| Each Rosebud that has been revealed has been revealed in different ways showing the richness of the communication, communion with Man. Yesterday I felt a strong 'call' to go and pick up a book from the shelf and a feeling and that the next rosebud would be revealed thus. My hand seemed to reach out to the Life of Faustyna Kowalska, Saint, and I opened it at random as told. The book contains extracts of her diary in the context of her life. This one told of her sufferings to expiate for abortion ( P.289 - Life of Fuastyna Kowalska - Maria Tarnowska and translated into English.) but one line jumped out at me and I knew that this was the next rosebud. "...... But now I understand the nature of these pains because the Lord Himself has made this known to me....." I knew that the Rosebud was "understanding" I tried to verify this in Scripture and got various readings all to do with discernment, knowledge etc. broader indeed than my own narrow perception of understanding -. While explaining this a few hours later to Michael I turned over the initial pages and found the following ( which again I had slipped a book mark into not looking where I had placed it P 313-bottom 314) ..... " Pure Love understand these words carnal love will never understand them "( Diary notebook 2 - para. 324) I pondered this and especially the comment of the writer who states how kind God is to take on board our human feelings and respect them However today while awaiting a visit from London of Fr. M. S.o.l.t. I thought I would make him a cake.... ( he loves them!). Quite suddenly I thought of the word understand and how really it is to 'stand under'. I mused on this and that we do stand under God and that He showers us with gifts especially our ability to understand. Then I felt a prompting - " Yes but if we stand under the Cross we have to look up and we start to 'understand'! 'Understanding' again is tied and linked to being identified with the Cross. Rosebuds of the CRUCIFIED Jesus !.......... Another thought at mass yesterday. I was mulling the next rosebud (present one- what Jesus would say) and trying to recall the last ( this is the second time this has happened) but I could not in any way recall it. I believe this is to make me compliant and to take away memory save for the focus of the new instruction. I asked Michael what the last one was and his reply was instant - Meekness. Friday 11.30. p.m. The whole week has been a series of revealings about 'understanding'. On Tuesday ( I think) Michael and I were mulling over something which I felt I wanted to verify and that is whether the Saints in heaven pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. We reflected and I looked up my 'standby - the catechism I have had since I was a child. As I flicked through the right section and found nothing exactly explicit I opened at random and found the following: 28) " What do you mean by Mystery? By mystery I mean a truth which is above reason and revealed by God. 29) Is there any likeness to the Blessed Trinity in you soul? There is this likeness this likeness to the Blessed Trinity in my soul: that as in one God there are three persons so in my soul there are three powers. 30) Which are the three powers of your soul? The three powers of my soul are memory UNDERSTANDING and will. Jesus has a repertoire of teaching aids !! I was again being presented with truth. The subheading defined understanding as ' that power of the soul by which it apprehends things presented to the mind! On Wednesday as we have to take it in turns to go to Mass because of my father, I went to St. Ives as there is no Mass in out church on that day. During Adoration (following Mass ) the following happened. I was praying for my father who is slowly dying and not at peace - I looked at the statue of the Sacred Heart, the sun was shining onto it. There seem to be two shadows one smaller than the statue and one much larger behind the first shadow. Then I observed a third shadow to one side - not in any way related to the statue. As i looked, a little puzzled, the first shadow appeared as Mary - not clearly as in a perfect image but recognisable interiorly. This happens rarely that something is so external so I look for other explanations However the shadow to one side took on the appearance of my father lying on his tummy face down but in mid air seemingly suspended but in distress. I then saw that Mary's hand seemed to be reaching out to him but he was oblivious to this and a little dark patch existed between her hand and his. I asked Mary to explain - saying that I did not understand. Mary (Our Mother) replied that in answer to m prayer that " he had to recognise who I am "-- in other words she could not help him if he did not acknowledge Her. I was complaining a little that she had not helped him and pleaded for him. I then noticed that the third shadow disappeared. I stayed contemplating this scene for a while. I the felt myself drawn deeper and I saw ( interiorly) Jesus on the Cross-. Quite large and at the foot of the Cross was a nun, a sister wearing black and kneeling. She was holding a chalice and seemed to be