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In Sinu Jesu: When Heart Speaks to Heart--The Journal of a Priest at Prayer
In 2007, Our Lord and Our Lady began to speak to the heart of a monk in the silence of adoration. He was prompted to write down what he received, and thus was born In Sinu Jesu, whose pages shine with an intense luminosity and heart-warming fervor that speaks directly to the inner and outer needs of our time with a unique power to console and challenge.
The pages of this remarkable record of spiritual communication range across, and plunge into, many fundamental aspects of the spiritual life: loving and being loved by God; the practice of prayer in all its dimensions; the unique power of Eucharistic adoration; trustful surrender to divine providence; the homage of silence; the dignity of liturgical prayer and the sacraments; the mystery of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; priestly identity and apostolic fruitfulness; the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints in our lives; sin, woundedness, mercy, healing, and purification; the longing for heaven and the longed-for renewal of the Catholic Church on earth.
Given the harmony of its content with the teaching of Sacred Scripture, Catholic Tradition, and well-known works of the mystics, it is eminently fitting that In Sinu Jesu be published in full at this time (it has been granted the imprimatur). Passages from this journal have already influenced the spiritual lives of priests, religious, and laymen—may it now give light and warmth, consolation and renewed conviction, to readers throughout the world.
“In Sinu Jesu recounts the graces experienced in the life of one priest through the healing and strengthening power of Eucharistic adoration. At the same time, it issues an urgent call to all priests—and, indeed, to all Christians—to be renewed in holiness through adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament and consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces.”—HIS EMINENCE RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE, Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
“Deep consolation and a renewed gratitude for Him as He draws His friends to Himself—these are the fruits of following the meditations of this book. It will fill hearts with encouragement and joy.”—FR. HUGH BARBOUR, O.Praem., Prior, St. Michael’s Abbey of the Norbertine Fathers
“The words spoken here bring such comfort, courage, and light—a longing to be with the Lord, gazing upon and adoring His Eucharistic Face and offering ourselves and our lives in reparation for sins against Love.”—FR. DAVID ABERNETHY C.O., Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, Pittsburgh
“In Sinu Jesu has the power to inflame the desire for Eucharistic adoration. It is a powerful expression of Our Lord’s thirst to draw us deeper into His friendship, to heal wounds, and thus to renew the Church.”—FR. JOACHIM SCHWARZMÜLLER, Krefeld, Germany
“In Sinu Jesu is a beautiful and powerful work saturated with the kind of contagious love and holiness that can only come from reclining—like His beloved disciple—upon Christ’s breast, hearing Him whisper words of consolation and encouragement for us all.” —KEVIN VOST, Psy.D., author of The Porch and the Cross
“We sometimes dismiss the interior voice, thinking that because it is within, it must be our own. But does God not dwell deep within us? Can he not speak, then, to the heart? This listener has heard Christ invite priests and all the faithful, back to the Sacrament of Love.”—DAVID W. FAGERBERG, University of Notre Dame, author of Consecrating the World
The pages of this remarkable record of spiritual communication range across, and plunge into, many fundamental aspects of the spiritual life: loving and being loved by God; the practice of prayer in all its dimensions; the unique power of Eucharistic adoration; trustful surrender to divine providence; the homage of silence; the dignity of liturgical prayer and the sacraments; the mystery of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; priestly identity and apostolic fruitfulness; the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints in our lives; sin, woundedness, mercy, healing, and purification; the longing for heaven and the longed-for renewal of the Catholic Church on earth.
Given the harmony of its content with the teaching of Sacred Scripture, Catholic Tradition, and well-known works of the mystics, it is eminently fitting that In Sinu Jesu be published in full at this time (it has been granted the imprimatur). Passages from this journal have already influenced the spiritual lives of priests, religious, and laymen—may it now give light and warmth, consolation and renewed conviction, to readers throughout the world.
“In Sinu Jesu recounts the graces experienced in the life of one priest through the healing and strengthening power of Eucharistic adoration. At the same time, it issues an urgent call to all priests—and, indeed, to all Christians—to be renewed in holiness through adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament and consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces.”—HIS EMINENCE RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE, Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
“Deep consolation and a renewed gratitude for Him as He draws His friends to Himself—these are the fruits of following the meditations of this book. It will fill hearts with encouragement and joy.”—FR. HUGH BARBOUR, O.Praem., Prior, St. Michael’s Abbey of the Norbertine Fathers
“The words spoken here bring such comfort, courage, and light—a longing to be with the Lord, gazing upon and adoring His Eucharistic Face and offering ourselves and our lives in reparation for sins against Love.”—FR. DAVID ABERNETHY C.O., Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, Pittsburgh
“In Sinu Jesu has the power to inflame the desire for Eucharistic adoration. It is a powerful expression of Our Lord’s thirst to draw us deeper into His friendship, to heal wounds, and thus to renew the Church.”—FR. JOACHIM SCHWARZMÜLLER, Krefeld, Germany
“In Sinu Jesu is a beautiful and powerful work saturated with the kind of contagious love and holiness that can only come from reclining—like His beloved disciple—upon Christ’s breast, hearing Him whisper words of consolation and encouragement for us all.” —KEVIN VOST, Psy.D., author of The Porch and the Cross
“We sometimes dismiss the interior voice, thinking that because it is within, it must be our own. But does God not dwell deep within us? Can he not speak, then, to the heart? This listener has heard Christ invite priests and all the faithful, back to the Sacrament of Love.”—DAVID W. FAGERBERG, University of Notre Dame, author of Consecrating the World
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First published October 30, 2016
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July 31, 2017
In Sinu Jesu is the sort of book that one wants to read in chapel; and this makes it difficult to write about. It a book about the intimacies of prayer, a book that should be read in silence. It is a journal that the author kept at adoration, and consists largely of words “given” to Him by our Lord and our Lady. These words are mostly about prayer, and adoration, and sacrifice, about friendship with Jesus, and about the renewal of the priesthood.
One theme that struck me particularly was the theme of loneliness, and the flight from loneliness into the trap of distraction, and the necessity of withdrawing from distraction in order to feel the pain of loneliness so that that pain can be healed by Communion with God. This is a theme that I have been reflecting on from from a quite different perspective in my dissertation on David Foster Wallace, and so I was struck by the words on it here. Consider the following passage:
«I want you to tell priests of the desires of My Heart. I will give you many opportunities to do this. Make known to them these things that I have made known to you. So many of My priests have never really heard and understood the invitation to an exclusive and all-fulfilling friendship with Me. And so, they feel alone in life. They are driven to seek out in other places and in creatures unworthy of the undivided love of their consecrated hearts, the fullness of happiness and hope and peace that only I can give them. So many go forward in bitterness and disappointment. They seek to fill the emptiness within with vain pursuits, with lust, with possessions, with food and drink. They have Me, very often, near to them in the Sacrament of My love, and they leave Me there alone…» (p. 27)
The theme is of course a traditional one, because it has to do with the condition of fallen man as such. Exiled from friendship with God through original sin, mankind wanders through the regio dissimilitudinis, and tries to numb the pain through importunitas mentis, inquietudo corporis, instabilitas (vel loci vel propositi), verbositas, and curiositas.
The problem is a perennial human problem, but it takes on a particular character in the Cartesian universe of modernity, more prone to anxieties of isolation and insecurity that to those of dependence and finality (to use Fritz Rieman’s jargon). The classic modern expression was given at the very dawn of modernity by Pascal in his analysis of diversion in the Pensées, and it recurs throughout the modern era— not only in Catholic writers such as Walker Percy, but also in non-Catholic ones as diverse as Kierkegaard, Paul de Legarde, Heidegger, and David Foster Wallace. Wallace is particularly interesting because of his insistence on loneliness as the root problem. I need scarcely say that while I think those authors are good at setting up the problem, most of them do not have a clear grasp of the solution…
In Sinu Jesu treats the problem particularly as it presents itself in the priestly life. The author is both a monk and a priest, and he shows how fitting it is for all priests to live at least some elements of monastic life. These elements are aimed at leading the soul into the “desert,” as it were, where it is free of diversions and distractions, and becomes able to feel the pain of the loneliness of sin, in order then to receive the healing consolation of Christ. In the Western Rite, all priests are at least required to live a celibate life, and In Sinu Jesu is in part a wonderful reflection on the beautiful and prophetic witness of celibacy. And yet priests engaged in the cura animarum, especially in a modern world that is so intent on diversion (and so skilled in producing it) can so easily fall into diversion’s trap and in “seek in other places” the consolation that can only really be found in Christ.
One of the most moving things about In Sinu Jesu is the constant repeated message that in this earthly pilgrimage true consolation can be found easily in the Adoration of Christ in the viaticum, the way-bread of our journey, in which we already have a foretaste of the union with God that we hope for in Heaven:
«There is no need for you or any priest to remain alone. My Heart is open to all my priest sons, and to those who ask for it, I will not refuse the grace of a special intimacy with me, a participation in the unique grace given Saint Joseph and Saint John in the beginning.» (p. 36)
«I am He who understands every man’s loneliness, especially the loneliness of My priests. I want to share their loneliness so that they will not be alone with themselves, but alone with Me. There I shall speak to their hearts as I am speaking to you. I am ablaze to be for each one of My priests the Friend whom they seek, the Friend with whom they can share everything, the Friend to whom they can tell everything, the Friend who will weep over their sins without, for a moment, ceasing to love them.» (p. 14)
The revival of Eucharistic Adoration among the Catholic movements of our time is one of the more unexpected “signs of the times”. If one looks for signs of life in the Catholic Church in Western Europe, one finds them almost always in movements and groups who put a good deal of emphasis on Eucharistic Adoration. A development that became very visible at World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne. Who would have expected this development? The Liturgical Movement in the 20th century considered Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass to be a dangerous habit, which might lead hearts away from the Sacrifice of the Mass itself, into an “Emmanuel piety” of Divine presence divorced from the Cross (cf. Dom Gommaire Laporta’s extraordinary polemic Eucharistic Piety). But In Sinu Jesu shows how, properly understood, the Adoration of the Eucharistic presence leads into and deepens the participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice:
«Many priests do not have a real and practical faith in My Eucharistic presence. Do they not know that the Eucharist encloses within itself all the merits of My Passion? Let them recover the faith of their childhood. Let them come to find Me there where I am waiting for them and I, for My part, shall work miracles of grace and holiness in them.» (p. 14)
«In adoration, and from it, as from an ever-flowing fountain, you will receive the love that makes suffering precious and makes you like Me in the hour of My Sacrifice on the altar of the Cross. The more you adore Me, the better equipped you will be to accept suffering and to live it in union with My Passion…» (p. 146)
In a way, In Sinu Jesu reads like a commentary on Pope Benedict XVI’s sermon at the closing Mass of World Youth Day 2005. Not a speculative commentary, but an experiential illustration. I’m convinced that any reader who is willing to enter into the spirit of this book will be inspired with a new desire for union with God in prayer. I cannot recommend it too highly.
One theme that struck me particularly was the theme of loneliness, and the flight from loneliness into the trap of distraction, and the necessity of withdrawing from distraction in order to feel the pain of loneliness so that that pain can be healed by Communion with God. This is a theme that I have been reflecting on from from a quite different perspective in my dissertation on David Foster Wallace, and so I was struck by the words on it here. Consider the following passage:
«I want you to tell priests of the desires of My Heart. I will give you many opportunities to do this. Make known to them these things that I have made known to you. So many of My priests have never really heard and understood the invitation to an exclusive and all-fulfilling friendship with Me. And so, they feel alone in life. They are driven to seek out in other places and in creatures unworthy of the undivided love of their consecrated hearts, the fullness of happiness and hope and peace that only I can give them. So many go forward in bitterness and disappointment. They seek to fill the emptiness within with vain pursuits, with lust, with possessions, with food and drink. They have Me, very often, near to them in the Sacrament of My love, and they leave Me there alone…» (p. 27)
The theme is of course a traditional one, because it has to do with the condition of fallen man as such. Exiled from friendship with God through original sin, mankind wanders through the regio dissimilitudinis, and tries to numb the pain through importunitas mentis, inquietudo corporis, instabilitas (vel loci vel propositi), verbositas, and curiositas.
