Divine Mercy: Saint Faustina speaks to us of the grace of the present moment

1. The terrible everyday gray. - The terrible daily gray has begun. The solemn moments of the feasts have passed, but divine grace remains. I am unceasingly united with God. I live hour by hour. I want to take advantage of the present moment by faithfully realizing what it offers me. I rely on God with unwavering trust.

2. From the first moment I met you. - Merciful Jesus, with what desire you hurried towards the Upper Room to consecrate the Host which was to become my daily bread! Jesus, you wanted to take possession of my heart and melt your living blood with mine. Jesus, let me share every moment of the divinity of your life, let your pure and generous blood beat with all its strength in my heart. May my heart know no other love but yours. From the first moment I met you, I love you. After all, who could remain indifferent to the abyss of mercy that springs from your heart?

3. Transform every grayness. - It is God who fills my life. With him I go through the daily, gray and tiring moments, trusting in him who, being in my heart, is busy transforming every grayness into my personal holiness. So I can become better and be an advantage for your Church through individual holiness, since we all form together one vital organism. That is why I strive for the soil of my heart to bear good fruit. Even if this never appeared to the human eye down here, nevertheless one day it will be seen that many souls have fed and will feed on my fruits.

4. The present moment. - O Jesus, I wish to live in the present moment as if it were the last of my life. I wish to have him serve for your glory. I want it to be a gain for me. I want to look at every moment from the point of view of my certainty that nothing happens without God having willed it.

5. The instant that passes under your eyes. - My highest good, with you my life is neither monotonous nor gray, but as varied as a garden of fragrant flowers, among which I myself am embarrassed to choose. They are treasures that I pluck in abundance every day: sufferings, love of neighbor, humiliations. It is a great thing to know how to capture the moment that passes under your eyes.

6. Jesus, I thank you. - Jesus, I thank you for the small and invisible daily crosses, for the difficulties of common life, for the opposition opposed to my projects, for the bad interpretation given to my intentions, for the humiliations that come to me from others, for the harsh ways with whom I am treated, for the unjust suspicions, for the poor health and the exhaustion of strength, for the renunciation of my own will, for the annihilation of my own self, for the lack of recognition in everything, for the I get in the way of all the plans I had set up. Jesus, I thank you for the interior sufferings, for the dryness of the spirit, for the anguishes, fears and uncertainties, for the darkness of the various trials within the soul, for the torments that are difficult to express, especially those in which no one he understands me, for the bitter agony and for the hour of death.

7. Everything is a gift. - Jesus, I thank you for having drunk before me the bitter cup that you offer me already sweetened. Behold, I have approached my lips to this cup of your holy will. May what your wisdom has established before all ages. I wish to completely empty the cup to which I was predestined. Such a predestination will not be the subject of my examination: my confidence lies in the failure of all my hopes. In you, Lord, everything is good; everything is a gift from your heart. I do not prefer consolations to bitterness, nor bitterness to consolations: I thank you, Jesus, for everything. I am happy to fix my gaze on you, incomprehensible God. It is in this singular existence that my spirit dwells, and here I feel I am at home. O uncreated beauty, whoever has known you only once can love nothing else. I find a chasm inside me and no one but God can fill it.

8. In the spirit of Jesus. - The time of struggle here below is not over. I don't find perfection anywhere. However, I penetrate into the spirit of Jesus and observe his actions, the synthesis of which is found in the Gospel. Even if I lived for a thousand years, I will not exhaust its content in the slightest. When discouragement takes hold of me and the monotony of my duties bores me, I remind myself that the house where I am is at the service of the Lord. Here nothing is small, but the glory of the Church and the progress of other souls depend on an action of little consequence, carried out with an intention that will elevate it. There is, therefore, nothing small.

9. Only the present moment belongs to us. - Suffering is the greatest treasure on earth: the soul is purified by it. The friend knows himself in misfortunes; love is measured by suffering. If the suffering soul knew how much God loves it, it would die of joy. The day will come when we will know what it is worth to have suffered, but then we will no longer be able to suffer. Only the present moment belongs to us.

10. Pain and joy. - When we suffer a lot we have great possibilities to show God that we love him; when we suffer little, the chances of feeling our love for him are slim; when we do not suffer at all, our love has no way of showing itself either great or perfect. With the grace of God, we can reach the point where suffering changes for us into enjoyment, because love is well capable of operating such things within a soul.

11. Invisible daily sacrifices. - Common days, full of gray, I look at you as a party! How festive is this time that produces eternal merits within us! I understand well how the saints benefited from it. Tiny, invisible daily sacrifices, you are for me like wildflowers, which I throw along the steps of Jesus, my beloved. I often compare these trifles to heroic virtues, because heroism is really needed to exercise them consistently.