Tuesday, September 15, 2015

The Transformative Power of Grief

Our Lady of Sorrows




No one can go through life without encountering grief in one form or another.  The loss of a loved one, a beloved pet, property, freedom, even of our own perceived abilities which we often consider our own, until we lose them.  Those sorrowful dry periods where we feel deprived of God himself is also a grieving.  Grief has a role in the divine plan.  It's a tool which shapes us, matures us.  It is a pale echo of the grief which God experiences himself.

Jesus relates that the Apostles did not become true Apostles until they felt the pain of being deprived of their Master, Jesus in his Ascension.  The pain of loss sharpens the recognition of what we had and increases our love for the lost one.  Jesus states that this transformation into Apostles was not possible with his long presence with them but only through the painful loss.


 
 


My daughter, the greatest sorrow for all of the Apostles, in their entire lives, was to remain without their Master. As they saw Me ascend to Heaven, their hearts were consumed with the pain of my privation; and much more was this pain sharp and penetrating, since it was not a human pain, something material that they were losing – but a divine pain: it was a God that they were losing. And even though I had my Humanity, as It resurrected, It was spiritualized and glorified, therefore all the pain was in their souls; and penetrating their whole beings, it caused them to feel all consumed with grief, to the point of forming in them the most harrowing and painful martyrdom. But all this was necessary for them. It can be said that until that moment, they were nothing but tender babies in virtues and in the knowledge of divine things, and of my very person. I could say that I was in their midst but they did not really know Me, nor love Me. But when they saw Me ascend into Heaven, the pain of losing Me tore the veil, and they recognized Me with such certainty as the true Son of God, that the intense sorrow of no longer seeing Me in their midst gave birth to firmness in good and strength to suffer anything for love of the One whom they had lost. It gave birth to the light of divine science; it removed from them the swaddling clothes of their infancy, and it formed them as intrepid men - no longer fearful, but courageous. The pain transformed them and formed in them the true character of Apostles. What they could not obtain with my presence, they obtained with the pain of my privation.
Vol. 16, May 29, 1924




Adam also grieved in his loss, in recognizing the difference of his innocent state with his fallen state.  He lost the presence of God in his every act, he lost the ease of living in the Divine Will which he had before taken for granted.  Now with this loss he could finally appreciate all that he had and how foolishly he had thrown it all away.  From this loss his love for God grew and he aspired to love him in what ways he had left to him even if it might only be in endeavoring to do the little good that he now could do.  It formed in him long perseverance.  But without the Divine Will he could only form little lights through grace.




It was precisely this that drew all Our tenderness and Our paternal goodness toward Adam. He had comprehended what living in Our Divine Will meant, and with his littlest acts, just as with the greatest, he ran inside Our creative virtue, and they were invested by the Sun of the eternal Fiat which, being Sun, had the virtue of being able to form as many suns as he wanted. And in seeing himself emptied of this creative strength, he could no longer form suns; and so - poor one - he tried as hard as he could to form little lights; and in seeing the great difference between his original act and that after sin, he felt such grief as to feel himself dying at each act of his. The Supreme Being felt touched, and admired the industriousness of poor Adam who, no longer able to form suns, did his best to form little lights with his acts; and because of this, He kept for him the promise of the future Messiah.”
Vol. 23, November 2, 1927




God himself grieves in the loss of his relationship with man and the lost intimacy.  Having to enforce his Justice on man at any time is a sorrow for God himself.  But his eyes are set on a long range prize.  Man was not created to remain isolated from God but to be an ever unfolding work in his hands.  If he chastises now it is only to regain in safety the creature for their mutual joy.



