Oh! God, what pain – how many tears I shed. How many times I thought I was disobedient, saying to myself: ‘How can this be – that virtue which is the most pleasing to the Lord is so far away from me. What good can a disobedient soul ever do or hope for?’ Many times, I would lament to Our Lord, and at times I reached the point of being resentful; and when He wanted me to accept sufferings, I would resist as much as I could. But when He saw that I would begin to resist, the Lord showed He would not pay attention to me and He would not tell me anything else; and then, all of a sudden, He would come to surprise me. As for what the confessor said, that is because sometimes he did not want me to fall into that state; but this was not in my power. Yet It is true that I have been disobedient, and that I have always been good at nothing, but I also remember that the most tormenting pain for me was that of not being able to obey.
I remember that during this period of time there was the cholera; one day I prayed my good Jesus to make this scourge cease. And He said to me: “I will content you, as long as you accept offering yourself to suffer whatever I want.”
I said to Him: ‘Lord, no, I cannot – You know how they think. If this thing could pass only between me and You, I would have been absolutely ready to accept everything.’ And He said to me: “My daughter, if I had thought of what men were thinking and of what they were going to do with Me, I would not have operated the Redemption of mankind. But I had my eyes fixed on their salvation, and the great love that devoured Me made Me act in this way: when I would see people who were thinking ill about Me, and who caused occasion to make Me suffer more, I would offer those very pains that they gave Me for their own salvation. Have you forgotten that what I want from you is the imitation of my Life, and that I will make you share in everything I suffered? Don’t you know that the most beautiful act, the most heroic and most pleasing to Me, which you must offer to Me, is that of offering yourself for the very ones who are against you?”
I remained mute; I did not know what to answer. I accepted everything the Lord wanted, and so in the evening I was surprised by that state of sufferings, and I remained in it for three consecutive days. Then, after I came round, I no longer heard anything about the cholera.