Ave Maria Meditations
God, permit that after my death and burial with you, I may rise again to a new and completely spiritual life. I want this Easter-time to become both more “interior” and more “exterior,” however paradoxical that may seem. I want to live in a more complete, intimate union with God. I want prayer to be the foundation of my spiritual life, my surest means of ministry, my best form of charity; my suffering, with my usual voluntary mortifications, will also be the means I will use for doing some good for others and drawing near to the heart of God.
But exteriorly I will become, through God’s grace,more gentle, more loving, engaged always and exclusively with others, their pleasure, their good, and above all, their spiritual well-being. This in all simplicity, forgetting myself, and making of my entire spiritual life a life hidden in Jesus Christ.
And then I want more and more through prayer and my simple effort to establish in myself and manifest to others the joy, the holy, tender, unspeakable joy of Jesus. My immense weakness allows me to approach him only with great effort. He often makes me walk in darkness, on a dry path where the flowers of joy can scarcely grow. Yet my will to be his is stronger than ever, and he will accept, as a sacrifice of love, the gift of these struggles, these multiple sufferings.
My spiritual isolation, the constant and painful injuries caused by those who are hostile or indifferent, especially when they are near and dear to me, the sadness of feeling not up to the great work to be accomplished, the sufferings of my heart, the difficulties of my life, the misery of physical weakness: this is the rocky soil, my God, in which you will cause joy to grow. And out of all of this you will make, for many, salvation and graces of every kind; for me, expiation and holiness; for you, glory.
Mrs. Elisabeth Leseur
