O Gentle Jesus, in every instance that a sinful soul repents, you are found by her, your bride, and she has received you as her Bridegroom. As such, she gives you now, at last, the opportunity to wipe away her tears and to embrace and kiss her ever so tenderly; you show her, with love so sweet and so pure, that you forgive and forget all her infidelities. All you desire is to be with her as she is—blemished and yet so beautiful to you—communicating to her that she is eternally and unchangingly loved by you.
Yet, in every instance that a sinful soul repents not, your bride, O sweet Jesus, does not find you, although you stand unswervingly before her countenance. Instead, by her ignorance and distrust of your perfect love, she rejects you and accepts some other suitor as her bridegroom. She gives you no opportunity to wipe her tears, for she weeps now in the arms of another, who is not her true husband; and though you forgive and forget all her infidelities, she runs away from you in fear, this way and that, believing that if she stood before your face then you might would remember such things and, with anger, punish her terribly. Oh what a shame! If your bride only knew her punishment was that you wished only to embrace and kiss her with the tenderest love imaginable!
What is this love of yours, O Bridegroom
of the soul? It is madness! Every soul is your bride and the more your bride spurns your love by infidelity, the more you seek to embrace her and, by embracing her, infuse into her fragile frame the depths of your overwhelming and never ending charity. What love is this, but love that is perfectly and supremely Divine!