Life, work and spirituality of Mother Clelia Merloni

Pensamentos

Pensamentos

Pensamentos de Madre Clélia

Pray to the Holy Spirit that He may instruct you in Wisdom

Dearest daughter in Jesus Christ,

You must pray to the Holy Spirit, that He may instruct you in Christian wisdom; pray much until He inspires in you a love for it and the practice of it.  This wisdom, which is, after all, that of the Saints, is the life and peace of the soul, the teacher, the guardian and the directress of virtues.  Do you know, my daughter, what Christian wisdom is?

1)  It consists of proposing as the primary and principal purpose of all your actions, the glory of God and your eternal salvation.    You are to consider all creatures and all events as means ordered toward the attainment of this purpose.  Jesus Himself tells us:  “What does it profit a person to gain the whole universe if one loses one’s soul?”  Remember, daughter, that aside from eternal salvation and the glory of God, all is nothing and should not be held in any account.

2)  Christian wisdom consists of using the best means possible to attain it, not those which are offered to us by our senses or our reason unaccompanied by faith, but those which the holy and true maxims of the Gospel and the examples of Jesus Christ show us; in short, in all things we must search for the Will of God, which is the rule of all perfection.  Strive to do all you can to submit to that holy wisdom with love and obedience. The areas where the Will of God is manifested are:  to want to prefer for yourself a disdain of honors, poverty rather than riches or life’s comforts, and suffering instead of pleasure simply because that is what your divine Spouse Jesus did.

3)   You must be vigilant so as not to let escape from you occasions to put these means into practice; you must be vigilant over small occasions as well as great ones, in order to be equally faithful in all of them; be careful of your words so that you say only what is useful and always for your own good and that of others; watch attentively over your actions that they may have as their goal the glory of God, the sanctification of your soul and a holy zeal to do good for others.  Be watchful especially over yourself that the enemy may never catch you off guard.

If you call on the Holy Spirit, who is totally divine wisdom, He will come to you and fill you with His light.  When His holy light will have illumined your intellect and your spirit, then you will feel spurred on, drawn to pursue the way of holiness, and everything that surrounds you on a natural level will seem to you to be only mud and rottenness.

Christian wisdom is beautiful in the eyes of God for the innocence of life that it teaches, for the rectitude and purity of intentions that it inspires; beautiful in the eyes of people who cannot deny their esteem for it and are drawn by it to love the faith; beautiful in itself because of its noble simplicity, because of the elevation of its sentiments, because of the great virtues it inspires and the eternal glory to which it leads.    Through Christian wisdom all of us can be saved, while without it, we condemn ourselves.  In receiving Christian wisdom you will be happy in your present life.  Your heart will be at peace; your conscience, tranquil.  By means of it you will taste the delicious joys of innocence and of the friendship of God.  Without this holy wisdom you will find nothing but vanity and affliction of spirit.   You will feel flushed with remorse and unhappy with yourself.   You will feel yourself disdained, discouraged, even losing your self‐respect which is the worst misfortune that could afflict a person.

Oh, how precious is Christian wisdom!  Ask God insistently for the grace of having Wisdom preside over all your counsels, over all your judgments, over all the acts of your life.  When you write to me I will discern from your writing if you have obtained this grace which is indispensable for anyone who is to pursue the way of perfection.  Offer to God all the sacrifices which the generosity of your heart dictates in order to obtain this grace because it is of the utmost importance for the sanctification of your soul.

I bless you with all my heart and with you I bless all my good daughters there.  I ask that each of you receive Holy Communion for nine Fridays according to the intentions of your poor and  Most affectionate Mother

To Experience the Lord in order to fall in love with His Will

Dearest daughter in Jesus Christ,

You are to have a great deal of trust in the Lord, who, while calling you, says to you:  “Come to Me you who are afflicted and burdened, and I will refresh you.  You who are thirsty, come to the fountain.”

You must follow this movement and divine call expecting to receive with it the impulse of the Holy Spirit so that you may, resolutely and blindly, throw yourself into the ocean of divine Providence of the eternal good Will, begging that it be fulfilled in you and that you be carried by these most powerful waves of divine pleasure, and without any resistance on your part, be transported to the port of your particular perfection and well‐being.   Having made this act, which you must repeat many times a day, strive and study, with as much assurance as you are able, interiorly as well as exteriorly, and with all the powers of your soul, to draw near to the things that excite you and make you praise God.

Always, these acts are to be without force or any violence to your heart so that they may not, because of indiscretions and awkwardness, weaken you and perhaps even harden you, and so, render you incapable of anything.

