I remember that one morning, after Communion, the Lord told me: “Daughter, the iniquities that are committed are so many that the scale of my justice is about to overflow. Know that I will pour heavy scourges upon men, especially a most fierce war in which I will make a slaughter of the human flesh. Ah! yes.” He continued, almost crying: “I gave bodies to men that they might be as many sanctuaries where I would go to delight in them; but they have turned them into sewers of rot, which emanate such stench as to force Me to stay far away from them. See what a recompense I receive for so much love and for the so many pains I have suffered for them. Who has ever been treated like Me? Ah! no one. But what is the cause? It is the excessive love I have for them. Therefore, I will try with the chastisements.”
I felt my heart split with pain; it seemed to me that the offenses they were giving Him were so many, that in order to escape, He wanted to hide within Me, almost to find a refuge. I also felt such pains because men were to be chastised, that it seems that I myself was to suffer - not them. Even more, it seemed to me that, if I could, it would have been more bearable for me to suffer all of those chastisements myself, rather than to see others suffer.
I tried to compassionate Him as much as I could, and with all my heart I said to Him: ‘Oh! Holy Spouse, hold back the scourges which your justice has prepared. If the multiplicity of the iniquities of men is great, there is the immense sea of your Blood in which You can bury them. In this way your justice will be satisfied. If You have no where to go to delight Yourself, come into me – I give You all my heart, that You may somehow rest and delight with it. It is true that I too am a bilge of vices, but You can purify me and make of me what You want. But, O please!, placate Yourself. If the sacrifice of my life is necessary – oh! how gladly I would make it for You, as long as I may see your own images spared.’ And the Lord, interrupting me, continued: “Here is exactly where I wanted you – if you offer yourself to suffer, no longer every now and then as up until now, but continuously, every day, for a certain given time, I will spare men. See how I will do it: I will put you between my justice and the iniquities of the creatures, and when my justice sees itself full of iniquities to the point of not being able to contain them, and is forced to send the thunderbolts of the scourges in order to chastise the creatures, in finding you in the middle, instead of striking them, it will strike you. Only in this way will I be able to content you in sparing men – not otherwise.”
I remained all confused; I didn’t know what to say. My nature would do its part, being frightened and trembling, but I saw that my good Jesus was waiting for an answer – whether I accepted or not. So, seeing myself almost forced to speak, I said to Him: ‘Oh! my Most Divine Spouse, on one hand I would be ready to accept, but how is it going to work with the confessor: if he does not want to come every once in a while, how can it be possible that he will come every day? Free me from this cross – that the confessor be needed in order to free me – and then everything will be arranged between me and You.’ Then the Lord said to me: “Go to the confessor and ask him for the obedience. If he wants, you will tell him everything I told you, and you will follow whatever he says. See, it will not be only for the good of creatures that I want these continuous sufferings, but also for your good. In this state of sufferings I will purify your soul thoroughly, in such a way as to dispose you to form a mystical marriage with Me; and after this, I will make the last transformation, in such a way that both of us will become like two candles placed on the fire – one is transformed into the other and they form a single one. In this way I will transform Myself in you, and you will remain crucified with Me. Ah! would you not be happy if you could say: ‘The Bridegroom is crucified, but the bride also is crucified? Ah! yes, there is nothing that renders me dissimilar from Him.’
So, when I was able to speak with the confessor, I told him everything that the Lord had said to me; and since the Lord had said to me those words, “for a certain given time”, without notifying me of the exact time during which I was to suffer continuously, I took it as about forty days, more or less…and now it has been about twelve years that I continue to be in it. But may God be always blessed; may His inscrutable judgments be always adored. I believe that if the blessed Lord had made me understand clearly the length of time I was to be in bed, my nature would have been frightened very much, and would hardly have submitted itself to it. Although I remember that I have always been resigned, at that time I did not know the preciousness of the cross, as the Lord has made me know during the course of these twelve years; nor would the confessor have adapted himself to give me the obedience. So I said to the confessor that the Lord wanted him to give me the obedience to remain in continuous suffering for about forty days, and I told him all the rest. To my surprise – because I thought it was impossible – the confessor told me that if it was really the Will of God he would give me the obedience, because, in reality, it was not that he could not come, but rather… a little bit of human respect. My soul rejoiced very much for I would be able to make the Lord content, and therefore have creatures spared, but my nature was very much afflicted in receiving this obedience; so much so, that for a few days I was very saddened. My soul also was affected very much, thinking that I was to remain for such a long time without being able to receive Jesus in the Sacrament, my only and sole comfort. At times I would feel a war so very fierce within me, that I myself did not know what had happened to me. The devil too would add many things, but my good Jesus put a remedy to everything; and this is how He did it.