The problem is a perennial human problem, but it takes on a particular character in the Cartesian universe of modernity, more prone to anxieties of isolation and insecurity that to those of dependence and finality (to use Fritz Rieman’s jargon). The classic modern expression was given at the very dawn of modernity by Pascal in his analysis of diversion in the Pensées, and it recurs throughout the modern era— not only in Catholic writers such as Walker Percy, but also in non-Catholic ones as diverse as Kierkegaard, Paul de Legarde, Heidegger, and David Foster Wallace. Wallace is particularly interesting because of his insistence on loneliness as the root problem. I need scarcely say that while I think those authors are good at setting up the problem, most of them do not have a clear grasp of the solution…
In Sinu Jesu treats the problem particularly as it presents itself in the priestly life. The author is both a monk and a priest, and he shows how fitting it is for all priests to live at least some elements of monastic life. These elements are aimed at leading the soul into the “desert,” as it were, where it is free of diversions and distractions, and becomes able to feel the pain of the loneliness of sin, in order then to receive the healing consolation of Christ. In the Western Rite, all priests are at least required to live a celibate life, and In Sinu Jesu is in part a wonderful reflection on the beautiful and prophetic witness of celibacy. And yet priests engaged in the cura animarum, especially in a modern world that is so intent on diversion (and so skilled in producing it) can so easily fall into diversion’s trap and in “seek in other places” the consolation that can only really be found in Christ.
One of the most moving things about In Sinu Jesu is the constant repeated message that in this earthly pilgrimage true consolation can be found easily in the Adoration of Christ in the viaticum, the way-bread of our journey, in which we already have a foretaste of the union with God that we hope for in Heaven:
«There is no need for you or any priest to remain alone. My Heart is open to all my priest sons, and to those who ask for it, I will not refuse the grace of a special intimacy with me, a participation in the unique grace given Saint Joseph and Saint John in the beginning.» (p. 36)
«I am He who understands every man’s loneliness, especially the loneliness of My priests. I want to share their loneliness so that they will not be alone with themselves, but alone with Me. There I shall speak to their hearts as I am speaking to you. I am ablaze to be for each one of My priests the Friend whom they seek, the Friend with whom they can share everything, the Friend to whom they can tell everything, the Friend who will weep over their sins without, for a moment, ceasing to love them.» (p. 14)
The revival of Eucharistic Adoration among the Catholic movements of our time is one of the more unexpected “signs of the times”. If one looks for signs of life in the Catholic Church in Western Europe, one finds them almost always in movements and groups who put a good deal of emphasis on Eucharistic Adoration. A development that became very visible at World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne. Who would have expected this development? The Liturgical Movement in the 20th century considered Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass to be a dangerous habit, which might lead hearts away from the Sacrifice of the Mass itself, into an “Emmanuel piety” of Divine presence divorced from the Cross (cf. Dom Gommaire Laporta’s extraordinary polemic Eucharistic Piety). But In Sinu Jesu shows how, properly understood, the Adoration of the Eucharistic presence leads into and deepens the participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice:
«Many priests do not have a real and practical faith in My Eucharistic presence. Do they not know that the Eucharist encloses within itself all the merits of My Passion? Let them recover the faith of their childhood. Let them come to find Me there where I am waiting for them and I, for My part, shall work miracles of grace and holiness in them.» (p. 14)
«In adoration, and from it, as from an ever-flowing fountain, you will receive the love that makes suffering precious and makes you like Me in the hour of My Sacrifice on the altar of the Cross. The more you adore Me, the better equipped you will be to accept suffering and to live it in union with My Passion…» (p. 146)
In a way, In Sinu Jesu reads like a commentary on Pope Benedict XVI’s sermon at the closing Mass of World Youth Day 2005. Not a speculative commentary, but an experiential illustration. I’m convinced that any reader who is willing to enter into the spirit of this book will be inspired with a new desire for union with God in prayer. I cannot recommend it too highly.
March 2, 2018
March 2, 2018: Last evening as I was doing the update below I didn't realize how close I was to finishing. There are a couple appendixes, plus a lengthy list of references which comprise the last sixth of the book. I was so sad for this book to end. Bereft. I want to find this monk and ask him if Our Lord still speaks to him? What kind of reception has he had from the monks in his community? This cannot just be the end. Jesus directed the monk to the writings of Mother Catherine Mechtilde de Bar, (1614-1698), who has been compared to St. Teresa of Avila and St. Gertrude. Unfortunately Mother Mechtilde is hardly known and her writings are not even widely available in French much less in English. I am still trying to find something, anything, by her. He also mentioned a French Carmelite priest who had the invisible stigmata. There is almost nothing available about him either. So frustrating!
If it be God's will, I would like to write a review which does justice to this book, plus select some of the best quotes (the ones below are not the best by any means). We shall see. For now, my highlights are available. But they are only the cream of the cream. At times I could have highlighted everything I read.
March 1, 2018: I have overcome my concern with Jesus addressing his remarks in this book to a priest. Yes, He does. The book is primarily written by a priest for priests.
However, over and over throughout the book, Our LORD says His priests are not listening. He wants them to come to Him in Adoration, but they do not come. If such is the case, then I trust Our LORD will not be unhappy to have other souls ready, willing and joyful to answer His call. Such is how I have perceived the message in this book the last two times I have read it during Adoration.
Also, many of the locutions are of a general nature, with Jesus speaking to all Adorers:
If it be God's will, I would like to write a review which does justice to this book, plus select some of the best quotes (the ones below are not the best by any means). We shall see. For now, my highlights are available. But they are only the cream of the cream. At times I could have highlighted everything I read.
March 1, 2018: I have overcome my concern with Jesus addressing his remarks in this book to a priest. Yes, He does. The book is primarily written by a priest for priests.
However, over and over throughout the book, Our LORD says His priests are not listening. He wants them to come to Him in Adoration, but they do not come. If such is the case, then I trust Our LORD will not be unhappy to have other souls ready, willing and joyful to answer His call. Such is how I have perceived the message in this book the last two times I have read it during Adoration.
Also, many of the locutions are of a general nature, with Jesus speaking to all Adorers:
“The work of adoration is little understood, even by those who claim to be My adorers. There is no need to fill up the time of adoration with thoughts and words, as if it all depended on your doing something. It is sufficient to speak to Me as the Holy Spirit gives you to speak, to listen to Me with the ear of your heart, and to abide in the light of My Face for those who languish in the darkness of sin and in the refusal of My love, My truth, and My life.”If everyone were to buy a copy of this book and give it to his/her parish priest and then pray to Our LORD that he actually read it and listen to the pleas of Jesus to undertake Eucharistic Adoration, perhaps we might begin to see some changes (for the better) in the Church and the world...
“For this reason did I wish to remain present in the Sacrament of My love until the end of time: so that souls might know where to find Me, and approach Me easily, certain of being heard, and trusting in the mercy of My Heart for a world marked by suffering and ravaged by sin. There is no form of intercessory prayer more efficacious than that of the soul who approaches My Eucharistic presence, certain of finding Me and certain of being heard. I am not distant from souls in need. I have made Myself close to them, as close as the nearest tabernacle. Would that My people understood this! My churches would be filled to overflowing at every hour of the day and night.”
“It is because I am left alone in the Sacrament of My love that such darkness has fallen over the souls of My priests. It is this that grieves My Sacred Heart more than anything else, and this because the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar is the supreme expression of My personal love for every priest, and there are so few who understand this and respond to My love with love.”
December 3, 2018
This book is the prayer journal of a Benedictine monk who received private revelations from Jesus. Our Lord encourages Eucharistic adoration, and simple trust in Him, in His Will, and in His love for us. He emphasizes how simple prayer is, and how much He desires it from us.
As I read this book, I experienced an increased desire to spend time before the tabernacle every day, in the presence of Jesus. And I found myself trusting Jesus more.
It is always important to exercise prudence and discretion with purported private revelations, and to prefer the clear light of our faith as taught by holy mother Church. Still, I personally believe that Jesus spoke to this monk, and that His words can benefit priests and laity alike.
As I read this book, I experienced an increased desire to spend time before the tabernacle every day, in the presence of Jesus. And I found myself trusting Jesus more.
It is always important to exercise prudence and discretion with purported private revelations, and to prefer the clear light of our faith as taught by holy mother Church. Still, I personally believe that Jesus spoke to this monk, and that His words can benefit priests and laity alike.
December 14, 2023
You're laying on His heart, His Sacred Heart, and He's speaking directly to your heart and there is nothing more beautiful--
the place where we can lay on His heart, His Sacred Heart, just like His beloved Apostle St. John: In Sinu Jesu (asks us to "abide close to My heart like the beloved disciple")
call to linger long in His presence, abide with Him, and it's all as simple as I look at You, You look at me. He's asking for nothing more than the gift of your presence.
joy of each other's company -- invitation to stay with Him, stay where it is warm, stay where He can give you rest.
It is so beautiful. I can't recommend it enough -- completely reoriented my life back towards Jesus!!! It's the most beautiful call to go and adore Him. (Anytime I'd read this outside of Adoration, I immediately wanted to be there). so many moments to pause and ponder over. so many "so beautiful" moments.
There are two entries that I think everyone should read so here they are(!!!)
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
"All that you have asked Me to give you, I will give, and more besides, for I have chosen you to be another John, a friend for My Heart, a consoler in My loneliness, an advocate on behalf of poor sinners, especially on behalf of fallen priests and those who have lost hope in My infinite mercy. Be a companion for Me in the Sacrament of My love, the Sacrament of My divine companionship for every human wayfarer in this valley of tears.
I remain unknown. I am left alone. Even those who claim to profess the mystery of My real presence in the Sacrament of the Altar forsake Me. I am treated with a terrible indifference, with coldness, and with a lack of respect that causes the angels to weep because they cannot offer Me reparation for the coldness and indifference of human hearts. Only men can make reparation for me. What is lacking is the loving response of a human heart to My Eychartistic Heart, pierced, alive, and beating in the Sacrament of the Altar. Only a human heart can make reparation for a human heart. For this reason the angels are sorrowful.
The adoration and the praise they offer Me is angelic. It is the expression of the perfections I have placed in their angelic nature. Without ever dying, they immolate themselves before Me in the tabernacles where I dwell on earth by lowering themselves in the most humble adoration and by placing all their angelic perfections–their beauty, their strength, their intelligence–beneath My feet. The angels are like living flames who burn in My Eucharistic presence, without ever being consumed. Yet for all of this, My angels cannot replace a single human heart in My presence. What I look for from men, what I wait for, above all, from My priests, My angels cannot give me.
And so I turned to St. John to comfort Me; to love Me when the love of others grew cold; to hope in Me when the trust of others was shaken; to remain faithful to Me when the faith of others was put to the test. John was, among the Apostles, My loving friend, My adorer, the one who understood the mystery of reparation to My Heart.
John made reparation for Peter’s denial of Me, not by standing in judgement over Peter, whom he honoured and loved as a father, but by weeping with Peter, and by offering himself in reparation for Peter’s fall.
Again, it was John who offered Me faithful love in exchange for Judas’s faithless betrayal. He made reparation to My Heart that suffered so grievously when Judas walked out of the cenacle into the night. In that moment, John gave Me all the love of his heart, begging me to accept it in reparation for Judas’s cold and calculated plot against Me.
Be another Saint John for My Heart. Offer Me reparation by offering Me yourself: in the place of those who flee from before My Eucharistic Face; in the place of those who cannot bear to remain in My presence, close to My Heart; in the place of those priests of Mine who have time for all else, except for Me.
Give me your companionship, give Me your confidence, give Me your grateful affection. Let nothing keep you from carrying out this design of Mine. One who makes reparation for My priests will discover on the last day that his own sins, though they be many, will be covered over by a single act of reparation, for reparation is the exercise of love, and love covers a multitude of sins.
Love Me, and you will fulfill all that I am asking of you. Love Me, and I will fulfill all that you ask of Me. I desire a company of Johannine souls, priest adorers and reparators, and upon them I will pour out rivers of grace for the renewal of My priesthood and the joy of My Spouse, the Church.”
