Diary of Saint Maria Faustina
The Eight-day Retreat before Perpetual Vows.
218 I am beginning the retreat today. Jesus, my Master, guide me. Govern me according to Your will, purify my love that it may be worthy of You, do with me as Your most merciful Heart desires. Jesus, there will be just the two of us during these days until the moment of our union. Keep me, Jesus, in a recollected spirit!
219 In the evening, the Lord said to me, My daughter, let nothing frighten or disconcert you. Remain deeply at peace. Everything is in My hands. I will give you to understand everything through Father Andrasz. Be like a child towards him.
A Moment Before the Blessed Sacrament.
220 O my eternal Lord and Creator, how am I going to thank You for this great favor; namely, that You have deigned to choose miserable me to be Your betrothed and that You are to unite me to Yourself in an eternal bond? O dearest Treasure of my heart, I offer You all the adoration and thanksgiving of the Saints and of all the choirs of Angels, and I unite myself in a special way with Your Mother. O Mary, my Mother, I humbly beg of You, cover my soul with Your virginal cloak at this very important moment of my life, so that thus I may become dearer to Your Son and may worthily praise Your Son’s mercy before the whole world and throughout all eternity.
221 I could not understand the meditation today. My spirit was so extraordinarily immersed in God. I could not force myself to think about what the priest was saying during the retreat [conferences]. I am often unable to think according to the points; my spirit is with the Lord, and that is my meditation.
222 A few words from my conference with Mother Directress, Mary Joseph. She clarified many things for me, and she set me at peace as regards my spiritual life, reassuring me that I was on the right path. I thanked the Lord Jesus for this great favor, for she is the first of the superiors who did not cause me any doubts in this regard. Oh, how infinitely good God is!
223 O living Host, my one and only strength, fountain of love and mercy, embrace the whole world, fortify faint souls. Oh, blessed be the instant and the moment when Jesus left us His most merciful Heart!
224 To suffer without complaining, to bring comfort to others and to drown my own sufferings in the most Sacred Heart of Jesus! I will spend all my free moments at the feet of [Our Lord in] the Blessed Sacrament. At the feet of Jesus, I will seek light, comfort and strength. I will show my gratitude unceasingly to God for His great mercy towards me, never forgetting the favors He has bestowed on me, especially the grace of a vocation. I will hide myself among the sisters like a little violet among lilies. I want to blossom for my Lord and Maker, to forget about myself, to empty myself totally for the sake of immortal souls — this is my delight.
+ A few of my thoughts.
225 As regards Holy Confession, I shall choose what costs and humiliates me most. Sometimes a trifle costs more than something greater. I will call to mind the Passion of Jesus at each confession, to arouse my heart to contrition. Insofar as possible, with the grace of God, I will always practice perfect contrition. I will devote more time to this contrition. Before I approach the confessional, I shall first enter the open and most merciful Heart of the Savior. When I leave the confessional, I shall rouse in my soul great gratitude to the Holy Trinity for this wonderful and inconceivable miracle of mercy that is wrought in my soul. And the more miserable my soul is, the more I feel the ocean of God’s mercy engulfing me and giving me strength and great power.
226 The rules that I most often fail to obey: sometimes I break silence; disobedience to the signal of the bell; sometimes I meddle in other people’s affairs. I will do my very best to improve. I will avoid sisters who grumble, and if they cannot be avoided, I will at least keep silent before them, thus letting them know how sorry I am to hear such things. I must take no heed of the opinion of others, but obey the evidence of my own conscience and take God to be the witness of all my actions. I must do everything and act in all matters now as I would like to do and act at the hour of my death. For this reason, in every action I must be mindful of God.
Avoid presumed permissions. I must report [even] small things to my superiors, and do so in as much detail as is possible. I must be faithful in my spiritual exercises; I must not easily ask to be dispensed from them. I must keep silence outside the time of recreation, and avoid jokes and witty words that make others laugh and break silence. I must have great appreciation for even the most minute rules. I must not let myself become absorbed in the whirl of work, [but] take a break to look up to heaven. Speak little with people, but a good deal with God. Avoid familiarity. I must pay little attention as to who is for me and who is against me. I must not tell others about those things I have had to put up with. I must avoid speaking out loud to others during work. I must maintain peace and equanimity during times of suffering. In difficult moments, I must take refuge in the wounds of Jesus; I must seek consolation, comfort, light and affirmation in the wounds of Jesus.
