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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“Do not be discouraged in the face of the trials to which the Divine Mercy wishes to subject you. He still wants to try you and strengthen you at the school of sacrifice and pain. Do not be discouraged; pray with humility and remember the calm after the rain, the light after the darkness, the placid quiet after the tempest and the whirlwind. The merciful help of the paternal love of our God, and the great gifts of His divine majesty, will certainly surround with glory the faith of those who have persevered.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“It is God Who permits that your heart be in aridity and darkness; therefore, it is not harshness but sweetness. Do not be discouraged in the way you have undertaken because everything is pleasing to God. As He wants your heart to always be faithful to Him, He will not allow things to worsen more than you can handle, and He will bear the burden with you, so that He will see that you bend your shoulders willingly.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

26- “Aridity is a trial of fire, wholly different, however, from the fire of this base world. Between these two fires, though, there is this similarity, that is that both of them destroy and consume everything that opposes the attainment of their goal.”

27- “My soul is placed by the Lord to rot in suffering. My state is bitter; it is terrible; it is extremely frightful. Everything is obscure around me and within me: obscurity of the intellect, afflictions of the will; I am tormented in my memory. The thought of faith alone sustains me: in my innermost being I am bruised with pain, and at the same time, afflicted and anxious from divine love.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“There are certain moments in which there gathers over the heaven of my soul clouds so obscure and so dark, that it does not allow me even to see a faint ray of light. It is high night for my poor soul. All of hell has poured out upon it [my soul] with all of its cavernous roaring, as well as my whole past life; and what is more frightening is that my own soul, with its fantasy and its imagination, seems to conspire against itself.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

23- “Sickness, lumps in the throat, caresses, holy flames, temptations, aridity and desolation are traits of the ineffable charity of God. And when the evil one wants to persuade you that you are victim of his assaults or of divine abandonment, do not believe him because he is suggesting that which is false to you, he wants to deceive you.”

24- “Knowing that you know yourself to be always resigned to the will of heaven fills my soul with a superlative joy. Well then, continue to trust and hope in the Lord even more, and He will know how, even in the midst of the extreme spiritual desolations, to console and sooth your pain, because certain crosses would seem intolerable.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“Do not be amazed at your distractions and spiritual aridity; that springs up in you, partially from your senses and partially from your heart, which is not wholly in your power […]. Therefore, live tranquilly. For however long this kind of evil endures, you must not behave anxiously, you must not ever neglect to draw near to the Sacred Banquet of the Divine Lamb, because no other thing shall recollect your spirit better than it’s [the soul’s] king; nothing warms [your spirit] better than it’s sun; nothing will soften [you soul] so sweetly than its balsam. There is no other stronger remedy than this.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“You see yourself abandoned, and I assure you that Jesus holds you tighter than ever to His Divine Heart. Our Lord also lamented on the Cross of being abandoned by the Father: but did the Father and could the Father ever have abandoned His Son? They are the supreme trials of the spirit: fiat! Pronounce this fiat with resignation when you find yourself in such trials and do not fear. You may even lament with Jesus as it seems best to you and as you please: pray to Him as you wish: but be firm in the assurance of he who speaks to you in His name.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

15- “Be certain that when you find yourself in aridity of spirit, Jesus has not excluded you from the enjoyment of His sweetness: He has only hidden Himself a little, so that you live of Him and for Him, and not ever for His sweetness; so that people who are afflicted find in you a compassionate and loving help; so that the Lord, from a dead and sacrificed heart, receives the pleasing odor of a holy holocaust.”

16- “Do not be troubled in whatever state of aridity you may find yourself to be. Let yourself be lovingly guided by Divine Providence, be it that He wants to make you walk by land and by deserts, be it by the waters of sensible and spiritual consolations. Keep your bouquet in your hand, but if some other delicious odor presents itself to you, do not neglect to smell it with gratitude, because the bouquet is there so as not to leave you for long without some comfort or spiritual pleasure.”

