Hello, I am 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 1430.

One day, I began to doubt as to how it was possible to feel this continual decaying of the body

and at the same time to be able to walk and work.

Perhaps this was some kind of an illusion.

Yet it cannot be an illusion because it causes me such terrible pains.

As I was thinking about this, one of the sisters came to converse with me. After a minute

or two she made a terribly wry face and said, Sister, I smell a corpse here, as though it were

decaying. Oh, how dreadful it is. I said to her, do not be frightened,

sister, that smell of a corpse comes from me. She was very surprised and said she could not stand it

any longer. After she had gone, I understood that God had allowed her to sense this so that I would have no doubt,

but that he was no less than miraculously keeping the knowledge of this suffering from the whole community.

Oh my Jesus, only you know the full depth of this sacrifice. Nevertheless, when in the

refectory I still had to bear being the object of the frequent suspicion that I was being fussy

about my food. At such times, as always, I hasten to the tabernacle and bow before the suborium, and there draw strength to accept God's will.

That which I have written is not yet everything.

Today, during confession, breaking the wafer with me spiritually, he gave me the following wishes.

Be as faithful as you can to the grace of God.

Secondly, beg God's mercy for yourself and for the whole world,

because we are all in great need of God's mercy.

...