Reflections on Luisa’s Prayer To Destroy the Sin of Pride

From the Writings of Luisa Piccarreta

“The Little Daughter of the Divine Will”

 

Below in bold and underlined  is Luisa’s prayer to destroy the sin of pride:

VOL. 4 – September 9, 1901
Effectiveness of the intentions.

This morning my adorable Jesus was not coming. Then, while my mind was occupied with considering the mystery of the crowning of thorns, I remembered that, other times, as I was occupied with this mystery, the Lord had pleased to remove the crown of thorns from His head and to drive it onto mine. So I said in my interior: ‘Ah, Lord, I am no longer worthy of suffering your thorns.’ And all of a sudden He came, for just a little, and told me: “My daughter, when you suffer my own thorns, You relieve Me, and in suffering them yourself, I feel completely free of those pains. When you humble yourself and believe yourself unworthy of suffering them, you repair for the sins of pride which are committed in the world.” And I added: ‘Ah, Lord, for as many drops as You shed, for as many thorns as You suffered, for as many wounds, so much glory do I intend to give You for as much glory as all creatures should give You if the sin of pride did not exist; and so many graces do I intend to ask of You for all creatures, so that this sin be destroyed.’

While saying this, I saw that Jesus contained the whole world within Himself, like a machine containing objects in itself. All creatures moved within Him, and Jesus moved toward them, and it seemed that Jesus would receive the glory of my intention and that creatures had returned to Him in order to receive the good impetrated by me for them. I remained stupefied, and He, seeing my stupefaction, said: “All this seems surprising, doesn’t it? What you have done seems a trivial thing, yet, it is not so. How much good could be done by repeating this intention, but is not?” Having said this, He disappeared.

When the sin of pride is destroyed, a person will no longer sin as Jesus states below:

VOL. 3 – November 19, 1899
The evils of pride.

My adorable Jesus continues to come, and since before He came, my mind was thinking about certain things which Jesus had told me in the past years, and which I do not remember so well, almost to remind me He told me:  “My daughter, pride corrodes grace.  In the hearts of the proud there is nothing but a void all full of smoke, which produces blindness.  Pride does nothing but render oneself an idol, and so the proud soul does not have her God with her.  By sin, she has tried to destroy Him in her heart, and raising an altar within her heart, she places herself on it, and she adores herself.”

Oh, God, what an abominable monster this vice is!  It seems to me that if the soul is attentive not to let it enter into herself, she is free of all other vices; but if, to her misfortune, she lets herself be dominated by it, since it is a monstrous and wicked mother, it will deliver all of its naughty children for her, which are the other sins.  Ah, Lord, keep it away from me!

The opposite of pride is humility and Jesus wants us to perform continuous acts of humility as he states in volume 1 below:

VOL. 1

And it happened in this way: every morning, after Communion, He would tell me what I was supposed to do during the day. I will say everything briefly, because after so much time it is impossible to say everything. I don’t remember for sure, but it seems to me that He told me that the first thing which was necessary in order to purify the interior of my heart, was the annihilation of myself – that is, humility. And He continued: “See, so that I may pour my graces in your heart, I really want you to understand that you can do nothing by yourself. I am very much wary of those souls who attribute what they do to themselves, wanting to make of my graces as many thefts. On the other hand, with those who know themselves, I am generous in pouring my graces in torrents. Knowing very well that they can attribute nothing to themselves, they are grateful to Me; they hold it in that esteem which befits it, and they live with the continuous fear that, if they do not correspond to Me, I may take away from them that which I gave, knowing that it does not belong to them. It is all the opposite in the hearts which reek of pride. I cannot even enter into their hearts because they are so swollen with themselves that there is no space in which to put Myself. These miserable ones take my graces into no account, and they go from fall to fall, up to their ruin. Therefore, on this day I want you to make continuous acts of humility; I want you to be like a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, who can move neither a foot to take a step, nor a hand to work, but expects everything from his mother. In the same way, you will stay close to Me like a baby, always praying Me to assist you, to help you; always confessing your nothingness – in sum, expecting everything from Me.”

I tried to do as much as I could to content Him – I would make myself smaller, I would annihilate myself, and sometimes I reached the point of feeling my being as almost undone, in such a way that I could not work, nor take one step, or even one breath if He did not sustain me. I saw myself as so bad, that I was ashamed of being seen by people, knowing myself as the ugliest – and, in reality, I am still so. So, as much as I could shun people, I shunned them, saying to myself: ‘Oh! if they knew how bad I am, and if they could see the graces that the Lord is giving me (for I wouldn’t tell anything to anyone), and that I am always the same – oh, how horrified they would be with me!’

So we need to continuously call upon Luisa as little babies in her arms by repeating as for example “Help me Luisa, I am your baby” and to try to pray Luisa’s prayer to destroy pride daily so that the sin of pride will be destroyed in all hearts.

 

Fiat!!!