ASK OF ME WHAT I ASK OF YOU

The following is an excerpt from the English translation of the long-lost French classic, Cum Clamore Valido -- locutions to an anonymous French contemplative nun in the years leading up to WWII. Original French published with ecclesiastical approval.

"I highly recommend this English translation to consecrated souls and to the lay faithful," +Francis Micallef, OCD, Emeritus Bishop of Kuwait

Note: For more excerpts and for information about how to obtain this book, go to
http://www.logosinstitute.org

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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 provide 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 apostolically.

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 “appeal” 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.”

This, in the form of tireless, trusting and adoring supplications passing through the maternal and virginal Heart of the Co-Redemptive Virgin.

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 confident 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.
What can gush forth from this spring/furnace that is my Heart if not a shower of fiery sparks? But in order to draw from it, you must first be thirsty, a burning thirst to quench my own thirst for love, and thus to respond to all my wishes, to all my merciful wants.

To be able to draw, able to quench one’s thirst, you need to be free and broadly fit. And for that it is absolutely necessary to pour oneself out in total offering, an offering that pours out everything, in full and in detail, to the bottom, to the brim, to the last drop.

Pour out handfuls so as to draw in handfuls. Draw in handfuls using two hands, seeking, taking nothing from the creature, not so much as a taste of anything created.

Draw handfuls by detaching from anything created, and by unshakeable trust. Draw continually from each other’s heart the life of mutual love, the admirable exchange of intimacy. O admirabile commercial! 

And to draw with ever broader hands, implore the intercession of Mary’s maternal hands. And then above all, with ardent apostolic charity, don’t forget to do the same for all souls. Draw so as to make all things redound to the Glory of my Father.
“Which among you who has a friend and will go to him in the middle of the night and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves. . . .’ I say the same to you: Ask and you shall receive.”

Do you not hear this word of my Evangelist resonate in the very depths of your hearts, words that I would have souls hear at this moment most particularly?

Am I not the Friend par excellence? Who desires, Who waits for you to come and find Him. . . . Doesn’t my Heart always heed all cries for help from those who are Mine?

The help is in proportion to the appeal. Help all the more responsive and generous as the appeal is confident, humble and persevering.

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