493. By the wonderful mysteries, which our Savior
Jesus had celebrated in the Cenacle, the reign which,
according to his inscrutable decree, his eternal Father had
consigned to Him, was well established; and the Thurs
day night of his last Supper having already advanced
some hours, He chose to go forth to that dreadful battle
of his suffering and death by which the Redemption was
to be accomplished. The Lord then rose to depart from
the hall of the miraculous feast and also most holy
Mary left her retreat in order to meet Him on the way.
At this face to face meeting of the Prince of eternity
and of the Queen, a sword of sorrow pierced the heart
of Son and Mother, inflicting a pang of grief beyond
all human and angelic thought. The sorrowful Mother
threw Herself at the feet of Jesus, adoring Him as her
true God and Redeemer. The Lord, looking upon Her
with a majesty divine and at the same time with the
overflowing love of a Son, spoke to Her only these
words : "My Mother, I shall be with thee in tribulation ;
let Us accomplish the will of the eternal Father and the
salvation of men." The great Queen offered Herself
as a sacrifice with her whole heart and asked his bless
ing. Having received this She returned to her retire
ment, where, by a special favor of the Lord, She was
enabled to see all that passed in connection with her
divine Son. Thus She was enabled to accompany Him
and co-operate with Him in his activity as far as de
volved upon Her. The owner of the house, who was
present at this meeting, moved by a divine impulse,
offered his house and all that it contained to the Mistress
of heaven, asking Her to make use of all that was his
during her stay in Jerusalem; and the Queen accepted
his offer with humble thanks. The thousand angels of
her guard, in forms visible to Her, together with some of
the pious women of her company, remained with the Lady.
494. Our Redeemer and Master left the house of the
Cenacle with all the men, who had been present at the
celebration of the mysterious Supper; and soon many of
them dispersed in the different streets in order to attend
to their own affairs. Followed by his twelve Apostles,
the Lord directed his steps toward mount Olivet outside
and close to the eastern walls of Jerusalem. Judas,
alert in his treacherous solicitude for the betrayal of his
divine Master, conjectured that Jesus intended to pass
the night in prayer as was his custom. This appeared
to him a most opportune occasion for delivering his
Master into the hands of his confederates, the scribes and
the pharisees. Having taken this dire resolve, he lagged
behind and permitted the Master and his Apostles to
proceed. Unnoticed by the latter he lost them from
view and departed in all haste to his own ruin and de
struction. Within him was the turmoil of sudden fear
and anxiety, interior witnesses of the wicked deed he
was about to commit. Driven on in the stormy hurri
cane of thoughts raised by his bad conscience, he arrived
breathless at the house of the high priests. On the way
it happened, that Lucifer, perceiving the haste of Judas
in procuring the death of Jesus Christ, and (as I have re
lated in chapter the tenth), fearing that after all Jesus
might be the true Messias, came toward him in the shape
of a very wicked man, a friend of Judas acquainted with
the intended betrayal. In this shape Lucifer could speak
to Judas without being recognized. He tried to persuade
him that this project of selling his Master did at first
seem advisable on account of the wicked deeds attributed
to Jesus ; but that, having more maturely considered the
matter, he did not now deem it advisable to deliver Him
over to the priests and pharisees; for Jesus was not so
bad as Judas might imagine; nor did He deserve death;
and besides He might free Himself by some miracles and
involve his betrayer into great difficulties.
495. Thus Lucifer, seized by new fear, sought to
counteract the suggestions with which he had previously
filled the heart of the perfidious disciple against his
Author. He hoped to confuse his victim; but his new
villainy was in vain. For Judas, having voluntarily lost
his faith and not being troubled by any such strong sus
picions as Lucifer, preferred to take his Master s life
rather than to encounter the wrath of the pharisees for
permitting Him to live unmolested. Filled with this fear
and his abominable avarice, he took no account of the
counsel of Lucifer, although he had no suspicion of his
not being the friend, whose shape the devil had assumed.
