ASK OF ME WHAT I ASK OF YOU
1936
The more I beg of you, the more I want you to beg of Me.
To say to you, “Give Me,” is also to say, “Ask Me first.”
For who knows your poverty better than I, and who wishes to pro-vide for you more when implored? If you cannot give Me what I ask of you, you can always ask Me to give it to you Myself.
Ask Me, then, for all that I ask of you, both personally and apos-tolically.
This is the first response you are to make to my “appeal” of love.
If you want irresistibly to touch my Heart, address to Me this “ap-peal” that I address to you, by availing yourself of my own words turned into prayer, thus:
“Most loving and beloved Spouse, in accordance with your desires, make me, make us true co-redemptive spouses. Make me, make us fully consecrated hosts.”
Know that love always entails giving and asking. For isn’t asking for something really saying: “Give me the means, with your gifts, that in turn will let me give You more.”
Thus every petition for love is a gift of love.
The most demanding petitions therefore are the most precious of my gifts as Savior and Spouse. My love would not keep making these petitions if it were not so affectionate and giving.
Would that you would give Me, in the same way, as your first gift, this spirit of humble, trusting petition, filled with humble and confi-dent dependence.
Thus, gift for gift, petition for petition, an exchange of love making our contact ever stronger.
Taking all from my Heart in order to bring all back to It. Yes, taking is the great act of prayer and petition: taking at the source of infinite Charity. And taking from my Heart is not a particularly specific function to the consecrated, e.g., one of their choice offices, not even of the hour of prayer, but a function of every hour.
Besides, for my consecrated ones every hour should be prayer; prayer prayed or prayer lived.
