Jesus says:
“What should you call Me? What are my sweetest names? Why, those of the Song of Songs, daughter and spouse of my love and my sorrow.
“You say that only prayer and my word calm you in your present suffering. Yes, you have arrived at this, which is the highest point of union with Me which man can attain. This is indeed ecstasy.
“For ecstasy is not just to remain beyond the senses out of joy at contemplating visions of Paradise. This being detached from moral pain - as well as from that of material life - but without losing the use of the senses, by speaking with Me or hearing Me speak, is ecstasy, and from a spiritual standpoint, too, much deeper than the other kind.
“Contemplative ecstasy is very much a work of the Will of God, who wants creatures of his to have the vision of heavenly things or wants to attract them more to Himself or to reward them with his love. This ecstasy, on the other, of fusion rather than contemplation, is a work undertaken at the initiative of the creature in love, who has reached such power in love as not to be able to gain nourishment, breathe, and act except with love and in love.
“It is ‘fusion.’ It is being ‘two in one.’ Something which copies - the proportions imposed by human nature, which, no matter how transhumanized by love, is still human - the ineffable, indescribable, most highly inflamed acts governing the relations among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Three who are One, three Loves that seek, contemplate, and praise one another, enwrapped and clasped in a single vortex of incandescent love which makes the Three Different Ones an inseparable Unity.
“Sing the Gloria, Maria, for you have reached the likeness of God in the most difficult and highest point, and you have arrived there with your love, which cannot grow further, for you now love God with all your strength - body and your soul - and if you crossed beyond this limit which you have reached, you would die from it, burned by ardor.
“Soul of mine, do you see whether or not your Jesus is right in saying that love is the term of human perfection? , penances, monastic vows are nothing compared to total love. may be penitent hermit who is poor in comparison to someone living in society who is able to love Me totally, to the point of the annihilation of his feelings in Me.
“Do you see, dear soul, whether your Master is right when He says that love is the surpassing of pain? I had not loved that way, do you think, my Maria, that I could have borne the Passion? And do you think that your Mother and mine could have borne hers? And that the martyrs would have withstood the tortures?
“Love does not blunt man’s sense of pain, but mixes into it a liqueur of such fortifying sweetness that the most tremendous of pains becomes bearable for the creature who suffers it. The liqueur is the strength of God Himself, who comes to you with all his power; indeed, it is the powers of God that rush into you, attracted by your love, and annul your fragility, giving you vigor as heavenly fighters.
“I, the Victorious One, communicate to you my victory over the weakness of the flesh and heart and over death. I live in the soul in love with an inseparable unity as - a Man among man - I lived in unity with my Father. Maria, Unity with the Holy Trinity communicates to you its power of love, which attracted God into It from the depths of the Heavens, and with its smile teaches you to love with the perfection which belonged to it.
“See, then, soul of mine, what divine and excelling powers and likenesses total love leads to.
“I, who chose you for the mission of pain and light, want to pour upon you the waves of the ecstasy, of love. I want to saturate you with it in such a way that you will have the fragrance of Me, and in a much more heavenly manner that Queen Esther, whose head was soaked with earthly perfumes to please her king. In the hour when you become a queen of the Kingdom I have prepared for you and a bride then joined to the Bridegroom in the Royal Palace of the King of kings, I want you to be steeped in love - that is, in Myself - to the point that nothing more remains of you and it may be I, I alone, who live in you.
“Come. Follow Me. Closer and closer. Your eye must only seek Me, and your hearing must be intent on hearing Me. Your taste must find all food except mine to be insipid, and your touch must find every touch except mine to be repellent. Your smell must enjoy only the fragrance of your Spouse, no longer hidden, but walking in front of you to show you the way leading to heavenly blessedness.
“I have attracted you and will attract you more and more, releasing waves of scents and lights which will carry you off from the things of earth. You are mine. I have wanted you and possess you. Now I hold you, and only an act of will by you, which will not appear, could take you away from Me. But it will not appear. -called ‘death’ - that is, the marriage of your soul to Me - come first.
“Then there will be complete joy. I will take you by the hand and before my Court will say, ‘This is my little queen, whose robe was woven of penances and adorned with tears, whose garland is made of love. She has prepared herself for this hour with so much pain. Now for her the pain is over, and the free, eternal love of Heaven is coming. Rejoice, O heavenly inhabitants, over this new sister who has finished her struggles and is entering into peace.’ ”189
I was praying this morning at 5:30 and was holding in my hands the prayers of Sister Benigna Consolata.190 I was reading the point on “How One Should Act in a State of Aridity.” Every day I read a point, which remains as a religious thought throughout the day. I was reading this: “Call Him with the sweetest names,” and I asked Jesus, “What are the sweetest names for You?”
He replied instantly, with the words I have written. I think He wants to speak to Me about the Song of Songs to take me to real incandescence. I think so... because He sometimes changes the subject after a point, and nothing remains but for me to follow behind Him.
Believe me, Father,191 I wept with sweetness and even materially felt myself to be enveloped by and enkindled with flames.
189 This recalls the sentence - “I have finished suffering, but will continue to love” - which in 1952 the writer prepared for the memoriam card reserved for the time of her death, which took place in Viareggio on October 12, 1961.
190 Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero (1885-1916).
191 Father Migliorini.