offering this to Jesus. He leaned forward almost down to her and with one arm took the chalice. Perplexed I asked why she was holding the chalice? I got the answer that He, Jesus, had accepted her offering, her cup as consolation for His suffering - I asked what was in the cup and He replied "Solitude" and He asked if I was willing to offer my cup of solitude? I understood quite suddenly that the acute aloneness I feel at present was my offering, my suffering was through and by solitude. ( ON Monday we found a Host left in church which distressed me greatly and so many things are happening which further deepen this sense of solitude. Then again I felt I was in some sort of underground room - the windows were iron rather like horizontal shutters - but as I looked out I saw that at eye level the ground was covered in snow and that what appeared to be huge continuous snowflakes were falling down incessantly and vertically like a curtain This time I was given NO answer or explanation save ' wait and see' ( I did receive an answer but I had to wait until 16.04.2000.) All these things relate to understanding and how differently Jesus is teaching me about this Rosebud. Tuesday 26th October Evening. ( My fathers asleep.) The last few days the word understanding and indeed solitude have jumped out at me at every corner. Last night (Monday) I picked up 'John of the Cross' where I had left off and read the following: ( from Spiritual Canticle Stanza 1, section ii. P.420.) " You have been told o soul of the conduct you should observe if you want to find the Bridegroom in your hiding place. Still if you want to hear this again listen to a word abounding in substance and inaccessible truth. Seek Him in faith without desire for the satisfaction of taste or understanding of any thing than what you ought to know. Faith and love are like the blind mans guides! " I then read on to stanza 3 but I was very weary and sleepy and strangely it felt as if a block had been put in front of me and I could not concentrate or fully understand. Suddenly I felt that I should go over that verse in the Spiritual Canticle( at least I knew where to look * and how to look for things ) relating to solitude that had so impinged itself on me when I read it a few days before. I was reading the Canticle and as I approached this verse I felt acutely aware that somehow this was for me - like a bolt of lightening hit me as I read. I recalled too the vision of the 'cup of solitude'. Again I felt drawn back to this verse. I looked to the end of this Canticle and and found it in stanza 35. This time I read the introduction and commentary on the five lines. ' She lives in solitude and now in solitude has built her nest, And in Solitude He guides her, He alone who also bears In Solitude the wound of Love. My tiredness left me as I was fully alert. It seem to say what I was experiencing and explaining it all to me. The cup of solitude that Jesus wanted to take from me and for me to give Him suddenly became crystal clear. This great longing..... the acute aloneness. The only part of this that I could not comprehend and indeed wish to blot out for it was too much for me and 'I can't believe is true' was spiritual marriage. I know it is the path to perfection and long for this for service but how could 'I', 'me',- the lady who trembles at what might have been and what God has done for me all my life be here ( though I hold sway until I have spoken to Father Peter for it all seems too impossible and improbable) (NB* Until very recently St. John was a closed book to me.) Since last night I have had this strange inner pain, a kind of drawing out of my spirit. I want to cry yet this too seems inappropriate. I wish to run to Him and hide within Him. Lord Jesus , My Beloved Mother have mercy on me. Yet I am so aware of my failings and the blight of certain weaknesses that make me susceptible to sin. The pain of having failed Him, even in these matters, which some would define as 'small', pain me deeply. Yet it is now He presents me with this awareness of solitude and gifts me with understanding . These past days I keep going back to the 'vision' of being presented with " a ring" by two angels and then the ring being 'blessed and approved' by the Mighty One and placed on my finger and the book closed over my hands. It puzzled me at the time and 'troubled' me deeply - somewhere inwardly I half understood, but again wished to deny espousal (betrothal)? Now this seems clear - Oh Jesus help me! Wednesday 27th October 1999 10.a.m. After Mass. Church of the Sacred Heart St Ives. This happened During Adoration but written up at home p.m. Drawn again last night to read Poustinia, I had stopped after reading the bulk of the book, I opened it and read another insight into understanding this time from from the pen and lips of Catherine Doherty. I was most amused for she too pulled back ( in awe and incredulity - I think ) at how the Lord works. I realised once again why the Lord led me to her. She was writing on the 'words' from Poustinia and her reactions but the word understanding reappeared often. " Time marched on and towards seven