Lent is coming soon and I have been thinking of different readings I can use as Lenten meditations. Saint Faustina's Diary and Walter Ciszek's He Leadth Me will be my focus. Saint Maria Faustina's Diary is a big, big book and I have read parts of it. It is quite intense but incredibly insightful and certainly has changed my thinking drastically over the years. Her ultimate theme is God's mercy - yet she is very real in how she describes God's justice. It really is a perfect reading for Lent as one narrows in on our Lord's suffering. Faustina's diary seems very extreme as she describes her own sense of nothingness and misery. I am accustomed to always being warm in a cozy house, being able to eat whatever I want at any time, to having loving family puff me up with their love and service. Reading about Faustina's awareness of her own smallness and desire to suffer for God almost seems strange. But I believe she has it right, and I need to readjust my own thinking. Here are are few excerpt that stuck with me the past few days and I have been looking at it again.
"I must never judge anyone, but look at others with leniency and at myself with severity. I must refer everything to God and, in my own eyes, recognize myself for what I am: utter misery and nothingness. In suffering, I must be patient and quiet, knowing that everything passes in time."
"I will hid from people's eyes whatever good I am able to do so that God Himself may be my reward. I will be like a tiny violet hidden in the grass, which does not hurt the foot that treads on it, but diffuses its fragrance and, forgetting itself completely, tries to please the person who has crushed it underfoot. This is very difficult for human nature, but God's grace comes to one's aid."
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