Thursday, February 25, 2016
“John 12: 23- 26
There is a very real sense in which the prayer of adoration is a loss of one’s life. It is a kind of falling into the ground to die. Remember this when you come to adore Me. Look at the Sacred Host and see Me, who am the grain of wheat fallen into the ground and risen to life, and become the food of a vast multitude of souls, and this until the end of time. The grain of what that I was has become the Host that I am.
When you adore Me, forgetting yourself and forsaking all things for Me, you imitate Me, for adoration is a kind of death. It is a passing out of everything that solicits the senses and a cleaving to Me alone in the bright darkness of faith. So it will be in the hour of your death.
The more deeply you sink into adoration, the more deeply are you planted in the earth, there to die, and there to sprout, and finally to bring forth much fruit.
Sink into the ground of adoration. Consent to disappear, to forsake appearances, and to die, Enter into the silence of the Host. Become by grace what you contemplate in faith. Here, I am hidden, silent, and forsaken by all, save a very few whom I have chosen to enter into My hiddenness, My silence, and My solitude. If you would serve Me, follow Me into My Eucharistic state. Lose all that the world counts as something and become with Me something that the world counts as nothing.
‘Where I am, there also shall my servant be.’ You are here because I am here and was here before you. Adoration is the humblest and, at the same time, the most fruitful expression of service. To adore Me is to serve Me, and ‘if anyone serve Me, my Father will honour him.’ When you adore Me, you serve Me, and in serving Me, you are united to Me who hide Myself, and give Myself, and reveal Myself in this Sacrament. This is the life of adoration: it is the mystery of the grain of wheat buried and hidden in the darkness of the earth. It is the promise of life in abundance and a foretaste of the face-to-face vision that awaits you in glory.”
<3
the place where we can lay on His heart, His Sacred Heart, just like His beloved Apostle St. John: In Sinu Jesu (asks us to "abide close to My heart like the beloved disciple")
call to linger long in His presence, abide with Him, and it's all as simple as I look at You, You look at me. He's asking for nothing more than the gift of your presence.
joy of each other's company -- invitation to stay with Him, stay where it is warm, stay where He can give you rest.
It is so beautiful. I can't recommend it enough -- completely reoriented my life back towards Jesus!!! It's the most beautiful call to go and adore Him. (Anytime I'd read this outside of Adoration, I immediately wanted to be there). so many moments to pause and ponder over. so many "so beautiful" moments.
There are two entries that I think everyone should read so here they are(!!!)
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
"All that you have asked Me to give you, I will give, and more besides, for I have chosen you to be another John, a friend for My Heart, a consoler in My loneliness, an advocate on behalf of poor sinners, especially on behalf of fallen priests and those who have lost hope in My infinite mercy. Be a companion for Me in the Sacrament of My love, the Sacrament of My divine companionship for every human wayfarer in this valley of tears.
I remain unknown. I am left alone. Even those who claim to profess the mystery of My real presence in the Sacrament of the Altar forsake Me. I am treated with a terrible indifference, with coldness, and with a lack of respect that causes the angels to weep because they cannot offer Me reparation for the coldness and indifference of human hearts. Only men can make reparation for me. What is lacking is the loving response of a human heart to My Eychartistic Heart, pierced, alive, and beating in the Sacrament of the Altar. Only a human heart can make reparation for a human heart. For this reason the angels are sorrowful.
The adoration and the praise they offer Me is angelic. It is the expression of the perfections I have placed in their angelic nature. Without ever dying, they immolate themselves before Me in the tabernacles where I dwell on earth by lowering themselves in the most humble adoration and by placing all their angelic perfections–their beauty, their strength, their intelligence–beneath My feet. The angels are like living flames who burn in My Eucharistic presence, without ever being consumed. Yet for all of this, My angels cannot replace a single human heart in My presence. What I look for from men, what I wait for, above all, from My priests, My angels cannot give me.
And so I turned to St. John to comfort Me; to love Me when the love of others grew cold; to hope in Me when the trust of others was shaken; to remain faithful to Me when the faith of others was put to the test. John was, among the Apostles, My loving friend, My adorer, the one who understood the mystery of reparation to My Heart.
John made reparation for Peter’s denial of Me, not by standing in judgement over Peter, whom he honoured and loved as a father, but by weeping with Peter, and by offering himself in reparation for Peter’s fall.
Again, it was John who offered Me faithful love in exchange for Judas’s faithless betrayal. He made reparation to My Heart that suffered so grievously when Judas walked out of the cenacle into the night. In that moment, John gave Me all the love of his heart, begging me to accept it in reparation for Judas’s cold and calculated plot against Me.
Be another Saint John for My Heart. Offer Me reparation by offering Me yourself: in the place of those who flee from before My Eucharistic Face; in the place of those who cannot bear to remain in My presence, close to My Heart; in the place of those priests of Mine who have time for all else, except for Me.
Give me your companionship, give Me your confidence, give Me your grateful affection. Let nothing keep you from carrying out this design of Mine. One who makes reparation for My priests will discover on the last day that his own sins, though they be many, will be covered over by a single act of reparation, for reparation is the exercise of love, and love covers a multitude of sins.
Love Me, and you will fulfill all that I am asking of you. Love Me, and I will fulfill all that you ask of Me. I desire a company of Johannine souls, priest adorers and reparators, and upon them I will pour out rivers of grace for the renewal of My priesthood and the joy of My Spouse, the Church.”
Thursday, February 25, 2016
“John 12: 23- 26
There is a very real sense in which the prayer of adoration is a loss of one’s life. It is a kind of falling into the ground to die. Remember this when you come to adore Me. Look at the Sacred Host and see Me, who am the grain of wheat fallen into the ground and risen to life, and become the food of a vast multitude of souls, and this until the end of time. The grain of what that I was has become the Host that I am.
When you adore Me, forgetting yourself and forsaking all things for Me, you imitate Me, for adoration is a kind of death. It is a passing out of everything that solicits the senses and a cleaving to Me alone in the bright darkness of faith. So it will be in the hour of your death.
The more deeply you sink into adoration, the more deeply are you planted in the earth, there to die, and there to sprout, and finally to bring forth much fruit.
Sink into the ground of adoration. Consent to disappear, to forsake appearances, and to die, Enter into the silence of the Host. Become by grace what you contemplate in faith. Here, I am hidden, silent, and forsaken by all, save a very few whom I have chosen to enter into My hiddenness, My silence, and My solitude. If you would serve Me, follow Me into My Eucharistic state. Lose all that the world counts as something and become with Me something that the world counts as nothing.
‘Where I am, there also shall my servant be.’ You are here because I am here and was here before you. Adoration is the humblest and, at the same time, the most fruitful expression of service. To adore Me is to serve Me, and ‘if anyone serve Me, my Father will honour him.’ When you adore Me, you serve Me, and in serving Me, you are united to Me who hide Myself, and give Myself, and reveal Myself in this Sacrament. This is the life of adoration: it is the mystery of the grain of wheat buried and hidden in the darkness of the earth. It is the promise of life in abundance and a foretaste of the face-to-face vision that awaits you in glory.”
<3
September 10, 2019
This book proposes that we enter into the silence of prayer in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Highly recommended to all priests and seminarians without exception. Also will be of interest to the lay faithful who wish to pray for priests, or enter more deeply into the experience of contemplation.
This book is the source of an ongoing renewal of the priesthood. It is inspiring monastic and priestly vocations, and calling many priests who have read it back to the great work of prayer. Written by a Benedictine monk of Silverstream Priory in Ireland, this is one of those books that will still be read hundreds of years from now. It has not only been a great source of encouragement for me personally, I have also heard many positive responses to passages I have quoted in sermons. This is definitely a book that has the potential to change your life.
This book is the source of an ongoing renewal of the priesthood. It is inspiring monastic and priestly vocations, and calling many priests who have read it back to the great work of prayer. Written by a Benedictine monk of Silverstream Priory in Ireland, this is one of those books that will still be read hundreds of years from now. It has not only been a great source of encouragement for me personally, I have also heard many positive responses to passages I have quoted in sermons. This is definitely a book that has the potential to change your life.
July 23, 2024
For Everyone
A change of life for sure. I’ve read and prayed this book once now and will begin again. It is written for priests, but we are all called to adoration, which this meditation brings out so wonderfully.
A change of life for sure. I’ve read and prayed this book once now and will begin again. It is written for priests, but we are all called to adoration, which this meditation brings out so wonderfully.
July 13, 2018
One of the best spiritual books I have ever read. Truly exceptional. Must-read for seminarians/priests alike and would also be good for anyone who is looking to develop their spiritual life in a radically authentic way.
January 27, 2019
I read this slowly (note my start date!) so I could savor each page. It made me cry more than I've ever cried, and feel more loved than I have ever felt. Surprisingly, I also laughed aloud at times. Jesus turns out to have a wry sense of humor. (I need to dig up the exact quotes...)
June 30, 2025
So thoughtful, contemplating the open Heart in adoration. It stoked my excitement to go adore, to appreciate Him more, and was a real corrective to my thoughts and still is on a daily basis!! LOVED how the priest was probably Irish with the promises and graces of Knock, in this dreary time for that country.
“ Put Me first. Put My friendship before all else. You cannot live without My friendship. It is not good that you should be alone. Seek My Face at all times and in all things. Seek My open Heart present in the Sacrament of My love. I have called you to be My friend. I have revealed Myself to you as the Friend whom you have always desired, the Friend who will never mislead you, never disappoint you, never abandon you.
Open your heart to My friendship. Seek My Face. Converse with Me.
Listen to Me. Remain in My presence. Know that at every moment My eyes rest upon you. My Heart is, at every moment, ready to welcome you. I desire your presence. I want the attention of your heart. I want your friendship in response to the friendship I have offered you.” 26
“ The purpose of any words that I speak to you is to unite you to Me in the silence of love. That is why friends and lovers speak one to the other: to express what they hold in their hearts. Once these things have been expressed, it is enough for them to remain united one to the other in the silence that is the more perfect expression of their love.” 108
“Make Me the object of all your desires and you will never be disappointed. Seek Me and you will find Me. Ask for the grace of My presence… and speak in the inner sanctuary of your soul, and there hold conversation with Me…all that this earthly life offers you is bitter and unable to satisfy your friendship leads to the union of this heart. I have created you and called you to live in My friendship…until that longing is satisfied in heaven.”133
“Understand this: I hold conversation with you because ! love you with an infinitely merciful and tender love and because I set My Heart upon you long ago to make you entirely My own.” 134
“ Listen to Me, My friend, My brother, My adorer, and My priest. One who has not known the joys and the security in love of divine sonship cannot receive the grace of supernatural fatherhood. One learns to be a father by being a son and, even in the perfection of spiritual fatherhood one remains a little child, a son beloved of My Father, full of confidence in His providence and ready, at every moment, to embrace His Will as it unfolds.
So many of My priests are retarded in the exercise of their spiritual paternity because they are wounded in their identity as sons.” 173 my personal favorite
“This is the grace of the Holy Rosary. It is a long, sustained exchange of looks.” 263
“ Put Me first. Put My friendship before all else. You cannot live without My friendship. It is not good that you should be alone. Seek My Face at all times and in all things. Seek My open Heart present in the Sacrament of My love. I have called you to be My friend. I have revealed Myself to you as the Friend whom you have always desired, the Friend who will never mislead you, never disappoint you, never abandon you.
Open your heart to My friendship. Seek My Face. Converse with Me.
