.(Our Lord speaks personally to this Staretz)
DO NOT THINK that your writing is something gratuitous which you are free either to do or not to do. No, it is not that way. You depend on what you write more than anyone else -- because when you write you listen to Me, but when you neglect to write you listen to yourself and you get more and more absorbed in your own thoughts and in conjectures which are the further removed from Me.
V
June, 1960 , Staretz leaves for Rome
(having been sent to the Vatican by his archbishop to seek special dispensation
to become a priest, despite his age)
YOU WILL NOT HAVE THE PEACE I WOULD GIVE YOU, My Peace, in all its perfection, until you are transformed into Me, until your humanity is one with Mine in the Eucharist. This is the gift I would give you. I have shown you all your miseries only to prepare you for that gift, your Eucharistic transformation into Myself. That will be the meaning of your priesthood. When you say the words of consecration, "This is My Body," you do not say, "This is the Body of Jesus," but "This is My Body." That is to say, your flesh is My Flesh, your human thoughts are My Thoughts, your heart is My Heart. Yes, you must love. I made you for love. But you must love with My Heart--but to prepare yourself to receive My Heart, you must know the unclearness of your own heart. You must delight to see all Goodness in the Father, and to bring all the souls I send you to the Father. And now that I have shown you your perversity, the fear of yourself which this inspires will dispose you to be in Me always. But you must be vigilant. The God of Israel is a jealous God (Deut 4:24; 6:15; cf 2Cor 11:2; Heb 12:28)--and if you leave Me for an instant you will have to pay a terrible price. That does not mean that you must be always thinking of Me--No! but it means you must not ever seek your peace, your consolation, your joy and delight outside of Me.
V
In Rome, October 8, 1960
(after difficulties arise)
DARKNESS AND SILENCE, the darkness and silence of the tomb, that is what I want from you now. I will take care of everything else. Yes, the corruption of the whole world is in your flesh--that is how you are bringing the world back to me -- by your silence, by your silent love of Me in the knowledge of your corruption. This is the way I have given you to glorify Me. There is no other way for you. Will you give yourself to Me in this way?
