Pillars of Fire In My Soul

Sister Faustina applied herself untiringly and incessantly to the ever deeper cultivation of the virtue of humility, which is so pleasing to the Sacred Heart of Christ that He Himself tells us to learn it from Him (Mt 11: 29). She confessed that at times this cost her very dearly: As the soul continues to immerse itself more deeply into the abyss of its nothingness and need, God uses His omnipotence to exalt it. If there is a truly happy soul upon earth, it can only be a truly humble soul. At first, one’s self-love suffers greatly on this account; but after a soul has struggled courageously, God grants it much light, by which it sees how wretched and full of deception every- thing is ... O my Jesus, nothing is better for the soul than humiliations. In contempt is the secret of happiness ... And God, seeing the soul in such a disposition, pursues it with His graces (Diary, 593). The one and the other was true in Sister Faustina’s life: there was no lack of mortifying occasions — painful humiliations — which she bore courageously; but a hundredfold more numerous were the graces, extraordinary and magnificent ones, with which God pursued her, with which He sometimes overwhelmed her. This is the impression one often carries away upon reading her Diary. Love of God Saint Thomas teaches that Christian perfection is to be measured, above all, with the standard of charity, because love unites one with God, the ultimate goal of the human soul. Sister Faustina possessed the virtue of the love of God to an eminent degree. There was found in her, first of all, that most essential proof of love of God which is doing God’s holy will. Not only did Sister Faustina strive to fulfill God’s holy will most perfectly, but she had a deep devotion to it. During one very difficult trial she wrote: Divine Mercy … We Trust in You! 35