17- “You are right to lament […], because more often than not you find yourself in darkness: you search for your God, you long for Him, you call Him and do not find His footprints. It seems that God had hidden Himself, has abandoned you! But, I repeat, do not fear: Jesus is with you even then, as you are in Him and with Him. He conceals Himself; He hides Himself to always increase love. In darkness, in tribulations, in anxiety of spirit, Jesus is with you. You see nothing other than darkness in your spirit, and I assure you on God’s behalf, that the light of the Lord invades and surrounds your whole soul.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“It is not at all true that you, in this state of aridity and desolation of spirit, to which the most loving Savior has subjected you, offend God because His vigilant grace guards you very well from such offenses. And if, therefore, you do not offend God, but rather, you love Him in this state willed by Him, of what therefore should you grieve over? Of what do you afflict yourself? Set out, therefore, on your ascent to the Cross; stretch out upon it and be patient with yourself because with your patience, the Divine Master tell us, you will possess your soul.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“You are not alone in your trial, which is a true agony, but well accompanied: otherwise, how could you want that which the soul flees from, and frighten yourself for not being able to pronounce the fiat!? How could you want to love the highest good? How could you fear to offend? Yes, you, too, say always to the most sweet Lord: I want to live dying, as long as from death comes life, and helps life to rise from the dead.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

11- “Moses, that great leader of the people of God, found the Lord in the darkness of Sinai. The Hebrew people saw it in the form of a cloud and as a cloud it appeared in the Temple. Jesus Christ, in the transfiguration on Tabor, was first visible and then made invisible to His apostles, because He was immersed in a bright cloud. That God hiding Himself in the darkness means His (il suo ingrandirsi ai vostri sguardi – too difficult for translator!) and that from the invisible to the intelligible one is transfigured into the purely divine.”

12- “Neither am I deceived nor mistaken, nor are you a sinner: the sun rises and causes the noon day, and the soul reaches to the sun; but when it passes and darkness happens, one has no more memory of it and the Lord even takes away the memory of the consolation received, so that the shadows are perfect. Be calm and be certain, then, that these shadows and these temptations are not a chastisement for your sinfulness; you are neither impious nor are you blinded by your malice, but are one of the many elect that are tried as gold in the fire.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“The trials to which the Lord is subjecting you and will subject you are all signs of the Divine predilection and gems for your soul. The winter will pass and the unending spring will come, so much the more rich with beauty as the tempests were difficult. The darkness that you are experiencing is an indication of the nearness of God to your souls.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“The darkness that encircles the heaven of your souls are light, and you do well to say that you do not see anything, and that you find yourselves in the midst of an ardent thorn bush. The thorn bush burns, the whole air is filled with clouds and the spirit does not see or understand anything. But God speaks, though, and is present to the soul that listens, hears, loves and fears.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“You will greatly encounter the pleasure of God, and mine as well, by not omitting your spiritual exercises on account of the aridity and interior languor that often returns to you; because not wanting to serve God and love Him save for His pleasure and love alone, and being more pleasing to Him, the service that we render Him amidst the pains of aridity, rather than those we render Him amidst the sweetness, we must likewise receive them [these pains of aridity] willingly, at least with our upper will. And even though, according to our pleasure and our self love, the gentleness and tenderness seems sweeter to us, aridity, according to the pleasure of God, is more useful, as dry food is more useful for those with dropsy, rather than moist food, even though the latter always tastes better than the former.”

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Ave Maria!– August’s Theme: Spiritual Aridity

“During aridity and desolation of spirit, do not be agitated so as to not serve God according to your pleasure, while adapting yourself to His desires you serve Him according to His [will], which is much better than yours. To us it must not worry us or upset us that we belong to God in one way rather than another. In truth, as long as we do not seek anything other than Him, we will not find Him any less when we are walking on arid land and by deserts than when we are walking on the waters of sensible consolations. Therefore, you must be content with one walk or the other.”

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