Let us lift up our hearts We lift them up to the Lord

"O my Jesus, in thanksgiving for Your many graces, I offer You my body and soul, intellect and will, and all the sentiments of my heart. Through the vows, I have given myself entirely to You; I have then nothing more than I can offer you.  Jesus said to me, My daughter, you have not offered Me that which is really yours. I probed deeply into myself and found that I love God with all the faculties of my soul and, unable to see what it was that I had not yet given to the Lord, I asked, “Jesus, tell me what it is, and I will give it to You at once with a generous heart.” Jesus said to me with kindness, “Daughter, give Me your misery, because it is your exclusive property”. At that moment, a ray of light illumined my soul, and I saw the whole abyss of my misery. In that same moment I nestled close to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus with so much trust that even if I had the sins of all the damned weighing on my conscience, I would not have doubted God’s mercy  but, with a heart crushed to dust, I would have thrown myself into the abyss of Your mercy. I believe, O Jesus, that You would not reject me, but would absolve me through the hand of Your representative. (Diary of Saint Faustina, Entry 1318)

Perhaps the greatest self-emptying we can accomplish is to give our misery, our wretchedness to God.  We often find it useful to hold on to our suffering, as we can control other people as well as to justify our own actions through complaining, accusing, and judging based on our own pain .  This is really our most absolute trust in God, for if we give up our misery and wretchedness to Him, what do we have left that is ours? What power of our own do we have left to attempt to control others?