I tried to do as much as I could to content Him – I would make myself smaller, I would annihilate myself, and sometimes I reached the point of feeling my being as almost undone, in such a way that I could not work, nor take one step, or even one breath if He did not sustain me. I saw myself as so bad, that I was ashamed of being seen by people, knowing myself as the ugliest – and, in reality, I am still so. So, as much as I could shun people, I shunned them, saying to myself: ‘Oh! if they knew how bad I am, and if they could see the graces that the Lord is giving me (for I wouldn’t tell anything to anyone), and that I am always the same – oh, how horrified they would be with me!’
Then, in the morning, when I would go again to Communion, it seemed that in coming into me He made feast for the contentment He felt in seeing me so annihilated. He would tell me other things about the annihilation of myself, but in ways which were always different from the previous time. I believe that He spoke to me not once, but hundreds of times; and if He had spoken to me thousands of times, He would have had always new ways to speak about the same virtue. Oh! my Divine Master, how wise You are – had I at least corresponded to You.
I remember that one morning, while He spoke to me about the same virtue, He told me that because of lack of humility I had committed many sins, and that if I had been more humble, I would have kept closer to Him and I would not have done so much evil. He made me understand how ugly sin is – the affront that this miserable little worm had made to Jesus Christ, the horrendous ingratitude, the enormous wickedness, the harm caused to my soul.