“Oh man, how much I have loved you!  If you knew how I grieve in having to chastise you!  But my Justice forces Me to this.  Ohh man, Ohh man! How I cry and grieve over your lot.”  Then He would burst into tears and, again, He would repeat those words.
Vol. 2, March 14, 1899 



...the chastisements were to serve as a recall to the creature, to be a speaking voice, sentinels that would have shaken them from the sleep of sin, and urge them to get on the right path; they were to be light to lead them.  Thus they were also means to help them receive the goods of the Redemption, and I did not want to destroy these aids.  Therefore by My coming to earth, people were not entirely exempt from the chastisements that they merited.
“Now, my daughter, you think that I would have done more if I had freed the people from the chastisements that are so necessary in these times, and seeing that this request is not conceded you, you become bored with life and would like to come to Heaven.  Poor daughter, how childish you are in the knowledge of the goods which are great, incalculable, and never - ending, and so different from those that are small and finite.  Is it not greater to form the Kingdom of my Divine Will so that It be made known, to prepare the way for creatures to enter into It, to form the light of Its knowledges, to lead them, to give once again the happiness, the original state of creation, to enrich them with all the goods that a Divine Will contains, compared to the goods they would have gained by your freeing all the people from chastisements?  This would be nothing compared to the first, before the great good that comes from the Kingdom of the Supreme Fiat; so if you find yourself in My same position, of having to content yourself to form the Kingdom of the Divine Volition - which is far greater - or send chastisements, you must be content that [the chastisements] at least partially run their course.  This is especially true because I am keeping you on earth for the Kingdom of my Will:  this is your special mission.”
Vol. 21, May 12, 1927



We are not meant to live isolated from God and God created us to be a continuous company to Him.  He longs to love, to give and to be loved in return but he can not obtain any of this unless the creature lives in the safety of the Divine Will.



“I didn’t create the creature so that she might remain isolated at all, it was my work and hence I had to unfold my work in order to form worthy work of me.  Therefore if she doesn’t live in my Will I don’t find the first matter in order to form and grow my life, we live as distant, as isolated, and the solitude grieves me, the silence weighs on me; not being able to unfold my work, I give into manias of love and I feel myself rendered the unhappy God apart from creatures.
Vol. 36, September 11, 1938




Grieving enflames and confirms one in the love of the loved one.  It strengthens and matures one for the journey.  Luisa suffered frequent privations from Jesus.  At first she felt she could grieve and sorrow over these separations but it got to the point where she would feel the pain of the separation without being able to give vent to it by grieving which was even worse for her. 




I continue my abandonment in the Divine Volition, with the almost continuous torment of the privation of my sweet Jesus. Oh! God, what terrible pain. Oh! how I miss my past, His sweet smile, His affectionate kisses, the gentleness of His voice, His enchanting and enrapturing beauty, His chaste embraces, His tender heartbeats which, with so much love, He let palpitate within mine, divinizing me and transforming His life into myself. Each act of Jesus, each word and each gaze, were as many more paradises that He formed in His little daughter. And now, as I remember them, they are wounds, sharp darts, burning arrows of intense sorrow, of martyrdom and of continuous death. But my sorrow is not all here; maybe grieving would have been a relief, because my grief would have told me in clear notes that my love toward the One whom I loved and who had loved me so much, formed my torment. But not even this is conceded to me, because as the wounds are about to bleed, the darts to shoot, the arrows to burn me, the light of the Holy Divine Volition flows in them, and eclipsing all the intensity of my hard martyrdom, It makes peace, happiness, beneficial dew, flow over my poor soul. So, I can not even have the good of grieving over a loss so great. Oh! if I could grieve as before, I believe that my highest good, Jesus, would not take so long to come back. But this is not in my power; I am at the mercy of the Divine Fiat, which leaves not one void in me, and wants to lord even over my sorrow of the privation of Jesus.
Vol. 23, January 13, 1928 





This pain without pain, sorrow without grieving was the same condition that Jesus found himself in in his Humanity.  The Divinity is incapable of suffering.  It is in fact a type of relief to be able to suffer.  So there is a type of disconnect, a sorrow without the accompanying pain which causes spasms.  Jesus states that it is a divine suffering which is incomprehensible to the created mind and can not be fully expressed.   It is only reproduced in a soul which fully lives in the Divine Will and produces the same effects as that which Jesus suffered in these conditions.