227 +In the midst of trials I will try to see the loving hand of God. Nothing is as constant as suffering — it always faithfully keeps the soul company. O Jesus, I will let no one surpass me in loving You!
+ O Jesus, hidden in the Blessed Sacrament,
228 You see that in pronouncing my perpetual vows I am leaving the novitiate68 today. Jesus, You know how weak and little I am, and so from today on, I am entering Your novitiate in a very special way. I continue to be a novice, but Your novice, Jesus, and You will be my Master to the last day. Daily I will attend lectures at Your feet. I will not do the least thing by myself, without consulting You first as my Master. Jesus, how happy I am that You Yourself have drawn me and taken me into Your novitiate; that is to say, into the tabernacle. In making my perpetual vows, I have by no means become a perfect nun. No, no! I am still a weak little novice of Jesus, and I must strive to acquire perfection as I did in the first days of the novitiate, and I will make every effort to keep the same disposition of soul which I had on that first day the convent gate opened to admit me. With the trust and simplicity of a small child, I give myself to You today, O Lord Jesus, my Master. I leave You complete freedom in directing my soul. Guide me along the paths You wish. I won’t question them. I will follow You trustingly. Your merciful Heart can do all things!
The little novice of Jesus — Sister Faustina.
229 +At the beginning of the retreat, Jesus told me, During this retreat, I Myself will direct your soul. I want to confirm you in peace and love. And so, the first few days passed by. On the fourth day, doubts began to trouble me: Is not this tranquillity of mine false? Then I heard these words, My daughter, imagine that you are the sovereign of all the world and have the power to dispose of all things according to your good pleasure. You have the power to do all the good you want, and suddenly a little child knocks on your door, all trembling and in tears and, trusting in your kindness, asks for a piece of bread lest he die of starvation. What would you do for this child? Answer Me, my daughter. And I said, “Jesus, I would give the child all it asked and a thousand times more.” And the Lord said to me, That is how I am treating your soul. In this retreat I am giving you, not only peace, but also such a disposition of soul that even if you wanted to experience uneasiness you could not do so. My love has taken possession of your soul, and I want you to be confirmed in it. Bring your ear close to My Heart, forget everything else, and meditate upon My wondrous mercy. My love will give you the strength and courage you need in these matters.
230 Jesus, living Host, You are my Mother, You are my all! It is with simplicity and love, with faith and trust that I will always come to You, O Jesus! I will share everything with You, as a child with its loving mother, my joys and sorrows — in a word, everything.
Scripture
Isaiah 43:25
25 “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.
John 20:21-23
21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you."
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.
23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
1 Johnn 3:16-17
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
17 But if any one has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?
Catechism of the Catholic Church
1429 St. Peter’s conversion after he had denied his master three times bears witness to this. Jesus’ look of infinite mercy drew tears of repentance from Peter and, after the Lord’s resurrection, a threefold affirmation of love for him.20 The second conversion also has a communitarian dimension, as is clear in the Lord’s call to a whole Church: “Repent!”
St. Ambrose says of the two conversions that, in the Church, “there are water and tears: the water of Baptism and the tears of repentance.”
1436 Eucharist and Penance. Daily conversion and penance find their source and nourishment in the Eucharist, for in it is made present the sacrifice of Christ which has reconciled us with God. Through the Eucharist those who live from the life of Christ are fed and strengthened. “It is a remedy to free us from our daily faults and to preserve us from mortal sins.”
1443 During his public life Jesus not only forgave sins, but also made plain the effect of this forgiveness: he reintegrated forgiven sinners into the community of the People of God from which sin had alienated or even excluded them. A remarkable sign of this is the fact that Jesus receives sinners at his table, a gesture that expresses in an astonishing way both God’s forgiveness and the return to the bosom of the People of God.
1444 In imparting to his apostles his own power to forgive sins the Lord also gives them the authority to reconcile sinners with the Church. This ecclesial dimension of their task is expressed most notably in Christ’s solemn words to Simon Peter: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” “The office of binding and loosing which was given to Peter was also assigned to the college of the apostles united to its head.”
1445 The words bind and loose mean: whomever you exclude from your communion, will be excluded from communion with God; whomever you receive anew into your communion, God will welcome back into his. Reconciliation with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God.
1861 Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.