LIFE CENTERED IN CHRIST (Jesus, Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Lord, Teacher…):

• Every day my desire to follow Christ I aspire to emulate His life of poverty, humility, and suffering. Where shall I go if I do not follow Christ, who is the true path? (p. 20)
• My love for the Crucified Jesus stirs inside of me. I feel the desire to live in love for the Cross. In my littles and my poverty, I continue to feel embarrassed about how much further I have to go while continuing to follow the footsteps of Jesus. In this life of faith, one that I wish to keep, I have so much yet to learn about noble self-sacrifice, self-forgetfulness, and unconditional surrender. I’ve reminded Jesus that He is my Teacher. I have asked Him to teach me by means of simple prayer, something that I am draw to so much. (p. 62)
• I have a great desire to love Jesus Christ in a totally new way. I want to love Him in the name of all those who do not love Him. I want to continually think about Him. I want to sacrifice myself for love and to see my entire life to glorify Him must like He glorified the Father. Good Jesus! If you want to fulfill my wishes, give me a new, ardent heart, one that knows how to love You, as You deserve. I am persuaded that Jesus wants me to only live in love and that my job is to grow that love until I can say with Saint John of the Cross, “My soul has been employed / And all of my abundance in His service. / I no longer keep cattle / Nor have any other office, / My only Exercise now is to love.” (p. 80)
• The Lord is persistently asking me for prayer, penance, and continuous exercise of solitary and strong love. The love for Jesus Christ moves me to do this, as does the love for the expansion of the Kingdom of God and the desire to renew the redeeming spirit of the Order. I understand solitary love to be continuous inner penance. It’s a negation of pleasures, empty of everything, and a mind firmly directed on God. Strong love is what I call a quality of fortitude that is stronger than anything and that breaks with everything just for please God, even in the smallest of things. (p. 80)
• During afternoon prayer, I stopped to reflect on what I call the “preference of God”. The soul prefers and extolls that which is poor, humble, and contemptible to the world. How different are God’s thoughts compared to our own! And, how far away am I from living these preferences! (p. 81)
• Now I can clearly see that Christ wants these desires to become action. I count on Him with trust. I have a blind faith in prayer and I hope that this faith and trust increases until become complete and all encompassing. (p. 81)
• A new current of life permeates me. “Yet, I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (p. 86)
• The love of God has taken control of my heart and I know that he wants to completely transform it. A new current of life permeates me. “Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me”. He occupies my memory and ignites my will with desires of God that never are satiated. He calls my inner self and prepares me from morning light to go to Him. I can’t quite explain such wastes of God’s graces. What is this, Lord? And what are these desires that you give me to follow Christ, and to practice renunciation and humility? (p. 86)
• When I go to prayer, I only know how to love and how to descend to the bottom of my nothingness so that Jesus will come to me. I ask Jesus to teach me ow to pray… (p. 87)
• The Gospel passage in which Jesus calms the storm on the sea touches me and fills me with faith and love. It makes me think of my life. I think of my storms, both exterior and interior, that disturb and terrify me. These are storms that makes me fight and exert myself. I think of the presence of the Teacher who calms everything and soothes inner strife. Fear is lack of trust in God… (p. 89)
• We’re convinced that following Christ is by way of the Cross and we don’t have any other plan. We ask that the spirit of fortitude be given to them, to all missionaries, and to everyone, everywhere. (p. 101)
• Everything leads us to rejoice in Christ the Redeemer. This joy should bring us to respond to the challenge of the Apostle Paul when he says, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above”. To live the life of Christ isn’t impossible, nor is it difficult for someone who has abandoned everything for Him and for His Kingdom. In order to do that, you must leave useless worries aside and, with softness and tranquility, attempt to acquire that inner freedom that is achieved when one lives united with God. So many little and trivial things occupy and involved us all too often! (p. 172)
• Now I prefer everything that has to do with following Christ over grifts from payer. I want to identify myself with Christ and think of myself with complete truth. I remain at peace, trusting and happy, although at time I think that I lack selflessness. I want to progress in my life of renunciation by leaving comforts, the excessive care to my health, and my desires to be loved behind while avoiding having others know what I suffer physically and morally. I will attempt to not complain of being overwhelmed by work or for lack of time, contenting myself with having everyone believe that it’s a simple duty of mine to peacefully welcome them at any hour as if I didn’t have anything else to do. I want to give of myself without measure. (p. 178)
• My soul is tender. I desire to follow Christ more perfectly… (p. 197)
