Going back to the beginning, when Jesus would deign to come, He would speak to me very often about His Passion, and would take care in disposing my soul to the imitation of His Life and of His pains, telling that, in addition to the marriage which is mentioned above, we had one more left to do – and this was the marriage of the cross.
I remember that He would say: “My Spouse, virtues become weak if they are not strengthened and fortified by the grafting of the cross. Before my coming upon earth, pains, confusions, disgraces, calumnies, sufferings, poverty, illnesses, and especially the cross, were considered dishonors; but from the moment they were borne by Me, they were all sanctified and divinized by my contact. They all changed their appearance, becoming sweet, pleasant, and the soul who has the good of having some of them, receives honor - and this, because she has received the vestment of Me, Son of God. Only those who look and stop at the cortex of the cross experience the contrary; finding it bitter, they are disgusted by it, they complain, as if someone had done wrong to them. But those who penetrate into it, finding it enjoyable, form their happiness in it. My beloved daughter, I yearn for nothing else but to crucify you, body and soul.”
And while He would say this, I would feel such infusion of yearnings for being crucified with Jesus Christ, that I would often repeat: ‘My Jesus, my Love, hurry – crucify me with You.’ And when He would come back, the first things I would ask of Him, which seemed to be the most important to me, were these: sorrow for my sins, and the grace to be crucified with Him. It seemed to me that if I obtained this, I would obtain everything.
Then, one morning, my most beloved Jesus made Himself present before me in the form of a Crucifix, and told me that He wanted to crucify me with Him. As He was saying this, I saw that rays of light were coming out from His most holy wounds, and within those rays, nails, which were coming toward me. At that moment, I don’t know why, though I desired so much to be crucified by Him as to feel consumed, I was caught by a great fear that made me tremble from head to foot. I felt such annihilation of myself, I saw myself so unworthy to receive that grace, that I did not dare to say: ‘Lord, crucify me with You.’ Jesus seemed to be suspended, waiting for my will. Who can tell how ardently I desired Him within the intimate part of my soul, though, at the same time, I saw myself unworthy? My nature was frightened, and trembled.
But while I was in this state, my beloved Jesus, through the intellect, solicited me to accept. Then, with all my heart I said to Him: ‘Holy Spouse, crucified for me, I pray You to concede me the grace to be crucified and, at the same time, not to allow any external sign to appear on the outside. Yes, give me suffering, give me wounds, but let everything be hidden between me and You.’
And so those rays of light, together with the nails, pierced my hands and feet through, and my heart was pierced by a ray of light together with a lance. Who can tell the pain and the contentment? As much as my soul had been caught by fear before, so much did my soul swim in the sea of peace, of contentment and of pain afterwards. The pain I felt in my hands, in my feet and in my heart was so great, that I felt I was dying; I felt the bones of my hands and feet being shattered into most tiny pieces. I felt as if there were nails inside, but at the same time, they caused me such contentment that I cannot express it, and gave me such strength, that while I would feel like dying because of the pain, those very pains would sustain me so that I would not die. However, nothing appeared on the external parts of the body, though I felt corporal pains. This is so true, that when the confessor would come to call me to the obedience and would loosen my hands, which were contracted, every time he would touch me at that point of my hands which had been pierced through by that ray of light together with the nail, I would feel mortal pains. However, when the confessor would command, by obedience, that those pains cease, they would mitigate very much. In fact, those pains were so strong that they made me lose consciousness, and if they had not mitigated at the call of obedience, I would hardly have been able to obey. Oh! prodigy of holy obedience – you have been everything for me. How many times I found myself clashing with death, so great was the intensity of the pains - and obedience has almost restored my life. May the Lord be always blessed; may everything be for His glory.
Now, while being inside myself, I could not see anything; but when I would lose consciousness, I could see the points marked by the wounds of Jesus. It seemed to me that the very wounds of Jesus had been transmuted in my hands, and in the rest; and this was the first time that Jesus crucified me. Indeed, there have been so many of these crucifixions that it is impossible to count them all. I will just say the main things about this.