I was thinking of when my sweet Jesus went back to Heaven in His glorious Ascension, and therefore of the sorrow of the Apostles in remaining deprived of such a great good; and my sweet Jesus, moving in my interior, told me: "My daughter, the greatest sorrow for all of the Apostles, in their entire lives, was to remain deprived of their Master. As they saw Me ascend to Heaven, their hearts were consumed with the pain of My privation; and much more sharp and penetrating was this pain, since it was not a human pain – something material that they were losing – but a Divine pain: it was a God that they were losing. And even though I had My Humanity, as It resurrected, It was spiritualized and glorified, therefore all the pain was in their souls; and penetrating them completely, it made them feel consumed with grief, such as to form in them the most harrowing and painful martyrdom. But all this was necessary for them.
“One can say that until that moment, they were nothing but tender babies in virtues and in the knowledge of Divine things, and of my own Person. I could say that I was in their midst and they did not really know Me, or love Me. But when they saw Me ascend into Heaven, the pain of losing Me tore the veil, and they recognized Me with so much certainty as the true Son of God, that the intense sorrow of no longer seeing Me in their midst delivered firmness in good and strength to suffer anything for love of the One whom they had lost. It delivered the Light of Divine Science; it removed the swaddling clothes of their childhood, and formed them as intrepid men — no longer fearful, but courageous... The pain transformed them and formed in them the true character of Apostles. What I could not obtain with My presence, I obtained with the pain of My privation.”