• I come out of retreat permeated with the spirit of Few special graces are bestowed in life. This has been a retreat for following Jesus Christ the Redeemer. I’m left with desires to be embraced by his love in the most painful way, if only to imitate him. The inspiration that I have had most frequently these past days is one of surrendering myself. Now when I think of dying, I’m happy. Before I didn’t feel that way, although I always wanted to. I love life in order to work and suffer for Christ and to love Him amid the struggles. I want to convert my whole life into love. So many desires and hopes bubble within my inner self that have no other choice than to trust in God and to be bold in my trust. (p. 198)
• I do not fear suffering if Jesus is with me. I want to make use of the times that I suffer to engender Christ in everyone that I come into contact with. It is a gift that the Lord freely gives me. I’m much happier than I believe I am worthy of and I hope to be more each day… (p. 199)
• I feel the need for a torrent of graces from God in order to follow Christ, as I understand it now. I want to begin to follow Him unconditionally. His love draws me to Him and I desire to grow in that love. In order to accomplish this, and to expand His Kingdom, I want to surrender myself to a hard life that I will continue until I die. I want to be someone who distinguishes herself the most in His service. (p.200)
• I feel the desire to be like To pass through life with the same disposition as He had: a deep love for the Father and a great desire for His glory… (p. 242)
• Today I give thanks to God for giving us our brief existence at this difficult time, a time that gives us the opportunity to follow Jesus more closely. (p. 243)
• Everyone tells us that we will have to go through a lot and suffer poverty, but if this were to occur, we are prepared to accept it peacefully and with serenity for the love of (p. 246)
• I want this newly born Institute to be big, gigantic in spirit, full of the life of Christ, and completely penetrated by its redeeming missionary spirit. I don’t want us to be Mercedarian Missionaries in name only. I want us to understand what this name means. I want us to be enamored with our vocation, and that we fix our eyes on the sublime ideal that it brings forth within us. I want us to not stop in our persistence until we have completely brought this all about. (p. 246)
• My awareness of Christ the Redeemer absorbs and touches me. I love Jesus more each time. I want to love him without limits and to live continually in the action of grace. I want to use my whole life to glorify Christ, Redeemer of humankind. (p. 250)
• If a missionary is attempting to create a new, powerful, and life giving light, and if she does not reflect Christ, how will she create this new environment of awareness in Christ, of cloaking humanity in Him without God? It can’t be done any way that she wants, nor is superficial training enough to understand and fuse with these divine mysteries… (p. 252)
• The root of all of our activities lies in the conviction that we are living members of the Church with a mission of proclaiming Christ, of taking the image of Christ the Redeemer to as many nations and races as we can. (p. 252)
• We began the series about The Missionary Church. Like Christ, the apostle continues the work of redemption, which is owned to all humanity. No one has sever expressed it as well as Saint Paul, “God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation”. (p. 260)
• Christ loved and glorified the Church, and the Church proclaimed Christ thereby letting all people and races discover the image of Christ, the Redeemer of humanity, obscured on the Cross. This is our mission: to proclaim Jesus, making Him be known and loved. Always looking upward! Otherwise, in the long ran, name and profit might get in the mix. (p. 260)
• May Jesus be our study, our path, our life, and our love. When He wants to, he will give us access to the secrets of the Father and the mysteries of divinity. It’s important for us to delve into His life and death, into his experiences, attitudes, and motivations of love for the Father, love for His brothers and sisters, and dedication to His mission. Love, goodness, and dedication. That’s what Jesus displayed all His life. The life of Jesus was that of the Good Shepherd dedicated to His sheep, always prepared to risk His life. Jesus never lost sight of His mission as the Redeemer of humanity. (p. 261)
• Jesus Christ. Saying this, I don’t know what else to say. I wish Jesus Christ were all the words for us. His name contains all feelings and includes all programs. It summarizes all types of love and encapsulates all aspirations. It sheds light on all paths and guides our steps. May Jesus Christ be our beginning, middle, and end of our entire life. (p. 262)
• What the Pope wants this year, I want for all of our life. He wants us to live loving, living in gratitude, and participating in Redemption! He wants us to accept his gifts to glorify the Father and proclaim Christ, showering the over all of humanity. (p. 262)
• For some time now, everything appears to help clarify the mystery of redemption with all of its derivations for my spirit and for the Church. The knowledge of Christ the Redeemer consumes me and fills me with joy. It’s a new, complete, and deep joy that gives me stability and allows me to become established in the very loving God the Father, who sent us His son to redeem us and to make us His adopted children through Him. Contemplating Christ, the Redeemer has increased my love for the Church. How the concept of the Church increases upon seeing it born at Jesus’ death, thereby receiving complete life, benefit, and potency from Jesus Christ!... (p. 281)
• Jubilee Year of 1934, I greet you!

