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 Kovalska from beginning to end.

Today we take up from where we left off, beginning with Diary Entry No. 1697.

I was feeling fairly well today, and I was glad that I would be able to make the Holy Hour.

But when I began to make the Holy Hour, my physical sufferings intensified, so that I was not able to pray.

When the Holy Hour was over, my sufferings came to an end, and I complained to the Lord that I had

wanted so much to steep myself in his sorrowful passion, but that my sufferings had not allowed me to do

so. Then Jesus said to me, My daughter, know that if I allow you to feel and have a more

profound knowledge of my sufferings,

that is a grace from me.

But when your mind is dimmed and your sufferings are great,

it is then that you take an active part in my passion,

and I am conforming you more fully to myself.

It is your task to submit yourself to my will at such times more than at others.

I often attend upon the dying and through entreaties obtain for them trust in God's mercy,

and I implore God for an abundance of divine grace which is

always victorious God's mercy is sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a

wondrous and mysterious way outwardly it seems as if everything were lost. But it is not so.

The soul, illuminated by a ray,

illumined by a ray of God's powerful final grace,

turns to God in the last moment with such a power of love

that in an instant it receives from God forgiveness of sin and

...