I am recalling the last conversation I had with you16 and your desire for me to say if I am aware of having done some good to souls.
Yes. Through the goodness of God, yes. It is at least very uncertain that I have done so through my own merit, except for a few cases where it is clear because in those instances I have paid personally.
Until 1923 I tried to take souls towards goodness, but to a purely human goodness. I showed myself to be upright, serious, and rather good, so as to lead others to be the same. But I was not looking to supernatural ends. It was an activity I can say involved amendment limited exclusively to a code of human morality. The idea of doing something pleasing to God, of doing something useful to souls, was far from my way of acting. I obeyed my naturally upright instinct, also taking pleasure in being cited as a model. This, in all probability, saved me from taking false steps. It was perhaps the natural result of so many pure prayers offered in childhood and later in adolescence, at school, which obtained for me the capacity to remain good, at least according to the human conception, and thus to lead others to be good.
Then, when the light shone in me, I understood that it was necessary to raise goodness from the natural plane to a supernatural level, concerning oneself not with the utility which may come from being good in this life, but with the utility flowing therefrom in eternal life. I understood that we must be good and lead others to be so, not for our joy, but “to do Jesus a favor.”
That’s it. Having found this truth, I found everything, and everything changed. With my whole mode of existence grounded upon love, my way of acting also changed in its method and aspiration. From 1923 on I thus let my human self drop lower and lower and fall into the shadow, with all its human sensations, ideas, works, and so on, and, without ever reflecting on the consequences which following God’s way might have for me in human terms, I concerned myself solely with that way, along which I channeled myself and - aspired to having many others following behind me.
The first creature led to God by word and prayer - as I have already told you” - was an elderly woman, over seventy, and then, further on, in one way or another, I have pulled out additional little fish, placing them in the Lord’s hatchery. Unfortunately, I have also come up with such-lively ones that after they were fished out, they managed to wriggle away, preferring the miry slime and putrid, stagnant water to the pure, crystalline, beatifying waves of the divine fish pond.
But the desertions of some, my defeats, have not discouraged me. I have continued all the same to speak of God, even when convinced I am speaking to an impenetrable heart. I have continued to pray and act, indifferent to the gestures of irony and rudeness and the disappointments. Something will clearly remain in those hearts! Don’t you think so? And God will do the rest. The defeats serve to show me that, without God’s help, I am less than nothing. The victories serve to show me that God’s benignity is so fatherly and superb that He is always ready to hear us when we ask for what is just and to help us when we do our best for the sake of his honor.
I told you18 about that girl saved from death. And I won’t repeat myself. I told you orally that not one of those I have entrusted to the Lord, among the soldiers in combat, has died. Furthermore, I can add that I obtain many of the things I request for others. Indeed, it is quite unlikely for me not to obtain them. Jesus is so good that He refuses nothing I request for my brothers and sisters. If anything, He is more hesitant regarding me, about things I request for myself.
But perhaps it is because I pray more for others than for myself and also do not resort to certain-draconian-means on my own behalf which make it impossible for the good Jesus to deny me something. It may also be because I-know how to say “thank you” to Jesus when He grants me a favor. There are so few who know how to say that “thanks” to Him which is not refused even to the street-sweeper who cleans the sidewalk for us...! The good Lord is treated like a servant obliged to content us - and the good Lord so desires to hear the words “Thank You, Father!”
As for my girls, I can state that I have left a trace in them which will not die, even if for the time being, in at least one of them, it seems to be a trace wiped out. Just as I have left it in my friends and in the women who formerly heard me when I gave talks.
Yes, I can say, without false modesty, that I have not passed over the earth to no avail. As I can state that I have seen and see the graces I request raining down into my hands. A gentle rain which I sprinkle upon hearts, joyful if, by way of this rain, obtained, moreover, at the price of blood, a soul turns to God and clings to Him more and more tightly. I am so happy when I hear someone I have prayed for say, “I have obtained that grace!” Glad because I think that in that hour the person is happy at heart and, therefore, good, glad because I am increasingly convinced that Jesus loves me.
There is a Sister of mine,19 now their Provincial in Rome, who openly avows that she has realized that I obtain what I request and that she thus counts on me. Oh, but poor Maria obtains everything because she has managed to do what Jesus did: place herself on the cross. And then trust and trust in Jesus, with a confidence much greater than the trust I placed in my father.
Many do not obtain because they are incapable of turning to God as a true Father, Brother, and Spouse, and they speak to Him mincingly. They sound like pompous addresses in the ancient tragedies or delivered by ambassadors: “Sire, on this day of favor... With our souls at your feet, we humble ourselves,” and so on and so forth. Oh, no! That’s not my style. With a smile, tears, simplicity, insistence, and security, I speak to Jesus until He smiles - and when He smiles, that grace is certain.
And it cannot be said that I request little. I am a beggar who is never content! But the Lord is so happy to grant the favor, like a King distributing his treasures! Sometimes there is such a shower of graces that I obtain that I am left stunned, moved, and ecstatic.
Perhaps I should not speak in this way, out of humility. But I look at Mary, my Mother, the Humble One par excellence - and I, Maria, as small as an ant in comparison to Her, imitate Her by singing the Magnificat, for in me, too, the Lord, not looking at the smallness of his servant, has done great things!
16 Father Migliorini.
17 See Autobiography, pp. 248-249.
18 See Autobiography, pp. 408-409.
19 A reference to the women religious by whom the author was educated.