Hello, I'm Father Joe Roche of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception.

Thank you for joining us as we continue with our year-long journey,

reading the Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska from beginning to end.

Today we take up from where we left off, beginning with Diary Entry Number 462.

Now I understand well. beginning with diary entry number 462.

Now I understand well that what unites our soul most closely to God

is self-denial, that is, joining our will to the will of God.

This is what makes the soul truly free, contributes to profound recollection

of the Spirit, and makes all life's burdens light and death sweet.

Jesus told me that if I should have any doubts regarding the feast or the founding of the congregation, or regarding anything else about

which I have spoken in the depths of your soul, I will reply immediately through the mouth

of this priest. During a meditation on humility, an old doubt returned, that a soul, as miserable as mine, could not carry out the task which the Lord was demanding of me.

Just as I was analyzing this doubt, the priest who was conducting the retreat, his train of thought and spoke about the

very thing I was having doubts about, namely that God usually chooses the weakest and simplest

souls as tools for his greatest works, that we can see that this is an undeniable truth

when we look at the men he chose to be his apostles,

or again, when we look at the history of the church and see what great works were done

by souls that were the least capable of accomplishing them, for it is just in this way

that God's works are revealed for what they are, the works of God.

When my doubt had completely disappeared, the priest resumed his conference on humility.

Jesus was standing, as he usually did during each conference on the altar,

and said nothing to me,

...