Guard yourself against forcing tears or any other devotion through the senses; but remain peaceful in your interior solitude, waiting for the divine Will to be fulfilled in you.  The key by which the secrets of spiritual treasures are opened is the denial of self at all times and in all things; and this same key locks the door to insipidness and aridity of mind when these are caused by our own fault; but when these come from God, they are united with the other treasures of the soul.

As much as you are able, try to remain, with Mary Most Holy, at the feet of Jesus and listen to what He is saying to you.  Be on guard that your enemies (the greatest of which is yourself) don’t become obstacles to this silence; and know that when you go to look for God with your intellect in order to rest in Him, you are not to set limits or make comparisons with your weak imagination because He is infinite wherever you may find Him.  You will find Him in your own soul every time you look for Him sincerely, that is, when you look for Him and not for yourself.

During meditation, don’t stay so bound to the points so that you want to meditate on them alone; but wherever you find refreshment, stop there and enjoy the Lord in whatever way He wants to communicate Himself to you.  And even if you should put aside what you had planned to do, don’t be scrupulous, because the whole purpose of these exercises is to enjoy the Lord.   The intent, however, is not to choose enjoyment as the primary goal, but to become more enamored of His works with the firm resolve to imitate Him as much as we are able.

One of the obstacles to true peace and quiet is the anxiety that is experienced in similar works binding the spirit and dragging it after this or that thing, forcing God to lead us by the road that we want, and forcing  ourselves to walk where our own imagination brings us while thinking we are doing His Will.  This is nothing other than searching for God while fleeing from Him, and wanting to please God without doing His Will.

You, daughter, are to have no other intention or desire than to find God; and wherever He shows Himself to you, stop everything and don’t go any further unless you have His permission, forgetting everything and resting in Jesus.

Meditate well on what I have written and, at the feet of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, decide whether you are well disposed to follow His divine Will or to do your own

I wholeheartedly bless you.

Your most affectionate Mother

The Test Will Not Be Long

Dearest daughter in Jesus Christ,

Don’t be discouraged, my daughter.  As Jesus wants to try your fidelity, He deprives you, for a set time, of His sensible Presence.  He showed this behavior even toward His own Mother.   Jesus had intuited the grief His absence would cause; nevertheless, He distanced Himself for a day or so from her and remained in the temple without her knowledge. If it pleases Jesus, who is all love, to try you in this same way, don’t torment yourself, arm yourself with courage, and wait patiently for His return.

Although He is always close to you to help you every time you ask for His help, it is good, though, that He sometimes pretends to go away so that you could better understand how unfortunate you would be if you were to really lose Him.

When Jesus favors a soul with His consolations He does this to comfort her in her sorrows. Then, when he permits that she be abandoned to aridity and to desolation, He does this so that she may not become too proud of the kindness He has toward her.

All, or almost all, the souls who have faithfully followed Jesus have had similar alternating experiences of joy and sadness, devotion and aridity, peace and temptation.  When Jesus appeared to distance Himself from them, pretending to abandon those dear souls to themselves, they felt the extent of their weakness; but they did not lose heart, because they were confident of Jesus’ help. When Jesus’ grace sustained you with sweetness and consolation, you walked with pleasure and happiness; but you will make greater gains in virtue now that He is trying you with aridity while you bear patiently, humbly and submissively the state of abandonment in which Jesus pretends to leave you. It is true that this state is a sad one because sometimes it seems more a punishment than a trial; nevertheless, daughter, don’t lose heart, but have confidence and firm hope, and the trial will not be long as it wasn’t for Mary, His Mother.  Imitate the solicitude that this Mother had in seeking her Son.  Search for Him, as she did, with a holy desire and a holy impatience to find Him.    But never complain.   Jesus owes you nothing.    If you have some complaint, let it be, according to the example of Mary, a lament of love.

I want to hope that Jesus has not distanced Himself because of some infidelity of yours, but if such be the case, ask His pardon and practice some painful humiliation.  Promise Jesus that from now on, you will pay greater attention to avoiding everything that could displease Him.   Tell Him that whatever the reason may be for His behavior toward you, you submit to being put to the test in the way that He may want, and for as long as He may want, so long as you be allowed to preserve His holy love always in your heart.

What I could assure you of, my daughter, is that Jesus loves you with a love of predilection.   Therefore, see to it that you never lose esteem for such grace, holding yourself ever vigilant so as not to commit the smallest infidelity to grace as is wholeheartedly wished for you by one who blesses you maternally and is pleased to call herself, in Jesus,

Your most affectionate Mother

Our hope is in God…He is our strength

Dearest daughters in Jesus Christ,

Why do you cry over the slightest contradictions? Crying over an insignificant thing reveals a weak spirit deprived of that stability which is necessary for those souls who have consecrated themselves to God and are immolated on the altar of sacrifice.

