The Book of Heaven
—Unofficial Version—

May 20, 1905

The way of suffering of Jesus.

This morning I was thinking of when blessed Jesus remained all dislocated on the Cross, and I said to myself:  ‘Ah, Lord, how tormented you must have been by sufferings so atrocious, and how afflicted your soul must have been!’  At that moment, almost like a shadow, He came and told me:  “My daughter, I did not occupy Myself with my sufferings, but rather, I occupied Myself with the purpose of my pains; and since in my pains I could see the Will of the Father fulfilled, I suffered and in my very suffering I found the sweetest rest.  In fact, doing the Divine Will contains this good:  while one suffers, one finds the most beautiful rest; and if one enjoys, but this enjoyment is not wanted by God, in the very enjoyment one finds the most atrocious torment.  Even more, the closer I would come to the end of the pains, yearning to fulfill the Will of the Father in everything, the more relieved I would feel, and my rest would become more beautiful.  Oh, how different is the way of souls!  If they suffer or operate, their gaze is neither on the fruit which they can obtain nor on the fulfillment of the Divine Will; rather, they concentrate all of themselves on the thing that they are doing, and not seeing the goods which they can earn or the sweet rest that the Will of God brings, they live bothered and tormented, and they shun suffering and operating as much as they can, thinking of finding rest; but they remain more tormented than before.”