Jesus says:
“The episode of the bent woman healed on the Sabbath is precisely yours.
“Your humanity and that of others had bent you.
“You were so upright before, little soul that walked in my Way, spurred on by a force of love for your Jesus, whose majesty as a Martyr you had understood more than everything else, and you wanted to be like Him in martyrdom, for Love had revealed to you that martyrdom is love professed, confessed, and fulfilled to perfection.
“Afterwards you had grown bent. You had bent your soul, that had previously looked at Heaven alone, towards the earth. Human concerns and affections had taken the place of the spiritual concerns in which you cared only about God’s interests and, as a result, even without wanting to do so deliberately, about the interests of your soul. Human affections took the place of love for Me.
“These concerns and these affections, much more oppressive than my Cross, for if the cross is a weight, it is also a support and an upraising, ‘bent’ you. And the Tempter of souls, who takes advantage of your weaknesses to make these into the means of sin, worked upon your letting yourself be bent by human motives.
“And you sinned, you know? Yes, you sinned by causing Me so much pain. My Knowledge knew that it was a transitory phase, but I would have liked you not to live through that phase. It was taking you so far from my Way and from Heaven.
“Love Me greatly, Maria, for my Mercy for you has worked prodigies. I have disputed with Evil for you with the love of a Father, the work of a Physician, and the patience of God. You finally heard Me and turned to Me. You were already on my Way and wanted to follow Me and love Me. But you were bent.
“Your spirit was unable to free itself from all the consequences of your spiritual illnesses and from the tendencies of the flesh. You had been oppressed and irritated for too long by too many things, and the other human beings surrounding you truly were not, of course, a factor contributing to a total resurrection. But, rather, they annulled your spiritual progress and paralyzed your efforts to rise again totally by their way of acting. This is your only justification.
“But I want you to make this situation, too, a reason for loving Me and for loving your neighbor, who has thus obstructed you. Any neighbor at all - remember this. If those who have made you weep and uprooted the new feathers which love, now known and practiced, gave you to fly to Me, had received throughout their lives what I have given you in special love, consider that they would have been better than you. This is the thought which I have borne in mind in judging those obtuse spirits, and this must be the thought which you are to have to forgive them totally and love them totally.
“When I judged you to be sufficiently punished for your desertion, when I thought that you had expiated it, I straightened you up, soul of mine. I knew that pain was about to descend upon you, and with pain, solitude. I am not called ‘Mercy’ for nothing. I am Mercy. I came to be your Kin, Friendship, Joy, All. But first I ‘liberated’ you from the last ties which still hampered you.
“The ‘heads of the synagogues’ - there are some now, too, and they are represented by those who see the straws of others as beams and do not see their own beam, by those who think it is licit to analyze, censure, and criticize the work of God - if they knew the moment and the reason I have chosen to work the miracle, would remain scandalized by it.
“But what of it? Am I not free to act as and when I please? And if I wanted to make your obscured nothingness a luminous, active force, if I wanted to make you, wretchedness, into a treasure, isn’t it licit for Me? And if I judged that your trial was sufficient; and now your constancy, trust, repentance, and love deserved the reward of my help and my love, can there be anyone to criticize my work?
“I love to make use of nonentities which love and humility make dear to my Heart, to make my Power shine forth. If I took only the ‘perfect,’ how could poor men have the hope of entering Heaven?
“I take the weak, sinners who are able only to have trust, hope, and affection for Me - I don’t say ‘love,’ for if they loved, they would not be weak or sinners - I take these children, who mix veins of perfection into their imperfections and make them the lights and teachers of their poor brothers and sisters who are weaker and more sinful than they. I inflame them with love; I make them hungry for sacrifice; I accept their offer. When they have reached the state of ‘victims,’ I consecrate them for their mission.
“Every day is a ‘sabbath’ for Me. For every day you are always insufficient, if observed by Perfection, but every day I also deem it appropriate to say, ‘Enough’ to what bends you and introduce the soul into my service.
“Always bear in mind your past and my action. The former will serve to keep you humble and to wash you increasingly with repentance. The latter, to inflame you increasingly with love.
“Live by hope in your Jesus. If I have loved you so much, I will not be severe with you.
“Live by constancy. Only your will could separate you from Me and plunge you into the abyss again.
“Live by humility. I communicate Myself to humble souls.
“Live by love. The more you love Me, the more you will comprehend Me exactly.
“Live with peace in your heart. I give it to you for your comfort.”