Weep instead over yourselves, as Jesus told the holy women while He climbed the way to Calvary.   Yes, dearest daughters, let us weep over all our past sins, over our present miseries, over the uncertainty of reaching our eternal salvation, over the abuse of graces, over the little progress we are making in virtue.

God visits us every day with so many lights, with so many inspirations of His grace, with sound instructions, with good reading material, with examples of holiness, with good things and bad things. He sends us the former to let us feel His goodness and the latter to help us remember His justice. It is something worthy of tears not to be aware of these graces and to render them useless for ourselves.

O my daughters! How much we deserve compassion!   What an unfortunate thing for us to have so often not recognized our Lord’s visits! Let us weep, daughters, over ourselves as Jesus Christ wept over Jerusalem, and let us be converted to God once and for all.   The plan He has in making us see our miseries is to turn our soul to the practice of humility, to penance, to the total reform of our lives; and what great evil will be ours if we would not draw from this visit anything but annoyance, desolation, discouragement! Let us weep, then, because we are miserable; but may our tears always be accompanied by the firm proposal to change our life for the better by practicing humility and always trusting in His divine mercy.

Are you not aware, daughters, that in spite of the ordinary help of God, we are still weakness personified? Isn’t it perhaps true that with all the graces we receive from God, we so often fall and our life is full of deplorable weaknesses?   We, my daughters, resemble a paralytic, who cannot move except with the help of a friendly hand; and even when this hand presents itself, we often do not want to let it lead us. The slightest temptations afflict us; an imagination, a thought, a look, a bad example; a criticism makes us fall; the smallest passion drags us into sin; the slightest difficulty stops us along the road of virtue. See, then, daughters, how weak we are! With prayer we could receive a more powerful grace that would make us triumph over our weaknesses; but alas!   This is one of our greatest miseries: we pray so little, we pray so poorly! What are we to do then, if not confound ourselves before God in the light of our impotence, be diffident of ourselves and not render ourselves incapable of doing any good, abandoning ourselves to our own strength alone, capable of every evil if grace would not support us to be watchful over our senses, over our spirit and over our heart?

Oh, let us flee, dear daughters, from the occasions of evil and place all our hopes in God because He alone is our strength, awaiting all things from Him. Let us pray to Him then to the fullest stretch of our souls to have pity on our miseries and to heal us completely. Let others trust purely in human means, but you, beloved daughters, strive always to place your unlimited and filial confidence in God alone!

I bless you maternally and with my whole heart, Your most affectionate Mother

In days of trial, revitalize your confidence

Dearest daughter in Jesus Christ,

Drive far from yourself, my daughter, this fear you have that God has abandoned you.  No, daughter!  Jesus loves you and with a love of predilection.  You must not worry if Jesus has not yet granted your prayers.  Often Jesus does not give immediately what is asked of Him, but this is no indication that He ceases to love you; rather, He gives you other graces of which you are totally unaware.  At any rate, you must suffer this delay peacefully, without failing in that filial confidence and submission to His most Holy Will, which are virtues that please Jesus very much.   He has promised us His aid in every circumstance and that He will never abandon us.

If, then, Jesus delays in listening to you, appears to refuse to give you the grace you ask of Him, you must convince yourself that this is according to the plans of His Fatherly love for you.  He wants to try you, augment your faith, increase your merits, form you by the exercise of patience.   Never permit yourself any complaint either exteriorly or interiorly, but always adore His plans and good pleasure. In days of trial, revitalize your confidence.  Remember that, to persevere in prayer, God has promised His aid; and perseverance cannot take place unless God delays in granting us His graces.

You ought to pray to Jesus in this way:  “Yes, my God, it is because you delay in hearing me, that I have hope that you will listen to me; and the more You push me away, the more I will abandon myself, with confident fervor, into your paternal arms.”

Now I leave you at the feet of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament so that you may pour out to Him your sorrows, your fears, your desires, and pour out all the intensity of your filial love.  Be very certain that He, the Consoler of the afflicted, will comfort you and guide you to practice all those virtues which He wants to see adorn the delightful garden of your soul.    Always be generous with Jesus and He will be very generous with you.

I must tell you now to be very careful because there is a thief who is so clever that you may fall victim to a theft in an instant.  This same thief is very dangerous ‐‐ and his name is self‐love.   In the event that, to your misfortune, it makes its presence known through its pestiferous breath, take refuge immediately in the arms of Jesus and recommend yourself to Him that He may hurry to your aid and free you from that thief.

