Notes for this theme
Reading comfort
GRM 24.7
O holy friendship with God, beatitude of His faithful ones, wealth unequalled by anything else, he who possesses you is never alone, and never tastes the bitterness of despair. O holy friendship, you do not eradicate sorrow, because sorrow was the destiny of a God incarnate and can thus be the destiny of man. But you make this sorrow sweet in its bitterness, and you mix it with a light and a caress which relieve the cross with a celestial touch.
GRM 24.7
Clear your souls of what encumbers them and makes them lazy. Prepare your souls to receive the Light. As a light in darkness, It is a guide and a holy consolation.
O holy friendship with God, beatitude of His faithful ones, wealth unequalled by anything else, he who possesses you is never alone, and never tastes the bitterness of despair. O holy friendship, you do not eradicate sorrow, because sorrow was the destiny of a God incarnate and can thus be the destiny of man. But you make this sorrow sweet in its bitterness, and you mix it with a light and a caress which relieve the cross with a celestial touch.
GRM 24.9
‘I am not worthy, but if You forgive me and come to me, my soul will be healed, and I no longer want to commit sin, because I no longer wish to be ill and hateful to You’.
GRM 25.8
Regard it as something precious, more precious than your own life. Because it is the greatest gift that God can grant a believer in His Son.
GRM 25.9
Doubt is so dangerous and lethal to the spirit. It is lethal because it is the first agent of the deadly disease called ‘despair’, against which we must react with all our strength, so that our souls may not perish, and we may not lose God.
GRM 25.12
It is Passion time. Have pity on your Redeemer. Listen to His cries, and count His wounds and tears. The former were suffered, the latter shed for you. Let every other vision disappear before that one that reminds you of the Redemption accomplished for you.
GRM 26.4
I am the handmaiden of the Lord, and servants do not discuss the orders they receive. They fulfil them, (...) even if they cause bitter tears.
GRM 27.5
(...) I wish to draw the attention of wives to one point. Too many marriages break up through the fault of women, who do not possess that love, which is everything: kindness, pity and solace to their husbands. The physical suffering that lies heavy on women does not lie heavily on men. But all the moral worries do: necessities of work, decisions to be taken, responsibilities before the established authorities and one’s own family… oh! how many things weigh on man! And how much comfort he also needs! And yet, a woman’s selfishness is such that she adds the weight of useless and sometimes unfair complaints to the burden of her tired, disheartened, worried husband. And all this because she is selfish. She does not love.
Love is not the satisfaction of one’s senses and utility. To love is to satisfy him whom we love, beyond senses and utility, giving him the help he needs so that he may always be able to keep his wings open in the skies of hope and peace.
GRM 29.6
You know by now. It is by means of pain that we achieve peace and every grace for ourselves and our neighbours.
GRM 29.7
Eve’s sin was a four branched tree: pride, avarice, gluttony and lust. And all four were to be cut off, before making the roots of the tree sterile.