On behalf of all those who have been redeemed, I want to glorify Jesus Christ daily. He has redeemed, sanctified and enriched us with the most precious gifts of his divine riches.

I want to reveal Jesus – the Devine Redeemer obscured on the Cross – and take Him to every nation, to all people, and to the ends of the earth.

I would want all of the beats of my poor and human heart to sing a gentle and heartfelt hymn of expression of thanks to Jesus Christ for lifting us up towards the Father who came down towards us.

I would like to die transformed and nailed to the same Cross as our Redeemer, with no other feelings than He has, glorifying the Father and conquering humanity for Him. (p. 288)

• Jubilee Year of 1934, I greet you!

Dear Jesus, is there a redeemed person who, during this commemoration of your redemption, hasn’t lifted his heart and eyes up to You, watchful of the Cross, to give you filial thanks and recognition? Has there been a single Christiaan who, having reborn through you blood and elevated through You to the excellence of a child of God, hasn’t kissed your wounds, the source of our health? Will you find in this family redeemed and ennobled by You, a single Christian who, calling himself a child of your spouse the Church, hasn’t thought, even once, to extend this Church?

Well Jesus, I want to offer you the following in the Jubilee Year: My heart, which needs to beat only for You, singing a constant hymn of gratitude for your redemption in the secrecy of its sanctuary. From now on my work will have but one goal: to Chistianize myself, my family, and to the best of my ability, all of society. My sorrow, difficulties, setbacks, and pains brought about from striving to get all of humanity to come to your lap united every morning in the same chalice where your precious blood is deposited. Adveniat regnum tuum! (p. 288)

• My life is I find everything in Christ. My life is to engender Christ in everyone that I deal with. It is continuing to bring others to Christianity without tiring, without becoming discouraged. To Christianize each one “commensurate with the gifts God gives me”. I see that there is much that I can do if I spare no effort. I want to give myself unto Him. Full, hard work, as if I were trying to redeem the days and years that were lived in emptiness. I feel hungry and thirsty to fill my brief days with this great work. (p. 289)
• During this Holy Year, we are asked for fullness of inner life and to omit everything is not Christ and His Redemption. I hope and wish that as an Institute we completely understand that Christ is our source and origin of divine life, always open to us, and that we hope for everything from Christ with full trust in the redemption. We fear nothing with Christ and we only live in order to continue His life. (p. 295)