I bless you maternally and with you I bless all the Sisters at your house, wishing everyone the choicest blessings of the Heart of Jesus so that you may love Him ever more and may never displease Him ever again.

In Jesus I remain, Your most affectionate Mother

Like a little lost lamb

Dearest daughter in Jesus Christ,

I have already told you — and I repeat to you — that you have an extreme need to distrust yourself and to throw yourself with complete confidence into the Heart of Jesus, expecting and waiting for every good thing, help and gain from Him alone. You, who are nothing of yourself, are not permitted to expect anything of yourself but continuous falls. If, in order to obtain His help, you arm your heart with a filial confidence in Him, you will be able to obtain from the loving divine Jesus great victories. And this you will be able to obtain primarily by humbly asking it of Jesus; secondly, by transporting yourself and seeing with the eye of faith the omnipotence and infinite wisdom of God for whom nothing is impossible or difficult and that He, being goodness personified, is always ready to give hour by hour and moment by moment all that you need for the spiritual life and total victory over yourself, so long as you throw yourself with full confidence into His loving arms.

And could it be possible that our Divine Shepherd, who for thirty‐three years has pursued the lost sheep with such loud cries that He became hoarse and along paths that were so difficult and thorny that He shed all His blood and died, now that you, dearest daughter, as His little lamb are following Him, obeying His commands, with the desire to obey Him, calling after Him and begging Him, could it be possible that He not turn His life‐giving eyes to you, that He not listen to you and not put you on His divine shoulders, rejoicing with all His neighbors and Angels in heaven?

How could it be possible that Jesus would abandon that little lost lamb who very loudly called out to its Shepherd? How is possible to ever believe that when Jesus, who continuously knocks at the heart of a person with the desire to enter in and dine with him and communicate His gifts, that when the person opens the door of his heart, He pretends to be deaf and does not want to enter?

Listen, my daughter: Whenever it occurs to you to do something and to undertake some battle and overcome yourself, before you decide to do that, remind yourself of your weakness, and then, turning toward the power, wisdom and divine goodness and confiding in that, decide to fight and to work generously. And with these weapons in hand and with prayer, fight and work generously.

Don’t cease to repeat with your mind and with your heart this short prayer: “Blood and Wounds of my Jesus, be my strength, my energy, my weapons in the spiritual, moral, physical and temporal battles. Be my victories, my merits, my virtues.”

You will also say: “Oh, my Mother, transform me according to the desires of the Heart of Jesus.”

Please tell your good Superior and Sisters that I send a blessing to all — no one excluded — so that you may distance yourselves from every shadow of sin and all may walk with giant steps along the narrow way of the Saints according to the designs of God for each of you.

I implore upon you, daughters, the maternal blessing of Most Holy Mary so that your hearts, blessed by her, may become fertile with the flowers and fruits of true sanctity.

In all things and everywhere, charity

“Use charity with a sweet and serene look, with an affable air, with sweet and cordial words; use an indulgent charity, always taking it in a good way and favorably interpreting all that is said; excusing others even at your own expense as far as prudence permits.”

You should not show any discontent because of the coarseness or infirmity of your neighbor. You are to accept with affability and sweetness their advice, reprehensions, and mortifications, whatever they may be. Guard your words and your manner so as not to say anything nor do anything that may displease, but say and do all that conscience permits and is amiable. You must show them affection, render them services with joy, and charitably interest yourself in all that they need. When others are speaking, you are to listen without permitting yourself to interrupt what they are saying; you should willingly acquiesce to their feelings as far as your conscience permits; avoid speaking of yourself or of that which could draw to yourself the esteem and praise of others.   See to it that zeal for good may sanctify your conversation, console your neighbor in his sadness, encourage him in his doubts, strengthen him in his weakness, lift him up in his discouragement, give him good counsel and exhort him to return to God and to virtue.

You should not treat others with arrogance, nor with austerity, nor contradict what others say. Finally, we must conduct ourselves in such a way that no one will have cause to complain about us, that all may be edified by our manner of comportment.   If the people with whom you converse displease you, it is necessary to hide the inner repugnance that they inspire in you under a gracious demeanor and not allow anything sad, annoying, or austere to be conveyed through words or actions, because charity obliges us to have compassion on them and to give them good example, so that they may amend their defects by which they render themselves displeasing.

Try to make your conversations edifying. Your mouth is to be the expression of the sentiments of your heart.