o'clock very slowly a word began to form itself. It was a strange word, a big word, a word I didn't expect at all. The word was faith. Confronted with this word for some reason or other I was like one dumb ( or bereft of all my senses would perhaps be a better description) Or maybe I was one asleep who wasn't reacting. Why I felt this way I don't know because I use the word faith constantly. But this time it seemed to stand out in another context. I looked at faith with clear eyes with deep eyes and I once again realised with a depth I had never experienced before that faith is a gift from God. This realisation came suddenly and with A SORT OF UNDERSTANDING that is a pure gift indeed and that God alone can bestow it. (P. 151 - Poustinia.) This word understanding recurred a few more times in her writing also her reluctance to enter ever more deeply into Mystery and become defenceless. "......Yes it had something to do with some new dimension in the Lord as if He wanted to say to me " Come higher unto My mountain and listen to what I want to tell you! I must admit that I didn't want want to go any higher onto any mountain. Yet when I say this I feel that I am a liar, because the inner and outward voice of God for me, even disguised in my own thoughts has always been too powerful to resist." The last paragraph too found a deep echo in my heart as I have always hidden from what the Lord was doing and almost reluctant to go deeper yet unable. This is so true AT THIS MOMENT as I reflected on the "thought or even whisper of spiritual marriage- I simply can't cope with this thought - I want to shout- but I am a beginner - yet rather like Catherine knew this to be untrue. Yet I cannot comprehend even the possibility of what I seem to be being told. I mulled this on the bus to St. Ives, how Catherine's favourite saint ( or one of them) was St. John of the Cross (She died on his feast day 14th December.) Heavenly circle of friends. After Communion I felt an intense stilling though quite empty of any thought. I had a series of pictures/visions distinct from each other but somehow related. 1. I saw a lady dressed in white kneeling looking up at Jesus on the Cross. I could not see her face. She was dressed like a nurse, a modern sister, nun. I then saw a chalice pass from one to the other. I cannot say which way round it was for truly the focus was on the gold chalice and its sharing. 2 I then saw the Blessed Monstrance and with some things that I did not recognise and indeed this was almost veiled too but I saw someone receive white garments, long white ones which were laid across their arms. As I observed this I then became conscious that I had to receive them and they were laid across me. (see end for 3.. When I was writing up I omitted something in sequence) 4. I said to Jesus that I did not understand all the elements and once again I was presented with the same elements/symbols in a kind of red which I did not recognise at the core and centre of an octagonal funnel. I was being drawn into this funnel and I asked who and what it was. As I got closer I made out but only an A and O intertwined and the words "I Am who I AM" I felt a kind of deadness as if I couldn't move at all yet I could make out 'some' things around me yet I felt more 'inside' the funnel. I was conscious of being quite still. 5.I then saw Jesus Crucified and Sweat and Blood were spurting from Him. This was very brief. I was then conscious of holding a white cloth and dabbing down Jesus' face and wiping Him down. I felt very close and could feel the cloth ( but no Blood) 6. Then I 'moved' to the left and upwards - ( This sounds like nonsense but that's how I experienced it) I was told to hold out my hands. Two angels were there and were holding a bowl in which I had to place my hands and wash. I was dressed in a white robe of some kind - I felt my arms go up a little as I responded to this request and first held the bowl and then washed my hands ( though I had no sensation of water) One Angel held a white towel for me to 'dry' my hands with. Then I saw some lilies, long ones, many of them. I was told to hold one and one appeared in my hand and.... I was ready........(????) half way through this I was told to open my eyes and look at the Monstrance which I did and then my eyes seem to close again. At the end I felt Jesus being placed in the Tabernacle. I was not eager to move and though I sat for a while I would have stayed all day at peace and relaxed. I was told to 'go now' Ref.3 I knew that I had forgotten something/omitted something - though I split no.5 for I remembered 6 scenes'. After the first vision and second I saw Jesus Huge as the 'Sacred Heart'- but gold rays were coming out of His Heart. He was still. The most significant thing in some ways were the colours - white and gold predominated- from the white of the robes, towels, both to wipe Jesus with and the one for me, to the Lilies and the gold of the Chalice, Rays, Monstrance and ridge of the Funnel. I also seem to move from different positions in what seemed like a huge tableau. thus.....
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