How Patience In Suffering Temptations Is Like A Nourishing Food

For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised. (Hebrews 10:36)

Volume 2-September 30, 1899

Jesus told me: “My daughter, I am hungry, give Me something.” And I: ‘I have nothing to give You.’ But at that very instant I saw a loaf of bread and I gave it to Him, and He seemed to eat it with all pleasure. Now, in my interior I kept saying: ‘He hasn’t told me anything for a few days.’ And Jesus answered my thought: “Sometimes the groom is pleased to deal with his bride, and to entrust his most intimate secrets to her; other times, then, he delights with greater pleasure in resting, as they contemplate each other’s beauty. Speaking impedes resting, and the mere thinking of what one has to say and of what one has to deal with, diverts one’s attention from looking at the beauty of the groom or of the bride. However, this is needed; in fact, after they have rested and comprehended each other’s beauty more, they come to love each other more, and with greater strength they enter the field again to work, to deal with and defend their interests. This is what I am doing with you. Aren’t you happy?”
After this, a thought flashed through my mind about the hour spent in hell, and immediately I said: ‘Lord, forgive me – how many offenses I gave You.’ And He: “Do not want to afflict or disturb yourself; it is I who leads the soul deep into the abyss, to then be able to lead her more swiftly to Heaven.” Then He made me comprehend that that loaf of bread that I found was nothing other than the patience with which I had borne that hour of bloody battle. Therefore, patience, humiliation, and offering to God what one suffers in time of temptation, is a nourishing bread that one gives to Our Lord, which He accepts with great pleasure.