has filled my soul for many goods. He almost never loses sight of me, he follows me everywhere enlivens my life poisoned by sin; dissipated in dense clouds me where my soul is wrapped after sin. As soon as, closing my eyes, I see down the veil of the night, I see heaven opened before me, and happy with this vision, I sleep with a happy smile on my lips and a total calm in the face, waiting for my small childhood companion come to wake up, and so sing together the praises morning the beloved of our hearts.
Oh, my father, if my knowledge of reality awakens in you a thought that is not compassion, route it, I beg you, on my behalf, my beloved, as evidence of recognition and gratitude.
  (October 14, 1912, Father Agustin de San Marco in Lamis - Letters. I, p. 306)

Jesus receives his embrace, a kiss that sanctifies you and save you.

Dec. 27I encourage you to join me and me closer to Jesus for his embrace, a kiss that sanctifies us and save us. Listen to that effect to the holy King David, who invites devoutly kiss the Son: "Kiss the Son", for this son of the royal prophet speaks here is none other than that of which the prophet Isaiah said: "A child has born, a son given to us: Puer Natus Est Nobis, filius datus est nobis. "This child, Raffaelina, is one loving brother, that our souls beloved husband, the wife of the sacred Song, faithful soul figure, the company sought and longed for his kisses divine 'you would give me a brother My, you look and kiss you. Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth. " This son is Jesus, and how to kiss without betrayal of clasp him in our arms without trap him how to give the kiss and the embrace of grace and love, waiting for us, and we promise to return, is, according St. Bernard, serve with true affection, holy deeds done in their heavenly doctrines, we profess with words.Let us not, therefore, to kiss that way to this divine Son, because if you are like the kisses that we give now, he will, as promised, full of mercy and love, come to take her in his arms, to give the kiss of peace in the last rites at the time of death, and so end our life with the Lord's holy kiss; admirable kiss of divine condescension, in which, in the words of St. Bernard, not about face to face, mouth to mouth, but mutually bind for all eternity with the creature creator, man with God.
 (March 30, 1915, to Raffaelina Cerase - Letters. II, p. 482)

The Lord and the Blessed Virgin ever make you worthy of eternal glory

Dec. 22
I wish you happy holidays again the Holy Child with all your precious family. The Lord and the Blessed Virgin ever make you worthy of eternal glory. With this faith and with these sentiments, I wish you all happy holidays from the beautiful Holy Child Jesus' birth, and fervent hope that I can repeat for as long as possible in life, and always growing charity, which is the queen and mother of all virtues.
Oh, how sublime is the beautiful virtue of charity that brought us the Christ Child! Everyone should carry in your heart, and especially those who profess holiness. This holiness the Lord, without any merit on your part, called you, and if it is true that I see you on track in charity, why not leave to invite you to follow continuously advancing every day in it.
  (December 22, 1914, to Raffaelina Cerase - Letters. II, p. 280)

Children welcome my poor prayers

 
Dec. 21

For the holidays of Holy Christmas and New Year, with a heart full of appreciation and affection than filial, I send my warmest congratulations, asking the child heavenly spiritual and temporal happiness.No doubt, the father of your child does comply, as it allows its smallness, its duty to our common father, with the firm hope of seeing their wishes fulfilled. Embrace the child to be born poor and weak my prayers, that you turn these days, with the most holy insistence, by Order, superiors, the province and the entire Church.Hear how curious phenomenon is occurring in me for some time, and, on the other hand, it is worrying. In prayer happens to me that I forget to pray for those who have been entrusted to me (not all, is true) or those for whom he intended to pray. Before I pray, I try to commit, for example, to this or that person, but my god, as soon as I walk in prayer, my mind is more complete in a vacuum and in it there is not the slightest trace of what they desired.Other times, however, being in prayer, I am moved to pray for those who never had any intention of praying and, what is more wonderful, sometimes in favor of those who have never met, or seen, or heard, and that never have been entrusted to me, even through others.And sooner or later, the Lord always hears these appeals. May the Lord make you aware of the true meaning of this new phenomenon as strange as, and if God wants you after I appear, please do not deprive me of it.
 (December 20, 1910, Father Benedict of San Marco in Lamis - Letters. I, p. 442)

God comes to meet us

 
Dec. 20
My beloved father, Holy Christmas approaching, I find that a duty of conscience urges me not pass up without deseársela full of all those heavenly comforts you desire in your heart. Although I have always prayed for you, that person was and is very dear to me, these days I will certainly redouble my prayers to the heavenly Child, deign to preserve him from all disgrace in this world, especially the misfortune to lose Child Jesus.
My poor health continues its course with his best and worst moments. I suffer, it is true, and I suffer a lot, but I'm happy because, even in the midst of suffering, the Lord never ceases to make me experience an indescribable joy.
  (December 20, 1910, Father Benedict of San Marco in Lamis - Letters. I, p. 208)

My spirit has felt like being reborn into a new life.

