The Unceasing Act of Love

The call of the Lord to offer Him an unceasing, life-long act of love was the foundation of the spirituality of the Venerable Sister Consolata Betrone. He taught her the now well-known prayer, “Jesus Mary! I Love You, Save Souls!” Recently, another religious sister, whose identity remains anonymous, wrote of her experiences as she lived this prayer, in a book entitled I Will Think of Everything. You, Think Only of Loving Me, published with Imprimatur in 2017. The title of this book emphasizes one of the key parts of the ceaseless act of love – that as we concentrate our prayer and attention on loving Him, He will take care of everything else in our lives. It was this promise that attracted our anonymous sister to immerse herself in the teachings that our Our Lord presented to Venerable Consolata.

Our Lord had said to Sister Consolata: “I will think of everything, even the tiniest things; you, think only of Me, I’m thirsty for your love. All of it. Don’t add a single stray thought, it would be a thorn in My head.”

The sister who authored the book is a member of the Children of Mary community; it is based in Ohio, and dedicated to the apostolate of spreading love for our Eucharistic Lord. She tells the story of how she came to find out about the teachings of Jesus to Sister Consolata, or more correctly, how these teachings found her. She offers personal examples of the way the Lord ‘thought of everything,’ as she let go and let Him resolve many practical difficulties, while she instead concentrated on making endless acts of love for God.

Although the ceaseless act of love is greatly facilitated by praying "Jesus, Mary I love You! Save Souls!" as taught by Our Lord, this is just one of many ways of constantly loving Jesus. In harmony with the goal of her religious community, our anonymous sister shows the reciprocity between loving Jesus through Eucharistic Communion and adoration, and persevering in prayer to love Jesus, Mary and souls. This is the fulfillment of the commandments to love God and our neighbor. Our neighbor is in some way God made visible to us.

Her book is interspersed with quotes from the only other book in English about Sister Consolata and the prayer of love, Jesus Appeals to the World, by Fr. Lorenzo Sales. It is a translation from the Italian of the work of Fr. Sales, and first appeared in 1955. (My post about that book is Here.) Her book also often quotes from, no surprise, The Tremendous Lover, by Fr. Eugene Boylan; and also cites Fr. John Hardon, St. John of the Cross, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, St. Catherine of Siena, papal documents, and other sources.

Those who regularly pray, “Jesus Mary I Love You! Save Souls!” as an offering to Jesus, become part of a movement which He termed The Littlest Way of Love. The very first Littlest One to consecrate herself to making the ceaseless act of love during the lifetime of Sister Consolata, was an 85 year-old lay woman named Giovanna Compaire. The Lord foretold that over the course of centuries to come throughout the world, “The Littlest Ones will not merely be counted by the thousands, but by millions and millions. They will not belong exclusively to the feminine sex; there will also be men; yes, there are many Little Souls even among men.”

This Littlest Way can be summarized in three sentences: Make an internal, ceaseless act of Love. Say a cheerful “Yes” to everyone since it’s Jesus we see and deal with through others. Say a grateful “yes” to everything that God asks of us. This act of love becomes a “virginal act of love” when it is not intermingled with any other thought. While centering on this love, one should avoid all useless speech unless it is required by Christian charity; one should resist inquisitiveness about the events of the world or about the affairs one’s neighbor.

A surprise bonus in the book is a question-answer catechism on the Littlest Way of Love written by Fr. Lorenzo Sales. Comprising 99 questions and almost as many pages, Fr. Sales deals with all aspects of the unceasing act of love. It can almost be called a “Catechism of Divine Love”.

The Lord told Sister Consolata that the prayer “Jesus, Mary, I love You! Save Souls!” includes everything: the souls in purgatory, as well as those in the militant Church; the innocent soul as well as the guilty one, the dying one, the atheist, etc., all souls. However, the unceasing act of love is not an escape or a bed of roses. In the above mentioned catechism we read, “Jesus didn’t present the ceaseless act of love to Sr. Consolata as a solace, but as a cross, upon which she was to live her vocation as a victim of love, upon which she was to complete her holocaust of love and suffering for souls.”

I Will Think of Everything. You, Think Only of Loving Me is available at Amazon Here. The website of the author’s Children of Mary Community is Here.

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Revelations to Luisa Piccarreta on Love

"Love alone is what surpasses everything, and leaves everything behind.  So one who loves much, not the one who does much, will be more pleasing to the Lord."

 

December 27, 1908 (Vol. 8)
What passed between Baby Jesus and His sweet Mama when She would feed Him from Her breast. The ‘I love You’ of the creature is requited by the ‘I love you’ of the Creator.

I was meditating on when the Queen Mama would give Her milk to Baby Jesus. I was saying to myself: ‘What must have passed between the Most Holy Mama and little Jesus in this act?’ At that moment, I felt Him move in my interior, and I heard Him say to me: “My daughter, when I suckled milk from the breast of my most sweet Mother, together with milk I suckled the love of Her Heart – and it was more love than milk that I suckled. While suckling, I would hear Her say to Me: ‘I love You, I love You, O Son’; and I would repeat to Her: ‘I love You, I love You, O Mama.’ And I was not alone in this; at my ‘I love You’, the Father, the Holy Spirit and the whole of Creation – the Angels, the Saints, the stars, the sun, the drops of water, the plants, the flowers, the grains of sand, all of the elements, would run after my ‘I love You’, and repeat: ‘We love You, we love You, O Mother of our God, in the love of our Creator.’

