O God, one in the Holy Trinity, I want to love You as no human soul has ever loved You before; and although I am utterly miserable and small, I have, nevertheless, cast the anchor of my trust deep down into the abyss of Your mercy ... In spite of my great misery I fear nothing, but hope to sing You a hymn of glory forever. Let no soul, even the most miserable, fall prey to doubt; for, as long as one is alive, each one can become a great saint, so great is the power of God's grace. It remains only for us not to oppose God's action.
- Saint Faustina

God cannot inspire unrealizable desires. I can, then, in spite of my littleness, aspire to holiness.
- Saint Therese of Lisieux

I read these words coming from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: "Whoever is a LITTLE ONE, let him come to me." ... The elevator which must raise me to heaven is Your arms, O Jesus! And for this I had no need to grow up, but rather I had to remain little and become this more and more.
- Saint Therese of Lisieux

Be not afraid of your Savior, O sinful soul. I make the first move to come to you, for I know by yourself you are unable to lift yourself to Me.
- Jesus speaking to Saint Faustina

Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created.
- Saint Ignatius of Loyola

The Lord Jesus wants to help us more than we want to be helped. He sees much more clearly than we do that the culture of death in which we live cruelly grinds up so many lives.

Jesus sees humanity's pain constantly -- in every detail -- and it shatters his Heart. Thus, Jesus desperately longs to reach out with his saving, healing, and consoling touch.

... a bishop who accepts Jansenist ideas ... boasted that for a whole year not one person in his diocese received communion unworthily. How did he know that? Because he hasn't allowed anyone to receive Holy Communion!

"This hurts me more," [Jesus] told me, "than everything I suffered in my passion. Even a little love from [mankind] in return --- and I should regard all that I have done for them as next to nothing, and look for a way of doing still more. But no; all my eager efforts for their welfare meet with nothing but coldness and dislike."
- Saint Margaret Mary

Simply a glance at Jesus' Heart can release in us a rushing torrent of love and strength, if we see him as he truly is.

A person is simple if he has but one desire. Jesus is simple because he has only one desire, a desire that's best described as a thirst. He thirsts that all humanity be brought into his communion of love with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

This is the great truth which many artists have sought to communicate down through the ages by painting various saints from different time periods standing at the foot of the cross. Although separated by time, their great love for Christ did in fact console him in his agony, since our Lord foresaw all their acts of loving consolation.

... [God] chose for his own the most sensitive, compassionate, and loving human heart of all. By choosing such a heart for himself, he accepted that he would suffer the most burning desire for love -- for every human being longs to be loved. Indeed, God loves us so much that, in Christ, he made himself vulnerable: He made himself "need" our love!

After many experiences and a lot of thinking, I am convinced that the objective starting point of love is the realization that I am needed by another. The person who objectively needs me most is also, for me, objectively, the person I most need.
- Saint John Paul II

.. as Aristotle pointed out long ago, true friendship requires a kind of equality and mutuality -- it can't be one sided. Thus, Christ humbled himself and accepted to feel a burning thirst ("need") for our love, so we might enter into genuine friendship with him.

Little lamb, little lamb, don't run ahead of me and don't lag behind. Just walk with me.

"... haven't I shown you how gentle I am with you? Haven't I shown you only kindness? Why do you fear? Look at your life. Have I ever allowed anything you couldn't bear? ... All I want is for you to be my friend. All I want is for you not to be afraid of me and to come to me."

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
- Matthew 11:29

People often think they can escape suffering. They can't. Suffering finds us all. Everyone in the world suffers: rich and poor, healthy and sick, young and old. It might not always look like certain people suffer, but suffering comes in various forms, many of which are hidden.

The best way to deal with suffering is to accept it, unite it to Christ in his suffering, and begin to find its hidden treasure.

... I propose that we first ask Jesus to choose for us the suffering that he knows will form us into saints (for he knows best) and then simply accept what he sends.

My power is made perfect in weakness
- 2 Corinthians 12:9

We should keep our eyes on our teacher and do the simple work at hand ... if an advanced problem comes up, even if we ourselves bring it on, our teacher himself will help us and maybe even take most of it upon himself. So there's nothing to fear. If we keep our eyes on the Master, he'll have pity on us and carry us along the way. That's how little ones progress.

... when we unite our sufferings to those of Jesus, we have the further joy of knowing that grace and mercy is poured out on others. For, when we unite our sufferings to the Lord's, they truly are redemptive.

... reflect on some puzzling words of St. Paul: "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in the suffering of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church ..." (Col 1:24).

How can St. Paul write that there's something "lacking" in the suffering of Christ? Jesus' suffering is objectively enough to save eveyone, and the graces his suffering merits are available to all. In this sense, there's absolutely nothing lacking in his suffering.

Yet there's a kind of "lack" in Christ's suffering in the sense that not everyone subjectively accepts his grace and mercy. Moreover, there's also a lack in his suffering when people don't fully accept his grace and mercy, that is, when they do so halfheartedly and with reservations and conditions. It's precisely in such situations ... that our sufferings and bold prayers can come in to "complete what is lacking."

