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 Cavalska from beginning to end.

Today we take up from where we left off, beginning with diary entry number 263.

The week for confession came, and to my great joy, I saw the priest I had known before

coming to Vilnius, that is to say, I had known him by seeing him in a vision.

At that moment I heard these words in my soul. This is my faithful servant.

He will help you to fulfill my will here on earth.

Yet I did not open myself to him as the Lord wished, and for some time I struggled against grace.

During each confession God's grace penetrated me in a very special way,

yet I did not reveal my soul before him, and I had the intention of not going to confession to that priest.

After this decision, a terrible anxiety entered my soul. God reproached me severely. When I did lay bare my soul

completely to this priest, Jesus poured an ocean of graces into it. Now I understand what it

means to be faithful to a particular grace. That one grace draws down a whole series of others.

O my Jesus, keep me near to you. See how weak I am. I cannot go a step forward by myself.

So you, Jesus, must stand by me constantly, like a mother by a helpless child and even more so

days of work of struggle and of suffering have begun everything continued according to the

convent routine one is always a novice always having to learn many things and to get to know about many things,

because although the rule is the same, each house has its own customs,

and thus each change is a little novitiate.

August 5, 1933, The Feast of Our Lady of Mercy.

Today I received a great and incomprehensible grace,

...