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 number 1018.

I frequently feel that certain persons are praying for me. I experience

this suddenly in my soul, but I do not always know which person is interceding for me. I also

know when some person has trouble because of something that has to do with me.

Of this, I am inwardly aware, even though the distance that separates us is very great.

March 18, 1937, I have come to know that I have received a certain grace that brings me into great intimacy and communion with the Lord.

He gives me to know this by means of an interior light.

He allows me to know his greatness and holiness and how graciously he lowers himself to me.

He gives me an exclusive knowledge of his love for me and of how he is Lord of absolutely

all things, and also of how he gives himself to a soul while suspending all the laws of nature.

He acts as he wills. I understand the spiritual espousal of a soul with God,

which has no exterior manifestation. It is a purely interior act between the soul and God.

This grace has drawn me into the very burning center of God's love. I have come to

understand his trinitarian quality and the absolute oneness of his being. This grace is different

from all other graces. It is so extremely spiritual that my inaccurate description

knows not how to express even a shade of it. I have such a strong desire to hide myself

that I would like to live as though I did not exist. I feel a strange inner urge to hide myself as deeply as possible

so as to be known only to the heart of Jesus. I want to be a quiet little dwelling place for Jesus

to rest in. I shall admit nothing that might awaken my beloved. My concealment gives me a chance to commune constantly

...