In Sinu Jesu

A few days ago I read about a  book, In Sinu Jesu that one of  Rorate Caeli's team of writers, really likes. It is recommended for use during Adoration and is praised by Cardinal Burke. I bought it and read it and I have to say that it made me a little uneasy.  The book is written by anonymous Benedictine and is his reflections on his inner locutions from Our Lord and Our Lady. The thing that bothers me is that the words of Our Lord in this book are...well... gooey. I cannot imagine the Christ speaking like this. Some people find the dialogue in St. Faustina's diary to be too sugary but I'll let that pass because she was a simple young woman  with a girlish vocabulary and who grew up in culture quite different from the post World War II West. The priest who wrote this book is a modern, educated American male so there would be no need for Our Lord to speak to him in such precious way.

There is so much repetition that I found myself skipping pages. Would God say the same thing day after day, year after year? God spoke to Moses and Noah with clear commands and He did not repeat Himself like a mother telling her kid to pick up his socks for the 50th time in a month. The volume of inner locutions worried me too. When I compare the amount of locutions  of In Sinu Jesu to what was said succinctly stated to  Saints Gertrude, Margaret Mary, Catherine Laboure and  St. Teresa of Avila it just seems so different. The chattiness in In Sinu Jesu  reminds me of Medjugorje and Fr. Gobbi.

I'm not knocking the priest. To his credit, he is not chatting on EWTN or  hitting the lecture circuit. He's only published his diary and done so anonymously. He remains quietly at his work in the monastery and in adoration of the Lord. However, it's possible that Father is mistaken about what he is hearing and the Church does not require us  to accept every word from every mystic.  My parish priest is busy so I'm not going to bother him  or our parochial vicar with it but I'd be interested to see what a good theologian priest's reaction to it would be to this book. For safety's sake I will stick to time tested and Church approved guides such as Imitation of Christ,or Visits to the Blessed Sacrament by St. Alphonsus or the great devotion of the rosary when I'm at Adoration.