Jesus says:
“In order for the Holy Spirit to be able to descend and work freely in a heart, one must cultivate in oneself charity, faithfulness, purity, prayer, and humility.
“My Apostles prepared for his coming with these virtues, joined to an intense recollection. In order to learn the latter, as also to learn the other virtues, they had only to look at Mary, my Mother. In Her the spirit of recollection was most intense. Even in the occupations of life, She knew She was living recollected in God, and her great joy was to be able to seclude Herself in contemplation, silence, and solitude.
“God can speak everywhere. But his Word reaches you, mortals, whose capacities for reception are limited, much better when you are able to be in solitude than when around you your neighbor speaks, moves about, and often gets worked up about paltry human things. It is a twofold merit and a twofold grace if you are able to hear God even in the midst of the tumult. But also a twofold, threefold exertion.
“But you, Maria - do not go against holy charity and holy patience at the thought of hearing Me. You would then mutilate the fruit of these lessons. Nothing, not even the thought of hearing my Voice, must make you poorly prepared to exercise indulgence and patience with your neighbor. Does it seem that you are losing the thread of my words? Do you grieve because you feel you have forgotten some gem in my discourse? Oh, trust Me! I will make you find it again, and it will be more lovely than before, because it will be bound with the gold of charity and surrounded by the pearls of patience broken into numberless acts, but all of them, all of them precious.
“Remember that ‘everything you do for your neighbor you do to Me, Jesus.’ So, manage to emerge from your conversation with Me to listen to the needs - even, on occasion, those which are quite futile - of your neighbor, always with a smile and with good will. You will have the merit of having exercised charity, and they will not be scandalized by seeing you irritated over having had to abandon prayer.
“Mary Most Holy was able to come out of meditation, out of prayer, out of sweet conversations with God without losing her calm - and you can imagine what heights they reached - and occupy Herself with her neighbor without losing sight of God and without letting her neighbor grasp that She was disturbed. Let Mary be your model.
“Even in prayer my Apostles had only to look at Mary to learn how to pray to obtain things from God. And so it is for all the other virtues needed to prepare the descent of the Paraclete. Now, too, the more a spirit is prepared to receive Him, the more forcefully the Consoler descends.
“Mary, full of grace, had no need for any preparation. But She has given you the example. She is your Mother, and mothers are the living example for their children. Mary was already full of the Holy Spirit. She was his Spouse and knew all the secrets of her Spouse. But in Mary nothing was to appear different from others.
“I Myself, who was God, subjected Myself on earth to the laws of nature: I was hungry, thirsty, cold, weary, sleepy; but I Myself, who was God, subjected Myself on earth to the laws of morale: I felt tedium, fear, sadness; I rejoiced in friendship, was horrified by betrayal, trembled to the point of sweating blood at the thought of what I had to suffer, and prayed like a humble man in need of everything.
“Therefore, Mary also received the Holy Spirit in a manifest form. Even the greatest souls must follow the way which all follow - I mean in external manifestations - without peculiarities, without putting on poses which are nothing but acts of pride cloaked in hypocritical humility. Always simplicity so that the Spirit will come to you with pleasure. And then to be able to keep the Holy Spirit with the most intense purity. He does not stay where there is impurity. Finally, faithfulness to his inspirations.
“He is, so to speak, the eternal and divine Apostle who tirelessly preaches the doctrine of Christ to souls, who illuminates and explains it for you. But if He is badly received, if the doors of hearts are shut before Him, if He is received with wrath, He does what I said to my Apostles: He goes off, and his peace returns to Him while you are left without it.
“God does not impose Himself except in special cases. He is always ready to intervene to help you. But from you He wants the desire to receive Him, the will to heed Him, the courage to follow Him, the generosity to confess Him. Then He embraces, penetrates, relieves, ignites, and deifies you; He makes your poor animal nature change into an entirely spiritual one, he makes you godlike, and, like an eagle in flight, bears you on high, into the realms of Light, into regions of purity, drawing you near to the Sun of charity and warming you with it, until He opens to you the gates of his Kingdom for an eternity of blessedness.”