When the time came that he went away to the countryside, one morning, after Communion, the Lord made me understand that I was going to be surprised by that state, inviting me to keep Him company by participating in His pains – and I immediately said to Him: ‘Lord, how shall I do it - the confessor is not here; who is going to free me? Maybe You want to make me die now?’ And the Lord just told me: “Your trust must be only in Me. Be resigned, because resignation renders the soul radiant, and it keeps all other passions in their place, in such a way that, attracted by those rays of light, I go into that soul and I transform her completely within Me, and I make her live from my own Life.”
I resigned myself to His Holy Will; I offered that Communion as the last one of my life, and I gave the last good-bye to Jesus in the Sacrament. But though resigned, I felt my nature so much, that for the whole day I did nothing but cry and pray the Lord to give me strength. In truth, that situation turned out to be so very bitter to me, and without thinking or knowing anything, I found myself with a new and heavy cross, such that I believe it has been the heaviest I have had in my life. While I was in that state of sufferings, I would think of nothing but dying and doing the Will of God. As for my family, which also suffered in seeing me in that state, they tried to call some priests, but for one reason or another, they did not want to come. After ten days came the confessor who used to confess me when I was little, and it happened that he too was able to make me come round from that state. Then I realized the net in which the Lord had wrapped me.
From here, a war arose against me on the part of priests – some would say that it was a pretense, some that beating was needed, some that I wanted to make myself believed a saint; some would add that I was possessed, and many other things, such that, if I wanted to tell them all, the story would be too long. So, with these ideas in their minds, when sufferings would occur and my family would call one of them, they would have such strange reactions, that my poor family suffered very much, especially my poor mama – how many tears she shed for me. Oh! Lord, reward her - You Yourself. Oh! my good Lord, how much I suffered on this side – You alone know everything.
So, who can tell how bitter this situation was for me – that the priest was needed in order to free me from that state of sufferings. How many times I prayed, shedding most bitter tears, that He would free me! How many times I made explicit resistance to the Lord when He wanted me to offer myself as victim and accept the pains. I would say to Him: ‘Lord, promise me that You Yourself will free me, and then I will accept everything; otherwise – no, I don’t want to accept.’ And I would resist the first day, the second, the third… But who can resist God? He would tell me so many things, that in the end I was forced to submit myself to the cross.
Other times, I would say to Him from the heart and with familiarity: ‘Lord, how is it that You have done this? Between You and me, You now want to place a third? And this third one does not want to make himself available. See, we could have been so content, the two of us. When You wanted me to suffer, I would immediately accept, because I would know that You Yourself would free me. There is no need of another hand now. I beg You, free me, and both of us will be more content.’
Sometimes He pretended not to hear me, and He would not tell me anything. Then other times, He would say: “Do not fear, I am the one who gives darkness and light. The time of the light will come. It is my usual way to manifest my works through the priests.”
So I spent three or four years of these contradictions on the part of priests. Many times they would subject me to very hard trials; they would reach the point of letting me remain in that state of sufferings – that is, petrified, incapable of any slightest motion, even of taking a drop of water – for eighteen days, more or less, when they pleased to do so. The Lord alone knows what I was going through in that state; and after they came, I would not even have the good of hearing them say to me: “Have patience, do the Will of God.” Rather, I was reproached as being fussy and disobedient.