THE OPPORTUNENESS OF THE MESSAGE

How striking is its actuality today!

Everywhere sin is increasing to an appalling degree. The pride of man leads him to discard his God and attempt to make a paradise of earth. He has so far succeeded only in making it a vestibule of Hell, where impiety, immorality, and the worst passions have free scope; wars rage that are more terrible than any yet heard of, the majority of mankind suffers poverty and slavery, and all without the comfort which faith alone can impart.

The Heart of God inclines in pity towards His forlorn children, and He points out to them the way of happiness, peace, and salvation.

This Message is not only transmitted by Josefa, but reproduced in her life through Christ’s operations in her soul, for facts are more calculated to move than are mere words.

If anyone wants to realize the love of the Heart of Jesus for souls, let him read the pages in which Josefa notes down how she listens to the Heartbeats of her Master. “Every heartbeat is an appeal to a soul,” He told her (September 25th, 1920).

Surely we cannot doubt the reality of His love, when the flames issuing from His Heart are seen to kindle Josefa’s with a love so valiant and intrepid that she braves the sufferings of hell-fire to save the souls He loves. Nor can we doubt the immensity of His love, when for the same purpose she accepts unutterable tortures, and she who knew tells us that her love, “her poor love,” is as nothing beside that of her Master, just as the torments she undergoes are but a shadow of those of the Passion (October 28th, 1920). The grief of Jesus at the loss of souls and His joy at their return, which are so plainly shown in Josefa’s life, make it impossible for us to doubt the goodness of His love! (August 25th, 1920; December 26th, 1920; August 3rd–4th, 1921; July 29th, 1921; September 3rd, 12th, 25th, 1922). “Help Me,” He would say, “help Me to make My love for men known, for I come to tell them that in vain will they seek happiness apart from Me, for they will not find it. Suffer, Josefa, and love, for we two must win these souls” (June 13th, 1923).

We get an inkling of the intense love of the Sacred Heart from that of Josefa for these same souls; it was so real and true that it could have been inspired only by Him.

Infinite Mercy, too, is manifested by Josefa’s life. “I will love you,” He told her on June 8th, 1923, Feast of the Sacred Heart, “and by the love I have for you souls will realize how much I love them.” “Since I forgive you so often, they will recognize My mercy.” He even said to her one day: “I love souls even to folly” (September 27th, 1922).

Such a statement surprises us, yet in Scripture do we not read (and Scripture is inerrant): “Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? and if she should forget, yet will not I. Behold, I have graven thee in my hands” (Isa. 49:15, 16). “He will put away our iniquities and he will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea” (Mich. 7:19). “Thou hast delivered my soul that it should not perish, thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back” (Isa. 38:17). “He loved me and delivered himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

We may well call these statements divine folly!

As to the reality of Hell, again we see the Message lived by Josefa. The sufferings of the Passion which continue uninterruptedly in her, all the demoniacal persecutions and descents into Hell have only one end: to snatch souls from perdition and bring them back to salvation from which they have strayed. We see here exemplified the dogma of the Redemption and of the communion of saints. How, then, would it be possible to deny on the one hand the existence of the devil, of Hell and of Purgatory, and on the other the adequate power of Redemption which suffering has when borne for others? These great supernatural realities we read in the moving pages in which Josefa has them graven in her very flesh and soul.

The Message itself cannot be called a new revelation, but it unveils in a most striking manner what faith has already taught us. Our Lord Himself told this to Josefa: “I repeat to you again that what I have said is not new, but souls need a new impetus to make them advance, just as a flame needs fuel, if it is not to burn itself out.”

How great is the force of the appeal which the humble little Sister transmits to us from her Lord!