 
Dec. 17
At the beginning of the holy novena in honor of the holy child Jesus, my spirit has felt like being reborn to new life: the heart feels like quite small to hold the celestial, the soul feels faint in the presence of all of this our God made flesh for us.What to do to resist not always love him with new ardor?! Oh, let us approach the infant Jesus with blameless heart, and what we taste is sweet and gentle love.
I will not ever, let alone in these holy days, to implore the Divine Child for all men, especially for you and everyone you love. We pray that wants to make you partaker of all the gifts so generously poured and poured every day in my mind.
  (December 17, 1914, to Raffaelina Cerase - Letters. II, p.273)

My God, take me to repentance

 My God, you know it, send to less light to guide me to discover what I can not find: the true source of many evils in your creature. I never had my faculties as unable and closed.What is this suffering for the will, memory and understanding! I think, for a will that seeks and desires at least willing good, is harsh and unconscionable suffering this penalty.
And similarly, for whom, enriched with many memories of God's greatness in their attributes and rights, and in relation to itself, of its obligations and the veneration due to its creator, death is suffering from an inability to understand what is discovered after mysteriously. [...].
The understanding is as crushed under the die, and, although it has a lot of knowledge, is blind, blind as a painful experience that only those who may say something true about it. And above all, so it seems to me, is absolutely unbearable suffering to an understanding that, from the beginning of its activity, the tests have become more clever and then wins the luminosísimos ray contrast of true life.
My God, take me to repentance, Make me a sincere contrition and conversion firm my heart to you.
  (September 5, 1918, to Father Benedict of San Marco in Lamis - Letters. I, p. 1071)

I am immersed in an ocean of fire

Dec. 15

I am immersed in an ocean of fire wound again I was open, bleeds and bleeds forever. It would suffice to cause me one thousand and sometimes death. Oh, my God, why do not you die? Or do you not see that, for you have wounded soul, until life is torment him? So cruel you are to remain deaf to the cries of those who suffer, and not confortas? But what do I say? ... Forgive me, Father, I'm beside myself, I do not know what I'm saying. Too much pain that I caused the wound that is always open, makes me furious against my will makes me leave me and leads to delirium, and I find myself unable to resist.Tell me, father, clearly: offend the Lord in these excesses that fall? What should I do to not displease the Lord, if the cry is impetuous and no force able to resist?My God! ... soon ... I leave the physical life, as they are useless all efforts to escape from spiritual death. Heaven, I believe, has been closed for me, and all efforts and cries turn against me, like arrows, to mortally wound my poor heart. My prayer seems useless to me and my broken spirit, the first attempt to rediscover the exit, he meets who deprives him of all courage and power, desanimándolo in utter helplessness and nothingness, in order not anything risking follow, and if it is true that when you venture again, it is reduced to impotence.
 (September 5, 1918, to Father Benedict of San Marco in Lamis - Letters. I, p. 1071)

Consumete to please God

Dec. 14
Continued consumiéndote in that ardent desire to please him: and he that is so good and not look too closely, reward those holy desires, making you grow and advance in his paths holy.
Experience all to himself, away from you forever all those useless thoughts that fill the heart of vanity and confuse and obfuscate the understanding.
In all your actions, even in the most indifferent, looking earnestly perform them with the right intention of pleasing God, rejecting even the smallest desire of the good itself. What most valuable asset for the soul that please the Lord?
In relation to yourself, always have a humble attitude, convinced that all the services that the soul can offer to God, even if they are many, are always little, and if achieved honor and merit, it is by the grace of the Lord.
(September 12, 1915, to Anita Rodote - Letters. III, p 98).

And will spend the winter you eternal spring

Dec. 11
The longing to be in eternal peace is good, is holy, but must temper it with complete resignation to the will of God. It is best to do the will of God on earth to enjoy in heaven. Suffering and death, was the desire of Saint Theresa. Purgatory is sweet when suffering for love of God.
The tests, to which God subjects and I submit, are all signs of divine favor and jewelry for the soul. Will, my dears, winter and spring come the endless, the richer the more harsh beauties have been storms. The darkness that you are experiencing is a sign of the nearness of God to your souls.
(December 11, 1916, the sisters Ventrella - Letters. III, p. 548)

