Jesus says:
“Have you ever seen what those who want to have soft wool to sleep on do? They call the mattress-maker, who beats and beats the wool until it is entirely like foam. The more forcefully the wool is beaten, the softer and cleaner it becomes, for dust and debris fall to the ground and the tufts are left quite cleansed and fluffy.
“The same, but even more so, is done if people want to spin or weave that wool. Then the iron comb also goes to work, roughly disentangling the wool and stretching it out like well-combed hair.
“Those who spin flax and hemp do so; and even the silk of the cocoon, in order to be used, must first undergo the torment of boiling water, of the rough brush, and of the machine twisting it.
“Soul of mine, if it is necessary to do this with natural fibers so as to turn them into clothing and couches, how should the same not be done with your souls to fashion them for eternal life? You are a fiber much more precious than flax, hemp, and wool. The cloth of eternal life must emerge from you.
“But not out of divine imperfection - for God creates perfect things - but because of your imperfection, your souls are wild, ruffled, and filled with roughness, debris, and dust - in short, not suitable to be used for the Divine City, where everything is perfect.
“The foresight, providence, and paternal goodness of your God thus fashion you. With what? With his Will. The Will of God is the instrument which makes you, fibers that have grown wild, into precious cloth and precious wool. It fashions you in a thousand ways: offering you crosses, clarifying for you the beauty of a mortification and attracting you, with its invitation, to perform it, guiding you with its inspirations, mortifying you with its paternal punishment, and twisting you with the guidance of the commandments.
“These, with the need for them, unchanged in form and forcefulness over the course of the centuries, are precisely what makes you resistant, even yarn, suitable for fashioning the cloth of eternal life, and the more docile you are to the Lord’s will, the more precious the cloth becomes.
“Moreover, when you not only follow this blessed Will, which always acts for your good, with docility, but with all your strength ask God to bring you to know it perfectly so as to carry it out perfectly - at whatever cost, and even if it possesses the form most contrary to your humanity - when you act that way, the cloth becomes adorned with embroidery like a brocade.
“Moreover, if you add to all this the perfection of requesting for yourselves a Will of pain so as to be like Me in the work of redemption, you then insert into the brocade gems of incalculable worth, and you make your original, most imperfect fiber into a masterpiece of eternal life.
“But, O Maria, how few souls are able to let themselves be fashioned by God!
“God always has for you the hand of a Father most perfect in love and acts with Divine Intelligence. He thus knows the extent to which He can press his hand down and the amount of strength He must infuse into you to make you suitable for undergoing the divine operations.
“But when man refuses the good Father you have in the heavens, when he rebels against his Will, when with sin he annuls the gifts of strength which the Father gives him, how can the Father who is in the heavens fashion that soul? It remains wild; indeed, it burdens itself increasingly with knots and impurities. And I weep over it, seeing that nothing, not even my Blood, poured out for all, regenerates it for goodness.
“Moreover, when a soul not only refuses God’s work, but nurses in itself hostility towards the Father and its brothers and sisters, then Our work disappears entirely, and the Master of sin, Satan, establishes himself in that tangle of disorderly passions.
“It is then that the patient, generous work of the victims must take over. They work for themselves and for others. They obtain the return of God, by a miracle of grace, to fashion that soul, after having chased Satan out of it with the radiance of his appearance. “How many souls the victims save for Me! You are supernatural harvesters that gather in harvests of eternal life by consuming yourselves in the thankless work full of thorns. But remember that the ones for whom we must sacrifice ourselves first of all are those of our blood.
“I did not destroy family ties. I sanctified them. I told you to love relatives with a supernatural love. And what love is loftier than to show charity towards the sick souls of our blood? Would someone satisfying the interests of everyone except those of his own house strike you as normal? No, you would say he is a madman. It is equally foreign to justice for someone to provide for the spiritual needs of his distant neighbor and not place his closest blood ties at the forefront.
“You know how to orient yourself. Do not be concerned if you receive ingratitude. I will give you what she does not give you.93 Intensify sacrifice for her.”
93 A reference to the writer’s mother.