Listen to Me. Remain in My presence. Know that at every moment My eyes rest upon you. My Heart is, at every moment, ready to welcome you. I desire your presence. I want the attention of your heart. I want your friendship in response to the friendship I have offered you.” 26
“ The purpose of any words that I speak to you is to unite you to Me in the silence of love. That is why friends and lovers speak one to the other: to express what they hold in their hearts. Once these things have been expressed, it is enough for them to remain united one to the other in the silence that is the more perfect expression of their love.” 108
“Make Me the object of all your desires and you will never be disappointed. Seek Me and you will find Me. Ask for the grace of My presence… and speak in the inner sanctuary of your soul, and there hold conversation with Me…all that this earthly life offers you is bitter and unable to satisfy your friendship leads to the union of this heart. I have created you and called you to live in My friendship…until that longing is satisfied in heaven.”133
“Understand this: I hold conversation with you because ! love you with an infinitely merciful and tender love and because I set My Heart upon you long ago to make you entirely My own.” 134
“ Listen to Me, My friend, My brother, My adorer, and My priest. One who has not known the joys and the security in love of divine sonship cannot receive the grace of supernatural fatherhood. One learns to be a father by being a son and, even in the perfection of spiritual fatherhood one remains a little child, a son beloved of My Father, full of confidence in His providence and ready, at every moment, to embrace His Will as it unfolds.
So many of My priests are retarded in the exercise of their spiritual paternity because they are wounded in their identity as sons.” 173 my personal favorite
“This is the grace of the Holy Rosary. It is a long, sustained exchange of looks.” 263
June 13, 2024
So so good, even if it did take me over a year to finish it.
Quotes:
Yes, I would speak to all souls in this way, but there are so few who know how to be still before My Face, so few who know how to rest, like Saint John, upon My Heart.
Do not give in to the feelings of guilt that assail you because you are not living up to the ideal you have set for yourself. I do not ask you to be faithful to an ideal.
I want the visit to the Blessed Sacrament to become once again a part of ordinary Catholic life, an instinct of the believing heart, an expression of gratitude and reparation to Me who am forsaken and spurned in so many places.
I am here, silent and still, waiting for at least one soul to recognize My real presence and offer Me the consolation of a visit, of an expression of adoration and love. Who knows about the friendship I offer to all from the tabernacles where I dwell hidden and, for the most part, forgotten?
Respond to My love for you by coming to Me as often as you can, by remaining in My presence, by seeking My Face, by resting upon My Eucharistic Heart.
Understand just a little the sorrow of My Eucharistic Heart that is utterly forsaken in countless tabernacles all over the world. Why do I multiply My glorious presence in so real and miraculous a way, if not to be close to the souls whom I love with a burning passion and with a consummate tenderness? And I am left alone. Often I am forgotten from one week to the next, or worse yet, I am treated like a thing, like a commodity kept in reserve in case of need. This was not My intention in instituting this Sacrament of My redeeming love.
Even after two thousand years of Eucharistic presence in My Church, I remain unknown, I am forgotten, forsaken, and treated like a thing to be kept here or there, with little regard for My own burning desire to be present to My people in a visible way and to see them approach Me and remain, silent and adoring, in the light of My Eucharistic Face.
Faithfulness and constancy in good works and in the practice of your rule is the fruit of confidence in My merciful love for the you. The more you trust My merciful love, the more will I give you strength and energy necessary to fulfil what you have promised Me. Trust My mercy, especially in moments of weakness. When you cannot live up to the ideal you have set for yourself, live up to the one thing I ask of you before all else: trust in My merciful love. In this way you will always be pleasing to Me: in your moments of weakness as much as in your times of regular- ity and generous fidelity to your rule. Accept your weaknesses of body and those of your spirit as well; they are no obstacle to the work of My grace in your soul. The only obstacle to My work in souls is the lack of trust in My merciful love.
I am here—really present-available to you at any hour of the day or night. I wait for you. I want to listen to the cares and preoccupations that you carry like a heavy burden. Give them all to Me. Trust in Me and I will act. I have told you this before: for Me nothing is insignificant. No detail of your life is too small and no sin of yours too shameful to be brought to Me and to be abandoned at My feet. Yes, this is how My saints acted. They were certain that any difficulty entrusted to My Heart would find there the best of all possible solutions. Tell Me that you trust in My merciful love by letting go of the things that burden and oppress you. I am the Lord of all things in heaven and on earth, and to Me nothing is impossible.
The work of transformation into Me is My work.
Seek My Face, and I will seek yours, causing My brightness to penetrate your soul and transform you from within.
Your weakness is My gift to you. Instead of offering Me your achievements, offer Me your poverty, your weakness, your very failure to achieve great things, and I, in turn, will accept your offering and, uniting it to My own all-sufficient Passion, will make it fruitful for My priests and for all My Church.
There is nothing I will not do for the soul who abandons herself to Me in a simple act of trust.
give Me all that you have: the present moment.
There is nothing that you cannot discuss with Me, nothing that you cannot bring to Me in the Sacrament of My love. Friendship grows through conversation. Therefore, I have called you and chosen you to dialogue with Me and to open all that is in you to the radiance of My Eucharistic Face.
If My action depended on your state of attention, I would be limited indeed. My action in your soul is deeper than your outward states of attention or sleepiness, deeper too than your thoughts and imaginings. You have only to come before Me intending to adore Me and to offer yourself to My Heart, and I will do all the rest.
Ask Me to hide you in My wounds. There is a place for you in each of My five wounds; each of them represents a refuge against the tempa tions that threaten you, and the traps set by the devil, who would ensnare you and rejoice to see you fall.
The wound in My right hand is your refuge from sins of disobedience and self-will. Take refuge there when you are tempted to take the path that is easy and broad.
The wound in My left hand is your refuge from sins of selfishness, from directing all things to yourself, and grasping the attention of oth ers by seeking to take to yourself what your right hand has given Me.
The wound in My right foot is your refuge from sins of inconstancy. Take refuge there when you are tempted to be inconsistent, and when you waver in your resolutions to love Me above all things, and to place Me first in your affections and in your desires.
The wound in My left foot is your refuge against sins of sloth and of spiritual lethargy. Take refuge there when you are tempted to give up the struggle and to consent to despair and discouragement.
Finally, the wound in My side is your refuge from every false love and every fleshly deceit promising sweetness, but giving bitterness and death instead. Take refuge in My pierced side when you are tempted to look for love in any creature. I have created you for My love, and My love alone can satisfy the desires of your heart. Enter, then, the wound in My side and, penetrating even into My Heart, drink deeply of the springs of love that will refresh and delight your soul and wash you in preparation for the wedding of your soul with Me, for I am the Bridegroom of your soul, your Saviour from all that would defile you, and your God who is love and mercy now and unto the ages of ages.
My Mother is the shining model of every monk and nun and oblate. She is the mould in which monks are shaped and formed according to My Father's plan for each one. In order to grow up into holiness, one must enter the Virgin's heart and hide oneself, as it were, in her virginal womb. Thus is one born again into the life of perfection that I desire to see in every member of My Mystical Body. My most holy Mother is indispensable to life in Me, with Me, and through Me. One who seeks union with Me will find that union more surely, more safely, and more sweetly by going first to My Mother and by consecrating himself unreservedly and forever to her Immaculate Heart.
I am not as demanding of you as you are of yourself.
Bring Me your questions, your problems, and your fears, and I will attend to them; for Me darkness itself is not dark and night shines as the day. There is no situation and no suffering so heavy that I cannot make it light to bear, and even, if such be My will, remove it altogether from those who are crushed beneath its weight.
Pray to Me with confidence and with abandonment, and not with a secret desire to force My hand and to obtain from Me only what you have in view.
Ask and you shall receive. Only ask with a trusting faith, believing that whatever I will give is best for you and most glorious for Me and for My Father. Seek and you shall find. Yes, seek, but allow Me to guide you to the object of your seeking. Seek My Face, and all the rest will be given you besides.
There are souls so attached to what they think I should give them in answer to their prayers, that when I give them what is best for them, and most glorious for Me and for My Father, they fail to see it. This is because they do not intercede or ask in the Holy Spirit. Instead, they pray out of the obscurity, blindness, and narrowness of their own per- ceptions, limiting what I can do for them, and using their prayer as an attempt to control My loving omnipotence.
When you ask, do so with a complete abandonment to My wisdom, My love, and My perfect will. Pray in this way, and you will begin to see wonders surpassing all that you can imagine.
How unfortunate are those who come to Me proposing their own solutions, when all they need to do is to bring Me their problems, their needs, and their requests. When you intercede for one who is ailing, it is enough for you to say to Me: "Lord, the one whom Thou lovest is sick."2 Leave all the rest to My most loving Heart. If you ask for a cure or heal- ing, do so with such confidence in My love that your faith is ready to embrace My response to your prayer in whatever form it takes.
If I am teaching you how to intercede before My Eucharistic Face, and how to present souls to My Eucharistic Heart, it is because I want you to intercede much, to ask boldly, and to obtain great things from My omnipotent love. If you are praying well, that is, praying as I teach you how to pray, then act boldly and confidently, for I am with you and I will not forsake you, and My blessing will rest upon all that you do with a pure heart for My glory and the glory of My Father.
No moment spent in My presence is without value. Every moment given Me is precious in My sight and becomes fruitful for the whole Church. It is not a question of quantity, of spending long hours in My presence when the duties of one's state in life require something else. What I ask instead is the moment of pure adoration and of love offered to Me from a simple, childlike heart. Just as a mother takes as much delight in a single wildflower offered by her child as in a great bouquet of flowers, so too do I take delight in the moment offered Me out of love.
Begin, then, by offering Me what you can. You will see that I will move you to add moment to moment, until you are giving Me all the time of adoration and of love that I desire from you. Too many souls are discouraged when they attempt to pray. They think, wrongly, that unless they can undertake much, they should undertake nothing. And so they abandon prayer and leave Me alone, leave Me waiting for their little moment of presence, a consolation to My Heart.
Trust Me with your weaknesses. Give Me your inability to do even what I have inspired you to do. Your poverty, your infirmity, even your inconstancy is no obstacle to My work in your soul-provided that you abandon all to Me with complete confidence in My merciful love. Do what you can reasonably do, and what you cannot do, give to Me as well. I am as much pleased with the offering of the one as I am with the offering of the other. Let these words comfort you. Know that I am not a taskmaster, but a friend, and the most loving and welcoming of friends.
I am absorbed by your presence before Me. Does it shock you that I should say such a thing? But I am absorbed by you: My eyes rest upon you; My Heart is all yours; I am listening intently to you; and all My attention is focused on you when you come seeking Me. Believe that I am totally absorbed by you, and soon you will be totally absorbed by Me. I speak here using human terms, using the language of friendship, of affection, of love. I am present here in all the sensitivity and tender- ness of My humanity. I am here offering you My friendship, ready to spend as much time with you as you are ready to spend with Me.
Quotes:
Yes, I would speak to all souls in this way, but there are so few who know how to be still before My Face, so few who know how to rest, like Saint John, upon My Heart.
Do not give in to the feelings of guilt that assail you because you are not living up to the ideal you have set for yourself. I do not ask you to be faithful to an ideal.
I want the visit to the Blessed Sacrament to become once again a part of ordinary Catholic life, an instinct of the believing heart, an expression of gratitude and reparation to Me who am forsaken and spurned in so many places.
I am here, silent and still, waiting for at least one soul to recognize My real presence and offer Me the consolation of a visit, of an expression of adoration and love. Who knows about the friendship I offer to all from the tabernacles where I dwell hidden and, for the most part, forgotten?
Respond to My love for you by coming to Me as often as you can, by remaining in My presence, by seeking My Face, by resting upon My Eucharistic Heart.
Understand just a little the sorrow of My Eucharistic Heart that is utterly forsaken in countless tabernacles all over the world. Why do I multiply My glorious presence in so real and miraculous a way, if not to be close to the souls whom I love with a burning passion and with a consummate tenderness? And I am left alone. Often I am forgotten from one week to the next, or worse yet, I am treated like a thing, like a commodity kept in reserve in case of need. This was not My intention in instituting this Sacrament of My redeeming love.
Even after two thousand years of Eucharistic presence in My Church, I remain unknown, I am forgotten, forsaken, and treated like a thing to be kept here or there, with little regard for My own burning desire to be present to My people in a visible way and to see them approach Me and remain, silent and adoring, in the light of My Eucharistic Face.
Faithfulness and constancy in good works and in the practice of your rule is the fruit of confidence in My merciful love for the you. The more you trust My merciful love, the more will I give you strength and energy necessary to fulfil what you have promised Me. Trust My mercy, especially in moments of weakness. When you cannot live up to the ideal you have set for yourself, live up to the one thing I ask of you before all else: trust in My merciful love. In this way you will always be pleasing to Me: in your moments of weakness as much as in your times of regular- ity and generous fidelity to your rule. Accept your weaknesses of body and those of your spirit as well; they are no obstacle to the work of My grace in your soul. The only obstacle to My work in souls is the lack of trust in My merciful love.
