Leave aside the things that distract you from Me. I am the One Thing Necessary to you in this life. Save your eyes, your ears, your mouth, your hands, and your heart, your whole being for Me, and I will unite you to Myself. Close your eyes to vanities, and your ears to flattery and deceit. Open your mouth to praise Me, to sing My glory, to speak of Me, and to speak good things to your neighbour.

Keep yourself for Me as I keep Myself for you in the Sacrament of My Love. Know that I wait for you. There is a consolation that only you can give Me. It is your friendship that My Heart desires and this friendship of yours cannot be replaced by any other. You are Mine and I am yours.

Abide in Me and I will abide in you, speaking through you, and touching souls through your words. Allow Me to be the physician of souls and bodies through you. I want to live in you and pursue on earth all of those things that I did out of love and compassion when I walked among men in My flesh. You are My flesh now, and you are my presence in the world. It is through you that I make myself visible to men. It is through you that I will speak to them, and comfort them, and heal them, and draw them to My Father in the Holy Spirit. There is nothing that I will not do for souls through My priests.

Let them be visible and present in the world that needs them and, without knowing it, seeks them and waits for a word from them: a word of life, a word of hope, a word of compassion, a word of forgiveness. Let my priests be visible, not in order to make themselves seen and admired by men, but in order to make Me seen, and known, and loved in them and through them.

The world is looking for fathers, and in My priests I have given souls the fathers whom they need. There are false fathers who would abuse souls and lead them along, and exercise seduction and power over them. These are not the fathers whom I am sending into the world. The fathers whom I send to souls are men in My own image and likeness: humble, meek, self–sacrificing, tender, and strong. I will give to these fathers, chosen and sent out by Me a wisdom and a courage that the enemies of My Cross will not be able to confound. Let My priests forsake all selfishness and worldly aggrandisement and so become fathers to souls in need of love, of comfort, of direction, and guidance, and courage.

It is through My priests that the world will be healed of the sufferings inflicted upon it by the absence of true fathers, fathers in whom the tenderness and mercy of My own Father will be revealed to His children in this valley of tears. Let my priests be fathers!! Let them beg Me for the grace of spiritual fatherhood, and I will give it to them in abundance. Such a man was Saint Joseph. He was the living image of My Father, and he was chosen by My Father to be a father to Me in My sacred humanity. Let my priests go to Saint Joseph. He will obtain for them this priceless gift of spiritual fatherhood, and he will guide them in the delicate and difficult work of being true fathers to souls.

From In Sinu Iesu, The Journal of A Priest

PDF Version for print or saving: Listen, my priest!