My Mother could see all this, and would remained inundated. She could find not even a tiny space in which She would not hear Me say that I loved Her. Her love would remain behind and almost alone, and She would repeat: ‘I love You, I love You….’ But She could never match Me, because the love of a creature has its limits, its time, while my love is uncreated, unending, eternal. The same happens to any soul when she says to me, ‘I love You’; I too repeat to her, ‘I love you’, and with Me is the whole Creation, loving her in my love. Oh, if creatures comprehended what good and honor they procure for themselves even by just saying to Me: ‘I love You’! This alone would be enough – a God beside them who, honoring them, replies: ‘I love you too.”

 

October 16, 1906 (Vol. 7)
How each good is a distinct melody in Heaven.

Having neglected to write what follows, obedience commanded me to do it.

I seemed to be outside of myself, and it seemed that there was a special feast in Heaven, and I was invited to this feast. It seemed I was singing with the very Blessed, because, up there, there is no need to learn, but one feels as though an infusion in one’s interior, and whatever the others sing or do, one is able to do as well. Now, it seemed to me that each Blessed is a key, that is, a melody himself, but all are in harmony among themselves, though each one is different from the other. One sings the notes of praise, one the notes of glory, one of thanksgiving, one of blessings, but all these notes reunite into one single note, and this note is Love. It seems that one single voice reunites all those voices and ends with the word ‘Love’. This cry, ‘Love’, is such a sweet and strong resounding that all other voices remain as though extinguished in this canticle, ‘Love’.

It seemed that all the Blessed were made ecstatic, drowsy, awake, inebriated by this cry or chant, ‘Love’, high, harmonious, beautiful, which deafened the whole of Heaven; they participated – one could say – in one more Paradise. But who were the fortunate ones who cried out more loudly, who made this note, ‘Love’, resound in everything, and who brought great happiness into Heaven Itself? They were the ones who had loved the Lord more when they lived on earth. Ah, they were not the ones who had done great things, penances, miracles… Ah, no – never! Love alone is what surpasses everything, and leaves everything behind. So, it is one who loves much, not one who does much, that will be more pleasing to the Lord. It seems I am speaking nonsense, but what can I do? It is obedience’s fault. Who doesn’t know that the things from up there cannot be spoken down here? So, in order not to speak more nonsense, I stop here.

July 14, 1907 (Vol. 8)
Everything in the soul must be love.

Continuing in my usual state, blessed Jesus came for a little while, and without thinking, I asked: ‘Lord, yesterday I went to confession; if I had died, since confession remits sins, would You not have brought me straight to Heaven?’

And He: “My daughter, it is true that confession remits sins, but the surest and most certain thing to be exempt from Purgatory is love. Love must be the predominant passion in the soul. Love – her thought, her word, her movements – everything, everything must be enveloped by this love. In this way, finding her all love, the Uncreated Love absorbs the created love within Itself. In fact, Purgatory does nothing but fill the voids of love that are present in the soul; and once It has filled these voids, It sends her to Heaven. But if these voids are not there, it is not something that belongs to Purgatory.”

October 29, 1907 (Vol. 8)
True love and sacrifice.

. . . Then He added: “My daughter, love is that which ennobles the soul and gives her possession of all my riches, because true love tolerates no division of any kind, even though one may be inferior to the other. ‘What is mine is yours’: this is the language of two beings who really love each other, because true love is transformation. So, the beauty of one removes the ugliness of the other, and renders him beautiful; if one is poor, I make him rich; if ignorant, I make him learned; if wretched, I make him noble. One is the heartbeat, one the breath, one the will in two beings that love each other; and if any other heartbeat or breath wanted to enter into them, they feel suffocated, breathless and torn, and they become ill. So, true love is health and sanctity, and one breathes a balsamic and fragrant air, which is the breath and the life of love itself. But it is in sacrifice that this love is more ennobled, more strengthened, more confirmed and expanded. So, love is the flame, sacrifice is the wood. Where there is more wood, the flames are higher, and the fire is always greater.

What is sacrifice? It is to empty oneself out in the love and in the being of the beloved; and the more one sacrifices himself, the more he is consumed in the being of the beloved, losing his own, and acquiring all the features and the nobility of the Divine Being.

February 9, 1908 (Vol. 8)
The way the soul must be with Jesus. Necessity of love for Jesus.

. . . Ah, yes! Love Me for all, satiate Me with love! There are no passions in Me, but if there could be any passion, it would be only this and this alone: love. But love in Me is more than passion – it is my life; and if passions can be destroyed, life cannot. See the necessity of being loved in which I find Myself. Therefore, love Me, love Me.”

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Jesus, Mary, I Love You! Save Souls!