Sacrifice
“After some time, He said, ‘I thirst. I thirst for salvation of souls. Help Me, My daughter, to save souls. Join your sufferings to My Passion and offer them to the heavenly Father for sinners.’” (Diary of Saint Faustina Entry 1032).
I want all the people who I love to go to heaven when they die.
This is sort of selfish of me, because I love them and want them to experience the greatest beauty and love in eternity. And this means that it is very easy for me to pray that the people who I love are saved. I also happen to want the people who I do not love to experience Heaven in eternity. I ant this because God Himself will be pleased if more souls are saved. After all, God Himself entered into time and space with the express desire to save souls. He wishes for all souls to be saved. I know this because Christ communicated this thirst for souls to the Saints.
Saint Faustina wrote several times of the thirst of Christ during His Passion on the Cross…
“Good Friday. At three o’clock, I saw the Lord Jesus, crucified, who looked at me and said, ‘I thirst.’ Then I saw two rays issue from His side, just as they appear in the image. I then felt in my soul the desire to save souls and to empty myself for the sake of poor sinners. I offered myself, together with the dying Jesus, to the Eternal Father, for the salvation of the whole world. With Jesus, through Jesus and in Jesus is my communion with You, Eternal Father. On Good Friday, Jesus suffered in His soul in a way which was different from [His suffering on] Holy Thursday.” (Diary 648).
Later she wrote, “During Holy Mass, I saw the Lord Jesus nailed upon the cross amidst great torments. A soft moan issued from His Heart. After some time, He said, ‘I thirst. I thirst for salvation of souls. Help Me, My daughter, to save souls. Join your sufferings to My Passion and offer them to the heavenly Father for sinners.’” (Diary 1032).
And I have been reflecting on that today.
You see Saint Faustina considered nothing too great a sacrifice for souls. At the end of her very short life (she died of tuberculosis of the intestines at the age of thirty-three) Saint Faustina spoke to Christ. She asked God why He was leaving her to suffer rather than taking her with Him through her physical death into eternal life (He had promised her a throne in Heaven) and Christ replied that she would regret any lost suffering once she reached Heaven because that suffering is so valuable to the sanctification of a soul.
I often reflect on this because I have a very low tolerance for suffering and have wasted my lifetime opportunities of suffering with complaints instead of sacrifice. And it seems to me that this wonderful gift of sacrifice, where I am allowed to use some of the trials I have encountered to unity with my Beloved, is completely misunderstood. And as a result, I am holding myself back from my Beloved…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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