I am here—really present-available to you at any hour of the day or night. I wait for you. I want to listen to the cares and preoccupations that you carry like a heavy burden. Give them all to Me. Trust in Me and I will act. I have told you this before: for Me nothing is insignificant. No detail of your life is too small and no sin of yours too shameful to be brought to Me and to be abandoned at My feet. Yes, this is how My saints acted. They were certain that any difficulty entrusted to My Heart would find there the best of all possible solutions. Tell Me that you trust in My merciful love by letting go of the things that burden and oppress you. I am the Lord of all things in heaven and on earth, and to Me nothing is impossible.
The work of transformation into Me is My work.
Seek My Face, and I will seek yours, causing My brightness to penetrate your soul and transform you from within.
Your weakness is My gift to you. Instead of offering Me your achievements, offer Me your poverty, your weakness, your very failure to achieve great things, and I, in turn, will accept your offering and, uniting it to My own all-sufficient Passion, will make it fruitful for My priests and for all My Church.
There is nothing I will not do for the soul who abandons herself to Me in a simple act of trust.
give Me all that you have: the present moment.
There is nothing that you cannot discuss with Me, nothing that you cannot bring to Me in the Sacrament of My love. Friendship grows through conversation. Therefore, I have called you and chosen you to dialogue with Me and to open all that is in you to the radiance of My Eucharistic Face.
If My action depended on your state of attention, I would be limited indeed. My action in your soul is deeper than your outward states of attention or sleepiness, deeper too than your thoughts and imaginings. You have only to come before Me intending to adore Me and to offer yourself to My Heart, and I will do all the rest.
Ask Me to hide you in My wounds. There is a place for you in each of My five wounds; each of them represents a refuge against the tempa tions that threaten you, and the traps set by the devil, who would ensnare you and rejoice to see you fall.
The wound in My right hand is your refuge from sins of disobedience and self-will. Take refuge there when you are tempted to take the path that is easy and broad.
The wound in My left hand is your refuge from sins of selfishness, from directing all things to yourself, and grasping the attention of oth ers by seeking to take to yourself what your right hand has given Me.
The wound in My right foot is your refuge from sins of inconstancy. Take refuge there when you are tempted to be inconsistent, and when you waver in your resolutions to love Me above all things, and to place Me first in your affections and in your desires.
The wound in My left foot is your refuge against sins of sloth and of spiritual lethargy. Take refuge there when you are tempted to give up the struggle and to consent to despair and discouragement.
Finally, the wound in My side is your refuge from every false love and every fleshly deceit promising sweetness, but giving bitterness and death instead. Take refuge in My pierced side when you are tempted to look for love in any creature. I have created you for My love, and My love alone can satisfy the desires of your heart. Enter, then, the wound in My side and, penetrating even into My Heart, drink deeply of the springs of love that will refresh and delight your soul and wash you in preparation for the wedding of your soul with Me, for I am the Bridegroom of your soul, your Saviour from all that would defile you, and your God who is love and mercy now and unto the ages of ages.
My Mother is the shining model of every monk and nun and oblate. She is the mould in which monks are shaped and formed according to My Father's plan for each one. In order to grow up into holiness, one must enter the Virgin's heart and hide oneself, as it were, in her virginal womb. Thus is one born again into the life of perfection that I desire to see in every member of My Mystical Body. My most holy Mother is indispensable to life in Me, with Me, and through Me. One who seeks union with Me will find that union more surely, more safely, and more sweetly by going first to My Mother and by consecrating himself unreservedly and forever to her Immaculate Heart.
I am not as demanding of you as you are of yourself.
Bring Me your questions, your problems, and your fears, and I will attend to them; for Me darkness itself is not dark and night shines as the day. There is no situation and no suffering so heavy that I cannot make it light to bear, and even, if such be My will, remove it altogether from those who are crushed beneath its weight.
Pray to Me with confidence and with abandonment, and not with a secret desire to force My hand and to obtain from Me only what you have in view.
Ask and you shall receive. Only ask with a trusting faith, believing that whatever I will give is best for you and most glorious for Me and for My Father. Seek and you shall find. Yes, seek, but allow Me to guide you to the object of your seeking. Seek My Face, and all the rest will be given you besides.
There are souls so attached to what they think I should give them in answer to their prayers, that when I give them what is best for them, and most glorious for Me and for My Father, they fail to see it. This is because they do not intercede or ask in the Holy Spirit. Instead, they pray out of the obscurity, blindness, and narrowness of their own per- ceptions, limiting what I can do for them, and using their prayer as an attempt to control My loving omnipotence.
When you ask, do so with a complete abandonment to My wisdom, My love, and My perfect will. Pray in this way, and you will begin to see wonders surpassing all that you can imagine.
How unfortunate are those who come to Me proposing their own solutions, when all they need to do is to bring Me their problems, their needs, and their requests. When you intercede for one who is ailing, it is enough for you to say to Me: "Lord, the one whom Thou lovest is sick."2 Leave all the rest to My most loving Heart. If you ask for a cure or heal- ing, do so with such confidence in My love that your faith is ready to embrace My response to your prayer in whatever form it takes.
If I am teaching you how to intercede before My Eucharistic Face, and how to present souls to My Eucharistic Heart, it is because I want you to intercede much, to ask boldly, and to obtain great things from My omnipotent love. If you are praying well, that is, praying as I teach you how to pray, then act boldly and confidently, for I am with you and I will not forsake you, and My blessing will rest upon all that you do with a pure heart for My glory and the glory of My Father.
No moment spent in My presence is without value. Every moment given Me is precious in My sight and becomes fruitful for the whole Church. It is not a question of quantity, of spending long hours in My presence when the duties of one's state in life require something else. What I ask instead is the moment of pure adoration and of love offered to Me from a simple, childlike heart. Just as a mother takes as much delight in a single wildflower offered by her child as in a great bouquet of flowers, so too do I take delight in the moment offered Me out of love.
Begin, then, by offering Me what you can. You will see that I will move you to add moment to moment, until you are giving Me all the time of adoration and of love that I desire from you. Too many souls are discouraged when they attempt to pray. They think, wrongly, that unless they can undertake much, they should undertake nothing. And so they abandon prayer and leave Me alone, leave Me waiting for their little moment of presence, a consolation to My Heart.
Trust Me with your weaknesses. Give Me your inability to do even what I have inspired you to do. Your poverty, your infirmity, even your inconstancy is no obstacle to My work in your soul-provided that you abandon all to Me with complete confidence in My merciful love. Do what you can reasonably do, and what you cannot do, give to Me as well. I am as much pleased with the offering of the one as I am with the offering of the other. Let these words comfort you. Know that I am not a taskmaster, but a friend, and the most loving and welcoming of friends.
I am absorbed by your presence before Me. Does it shock you that I should say such a thing? But I am absorbed by you: My eyes rest upon you; My Heart is all yours; I am listening intently to you; and all My attention is focused on you when you come seeking Me. Believe that I am totally absorbed by you, and soon you will be totally absorbed by Me. I speak here using human terms, using the language of friendship, of affection, of love. I am present here in all the sensitivity and tender- ness of My humanity. I am here offering you My friendship, ready to spend as much time with you as you are ready to spend with Me.
November 27, 2017
When a book ends up full of pencil marks in the margins then you know it is a good one. This is one such book. It is written in the style of personal revelations but in fact is nothing more than the intimate conversation of a Benedictine monk open to the stirrings of the Spirit. The revelations are simple yet profound, encouraging and consoling, yet demanding at times. The book is a stark reminder that prayer is the sine qua non of the life of the consecrated person and that Jesus meets us where we are and patiently leads us to where we may best flourish.
February 27, 2019
It took me exactly a year to chip through this book! This is not a book you can just plow through- it calls for a slow and meditative reading. The “problem” with this book is that each journal entry is incredibly repetitive. Though every entry is beautiful, it sounds almost word for word like the one before it. That’s why it’s only beneficial to read if you only read a few pages or so a week so it stays fresh.
May 15, 2019
A fascinating book that appeals to many not only to priests or future priests. It is important to never forget that Jesus is a real person that his desire for us is to encounter his love, especially in the Eucharist.
Every person is called to that intimate relationship with God, experiencing the love of that one who died and rose out of love for each one of us. He who loves us in such a personal way. He whom we'll encounter at the end of our lives.
Every person is called to that intimate relationship with God, experiencing the love of that one who died and rose out of love for each one of us. He who loves us in such a personal way. He whom we'll encounter at the end of our lives.
May 28, 2019
Go to adoration
I have always had a profound love for Eucharistic Adoration and desire to be here in Gods presence. The words of this monk confirm my experience and even deeper desire to continue to pray there. Thank you Father for speaking to us, calling us to your presence and being present to us in This Sacrament.
I have always had a profound love for Eucharistic Adoration and desire to be here in Gods presence. The words of this monk confirm my experience and even deeper desire to continue to pray there. Thank you Father for speaking to us, calling us to your presence and being present to us in This Sacrament.
July 25, 2018
Encouragement of adoration is needed. I found the message inspiring.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 13, 2019
This book is truly written for priests, which is important because it continues to appeal to them throughout. That said, there is a lot of content in here that can be appreciated by any Catholic.
Here are some noteworthy portions of the book...
Transcendent capacity of prayer
Your sleepiness in no way impedes My action in your soul. If My action depended on your state of attention, I would be limited indeed. My action in your soul is deeper than your outward states of attention or sleepiness, deeper too than your thoughts and imaginings. You have only to come before Me intending to adore Me and to offer yourself to My Heart, and I will do all the rest.
Kindle Locations 2747-2750
Your fatigue and your distractions in adoration are no impediment to My action in the depths of your soul.
Kindle Locations 2859-2860
Suffering, for you, is the humble acceptance of every limitation, fatigue, humiliation, disappointment, and sorrow. It is the joyful acceptance of infirmity and weakness. It is adhesion to all the manifestations of My will, especially those that you are incapable of understanding in the present moment.
Kindle Locations 2755-2757
Adore Me always and in all places by a simple movement of your heart. Consider that wherever you are, I see you and know your heart’s desire.
Kindle Locations 3349-3350
There is no need to force your prayer, as if it were something of your own doing. It is enough to remain with Me, content to be in My presence as I am content to be in yours.
Kindle Locations 3378-3380
For many, the business of religion has driven out the joy that is an infallible sign of My presence in one’s life. I Myself am no longer central to the priestly ministry of too many of My chosen ones: they exhaust themselves in a constant flow of activities and conversations, never taking time to be silent in My presence, and to listen to what My Heart longs to speak to their hearts. This is true not only of diocesan priests; it is, alas, true of far too many of those whom I have called to live for Me alone in the silence of the cloister. Even there, the spirit of activism has penetrated, drawing men from one enterprise to another, causing them to build castles in the sand, playthings that will be swept away again and again by the vehemence of My love, until they learn to find happiness in Me alone.
Kindle Locations 4101-4107
All that does not proceed from Me is lost. All that does not proceed from Me will be swept away on the day of temptation. All that does not come from Me is of no value in the kingdom of heaven. Seek, then, not to do much, but to love Me above all other things.
Kindle Locations 4133-4135
There are, alas, many souls who, in their hour of suffering, stop believing. They lose their faith in Me, and descend into hopelessness, and even despair. To rise from their suffering, they have only to make the smallest act of faith; it will dispel the darkness and lift them out of their despair. A little act of faith is immensely powerful; it is a spark of fire and of light in the vast cold darkness of sin and disbelief.
Kindle Locations 4485-4488
Specifically pertaining to the Priesthood
The happiness of a priest is directly proportionate to his experience of My friendship...
