One day, when I walked into our courtyard to enter my house, I noticed that our gardenia plant had a few beautiful white flowers. I immediately approached the plant to smell her flowers, and I was filled with joy at seeing her flowers blossoming.

Jesus later taught me as I prayed in my room:

—My daughter, a plant grows in beauty when the flower begins to blossom. The gardenia plant is a lovely plant in your garden, but the day you walked into your garden and saw her flowers, you took greater attention to her and were filled with joy. She called you to her, through the lovely flower, to stoop down and smell her.

This is an analogy of the human soul when she begins to blossom in true humility. She brings great joy to the Father, and He stoops down to smell her fragrance of humility, thus filling the Heart of God with joy.

—My Lord, how does a soul grow in the beauty of humility?

—In order for a plant to blossom, it must be watered, nurtured, and live in the rays of the sun. A soul, too, must be nurtured in daily prayer, given the food of the Eucharist, pruned in the sacrament of Penance, and live in the light of the Holy Spirit. But in order for humility to kill the deep roots of self-love, pride, and vanity in a soul, she must come to My Cross for her heart to be plowed with My thorns and wounds.