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 Kavalska from beginning to end.

Today, we take up from where we left off, beginning with Diary Entry Number 95.

A deeper knowledge of God and the terror of the soul.

In the beginning, God lets himself be known as holiness, justice, goodness,

that is to say, mercy.

The soul does not come to know this all at once, but piecemeal, in flashes, that is to say,

when God draws near, and this does not last for long, because the soul could not bear such

light.

During prayer the soul experiences flashes of this light which makes it impossible to pray as before. Try as it may to force itself

to pray as it did before, all is in vain. It becomes completely impossible for it to continue

to pray as it did before it received this light. This light which has touched the soul

is alive within it, and nothing can either quench or diminish it.

This flash of the knowledge of God draws the soul and it kindles its love for him.

But this same flash at the same time allows the soul to know itself as it is.

The soul sees its whole interior in a superior light, and it rises up, alarmed, and terrified.

Still, it does not remain under the effects of terror, but it begins to purify itself, to humble

and abase itself before the Lord. These lights become stronger and more frequent. The more the soul is crystallized,

the more these lights penetrate it. However, if the soul has responded faithfully and courageously

to these first graces, God fills it with his consolations and gives himself to it in a perceptible matter.

At certain moments the soul, as it were, enters into intimacy with God and greatly rejoices

...