Kindle Locations 4095-4096
Receiving Christ
Trust Me with all the events of your life. I will not abandon you. You are Mine and I will not forsake you. The decisions of men are all in My hands. Nothing will befall you that I do not permit. I will give you My grace to accept the changing circumstances of your life. It is I who am behind all that happens to you. Nothing escapes My wisdom; nothing escapes My love; nothing escapes My omnipotence. Trust Me, and be at peace. I bless you with all the love of My Sacred Heart. Do not be afraid. Tell Me again and again that you trust in My merciful love for you.
Kindle Locations 1377-1381
You are learning, at last, not to force events and not to manipulate people so as to have your own way. I want you to trust Me absolutely and in all things. Nothing escapes My attention. You are close to My Heart. My Mother watches over you. She is your advocate and your perpetual help. Go to her confidently with your doubts, your worries, and your fears. Trust in her maternal Heart is never misplaced, and she will never disappoint you.
Kindle Locations 1741-1744
Make yourself vulnerable to My words. Allow Me to speak to you in such a way as to wound you with the piercing of divine love.
Kindle Locations 3027-3028
Give Me the first place and I will attend to all the rest. Such is My promise to you, and I am faithful to My promises.
Kindle Locations 2770-2771
Every conversation includes both questions and answers. Speak to Me confidently and without fear of being misunderstood or judged.
Kindle Locations 3361-3362
Rise earlier. Give Me the first hours of the day. Come to Me before seeking anything or anyone else. I will strengthen you to use well the hours of each day begun in this way.
Kindle Locations 3929-3930
The exercise of faith increases faith. The exercise of confidence causes confidence to grow.
Kindle Locations 3966-3967
I am here— really present— available to you at any hour of the day or night. I wait for you. I want to listen to the cares and preoccupations that you carry like a heavy burden. Give them all to Me. Trust in Me and I will act. I have told you this before: for Me nothing is insignificant. No detail of your life is too small and no sin of yours too shameful to be brought to Me and to be abandoned at My feet. Yes, this is how My saints acted. They were certain that any difficulty entrusted to My Heart would find there the best of all possible solutions. Tell Me that you trust in My merciful love by letting go of the things that burden and oppress you. I am the Lord of all things in heaven and on earth, and to Me nothing is impossible.
Kindle Locations 1956-1961
Fear is the great obstacle in interior prayer. Prayer, and Eucharistic adoration in particular, is a dangerous transaction because it threatens the state of mediocrity into which one has settled. In adoration I act upon the soul directly: the soul is exposed to Me in her poverty, her nakedness, and all her sins.
Kindle Locations 4141-4143
Look not at your sins; look, rather, at My face and at the wound in My side. Look at the wounds in My hands and in My feet, and receive from them the streams of grace that will heal the wounds of sin, and purify them, and cause them to become signs of the triumph of My mercy in you.
Kindle Locations 4845-4847
The plan to renew the Priesthood
I am about to carry out the plan for the renewal of My priesthood that for so long I have held within My Heart. These days of shame and of darkness that have come upon My priests in so many countries are about to be changed into days of glory and of light. I am about to sanctify My priests by a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them. They will be sanctified as were My Apostles on the morning of Pentecost. Their hearts will be set ablaze with the divine fire of charity and their zeal will know no bounds.
Kindle Locations 2780-2783
Yes, I have united your heart to the heart of My servant Benedict XVI, and this from the very beginning of his pontificate. Listen well to all his teachings. Receive them and make them known, for he is My messenger and My victim-priest in the midst of a world that closes its ears to My word and that still derides the mystery of the Cross. Soon I will give the world a sign that will convert many hearts. Many others will remain closed and, in their refusal to listen and to be healed of the ravages of sin, they will be like hearts turned to stone, and incapable of responding to My redeeming love.
Kindle Locations 3098-3103
Who among My priests will survive the tribulation that is coming? Only those who will have listened to My plea for priest adorers, for priest reparators, for priests who will allow Me to befriend them, and who will give Me their time, their minds, and their hearts in the essential work of adoration. I call this work essential because the right order of things has been subverted and because a great disorder and confusion has overtaken the hearts and minds of My beloved priests. Adoration will be for them and for you the restoration of the only right order: the order of divine love poured into the hearts of men by the Holy Spirit Who is Love. 1
Kindle Locations 4021-4025
There is nothing that can reverse My plan now.
Kindle Location 4029
I am about to send My Holy Spirit as a blazing fire of purity over all the priests of My Church. Those who submit to this purifying and sanctifying action will flourish in My Church for the joy of My Heart and for the glory of My Father. Those who resist this purifying and sanctifying action will grieve Him, will bring great sorrow to My Heart, will provoke the justice of My Father, and will dry up like branches cut off from the vine and ready to be cast into another fire. He who refuses the flames of divine love will suffer the flames of divine justice. This is hard for you to hear, but I say it out of love, filled with an immense pity for every one of My priests, for I love each one to the point of what men of the world call madness; but it is not madness, it is the very nature of the divine love that blazes in My Sacred Heart.
Kindle Locations 4079-4085
The hour is late. Soon there will be no time left to offer Me the prayer and companionship that I have always sought and still seek from My priests. I say this not to cause panic or fright, but because priests must begin to realize that what I asked of My Apostles in Gethsemane perdures. It is My request, here and now, and it is no less urgent today than it was in that awful night in Gethsemane.
Kindle Locations 4466-4469
The attack on the Priesthood
The movement of persecution that is about to break out against My Church will focus on three objects. In fact, this has already begun. I will be attacked in My priests; they represent My Eucharistic Face. The face of the priesthood is My Face, once again mocked and covered with mud, spittle, and blood. I will be dishonoured in the Sacrament of My Body and Blood. You will see an increase of sins against the mysteries of My Body and Blood: sacrileges, desecrations, and mockeries. I will be attacked in the weakest and most vulnerable members of My Mystical Body. This too has already begun, but it will increase until it reaches proportions that will oblige My Father to avenge the blood of His beloved innocents.
Kindle Locations 1785-1790
The attack on My priesthood that appears to be spreading and growing is, in fact, in its final stages. It is a satanic and diabolical onslaught against My Bride the Church, an attempt to destroy her by attacking the most wounded of her ministers in their carnal weaknesses; but I will undo the destruction they have wrought and I will cause My priests and My Spouse the Church to recover a glorious holiness that will confound My enemies and be the beginning of a new era of saints, of martyrs, and of prophets.
Kindle Locations 2814-2817
...the Evil One has schemed and plotted to cover the mystery of My presence with a dark veil of neglect, of irreverence, of forgetfulness, and of unbelief.
Kindle Locations 4194-4195
The crisis in My priesthood will continue and will even grow worse unless My priests, the chosen friends of My Heart, forsake this passing world’s vanities and empty pursuits to become adorers in spirit and in truth.
Kindle Locations 4456-4457
The hardness of hearts
This is My sorrow: that so many, even within My Church and in the ranks of the clergy, My chosen ones and My friends, have hardened their hearts against Me and, to My immense grief, will die in their sins.
Kindle Locations 3103-3105
I have not set bishops over My flock to govern, to teach, and to sanctify out of their personal abilities and by making use of the wisdom of this passing world. I have set them as lights upon a lampstand to shine in every dark place, and I have equipped them with supernatural gifts and divine power to accomplish that for which I chose them and set them over My Church. Woe to those bishops who trust in purely human solutions to the problems that beset My Church! They will be grievously disappointed, and many souls will fall away because they have neglected to take up the supernatural weapons I have prepared for them in this time of spiritual combat.
Kindle Locations 3191-3196
So many of My priests are retarded in the exercise of their spiritual paternity because they are wounded in their identity as sons.
Kindle Locations 3254-3255
The Evil One plots My betrayal, a betrayal by My chosen ones, by the priests whom I love even in their filth, their sin, and their cold-heartedness.
Kindle Locations 3862-3863
If the reality of heaven has become vague and far from the thoughts of so many in My Church, it is because they have forsaken the very mystery of heaven already present and given to them in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Kindle Locations 4613-4614
The Five Wounds of Christ
Ask Me to hide you in My wounds. There is a place for you in each of My five wounds; each of them represents a refuge against the temptations that threaten you, and the traps set by the devil, who would ensnare you and rejoice to see you fall.
The wound in My right hand is your refuge from sins of disobedience and self-will. Take refuge there when you are tempted to take the path that is easy and broad.
The wound in My left hand is your refuge from sins of selfishness, from directing all things to yourself, and grasping the attention of others by seeking to take to yourself what your right hand has given Me.
The wound in My right foot is your refuge from sins of inconstancy. Take refuge there when you are tempted to be inconsistent, and when you waver in your resolutions to love Me above all things, and to place Me first in your affections and in your desires.
The wound in My left foot is your refuge against sins of sloth and of spiritual lethargy. Take refuge there when you are tempted to give up the struggle and to consent to despair and discouragement.
Finally, the wound in My side is your refuge from every false love and every fleshly deceit promising sweetness, but giving bitterness and death instead. Take refuge in My pierced side when you are tempted to look for love in any creature. I have created you for My love, and My love alone can satisfy the desires of your heart. Enter, then, the wound in My side and, penetrating even into My Heart, drink deeply of the springs of love that will refresh and delight your soul and wash you in preparation for the wedding of your soul with Me, for I am the Bridegroom of your soul, your Saviour from all that would defile you, and your God who is love and mercy now and unto the ages of ages.
Kindle Locations 3048-3062
Specific to the mystic
I chose you, the most broken and sin-sick of all My priests, in order to fill your poverty with My gifts and to display My power in your weakness. Your soul was marked by deep wounds, the wounds inflicted by impurity and by sin at so tender an age. You could have continued down the path of evil prepared for you by Satan and his instruments, but My Mother intervened to save you, and she obtained from Me that you should carry out this work of adoration, reparation, and service to My beloved priests.
Kindle Locations 3144-3148
The Effect of Adoration
Chapels of adoration are not mere refuges for the devout. They are the radiant, pulsating centres of an intense divine activity that goes beyond the walls of the place where I am adored to penetrate homes, and schools, and hospitals; to reach even those dark and cold places wherein souls are enslaved to Satan; to penetrate hearts, heal the infirm, and call home those who have wandered far from Me. For these reasons, the work of perpetual adoration, or even of prolonged daily adoration, is intensely apostolic and supernaturally efficacious. Would that My bishops understood this! They would not hesitate to implement the request that came to them from Rome already three years ago. But, alas, they put their trust in human schemes, in plans devised by the worldly-wise, and in programs drawn up along short-sighted human principles. And so they go, and they will continue to go from failure to failure, and from disillusionment to disillusionment.
Kindle Locations 3183-3190
Time spent in My presence is not time lost. It is the multiplication of time and the magnification of your limited strength into an energy that comes from Me, an energy by which I will do great things through you.
Kindle Locations 4132-4133
Adoration gives Me the space in which to work in a soul. It is the great corrective for those who, by their personality and character, are in constant movement and ever restless.
Kindle Locations 4144-4145
A little reading during adoration is not a bad thing; it can dispose the soul to listening to Me directly when I speak to the heart.
Kindle Locations 4152-4153
Purpose of life and the imagination
Live, then, in the present moment. Choose to be faithful to Me in the little things that I give you and ask of you from minute to minute, from hour to hour, and from day to day. It is foolish to pin your hopes and to spend your energy on an imaginary good, when the real good that I offer you is here and now.
It is not forbidden you to dream dreams or to imagine a future that you think will make you happy— I give you your imagination and I am not offended when you use it. The imagined good becomes an evil, however, when it saps you of your energy; when it drains you of the vitality that I would have you offer Me in sacrifice by being faithful to the reality that is here and now; and when you use your imagination to flee from obedience and submission to Me in the circumstances and in the places where I have placed you at this time. Plan for the future by living in the present.
Kindle Locations 3223-3227
Life is not linear; it is made up of twists and turns, of detours and setbacks, of obstacles and of trials. It is the man who perseveres in coming to Me through all these things who comforts My wounded Heart by offering a worthy and costly love.
