(excerpts)

pp. 22-23

THE SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRIST THE WAY TO SANCTITY

To become holy is the duty of every baptized person.
To become holy is a commitment freely assumed by everyone consecrated in the religious life.
To attune one's spirit to that of Jesus Christ up to the point of identifying one's own sentiments with those of the Crucified is the specific path of holiness of every Daughter of Charity. "You are asked to have the holiness of that spirit." (U.R. p.20) says Magdalene.
And imagining the fright and dismay such a standard can cause, she advises: "Do not be frightened at seeing the height of the aim proposed to you or in considering the holiness of the spirit that is asked of you and the greatness of the objectives contemplated. God who always chooses the weakest and most unsuitable instruments in order to confound the wise and the strong, wished to start this holy Institute Himself alone. He who has deigned to lead us will complete the work of His Mercy as long as on your part you acknowledge your unworthiness, weakness and ignorance, but at the same time trust and abandon yourselves entirely to Him" (U.R. p.20).
The way to reach such a goal is Jesus Christ and Him alone: "1 am the Way" (Jn. 14,6).
Jesus Christ, says Paul, has preceded us on this way by becoming holy for us (cf. 1 Con. 1,30).
Sanctity is not the luxury of a few, but a duty for all who have received the gift of faith from the Father and have become sons in the Son. We can be sanctified only in Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 1,2) in His name (cf. 1 Cor. 6,11), that is, in His person.
We are "made holy by the offering of His body made once and for all by Jesus Christ" (Heb. 10,10) to the Father.
Holiness is not the work of our hands (cf. 2 Tim. I,9). Holiness is the fruit of our total surrender into the hands of God. "To those who are close to me I will show my holiness" (Lev. 10,3). "I, the Lord, your God, am holy" (Lev. 19,2). "... I am the holy one in your midst" (Hos. II,9).
The Daughter of Charity has merely to abandon herself decisively and totally to Love, to put herself on that specific path pointed out by the Father to Magdalene and to all who intend to belong to her religious family.
To every Canossian God says: "Become holy because I am holy" (Lev. 11, 44). Be holy "for I am the Lord, your God" (Lev. 20,7), be holy for me (Lev.
20,26).
You will be holy only "thanks to the help of the spirit of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1,19) my Son. His spirit, in virtue of the specific charism infused in my daughter Magdalene is also in vou (cf. 1 Peter 1,11).
You must become holy "in body and spirit" (1 Cor. 7,34). Then I shall be able to make you new, recreated and regenerated bv me "in the goodness and holiness of the truth" (Eph. 4,24).
You are asked to aim at "the holiness of the spirit of my Son" (U.R. p.20) and "that most ardent love" (U.R. p.22) that burnt and consumed itself for me on the cross and with which Christ has procured for me and for you the greatest, the truest and the only lasting glory that is of value.
The glory that is really worth while, indeed, is the manifestation of my holiness in Him and in you, because I alone am "holy and Lord of all holiness" (2 Mac. 14,36

pp. 43-45

THE EFFICACY OF LISTENING TO CHRIST CRUCIFIED

“I am pleased that the preacher whom I have given you, namely, the Crucified Lord, is giving you those sermons as I expected. Believe me, the Daughters of Charity must depend only on this preacher. “ (Ep. III/Il, p. 298)
 

Christ is the rock (cf. 1 Cor. 10,4). Scourged while living among us, by all the winds of human passions, and through the ages by all the winds of human ideologies, "Christ is the same today as He was yesterday and as He will be for ever" (Heb.1 3,8).
Christ is the rock. "You are my God and rock of my safety” (Ps. 89,27).
Struck by the waves of homicidal violence, and through the centuries persecuted in those who believe in Him, He is still the light and security for the shipwrecked, the refuge for the dispersed, rest to the weary and life to the dying.
Men pass, kingdoms pass, centuries go by, but He, the Lord of history, the salvation of mankind. Christ is God. His delicate and mortal humanity is rooted in His divinity and His divinity as the Word is of the same nature as the Father's.
Christ is Rock and Father "is Rock. God the Father “is the rock” (Dt. 32, 4). “You are my Father, my God and the rock of my safety” (Ps. 89, 27). God the Father wills that the Son be born in the hollow of a rock, that He be buried “in a tomb hewn in a rock” (Lk. 23, 53) and that the Church be founded on Christ the rock and on Peter the rock (cf. Mt. 16, 18) This is why Christ can say in all sincerity: “Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and acts on them is like the man who when he built his house dug, and dug deep, and laid the foundations on rock (Lk. 6:47-48)
To build one's life on the rock means to lay its foundation on Christ and ensuring that no human catastrophe will be able to destroy it (cf. Mt.. 7,25). "Jesus Christ is the same today as He was yesterday and as He will be for ever" (Heb. 13,8).
His words are "Spirit and life" (Jn. 6,63). They act out what they say, and what they do lasts for all ages (cf. Sir. 42,15).
"The Daughter of Charity," says Magdalene, must depend only on this preacher" (Ep. III/I, p. 298). She must listen to the words of life of her Spouse, the Crucified Love.
His words, especially those from the cross, are spirit and life" (Jn. 6,63). They are vitally active (cf. Heb. 4,12) and the sacrament of salvation (cf. Mk. 16, 15-18).
The Lord ... in this waterless place brought you water from the hardest rock" (Dt. 8,15) and each one is invited to quench his thirst with this life-giving water.
"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me! Let the man come and drink who believes in me ... from His breast shall flow fountains of living water" (Jn. 7.37-38). The words said by Christ on the cross obtained pardon for the executioners (cf. Lk. 23,34), made Mary the Mother of the Church (cf. Jn. 19,26) and offered and gave Paradise to a repentant thief (cf. Lk. 23,42). The "All is consummated" (Jn. 19,30) declared that all the prophecies had been fulfilled in Him and that man's redemption had come.
Every Daughter of Charity at the feet of the Crucified can hear all this and cry out to her God: "He has settled my feet on a rock" (Ps. 40,3). "0 Lord, my rock" (Ps. 18,3). "My heart is ready, 0 God" (Ps. 108,2) because you are "my heart's rock, my own, God for ever" (Ps. 73,26). To listen to you is to live; to listen to you is real blessedness (cf. Lk. 11,28).

