How that sick woman whom I tended spiritually loved the Will of God! She saw her many, long-lasting and painful illnesses (not a single part of her body was healthy), as a blessing from Jesus and a sign of his special love. Although in her humility she used to say that she deserved punishment, the terrible sufferings that she felt all over her were not a punishment, but a mercy.

—We spoke of death. And of Heaven. And of what she was going to say to Jesus and to Our Lady. And how she would be “working” much more from up there than she could down here. She was ready to die whenever God wanted… but, she exclaimed, full of joy, “If only it could be today!” She looked forward to death with the same joy as one who knows that when we die we go to meet our Father.