I felt I was under the nightmare of an infinite weight. My poor mind moaned with suffocated moans, without the vent of being able to release them because of the privation of my sweet Jesus. And while I felt consumed by the harrowing pain of being deprived of my Life and my All, that very pain, making me intrepid, destroyed in me the life of the pain. So, while I felt immersed in pain, incapable of expressing myself, it was yet pain without pain, sorrow without sorrow; and in my bitterness I thought to myself: ‘Why am I not able to grieve? I feel an infinite pain in me, as infinite as the One who left me; yet, as I try to penetrate into a pain so just and holy – being deprived of my Jesus – so as to water my poor soul, the pain escapes me, and I remain without the life of the pain. My Jesus, have pity on me – do not leave in a state so unhappy.’
But while I was thinking of this, my lovable Jesus, moving in my interior, told me: “My daughter, one who lives in my Will enters the divine order. And since Our Divinity is incapable of suffering, anything, (not) even the slightest thing, can in the least shade Our perennial and infinite happiness; and as much as creatures offend Us, the pain, the offenses, remain outside of Us – never within Us. And if pain could enter into Us, it would immediately lose the nature of pain and would convert into happiness. In the same way, for one who lives in my Will pain cannot enter her soul; more so since, in feeling the light, the strength, the happiness of the nature of my Divine Will within her, she already feels in possession of that Jesus of whom she seems to be deprived.  How can she grieve if she already possesses Him? Therefore, pain remains outside of the soul – that is, in the human nature – and while the soul feels all the spasm of my privation and the weight of an infinite pain, which is the privation of Me, because she is invested by the Divine Fiat she seems incapable of grieving. And so she feels pain without pain, sorrow without sorrow, because pain and sorrows cannot enter the sacrarium of my Will – they are forced to remain outside. The soul feels them, sees them, touches them, but they do not enter into her center. And if they did, my Will would lose Its happy nature in you, which cannot be.
It happens as to the Sun, which in incapable of darkness. All of the human strengths cannot make one atom of darkness enter into its light; however, darkness can extend outside of the light. But the Sun loses nothing, either its heat, or its admirable effects; it is always triumphant in its state of light – darkness can neither make it go down, nor take anything away from its light. However, if the Sun could grieve, It would feel bad at being surrounded by darkness, even though it can cause no harm to Its center, nor to Its happy state.  But this is a pain that surpasses all other pains, because it is a pain of divine order. How many times my Humanity felt it! It felt crushed – all pains weighed upon Me, but inside of Me the Divine Will was untouchable by all of my pains, and possessed immense happinesses, beatitudes without end. It can be said that there were two natures in Me – one opposed to the other: one of happiness, the other of pains. Oh, how my human nature felt the pains more vividly than the immense joys of my divine nature!
This is why you are incapable of expressing yourself – because these are pains of divine order; and if before, when I would hide from you, you felt that everything would turn into pain within you, it was because the life of my Will, in Its wholeness, was missing in you. Therefore, those voids were filled with pain, and you would feel sensitivity to the pain which rendered you, not imperturbable and peaceful as today, but agitated, without that firmness which gives of the divine. And I would immediately run to sustain you, because I did not see all of the indelible characters of my Will. In fact, that which my Will places is never erased, and I, feeling confident about It, leave the task to my Divine Fiat.”
Vol. 24, May 10, 1928


But when Jesus acts it is a life that he produces and therefore his grieving is over a divine life.



How different is my operating from that of creatures. If they speak, teach, operate, they do not leave their life in the word and in the work, therefore they do not grieve too much if their words and works do not obtain their fruits. On the other hand, I grieve very, very much, because it is life that I make run in what I manifest.”
Vol. 23, November 6, 1927


All the lives he's deposited in the Creation and in the Redemption who's purpose is to bring about their goods and life to the creature, remain frustrated and as impotent.  This is the Divine grief that God undergoes constantly and he is even constrained by love to preserve the creature in it's chosen life of "mud" when it always holds at the ready the gift of eternal, royal life.



