The Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great COMPILED BY THE RELIGIOUS OF HER MONASTERY CATHOLIC TREASURES, NOVEMBER 1980    How afflictions unite the soul of Jesus Christ and of the effect of an unjust excommunication. While the Mass, Salve, Sancte Parens, was said in honour of the Mother of God, being the last day on which the Holy Sacrifice was allowed to be celebrated, on account of an interdict, St. Gertrude addressed God thus: "How wilt Thou console us, most kind Lord, in our present affliction?" He replied: "I will increase My joys in you. As a spouse entertains himself more familiarly with his bride in the retirement of his house than in public, so will I take My pleasure in your retreat. My love will increase in you, even as a fire which is enclosed burns with great force. The delight which I will find in you and the love which you will have for Me, will be like a pent-up ocean, which seems to increase by the impediments placed to its progress, until at last it breaks forth impetuously." "But how long will this interdict continue?" inquired the Saint. The Lord replied: "The favours which I promise you will last as long as it does." She replied: "It appears a degradation to the great ones of earth to reveal their secrets to those beneath them. Is it not, then, unworthy of Thy Majesty, Who art the King of kings, to reveal the secrets of Thy Divine Providence to me who am the shame and rebuke of all creatures? It is on this account, doubtless, that Thou dost not make known to me when this interdict will terminate, although Thou knowest the end of all things before they have commenced." "It is not so," replied the Lord. "I conceal the secret from you for the furtherance of your spiritual welfare. If I sometimes admit you to My secrets in contemplation, I exclude you from them also to preserve your humility, that by receiving this grace you may know what you are in Me. By being deprived of it, you may know what you are of yourself." At the offertory of the Mass, Recordare, Virgo Maria, as the words ut loquaris pro nobis bona were repeated, the Saint raised her heart towards the Mother of all grace and the Lord said to her: "Even should there be none to speak good things for you, I am already prepared Myself to favour you." As Gertrude reflected on the multitude of her own faults and those of some others she was doubtful whether she was entirely reconciled with God. He said to her tenderly: "My natural goodness obliges Me to have regard to those amongst you are a most perfect. As all are encircled by My Divinity the perfections hide the imperfections." "O bountiful Lord!" inquired Gertrude, "how canst Thou give graces so full of consolation to one so unworthy to receive them?" He replied: "My love compels Me." "Where, then," she inquired, "are the stains which I contracted lately by my impatience and which I manifested by my words?" "The fire of My love," He replied, "has consumed them entirely. I efface all the stains which I meet with in the souls whom I visit by My free and loving grace." "O God of mercy!" continued Gertrude, "since Thou hast so often assisted my misery with Thy graces, I desire to know if my faults, such as my late impatience and other similar ones, will be purified in my soul before or after my death?" Then, as our Lord lovingly made as though He heard her not, she added: "If Thy justice demanded it, I would freely and willingly descend even into Hell, to make a more condign satisfaction to Thee. But if it is more glorious to Thy natural goodness and mercy to consume my imperfections by the fire of Thy love, I will venture to implore Thee that this same love may efface all the stains from my soul and make it purer than I could merit." This appeared agreeable to our Lord in His goodness and tenderness. On the following day, as Mass was celebrated for the people in the parish church, she said to God at the time of Communion; "Dost Thou not compassionate us, most loving Father, for being deprived, on account of these goods, of this most precious good, the Sacred Food of the Body and Blood?" "How can I feel it more?" replied the Lord, "if I conduct My spouse to a banquet and I perceive, before she enters, that her attire is disarranged, will I not draw her aside to a retired place and arrange it with My Own hands, that I may introduce her with honour?" "But, my God," she inquired, "how can they have this grace who suffer this evil through us?" He replied: "Do not think of them. I will settle this matter with them." Then, at the oblation of the Host, as she offered It to the Lord for His eternal praise and the welfare of her community; the Lord received It in her, communicating to her its vivifying sweetness and saying: "I will nourish them with, this Divine Food." "Wilt Thou not communicate Thyself, my God, to all the community?" she inquired. "No," He replied, "only to those who have the desire of communicating or the will to desire it. For the rest who belong to the community, they shall have the advantage of feeling themselves excited to partake of this celestial food, even as persons who have no thought of eating are attracted by the odour of some viand and begin to desire to partake of it." On the Feast of the Assumption she heard our Lord say, at the elevation of the Host: "I am going to immolate Myself to God My Father for My members." She said: "Most loving Lord, wilt Thou permit us, who are cut off from Thee by the anathema of those who would take our goods from us, to be joined to them?" The Lord replied: "If anyone could take away from you the intimate union by which you are united to Me, then indeed you would be separated from Me. As for the excommunication which is inflicted on you, it will make no more impression on you than a blunt knife would upon a tree which it could not penetrate and at best could but mark slightly." She replied: "My Lord and my God, Who art the infallible Truth, Thou hast made known to me, although unworthy of such a revelation, that Thou wouldest increase Thy consolations in us and redouble Thy love. Yet there are some amongst us who complain that their charity is becoming cold." "I contain all good in Myself." replied our Lord, "and I distribute to each season what they need." E-MAIL HOME-------------------------------SAINT GERTRUDE www.catholictradition.org/Gertrude/revelations12.htm