It may not be an internal locution.
And I have questioned it for two decades.
This is the Blessed Virgin Mary's short message:
"What good can you easily do here and now?"
The message may just be for me. There is no need to write it publicly with an assumption that it is an internal locution.
However, I have written that counting good acts can help the real compulsives, I termed powerpointing.
I have to admit publicly the internal locution (for the benefit of my reader) which also doesn't tell me to count my good acts like St. Therese wrote:
And I have questioned it for two decades.
This is the Blessed Virgin Mary's short message:
"What good can you easily do here and now?"
The message may just be for me. There is no need to write it publicly with an assumption that it is an internal locution.
However, I have written that counting good acts can help the real compulsives, I termed powerpointing.
I have to admit publicly the internal locution (for the benefit of my reader) which also doesn't tell me to count my good acts like St. Therese wrote:
"I know that certain spiritual directors advise us to count our virtuous acts in order to advance in perfection. But my spiritual director, Jesus, does not teach me to count my acts. He teaches me to do it all for love."--St. Therese's Little Way-Von Balthazar, Hans Urs Von Balthazar, ed. Gerard Bugge, http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com, October 2009.
(Primary Source: Thérèse of Lisieux, "Letter 142 to Céline Martin, July 6, 1893," in Letters of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, vol. 2, trans. John Clarke (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1988), 803–806.)
Thereby I declare that counting good acts I termed powerpointing is against the internal locution I received contrary to my previous firm belief.
(Note added 26 July 2026: But there are psychological symptoms of temporary delusion (more accurately called cognitive distortion), compulsion, addiction, and depression. And by actively experiencing such psychological symptoms for a longer period, then it gives way to it becoming a disorder where one surrender one's agency and where one thus can utilize powerpointing against those said disorders. Powerpointing has to be stopped though once psychological health is achieved. Bordering on the vicious sin is for theologians to tackle about especially if one has already been pyschologically healthy, the diagnosed psychosis has been addressed successfully, yet still commits the vicious act.)
The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. --Catechism of The Catholic Church, art. 1733.The above quote from CCC should not be interpreted to count our good acts to have that measuring device to help compulsives have some sense of progress in his struggle against his compulsion. According to St. Thomas in his Summa art.3, "...a habit of virtue cannot be caused by one act, but only by many." Thus we are to do many good acts like St. Therese did a thousand little acts, no counting but in a rather consolidated fashion.
(Note added 26 July 2026: But there are psychological symptoms of temporary delusion (more accurately called cognitive distortion), compulsion, addiction, and depression. And by actively experiencing such psychological symptoms for a longer period, then it gives way to it becoming a disorder where one surrender one's agency and where one thus can utilize powerpointing against those said disorders. Powerpointing has to be stopped though once psychological health is achieved. Bordering on the vicious sin is for theologians to tackle about especially if one has already been pyschologically healthy, the diagnosed psychosis has been addressed successfully, yet still commits the vicious act.)
There is a need thus for me to make public that message coming from the Blessed Virgin Mary just so that my readers might be informed of this very important message against my previous firm belief that powerpointing can help compulsives.
Here is a short account:
I hit rock bottom, I was helpless, and I called the Blessed Virgin Mary, begging her to help me and tell me what to do with my life. "What good can you easily do here and now?" Her short message was a refreshing water coming from nowhere that gave me such strength to rise and work out my life starting with the easiest good act I can do right there and then. Of course I have read the phrase "here and now" from St. John Paul II for example and the rest can be just a concoction or aha phenomena of my mind. The fact is, I focused on counting while thinking what good I still can easily do. I should have answered the Blessed Mary's question easily and did it easily without further counting.
I answered, "I have to get up from this bed and drink water since I might already be dehydrated, My Mother."
She answered, "Do it."
So I did. And then another good I can easily do and another so on. There's no counting but I'm already on my feet and the habit or ease of doing what is good is back on track.
Whether or not it's an internal locution, on the other hand, St. Therese word has a nihil obstat, and so counting good acts must stop. Though St. Therese' word might not be doctrinal, it still requires our obedience of faith to things we might not easily understand. Some things can't be easily understood and requires an Angelic Mind like St. Thomas Aquinas to grasp a mystery and still end up like a baby talk compared when we will see God face to face and understand everything perfectly.
The above quote of St. Therese is a negation, and bears no more than that. What is more important is her little act spirituality, as is the question of the Blessed Mother to me. The idea of easiness points towards my gifts and calling since what might be easy for me can be a million times difficult for another--a fact that my heart longs for such since I was created uniquely for that. This desire is present in that good acts that I can easily do--a great clue given to us by the Blessed Mother to stir us to love or desire what is good despite the failures. The rational undertone of the question is indeed a misnomer. Doing it all for love is the atmosphere of the little acts or easy acts. If you need intimacy or affirmation works, it seems that the little acts or easy acts are cold but they are not. The all too illusive meaning of emotion and its abuse is almost dismissed when we remember CCC art. 1767 that "It belongs to the perfection of the moral or human good that the passions be governed by reason." Finally if to love is to will the good of another (CCC art. 1766), does it mean there are good acts which hates the good of another? WCC, CMP, Chap. 8 on integral human fulfillment, pointed out that if acts should be good they always are relationally good also, meaning those seemingly good acts that doesn't respect this element of goodness are not good at all. In the wake of our environmental awareness, drinking a soda in a plastic or buying one on a paper cup becomes a monumental tasks today we can no longer dismiss as insignificant.
There should also be no redundancy, confusion, and sense of no direction, sense of disconnect when you seem to be doing unrelated little or easy tasks. Consider this article When Solving Problems, Think About What You Could Do, Not What You Should Do and its own journal source. In the context of the should→could→would or morality→possibility→personal preference, the fence is the should where inside the fence we can do the could but we actually choose to do what we want to do. St. John Paul IIs genius tells us that progress is not in opposition to the traditional, but standing on the shoulders of the giants, we will actually see the path to real progress, a lower limit to morality but without a higher limit; not just an aha phenomenon as Pope Benedict XVI told us, but an intentional creativity, not accidental but a labor of reason and love. In short we know what we should not do, we think of what we can do because of that easy yoke or rod that guides, and then we further choose from among the possibilities as to our liking or capacity.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners!