Kindle Locations 4631-4633
Saint Benedict
Saint Benedict had the grace of a profound union with Me in the adorable mysteries of My Body and Blood. He lived from the altar and for the altar. His adoration in My presence was filled with a profound reverence for My divine majesty and, for Saint Benedict, adoration was the school of humility, of victimhood, and of sacrifice. Without adding anything fanciful to the sober traits of his existence, you must understand that his entire life was profoundly Eucharistic. He could not conceive of a day without partaking of the daily bread of the pure in heart that is My Body given for you. In the Sacrament of My divine charity he saw the pattern of the monastic way of life: a life dead to sin and hidden away from the world, a life in union with My priesthood and with My Sacrifice, the very Sacrifice that I renew upon the altars of My Church through the ministry of My priests.
Kindle Locations 3293-3299
Mother Mectilde Is given special notice In the book
Catherine-Mectilde de Bar was given an insight into the Eucharistic quality of Benedictine life, and she transmitted it in her writings so that others, and now you and the sons I have given you, might live from what she understood and so desired to share.
Kindle Locations 3300-3302
Prayers of reparation
Only a human heart can make reparation for a human heart. For this reason the angels are sorrowful.
Kindle Locations 3905-3906
Here are some noteworthy portions of the book...
Transcendent capacity of prayer
Your sleepiness in no way impedes My action in your soul. If My action depended on your state of attention, I would be limited indeed. My action in your soul is deeper than your outward states of attention or sleepiness, deeper too than your thoughts and imaginings. You have only to come before Me intending to adore Me and to offer yourself to My Heart, and I will do all the rest.
Kindle Locations 2747-2750
Your fatigue and your distractions in adoration are no impediment to My action in the depths of your soul.
Kindle Locations 2859-2860
Suffering, for you, is the humble acceptance of every limitation, fatigue, humiliation, disappointment, and sorrow. It is the joyful acceptance of infirmity and weakness. It is adhesion to all the manifestations of My will, especially those that you are incapable of understanding in the present moment.
Kindle Locations 2755-2757
Adore Me always and in all places by a simple movement of your heart. Consider that wherever you are, I see you and know your heart’s desire.
Kindle Locations 3349-3350
There is no need to force your prayer, as if it were something of your own doing. It is enough to remain with Me, content to be in My presence as I am content to be in yours.
Kindle Locations 3378-3380
For many, the business of religion has driven out the joy that is an infallible sign of My presence in one’s life. I Myself am no longer central to the priestly ministry of too many of My chosen ones: they exhaust themselves in a constant flow of activities and conversations, never taking time to be silent in My presence, and to listen to what My Heart longs to speak to their hearts. This is true not only of diocesan priests; it is, alas, true of far too many of those whom I have called to live for Me alone in the silence of the cloister. Even there, the spirit of activism has penetrated, drawing men from one enterprise to another, causing them to build castles in the sand, playthings that will be swept away again and again by the vehemence of My love, until they learn to find happiness in Me alone.
Kindle Locations 4101-4107
All that does not proceed from Me is lost. All that does not proceed from Me will be swept away on the day of temptation. All that does not come from Me is of no value in the kingdom of heaven. Seek, then, not to do much, but to love Me above all other things.
Kindle Locations 4133-4135
There are, alas, many souls who, in their hour of suffering, stop believing. They lose their faith in Me, and descend into hopelessness, and even despair. To rise from their suffering, they have only to make the smallest act of faith; it will dispel the darkness and lift them out of their despair. A little act of faith is immensely powerful; it is a spark of fire and of light in the vast cold darkness of sin and disbelief.
Kindle Locations 4485-4488
Specifically pertaining to the Priesthood
The happiness of a priest is directly proportionate to his experience of My friendship...
Kindle Locations 4095-4096
Receiving Christ
Trust Me with all the events of your life. I will not abandon you. You are Mine and I will not forsake you. The decisions of men are all in My hands. Nothing will befall you that I do not permit. I will give you My grace to accept the changing circumstances of your life. It is I who am behind all that happens to you. Nothing escapes My wisdom; nothing escapes My love; nothing escapes My omnipotence. Trust Me, and be at peace. I bless you with all the love of My Sacred Heart. Do not be afraid. Tell Me again and again that you trust in My merciful love for you.
Kindle Locations 1377-1381
You are learning, at last, not to force events and not to manipulate people so as to have your own way. I want you to trust Me absolutely and in all things. Nothing escapes My attention. You are close to My Heart. My Mother watches over you. She is your advocate and your perpetual help. Go to her confidently with your doubts, your worries, and your fears. Trust in her maternal Heart is never misplaced, and she will never disappoint you.
Kindle Locations 1741-1744
Make yourself vulnerable to My words. Allow Me to speak to you in such a way as to wound you with the piercing of divine love.
Kindle Locations 3027-3028
Give Me the first place and I will attend to all the rest. Such is My promise to you, and I am faithful to My promises.
Kindle Locations 2770-2771
Every conversation includes both questions and answers. Speak to Me confidently and without fear of being misunderstood or judged.
Kindle Locations 3361-3362
Rise earlier. Give Me the first hours of the day. Come to Me before seeking anything or anyone else. I will strengthen you to use well the hours of each day begun in this way.
Kindle Locations 3929-3930
The exercise of faith increases faith. The exercise of confidence causes confidence to grow.
Kindle Locations 3966-3967
I am here— really present— available to you at any hour of the day or night. I wait for you. I want to listen to the cares and preoccupations that you carry like a heavy burden. Give them all to Me. Trust in Me and I will act. I have told you this before: for Me nothing is insignificant. No detail of your life is too small and no sin of yours too shameful to be brought to Me and to be abandoned at My feet. Yes, this is how My saints acted. They were certain that any difficulty entrusted to My Heart would find there the best of all possible solutions. Tell Me that you trust in My merciful love by letting go of the things that burden and oppress you. I am the Lord of all things in heaven and on earth, and to Me nothing is impossible.
Kindle Locations 1956-1961
Fear is the great obstacle in interior prayer. Prayer, and Eucharistic adoration in particular, is a dangerous transaction because it threatens the state of mediocrity into which one has settled. In adoration I act upon the soul directly: the soul is exposed to Me in her poverty, her nakedness, and all her sins.
Kindle Locations 4141-4143
Look not at your sins; look, rather, at My face and at the wound in My side. Look at the wounds in My hands and in My feet, and receive from them the streams of grace that will heal the wounds of sin, and purify them, and cause them to become signs of the triumph of My mercy in you.
Kindle Locations 4845-4847
The plan to renew the Priesthood
I am about to carry out the plan for the renewal of My priesthood that for so long I have held within My Heart. These days of shame and of darkness that have come upon My priests in so many countries are about to be changed into days of glory and of light. I am about to sanctify My priests by a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them. They will be sanctified as were My Apostles on the morning of Pentecost. Their hearts will be set ablaze with the divine fire of charity and their zeal will know no bounds.
Kindle Locations 2780-2783
Yes, I have united your heart to the heart of My servant Benedict XVI, and this from the very beginning of his pontificate. Listen well to all his teachings. Receive them and make them known, for he is My messenger and My victim-priest in the midst of a world that closes its ears to My word and that still derides the mystery of the Cross. Soon I will give the world a sign that will convert many hearts. Many others will remain closed and, in their refusal to listen and to be healed of the ravages of sin, they will be like hearts turned to stone, and incapable of responding to My redeeming love.
Kindle Locations 3098-3103
Who among My priests will survive the tribulation that is coming? Only those who will have listened to My plea for priest adorers, for priest reparators, for priests who will allow Me to befriend them, and who will give Me their time, their minds, and their hearts in the essential work of adoration. I call this work essential because the right order of things has been subverted and because a great disorder and confusion has overtaken the hearts and minds of My beloved priests. Adoration will be for them and for you the restoration of the only right order: the order of divine love poured into the hearts of men by the Holy Spirit Who is Love. 1
Kindle Locations 4021-4025
There is nothing that can reverse My plan now.
Kindle Location 4029
I am about to send My Holy Spirit as a blazing fire of purity over all the priests of My Church. Those who submit to this purifying and sanctifying action will flourish in My Church for the joy of My Heart and for the glory of My Father. Those who resist this purifying and sanctifying action will grieve Him, will bring great sorrow to My Heart, will provoke the justice of My Father, and will dry up like branches cut off from the vine and ready to be cast into another fire. He who refuses the flames of divine love will suffer the flames of divine justice. This is hard for you to hear, but I say it out of love, filled with an immense pity for every one of My priests, for I love each one to the point of what men of the world call madness; but it is not madness, it is the very nature of the divine love that blazes in My Sacred Heart.
Kindle Locations 4079-4085
The hour is late. Soon there will be no time left to offer Me the prayer and companionship that I have always sought and still seek from My priests. I say this not to cause panic or fright, but because priests must begin to realize that what I asked of My Apostles in Gethsemane perdures. It is My request, here and now, and it is no less urgent today than it was in that awful night in Gethsemane.
Kindle Locations 4466-4469
The attack on the Priesthood
The movement of persecution that is about to break out against My Church will focus on three objects. In fact, this has already begun. I will be attacked in My priests; they represent My Eucharistic Face. The face of the priesthood is My Face, once again mocked and covered with mud, spittle, and blood. I will be dishonoured in the Sacrament of My Body and Blood. You will see an increase of sins against the mysteries of My Body and Blood: sacrileges, desecrations, and mockeries. I will be attacked in the weakest and most vulnerable members of My Mystical Body. This too has already begun, but it will increase until it reaches proportions that will oblige My Father to avenge the blood of His beloved innocents.
Kindle Locations 1785-1790
The attack on My priesthood that appears to be spreading and growing is, in fact, in its final stages. It is a satanic and diabolical onslaught against My Bride the Church, an attempt to destroy her by attacking the most wounded of her ministers in their carnal weaknesses; but I will undo the destruction they have wrought and I will cause My priests and My Spouse the Church to recover a glorious holiness that will confound My enemies and be the beginning of a new era of saints, of martyrs, and of prophets.
Kindle Locations 2814-2817
...the Evil One has schemed and plotted to cover the mystery of My presence with a dark veil of neglect, of irreverence, of forgetfulness, and of unbelief.
Kindle Locations 4194-4195
The crisis in My priesthood will continue and will even grow worse unless My priests, the chosen friends of My Heart, forsake this passing world’s vanities and empty pursuits to become adorers in spirit and in truth.
Kindle Locations 4456-4457
The hardness of hearts
This is My sorrow: that so many, even within My Church and in the ranks of the clergy, My chosen ones and My friends, have hardened their hearts against Me and, to My immense grief, will die in their sins.
Kindle Locations 3103-3105
I have not set bishops over My flock to govern, to teach, and to sanctify out of their personal abilities and by making use of the wisdom of this passing world. I have set them as lights upon a lampstand to shine in every dark place, and I have equipped them with supernatural gifts and divine power to accomplish that for which I chose them and set them over My Church. Woe to those bishops who trust in purely human solutions to the problems that beset My Church! They will be grievously disappointed, and many souls will fall away because they have neglected to take up the supernatural weapons I have prepared for them in this time of spiritual combat.
Kindle Locations 3191-3196
So many of My priests are retarded in the exercise of their spiritual paternity because they are wounded in their identity as sons.
Kindle Locations 3254-3255
The Evil One plots My betrayal, a betrayal by My chosen ones, by the priests whom I love even in their filth, their sin, and their cold-heartedness.
Kindle Locations 3862-3863
If the reality of heaven has become vague and far from the thoughts of so many in My Church, it is because they have forsaken the very mystery of heaven already present and given to them in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Kindle Locations 4613-4614
The Five Wounds of Christ
Ask Me to hide you in My wounds. There is a place for you in each of My five wounds; each of them represents a refuge against the temptations that threaten you, and the traps set by the devil, who would ensnare you and rejoice to see you fall.
The wound in My right hand is your refuge from sins of disobedience and self-will. Take refuge there when you are tempted to take the path that is easy and broad.
The wound in My left hand is your refuge from sins of selfishness, from directing all things to yourself, and grasping the attention of others by seeking to take to yourself what your right hand has given Me.
The wound in My right foot is your refuge from sins of inconstancy. Take refuge there when you are tempted to be inconsistent, and when you waver in your resolutions to love Me above all things, and to place Me first in your affections and in your desires.
The wound in My left foot is your refuge against sins of sloth and of spiritual lethargy. Take refuge there when you are tempted to give up the struggle and to consent to despair and discouragement.
