Wounded Love

August 5
I can not describe what took place in this period so intense martyrdom. He was confessing our five boys afternoon, when suddenly terrified me the sight of a celestial character, presented to me in the eyes of intelligence. He was holding a sort of harness, like a very long iron blade with a very sharp tip, and seemed to point out that fire.See all this and see that this character with all violence threw the harness that in soul, was all one. I let out a moan with difficulty, I was dying. I told the boy to withdraw because I felt bad and had no strength to continue.This martyrdom lasted, without interruption, until the morning of the seventh. What I suffered in this tragic period I could not express it. He saw into the bowels were torn and stretched after that harness, and it was all gone iron and fire. Since that day I am mortally wounded. I feel in the depths of the soul a wound that is always open and I have to continually forward.Is not this a new punishment I inflict divine justice? Judge for yourself how true this statement and if not I have every reason to fear and live in extreme distress.
 (August 21, 1918, to Father Benedict of San Marco in Lamis - Ep. I, p. 1061)