Flower of Devotion

Our Lady said to the venerable Mary of Jesus:
All the faithful should know that the Lord God could convert Saint Paul and justify him without performing such great miracles as His omnipotence performed in this admirable work. However, God performed these miracles so that people could see how willingly He is ready to forgive them and give them His grace and friendship. But also to show them how a person, according to the example of this great saint, should follow God’s voice and work with His grace.
The Lord God stimulates and calls many souls with the power of His inspirations and graces. Many of them follow God’s voice, these souls are justified and receive the sacraments of the Church. However, not all of them persevere in this justification, and even fewer of such souls reach perfection. The greatest number of them begin to live according to the spirit, but return to the life of the flesh and end there. What is the reason that not all the faithful persevere in grace, but quickly return to sin? Well, during their conversion they do not speak like Saint Paul: “Lord, what do you want me to do?” And although they may say so, they only say it with their mouths, but not with all their hearts. For they always retain a remnant of attachment to themselves, to money, to worldly goods, to their own will, to entertainment, or perhaps even to opportunities for sin, and as a result they easily fall.
Saint Paul is a living and true example of those who are converted to the light of grace. Not only because he was miraculously raised from the state of the deepest misery of sin to a state of grace and God showed him great kindness; but also for the way in which he freely worked with the grace of his vocation: he abandoned his dangerous condition, renounced his will completely and surrendered himself completely to the will and decrees of God. For this self-denial and this abandonment to God’s good pleasure are contained in these words: “Lord, what do you want me to do?”
His entire salvation, as far as it depended on himself, was also expressed in these words. Because he said these words with a heart full of repentance and humiliation, he completely renounced his own will and surrendered himself to the will of God. He also renounced forever the use of his faculties and senses that could lead him back to the sinful life he had previously committed himself to.
However, he committed himself to fulfill God’s will immediately and without resistance, regardless of how he came to know it. And immediately afterward he went into the city at the command of the Lord, and did there all the commandments of Ananias, the disciple of Jesus. So when the Most High, who penetrates and examines the secrets of human hearts, saw the sincerity with which Saint Paul followed His voice and his complete submission to God’s will and divine pleasure, not only that He accepted him lovingly into His service, but also showered him with the highest and most wonderful graces and benefits. Saint Paul could not have earned them on his own, but he certainly would not have received them if he had not completely surrendered himself to God’s will. And this total surrender to God enabled him to receive graces and gifts.