It may be, Your Excellency, that some people think that I should have made known all this some time ago, because they consider that it would have been twice as valuable years beforehand. This would have been the case if God had willed to present me to the world as a prophetess. But I believe God had no such intention when He made known these things to me. If that had been the case, I think that in 1917, when He ordered me to keep silent, and this order was confirmed by those who represented Him, He would on the contrary, have ordered me to speak.
I consider then, Your Excellency, that God willed only to make use of me to remind the world that it is necessary to avoid sin, and to make reparation to an offended God, by means of prayer and penance. Where could I have hidden myself in order to escape from innumerable questions they would have asked me about such matters? Even now I am afraid, just thinking of what lies ahead of me! And I must confess that my repugnance in making this known is so great that, although I have before me the letter in which Your Excellency orders me to write everything else that I can remember, and I feel convinced that this is indeed the hour that God has chosen for my doing this, I still hesitate and experience a real inner conflict, not knowing whether to give you what I have written, or to burn it. As yet I do not know what will be the outcome of the struggle. It will be as God wills.
For me keeping silent has been a great grace. What would have happened had I described hell? Being unable to find words which exactly express the reality–for what I say is nothing and gives only a feeble idea of it all. I would, therefore, had said now one thing, now another, wanting to explain but not succeeding in doing so. I might thus perhaps have caused such a confusion of ideas as even to spoil, who knows, the work of God. For this reason, I give thanks to the Lord, and I know that He does all things well. God usually accompanies His revelations with an intimate and detailed understanding of their significance. But I do not venture to speak of this matter, for fear of being led astray, as can all too easily happen, by my own imagination. Jacinta seemed to have this understanding to quite a remarkable degree.