Remember me in your prayers

Dec. 10
Continue, my good sisters and daughters, reminding me the treasure of your prayers, especially at this time when I'm going through a tough test, and be assured that I will continue to want strongly and spiritual health to the body, in addition to that grace you already know.In my poor, yes, but also repeated prayers, I will not forget you or how many I make it I do love you. Jesus and the Blessed Virgin will be worthy to grant eternal glory. With this faith and hope, I wish you all the goods of heaven.Now go to your spiritual needs. These perplexities of mind that are going to experience malignant wiles of the tempter, and God allows them, not because they hate you, but because he loves you. It is reprehensible feeling, but consent. And I encourage you in the sweet Lord to be quiet, as neither offend you in the Lord and that the Lord hides to punish your infidelities, which I declare in the name and in virtue of holy obedience, you are not given in at least made with full knowledge and strong will.
(December 11, 1916, the sisters Ventrella - Letters. III, p. 548)Persons engaged in the "things of God" and the establishment of His Kingdom, co often suffer from the attacks of the enemy for the good they do in God's Name. The frustrations, pain, suffering, misunderstanding and loneliness are eaten every day for the chosen souls. How valuable is the soul that aspires to perfection and that force of the blow of the hammer on the sincel is being left increasingly to sculpt the likeness of the Master, Lord and Sovereign God. He himself is the architect and sculptor of his magnificent work that we are each and every one of those who are left modeling, mold, pet and love for Him, even at the cost of pain and suffering with the full assurance that He will be our joy and fulfillment. So always pray and not lose heart for whom He has chosen as heralds, prophets, peacemakers and sanctifying his people. We all need your prayers.

Fight as brave and have the prize of strong souls

Dec. 7
Remember, my brave daughter, that God can reject everything in a creature conceived in sin and bearing the indelible imprint inherited from Adam, but in no way can reject the sincere desire to love. So if for other reasons can not be sure of heavenly mercy to you, and do not want to believe me that I speak in the Lord, you should at least be safe for that reason.
In conclusion, you can and should be calm and happy. Believe me that I speak on behalf of God. Take away those fears, those shadows away with the demon is obscuring your soul to haunt you in and out, if possible, of frequent communion and the way of perfection.
I know the Lord allows these assaults the enemy, because his mercy makes you welcome him and wish him asemejes you in the throes of the desert, the garden and the cross, but you must defend yourself away and neglecting their malignant insinuations. Have I explained? Courage, then, and always forward. Fight as brave and have the prize of strong souls.
(December 6, 1916, Herminia Gargani - Letters. III, p. 659)

Be humble, patient and resigned to the will of God

December 6Go ahead and convince yourself that God is pleased with you and that you found in your peaceful abode. Do not expect to Tabor to see God as you contemplate, without you noticing, in Sinai. I think yours is not disturbed and unable inner like the good, cause they can desire no more than the highest good in itself and not in their gifts. The reflections of the mind, involuntary distractions, temptations, etc.., Are products offered by the enemy, but, because they are rejected by you, in them there is nothing wrong. When the devil gets noise is good sign, is a sign that he wants your will and therefore that it is outside. What should frighten you, my dear sister and daughter, is their peace and harmony with the human soul.In periods of aridity of spirit, be humble, patient and resigned to the divine will, and do not neglect anything you used to do in times of spiritual joy, because true love is not experience many comforts to serve God, but a will always ready to do whatever God wants to send us to our spiritual growth and His glory.Always create all this, and do not mind the effort and believe with suffering of the soul, without you see the reasons for it. Also believed suffering martyrs. The more beautiful the Creed pronounced making the sacrifice and violence.
(December 6, 1916, Herminia Gargani - Letters. III, p. 659)

Not abandoned but love what God shows

December 5
Not abandoned but love that shows you the sweetest Jesus. In no way is it true that you, in this state of dryness and desolation of spirit that made ​​you the most loving Savior, offend God, because his grace guard you very well preserved for such offenses.
Therefore, if, as is true not offend God and, conversely, what you love in this situation dear to him, what made you to distress?, Why do you have to grieve? Resumes, then you rise to the cross, lie about it and be patient with yourself, because your patience - he says the divine Teacher - save your soul. And this situation will be more durable is the less mixed with worries and concerns.
(December 6, 1916, Herminia Gargani - Letters. III, p. 659)

God perfects your life to the extent that you let him

December 4
With repeated blows of sharp chisel and work diligently to polish them, usually the divine artist preparing the stones must enter the building eternal. So the Church sings the anthem of the office of the dedication of a church, and so indeed. In the long and varied test yours by choosing your state of life, the Lord, in his infinite goodness, adds the spiritual fear and trembling, with a complement of desolation.
Thank him, then, to treat you like a choice to follow Jesus closely in the ascent to Calvary. I contemplate with joy and excitement of spirit thus act of grace on thee, dearest daughter of my heart. If you do not look so shaken, not be so happy because you would see that the Lord gives less jewelry. That is why I, who strongly desire holy charity with your progress and joy and I am increasingly thinking of this situation.
(December 6, 1916, Herminia Gargani - Letters. III, p. 659)

Renew the concern of your heart

December 3
St. Augustine said it well: "May our heart is restless until it rests on the object of his love."
But you know very well that perfect love is reached when you own the object of this love, but the object of this love only possess when, not through veils, but face to face, as St. Paul says, the soul see how it is, when you know how we know ourselves, and this can not be achieved but when opening the doors of our prison.
From this you can deduce the great suffering which should mean the soul that God has found some of its treasures in heaven, be still on the road, in the land of exile.
(April 4, 1915, to Raffaelina Cerase - Letters. II, p. 403)