The Creation is stuffed with our creative works.  The redemption is a boundless field of our actions, done because they brought the life and the good that they contain to creatures.  So that we are surrounded by the magnificence of our works.  But we hold the sorrow that these works do not become taken, and many (are) not even known by the creature, and hence they are for them as dead.  Because they bring life and produce fruits of life as much as [creatures] make use of them, and to hold so many vital works compromised, as so many of our properties without producing the fruits that they contain, and more so to see the creature poor, weak and without the life of true good, it grieves us so much, that you can not understand in what condition of sorrow creatures put us in. 
Vol. 29, April 24, 1931


“My daughter, if you knew how many sorrows my Will receives, you would cry with me. In all Creation my Will has Its motion and Its continuous act; It encompasses everything, and in all created things It holds out Its incessant act to each creature. But not finding Its own Will in them in order to give Its act – on the contrary, It finds human wills as though covered with mud - It is forced to place Its act in order to preserve them. It feels tortured by the sorrow of placing in the mud the nobility, the sanctity, the purity of Its divine acts. It does not find the cortege of Its own Divine Will in Its act which It deposits in the creature, and It suffers intensely; and I feel Its sorrow in each of Its acts, as well as in each act which It allows the creatures themselves to do. If the creature speaks, operates and walks, it is my Divine Will that makes Itself primary motion of her word, work and step; and yet, It is not looked at, It is put aside as if my Volition were extraneous to her, while It holds the vital and essential part of her act. Oh! how It grieves in each act of creatures, in seeing Itself neither recognized, nor loved, nor looked at. There is nothing in Creation which my Will does not do: in the sun It does Its act of incessant light in order to give light to creatures, and It looks for Its own Volition in them in order to receive the cortege and the glory for Its light; and not finding it, It grieves, because It does not find in them that which matches Its light - on the contrary, It finds in them darkness and coldness which offend Its light and Its heat. What sorrow! My Volition does Its continuous act in the air, and breathing in It, It forms a vital act in the air, such that, as creatures breathe it, they receive life. But while It gives life, It does not find in them the breath of Its own Divine Volition which, breathing together with the creature, would form Divine Life in her. What sorrow – to give life, and not to be able to form it in them. My Will forms the food, It keeps so many elements in exercise – the earth, the wind, the sun, the air, the water, the seed – in order to form this food and give it to creatures, so as to find Its own Will in them. But – no, it is in vain, and Its sorrow becomes more intense.
Vol. 22, August 28, 1927



Jesus states that God is like an unimaginable rich king who would like to go out among his people and share his riches with them.  But his people reject him and reject his gifts.  But he will not stop until he finds souls who will take his every last cent.  Until then he will grieve and sorrow.



In sum, for each misfortune he sees in his kingdom, he has a sorrow, a tear; and he grieves over his million which the ingratitude of his people rejects.  However, the goodness of this king is so great that, in spite of all this ingratitude, he does not withdraw this million; he lets it continue to circulate, hoping that other generations may take the good which the others have rejected, so that he may receive the glory of the good which he has done for his kingdom.
           “So I do:  I will not withdraw my Love which has been released - It will continue to go wandering.  Its sobbing will last still, until It finds souls who would take this Love of Mine down to the last cent, so that my crying may cease, and I may receive the glory of the dowry of Love which I issued for the good of creatures.  But do you know who are the fortunate ones who will make the sobbing of my Love cease?  The souls who will live in my Will.  They will take all the Love rejected by the other generations; by the power of my Creative Will, they will multiply It as much as they want, and for as many creatures as have rejected It.  Then will my sobbing cease, and the sob of joy will take its place; and Love, satisfied, will give to these fortunate ones all the goods and the happiness which the others did not want.”
Vol. 14, February 4, 1922




With a soul living in the Divine Will God can use these voids that grieving forms in us to create.  It is the place in which he can create new life.  He requires a void, a place where to place his new life, his creative work.  Grieving, sorrow is an emptying of oneself and creates that void.  It is a pattern which God has been repeating from the very beginning of time.




In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Genesis 1:1-3



These privations suffered by Luisa formed and prepared the field, the womb even to receive the new creation.  When suffered in the Divine Will this death produces not just a maturity or a strengthening or an increase in love but Life, Divine Life.