 

pp. 125-127

SHARING OF LIFE AND INTERESTS

"Here truly is the strong point of genuine virtue ... to be contented with the divine dispositions and to conform oneself to them totally . . . I am much comforted by you and by my whole little flock and all of you must rejoice with me that the Lord has begun to treat you as real spouses of the
Crucified." (Ep. III/2, p. 1132)

To share the life of Christ is the desire of many. To follow Him so radically as to conform oneself to Him in the mystery of the cross is the desire of few. Yet, this Man who appears in the history of humanity and remains totally immersed in the mystery of His divinity - a divinity revealed, proclaimed and proved by evidence — has a naturally inexplicable charm.
Many men and women have renounced their own program of life to follow Him on His uncomfortable and unpredictable way.
And while thinking they have denied themselves, they also become aware that in going beyond the reaches of their egoism so as to remain faithful to Him, they have become more human, more fulfilled, more themselves, freer, truer and happier.
We need to love to be able to go out of ourselves and to succeed in loving truly. We need to transcend ourselves in order to rediscover ourselves in the hands of the One who is the author and the wonderful fulfillment of every life, of your life, and your real identity.
Christ loves you more than you can love yourself, and He crosses your path and comes to you as a friend, guide, brother, lover and spouse along your journey. But He is a terribly loyal friend, a guide who leads you through dizzy paths, a brother who remains always and at all costs faithful to the Father, a lover who is well acquainted with the art of allurement, a spouse who does not wish and does not know how to betray you.
Infidelity on your part does not stop His love. He is faithful (cf. Apoc. 19,11). "... I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her" (Hos. 2,16). And forgetting a whole past of evasion and escape, of treason and sin, He says to the unfaithful spouse: "I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord" (Hos. 2,21-22).
Magdalene often experienced this mystical relationship with her God, specially after Holy
Communion. "... after Holy Communion……considering that I had my Spouse within me . . . the tenderest transports of love caught hold of me and I spend the rest of the time in close union with God. My love grew and gathered strength, so I dared to address Him as 'my dear Spouse'. It seemed that I heard Him replying in the same way 'my dear Spouse'. I was left with a consuming desire to work for the Lord and to seek nothing else but Him alone ..." (Mm. p. 468).
The immediate effect of this deep intimacy with God is the desire for Him alone and His interests.
Of these souls, St. Teresa says, "... the more they are flooded with delights, the more they will dedicate themselves to the needs of their neighbour, ready . . . even to sacrifice a thousand lives just to draw even one of them away from sin ..." (Works p. 1029-1030).
Magdalene lived the greater part of her life with these dispositions and it is with such sentiments that her daughters should live: "... endeavouring, as your vocation requires, to prevent sin" (U.R. p. 21).
Thus she associates them with the very sentiments of Christ who, in His life, His passion and, above all, the Eucharist, lives and comes to us as "the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world" (Jn. 1,29). To one of her daughters she writes: "... you say that you are the spouse of the Crucified …. if this is so, it is necessary . . . to keep Him company in suffering and labour" (Ep. III/I, p. 493).
And in such labour, echoing the words of St. Peter, she reminds her to be always very joyful. "But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings" (1 Pt. 4,13).
The way of love is the way of ecstasy. The soul goes out of herself, lives only for her
God, for the brethren and for the whole of humanity. It is a process of transformation that only God is able to carry out in those who surrender themselves to Him unconditionally.
"... the bride of the Lamb is ready" (Apoc. 19,7).