Finally, the wound in My side is your refuge from every false love and every fleshly deceit promising sweetness, but giving bitterness and death instead. Take refuge in My pierced side when you are tempted to look for love in any creature. I have created you for My love, and My love alone can satisfy the desires of your heart. Enter, then, the wound in My side and, penetrating even into My Heart, drink deeply of the springs of love that will refresh and delight your soul and wash you in preparation for the wedding of your soul with Me, for I am the Bridegroom of your soul, your Saviour from all that would defile you, and your God who is love and mercy now and unto the ages of ages.
Kindle Locations 3048-3062
Specific to the mystic
I chose you, the most broken and sin-sick of all My priests, in order to fill your poverty with My gifts and to display My power in your weakness. Your soul was marked by deep wounds, the wounds inflicted by impurity and by sin at so tender an age. You could have continued down the path of evil prepared for you by Satan and his instruments, but My Mother intervened to save you, and she obtained from Me that you should carry out this work of adoration, reparation, and service to My beloved priests.
Kindle Locations 3144-3148
The Effect of Adoration
Chapels of adoration are not mere refuges for the devout. They are the radiant, pulsating centres of an intense divine activity that goes beyond the walls of the place where I am adored to penetrate homes, and schools, and hospitals; to reach even those dark and cold places wherein souls are enslaved to Satan; to penetrate hearts, heal the infirm, and call home those who have wandered far from Me. For these reasons, the work of perpetual adoration, or even of prolonged daily adoration, is intensely apostolic and supernaturally efficacious. Would that My bishops understood this! They would not hesitate to implement the request that came to them from Rome already three years ago. But, alas, they put their trust in human schemes, in plans devised by the worldly-wise, and in programs drawn up along short-sighted human principles. And so they go, and they will continue to go from failure to failure, and from disillusionment to disillusionment.
Kindle Locations 3183-3190
Time spent in My presence is not time lost. It is the multiplication of time and the magnification of your limited strength into an energy that comes from Me, an energy by which I will do great things through you.
Kindle Locations 4132-4133
Adoration gives Me the space in which to work in a soul. It is the great corrective for those who, by their personality and character, are in constant movement and ever restless.
Kindle Locations 4144-4145
A little reading during adoration is not a bad thing; it can dispose the soul to listening to Me directly when I speak to the heart.
Kindle Locations 4152-4153
Purpose of life and the imagination
Live, then, in the present moment. Choose to be faithful to Me in the little things that I give you and ask of you from minute to minute, from hour to hour, and from day to day. It is foolish to pin your hopes and to spend your energy on an imaginary good, when the real good that I offer you is here and now.
It is not forbidden you to dream dreams or to imagine a future that you think will make you happy— I give you your imagination and I am not offended when you use it. The imagined good becomes an evil, however, when it saps you of your energy; when it drains you of the vitality that I would have you offer Me in sacrifice by being faithful to the reality that is here and now; and when you use your imagination to flee from obedience and submission to Me in the circumstances and in the places where I have placed you at this time. Plan for the future by living in the present.
Kindle Locations 3223-3227
Life is not linear; it is made up of twists and turns, of detours and setbacks, of obstacles and of trials. It is the man who perseveres in coming to Me through all these things who comforts My wounded Heart by offering a worthy and costly love.
Kindle Locations 4631-4633
Saint Benedict
Saint Benedict had the grace of a profound union with Me in the adorable mysteries of My Body and Blood. He lived from the altar and for the altar. His adoration in My presence was filled with a profound reverence for My divine majesty and, for Saint Benedict, adoration was the school of humility, of victimhood, and of sacrifice. Without adding anything fanciful to the sober traits of his existence, you must understand that his entire life was profoundly Eucharistic. He could not conceive of a day without partaking of the daily bread of the pure in heart that is My Body given for you. In the Sacrament of My divine charity he saw the pattern of the monastic way of life: a life dead to sin and hidden away from the world, a life in union with My priesthood and with My Sacrifice, the very Sacrifice that I renew upon the altars of My Church through the ministry of My priests.
Kindle Locations 3293-3299
Mother Mectilde Is given special notice In the book
Catherine-Mectilde de Bar was given an insight into the Eucharistic quality of Benedictine life, and she transmitted it in her writings so that others, and now you and the sons I have given you, might live from what she understood and so desired to share.
Kindle Locations 3300-3302
Prayers of reparation
Only a human heart can make reparation for a human heart. For this reason the angels are sorrowful.
Kindle Locations 3905-3906
February 16, 2022
This is such a beautiful book, revelations to a priest during Adoration. It'll take me years to finish because it is so rich. I only read a couple of pages at a time and have to meditate on the words. It remains a bedside companion as well as when I go to Adoration because I give back the words of Jesus back to Him. I do this with Scripture too, esp. His promises. If you've ever doubted God's love for you, read this book. It's quite repetitious! His love for us is there to savor. I've begun highlighting sentences because I know that even after I finish this book, I will return to it again and again.
July 10, 2023
One of my absolute favorite books that I’ve read. As a person who journals as a method of prayer, this was very interesting to read.
I was mesmerized by this young priest’s spiritual journey over his years of writing, and inspired by the way God had chosen to carry out His plan through this priest.
A beautiful testament to the power of prayer, and a reminder to all that God can and will work through us to bring about the salvation of the world, as long as we are open enough to trust Him.
I was mesmerized by this young priest’s spiritual journey over his years of writing, and inspired by the way God had chosen to carry out His plan through this priest.
A beautiful testament to the power of prayer, and a reminder to all that God can and will work through us to bring about the salvation of the world, as long as we are open enough to trust Him.
May 10, 2020
It’s such a powerful book, I started doing one hour of adoration 3 years ago and I’ve seen my spiritual growth but with this book and now understand how important it is to Jesus that we visit him and share with him his sorrows because he is so lonely and forgotten in many churches around the world. This is a great book to use while doing adoration or prayer.
January 28, 2021
Beautiful, simple, prayerful. Great spiritual reading, but needs to be taken in slowly. 1 page a day is more than enough.
February 24, 2022
This was a slow read, and I will definitely read it again. It has really enriched my Adoration times.
October 2, 2024
This book should be read by every Priest. This book can be Key for a person discerning a Vocation.
August 18, 2020
Incredible book. It is comprised mostly of the messages of Christ to an anonymous monk in prayer, meant to be distributed in particular to priests, but the messages in this book can be a huge benefit and inspiration to any Christian.
April 15, 2019
4.5 stars. I often find religious books hard to review, and this was one that i am having a hard time collecting my thoughts about. It’s taken me a long time to get through this book. At times it was hard to relate to, because a lot of it is specifically geared toward helping priests, but there were still a lot of worthwhile reflections and points in it for laypeople about how to be closer to God, especially in the practice of Eucharistic Adoration but also in life in general. The writing is usually exquisite, which certainly helped.
There are also a lot of mentions in the book of the problem of sinful or unfaithful priests—not in any sort of detail, but it made reading the book occasionally uncomfortable in its seeming prescience (because especially recently the public has been made yet more aware of terrible failings on the part of some powerful priests). It drove home, though, the importance of praying for the whole Church, and in some ways especially for priests, that they may be good and holy leaders and live up to their vocation.
On the whole, it was a bit of a strange experience reading this as a layperson (and a woman in particular), but there were still a lot of beautiful reflections and thought-provoking passages. I think what I’ve said here makes it sound like I enjoyed the book considerably less than I did, but it’s hard to articulate what exactly made me stick with it all this time and in spite of sometimes being very conscious of the fact that the book, in many ways, is not meant for people like me. Especially because it’s hard to articulate the experience of Adoration—which is not nearly as available as it should be, and is considered “too religious” even by many Catholics. In some ways like Adoration itself, this book can seem esoteric and intimidating at times, especially at first, and it’s not always comfortable exactly, but there are deep reserves of insight in it. I don’t know that I’ll ever read the whole book again, but there are lots of individual parts I’ve definitely found helpful and plan to come back to (way more dog-eared pages than my usual, even for a religious book.
There are also a lot of mentions in the book of the problem of sinful or unfaithful priests—not in any sort of detail, but it made reading the book occasionally uncomfortable in its seeming prescience (because especially recently the public has been made yet more aware of terrible failings on the part of some powerful priests). It drove home, though, the importance of praying for the whole Church, and in some ways especially for priests, that they may be good and holy leaders and live up to their vocation.
On the whole, it was a bit of a strange experience reading this as a layperson (and a woman in particular), but there were still a lot of beautiful reflections and thought-provoking passages. I think what I’ve said here makes it sound like I enjoyed the book considerably less than I did, but it’s hard to articulate what exactly made me stick with it all this time and in spite of sometimes being very conscious of the fact that the book, in many ways, is not meant for people like me. Especially because it’s hard to articulate the experience of Adoration—which is not nearly as available as it should be, and is considered “too religious” even by many Catholics. In some ways like Adoration itself, this book can seem esoteric and intimidating at times, especially at first, and it’s not always comfortable exactly, but there are deep reserves of insight in it. I don’t know that I’ll ever read the whole book again, but there are lots of individual parts I’ve definitely found helpful and plan to come back to (way more dog-eared pages than my usual, even for a religious book.
February 13, 2019
Wow! Wow! Wow! WOW!! I don’t think there are words to describe how brilliantly beautiful this book is! Jesus speaks not only to the heart of this Benedictine priest, but to each of us, if only we have the ears to hear him! I could not put this one down and I can’t wait to start reading it again!!
December 31, 2019
A fantastic read. This book is a journal containing private revelation that touch on the writer's faith and devotion which allow us to reflect on our own daily practice of faith.
Though not every passage may apply to the reader, there are some incredibly profound and inspiring passages throughout the book. My copy is all marked up now, so you'll have to get your own.
Though not every passage may apply to the reader, there are some incredibly profound and inspiring passages throughout the book. My copy is all marked up now, so you'll have to get your own.
August 23, 2025
Deep and slow spiritual read as (if) really coming from our Lord, with profound messages and encouragement.
May 16, 2018
Stirring. Inspiring. Beautiful. Highly, highly recommended—especially for priests, seminarians, or those discerning a priestly vocation.
June 3, 2018
A handful of gems here, but I especially like the short interjection of:
"Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus", or "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, be to me a saviour"
"Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus", or "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, be to me a saviour"
May 14, 2023
In Sinu Iesu is what it says it is: the journal of a priest at prayer. If one were to rate this as a spiritual treatise based on new insights gleaned or flashy language enjoyed, it would not rank too highly. And they'd be missing the point totally.
If we take the author at his word, these are Jesus' (and Mary's and some saints') words spoken heart to heart in the depths of prayer. So it makes sense that there's nothing new. In fact, the book is often repetitive: live for the Eucharist, make reparation, sacrifice yourself for the life of the Church, live in deepest trusting intimacy with Me, seek the Father's glory above all else, I love you. These are the beats with which the Sacred Heart beats - the beats He greatly desires our hearts to beat with.
In itself, the book is nothing spectacular. But it is a vessel of unmistakable graces. Christ's message of love to this humble Benedictine has stirred longings in my heart that I had only known vaguely before. If you let Him speak to you through this journal, expect a Eucharistic renewal in your own life. I cannot recommend this enough for anyone (especially priests and religious) seeking to deepen their relationship to Christ and the Church.
If we take the author at his word, these are Jesus' (and Mary's and some saints') words spoken heart to heart in the depths of prayer. So it makes sense that there's nothing new. In fact, the book is often repetitive: live for the Eucharist, make reparation, sacrifice yourself for the life of the Church, live in deepest trusting intimacy with Me, seek the Father's glory above all else, I love you. These are the beats with which the Sacred Heart beats - the beats He greatly desires our hearts to beat with.
In itself, the book is nothing spectacular. But it is a vessel of unmistakable graces. Christ's message of love to this humble Benedictine has stirred longings in my heart that I had only known vaguely before. If you let Him speak to you through this journal, expect a Eucharistic renewal in your own life. I cannot recommend this enough for anyone (especially priests and religious) seeking to deepen their relationship to Christ and the Church.
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