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 149.

When the Lord Himself wants to be close to a soul beginning with diary entry number 149.

When the Lord himself wants to be close to a soul and to lead it, he will remove everything that is external.

When I fell ill and was taken to the infirmary, I suffered much unpleasantness because of this.

There were two of us sick in the infirmary. Sisters would

come to see Sister N, but no one came to visit me. It is true that there was only one

infirmary, but each one had her own cell. The winter nights were long, and Sister N

had the light and the radio headphones, while I could not even

prepare my meditation for lack of a light. When nearly two weeks had passed in this way,

I complained to the Lord one evening that I was suffering so much that I could not even prepare

my meditation because there was no light, and the Lord said that he would come every evening

and give me the points for the next day's meditation. These points always concerned his

sorrowful passion. He would say, consider my sufferings before Pilate, and thus point by point,

I meditated upon his sorrowful passion for one week.

From that moment a great joy entered my soul, and I no longer wanted either the visitors

or the light. Jesus sufficed me for everything. The superiors were indeed very solicitous for the sick, but the Lord

ordained that I should feel forsaken. This best of masters withdraws every created thing

in order that he himself might act. Many a time I have experienced such sufferings and persecutions that Mother M.,

probably Mother Margaret, herself said to me, Sister, along your path, sufferings just spring up

...