The pain of my privation prepares the place for my new life, and disposes your soul to listen to and to comprehend the important truths on my Divine Fiat. If I did not deprive you of Me so very often, you would not have had the new surprises of your Jesus, His many teachings. Have you yourself not seen how, after you have been without Me and you thought that everything was over for you, my life would rise again in you and, all love and festive, I would set about giving you my lessons? So, when I deprive you of Me, I remain hidden in you and I prepare the work to give you, and my new life to rise again. I too suffered the pain of death, to make all creatures rise again in the pain of my death. Death, suffered in the divine order and in order to fulfill the Divine Will, produces Divine Life, so that all creatures might receive this Divine Life. And, after having suffered so many deaths, I wanted to really die - how many goods did my resurrection not produce? It can be said that with my resurrection all the goods of my Redemption rose again, and, with it, all goods rose again for creatures, as well as their very life. Therefore, be attentive, and let Me do.”
Vol. 25, December 13, 1928



And Jesus encourages Luisa to always remain guided by the Divine Will in all things so that grief may change into victory.



“My good daughter, courage.  Allow yourself to be guided by the light of my Divine Will, which will know how to convert sorrows, sufferings, my privations themselves into perennial peace, and into divine conquests.  The nature of his light is eclipsed, strengthened, fortified; and where his light arrives, sorrow loses strength; he is life, and changes it into conquests and into joys, because the strength of his light excels, and where he takes his post all other things lose life.
Vol. 31, August 7, 1932





Jesus has made it so that this might be ready to release on this memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows.   In her we can try to gain a little understanding in what this divine grieving achieves.  She grieved over the all the offences given to God.  But because she was animated by the Divine Will this grieving did more than just confirm and strengthen it produced in her an unending fount, and endless sea of grace which she can use for the glory of Heaven, the relief for the souls in Purgatory and for the benefit for us still making our way on earth.





“My daughter, even before knowing that She was to be my Mother, my dear Mama had Her sea of sorrow, and this sea was the pain because of the offenses given to Her Creator.  Oh! how She grieved.  And then, this pain of Hers was animated by a Divine Will, which She possessed, and which contains the virtue of a fount:  It has the virtue of changing everything that is done in It – the littlest things, the drops of water - into unending sea.
Vol. 20, November 4, 1926




“My daughter, courage along the way of sorrow.  See, these seven suns which come out from within my Heart are my Seven Sorrows which produced much glory and splendor for Me.  These suns, the fruits of my sorrows, dart continuously through the throne of the Most Holy Trinity which, feeling wounded, sends Me seven channels of grace continuously, making Me their owner; and I dispense them for the glory of all Heaven, for the relief of purging souls, and for the benefit of pilgrim souls.” 
Vol. 6, December 21, 1903



God wants to love and to be loved in return.  He wants to be known and understood by his creature.  He wants to enrich his children with his own riches, with Divine Lives in their each and every act.  It is only when a creature arrives to live in his Divine Will that all of his sorrow ceases and he can love as he wants.  Until that point the creature will always remain isolated and estranged and God will remain unable to be the God and Father that he truly is.





“Therefore we love so much that the creature live in our Volition, because we want to give, we want that she understand us, we want to populate all the human acts with our divine lives, we don’t want to remain enclosed, repressed, in our divine circle.  To be able to give, and not give, how much it grieves us, and even to such that she won’t live in our Volition the creature will be always the little ignorant one of our supreme being, incapable of even learning the vowels of how much we love her and of how much we can give her. They will be always the dissimilar children from us, that maybe don’t even know us, degenerates from their Father.”
Vol. 36, August 21, 1938        




“I didn’t create the creature so that she might remain isolated at all, it was my work and hence I had to unfold my work in order to form worthy work of me.  Therefore if she doesn’t live in my Will I don’t find the first matter in order to form and grow my life, we live as distant, as isolated, and the solitude grieves me, the silence weighs on me; not being able to unfold my work, I give into manias of love and I feel myself rendered the unhappy God apart from creatures.
Vol. 36, September 11, 1938 




“I have done everything for you, come to enjoy and possess all that which with so much love I have created for you, do not make yourself estranged from all that which belongs to you nor make ours and your possessions isolated and deserted.  Come and make your voice echoed, so that it resounds in all our created things.  Make us feel the sweet stamping of your steps.  Solitude grieves us, company puts us in feast and gives us the sweet surprises of the joys that our beloved creature can give us.”
Vol. 30, April 23,  1932  


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