I bless you all with all my heart and in Jesus I remain,   Your most affectionate Mother

Throw oneself blindly into the ocean of Providence

Dearest daughter in Jesus Christ,

I understand. Have courage and unlimited confidence in God. You, dearest daughter, must begin [your journey] little by little and with gentleness, with unbounded trust in the divine Heart of Jesus, who calls you saying: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will comfort you. All you who are thirsty come to the fountain.”

You, daughter, must follow this action and divine vocation; you must continue to wait for the prompting of the Holy Spirit, so that, with determination you may throw yourself blindly into the ocean of divine Providence and of the Eternal Will and beg that it be fulfilled in you so that you may be carried along by the most powerful waves of divine kindness, unable to resist, and be transported to the shore of your particular perfection and spiritual well‐being.

Having made this decision, which you should repeat many times each day, study yourself and strive, with as much certitude as you can, interiorly and exteriorly, to draw near, with all the strength of your soul, to those things that excite you and bring you to appreciate ever more the goodness, the loveableness and the infinite charity of your beloved Jesus.

These acts are to be done always without pressure and violence to your heart so that they do not weaken you or maybe even incapacitate you.

Whenever you can, accustom yourself to the contemplation of the divine goodness and of His continuous and loving gifts, and humbly receive the droplets of His inestimable goodness that will descend into your soul. Guard yourself well against forced tears or other devotions of the senses, but remain tranquil in interior solitude awaiting the fulfillment in you of God’s divine Will. And then when He may give these to you, they will be sweet, without struggle or force, and you will receive them with gentleness and serenity and above all with humility.

Remember, daughter that the key to opening the secrets of spiritual treasures is in knowing how to deny oneself always and in all things, and it is this key that closes the door to tepidity and mental aridity when it is caused by our own fault. When these come from God, they join the other treasures of the soul.

Be pleased to stand with Mary as much as you can at the feet of Jesus and listen to what He tells you.   Be watchful so that your enemies (chief among whom is you, yourself) will be unable to impede this holy silence.

For now I will say no more because I hope you will put into practice what I have written.   Now I leave you at the feet of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, so that, with His strength, you will be able to distance yourself from any shadow of sin and continue along the narrow path of the Saints!

I bless you with all my heart, Your most affectionate Mother

As we forgive…

Dearest daughters in Jesus Christ,

Remember, my daughters, that mutual tolerance is part of the precept of charity. These two things are so bound to each other that without mutual suffering, charity would not be possible, and it would be necessary to cancel this precept from the Gospel because every person on earth has his or her own defects and imperfections. There are no angels except in heaven. If you don’t bear with the defects and imperfections of others, you break that bond and charity is destroyed.   Everyone has his or her own particular nature. Inclinations and temperaments are not all the same; judgments and ways of feeling contradict each other; wills clash with one another; tastes vary. No, among so many contrary elements, the fusion of hearts to form one heart, only one soul, as charity demands, is not possible so long as people don’t bear with one another in their weaknesses and don’t suffer in a spirit of charity and patience all that offends them, all that displeases them, all that does not meet with their tastes nor their disposition.   Without this mutual tolerance the union of hearts would be likewise impossible, no different than the fusion of water with fire, of light with darkness. There would necessarily be among them divisions, arguments, discord.

Therefore, bear with one another with great humility. This excludes sensitivities and pretensions. This will teach you how to treat your neighbor. Do it with sweetness and patience and so you will exclude murmurs and grumbling, criticisms, sarcasm, stinging barbs, antipathies and impatience with displeasures received. Do this with great charity and this will teach you to treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated yourselves… God will not be indulgent toward our defects except in the measure that we are indulgent toward the defects of our brothers and sisters. If we do not support our neighbor, God will not support us; if we do not sympathize with others, God will not sympathize with us.   We ourselves, daughters, do recognize the demand of this law, and so we say: Forgive us, O Lord, our offenses as we forgive those who have offended us. We, therefore, must be indulgent toward our own faults in the measure that we are indulgent toward the faults of others. Justice itself obliges us to mutual tolerance.   Who does not feel the need for herself of this law of tolerance, of this law, which is protective of human weakness? Now if we want it to be observed in our regard, isn’t it a real injustice not to want to observe it regarding our neighbor?   We complain about the imperfections of others, but we don’t want others to complain about ours? [We complain] about their character and of their moods, but don’t we also have some critical moments? [We complain] about their impulsiveness, or of their discourtesy, but don’t we also fall into the impulse of a language that is too pointed and rude? It is not good, daughters, in fact, it is very bad, for us to want perfection in others to the point of not supporting in them any spot, any imperfection. Seriously probe your own conscience a little bit, daughters, and see how you support the defects of your neighbors.

I remain in Jesus, Your anguished Mother