There's a mysterious respect the Lord has for human free will. He will not (and cannot) force us to choose him and love him. Yet, when we use our free will on behalf of others, we somehow can influence the free will of those other people.

Those times when we're tempted to avoid the Lord seem to come up most often after we've sinned, especially after we've sinned more than usual ... For those of us who want to console the Lord's Heart, however, this won't do, for avoiding Jesus deeply pierces his Sacred Heart.

... understand that to love Jesus, to be His victim of love, the weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more suited one is for the workings of this consuming and transforming Love ... but we must consent to remain always poor and without strength, and this is the difficulty.
- Saint Therese of Lisieux

... when we do fall, even seriously and voluntarily, we ought to have the attitude of the repentant child who jumps in her father's arms with great confidence in his mercy. We sometimes forget that this is what most pleases the Lord, namely, when we go to him with confidence despite, or rather, because of our sins, weaknesses, and attachments.

"The flames of mercy are burning Me. I desire to pour them out upon human souls. Oh, what pain they cause Me when they do not want to accept them!"
- Jesus speaking to Saint Faustina

"When you give me your sins, you give me the joy of being your Savior."

I am Love! My Heart can no longer contain its devouring flames. I love souls so dearly ... My heart is burning with desire to attract souls to itself in order to forgive them.
- Jesus speaking to Sister Josefa Menendez

We must be convinced that when we place our sins in the furnace of Jesus' Sacred Heart, it makes the flames of his love explode into an ever greater conflagration. These flames, unlike the flames of his rejected mercy, don't burn him and bring him great pain. Instead, they burn up our sins and bring him great consolation. That's why when we empty our sinful hearts before Jesus, it gives him rest, allows him to love us even more, and gives him the joy of being our Savior. He waits and longs for this.

Like fire that transforms everything into itself ... Jesus transforms everything to good in the fire of His Divine Love, drawing good out of evil, drawing a greater good out of a greater evil, consuming even our very faults and failures ... and using them to make us more humble and to bring us even closer to His divine Heart. "In my weakness, I find my strength."
- Father Vincent Martin Lucia

Basically, the primacy of contemplation means that if we stay fixed on the goodness and glory of the Lord, we'll automatically and with a certain ease let go of our attachments -- in other words, we'll begin to have an attitude of indifference without having to force it.

Go to Jesus as you are. Open your heart to him as it is (not as you wish it to be). And know that Jesus loves sincerity, that he loves it when we're completely open with him. Why does he love this? Because the more open we are with him, the more deeply he can heal us -- and this especially applies to his being able to heal us of our attachments.

Jesus is always pleased when we humbly go to him as we are.

One of the ways the Lord makes our progress relatively easy is by beginning to detach our hearts from something well before he asks it of us. He usually does this without us realizing it.

When we go to Jesus, especially to his Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, he fills us with his love and peace, and at the same time, in his great mercy, he silently loosens our grip on our attachments.

"Behold this Heart which loves so much yet is so little loved."

[Jesus] told [Saint Faustina] that what hurts him most is the sin of distrust, that is, when people don't trust in his merciful love, especially when it's those closest to him who don't trust him.

That's why Peter's denials hurt him so much ... why (we can imagine) Judas' betrayal of Jesus with a kiss must have ripped the Lord's Heart more than the scourging ... Of course, the Lord is wounded whenever someone doubts his goodness and love, but when such doubt fills the hearts of his closest friends, the very ones to whom he has revealed so much of his love, it's almost too much for him to bear.

... if what hurts Jesus most is lack of trust, then what do you think consoles him most? That's right, trust.

The way you live trust is by praise and thanksgiving, to praise and thank God in all things. That's what the Lord said to St. Faustina.

Thus, when good things come our way (by good things, I mean what makes it easy to give praise and thanks), we strive to praise and thank God for them ... Then, when God sends (or permits) those things that often make it difficult to praise and thank him (crosses), we strive to praise and thank him for them, too ... We trust God to gently send us crosses that will most benefit us, and then we strive to accept them with a smile.

... divinely chosen crosses are just the right ones: not too heavy and not too light.

It's a simple fact of the spiritual life that crosses are necessary to help heal us of our selfishness.

There is more merit to one hour of meditation on My sorrowful Passion than there is to a whole year of bloody scourging; the contemplation of My painful wounds is of great profit to you, and it brings me great joy.
- Jesus speaking to Saint Faustina

What's the one, concrete, daily practice Jesus asks of us through his revelations to St. Faustina? ... It's the three o'clock hour devotion. ... Jesus didn't ask that we endure a passion but simply that we be with him as he suffers his, especially in his abandonment on the Cross. ... Ideally, he'd like us to make the Stations of the Cross, but even if we can't, he's happy when we at least turn our minds to him, even for a few seconds ...

Let us be convinced that our little acts of love and trust give delight to Jesus. We may not always be able to hear him saying so, but we can believe that he does take delight in them. If we do believe it, then going to the Lord is a constant joy.