Being stripped of grace he neither desired, nor could be
persuaded by any one, to turn back in his malice. The
priests, having heard that the Author of life was in
Jerusalem, had gathered to consult about the promised
betrayal. Judas entered and told them that he had left
his Master with the other disciples on their way to
mount Olivet; that this seemed to be the most favorable
occasion for his arrest, since on this night they had al
ready made sufficient preparation and taken enough pre
caution to prevent his escaping their hands by his arti
fices and cunning tricks. The sacrilegious priests were
much rejoiced and began to busy themselves to procure
an armed force for the arrest of the most innocent Lamb.
496. In the meanwhile our divine Lord with the eleven
Apostles was engaged in the work of our salvation and
the salvation of those who were scheming his death. Un
heard of and wonderful contest between the deepest mal
ice of man and the unmeasurable goodness and charity of
God! If this stupendous struggle between good and
evil began with the first man, it certainly reached its
highest point in the death of the Repairer ; for then good
and evil stood face to face and exerted their highest pow
ers : human malice in taking away the life and honor of
the Creator and Redeemer, and his immense charity freely
sacrificing both for men. According to our way of rea
soning, it was as it were necessary that the most holy
soul of Christ, yea that even his Divinity, should revert
to his blessed Mother, in order that He might find some
object in creation, in which his love should be recon>
pensed and some excuse for disregarding the dictates of
his justice. For in this Creature alone could He expect
to see his Passion and Death bring forth full fruit; in
her immeasurable holiness did his justice find some com
pensation for human malice; and in the humility and
constant charity of this great Lady could be deposited
the treasures of his merits, so that afterwards, as the
new Phcenix from the rekindled ashes, his Church might
arise from his sacrifice. The consolation which the
humanity of Christ drew from the certainty of his
blessed Mother s holiness gave Him strength and, as it
were, new courage to conquer the malice of mortals ; and
He counted Himself well recompensed for suffering such
atrocious pains by the fact that to mankind belonged also
his most beloved Mother.
497. All that happened the great Lady observed from
her retreat. She perceived the sinister thoughts of the
obstinate Judas, how he separated himself from the rest
of the Apostles, how Lucifer spoke to him in the shape
of his acquaintance, and all the rest that passed when
he reached the priests and helped them to arrange with
so much haste the capture of the Lord. The sorrow
which then penetrated the chaste heart of the Virgin
Mother, the acts of virtue which She elicited at the sight
of such wickedness, and what else She then did, cannot
be properly explained by us ; we can only say that in all
She acted with the plenitude of wisdom and holiness,
and with the approbation of the most holy Trinity. She
pitied Judas and wept over the loss of that perfidious
disciple. She sought to make recompense for his malice
by adoring, confessing, praising and loving the Lord,
whom he delivered by such fiendish and insulting
treachery. She offered Herself with eagerness to die in
her Son s stead, if necessary. She prayed for those who
were plotting the capture and death of her divine Lamb,
for She regarded them as prizes to be estimated accord
ing to the infinite value of his precious life-blood for
which this most prudent Lady foresaw they would be
bought.
498. Our Savior pursued his way across the torrent of
Cedron (John 18, 1) to mount Olivet and entered the
garden of Gethsemane. Then He said to all the Apos
tles : "Wait for Me, and seat yourselves here while I go
a short distance from here to pray (Matth. 26, 36) ; do
you also pray, in order that you may not enter into temp
tation" (Luke 22, 40). The divine Master gave them
this advice, in order that they might be firm in the temp
tations, of which He had spoken to them at the Supper:
that all of them should be scandalized on account of what
they should see Him suffer that night, that Satan would
assail them to sift and stir them up by his false sug
gestions; for the Pastor (as prophesied) was to be
illtreated and wounded and the sheep were to be dis
persed (Zach. 13, 7). Then the Master of life, leav
ing the band of eight Apostles at that place and taking
with Him saint Peter, saint John, and saint James, re
tired to another place, where they could neither be seen
nor heard by the rest (Mark 14, 33). Being with the
three Apostles He raised his eyes up to the eternal
Father confessing and praising Him as was his custom ;
while interiorly He prayed in fulfillment of the prophecy,
of Zacharias, permitting death to approach the most in
nocent of men and commanding the sword of divine
justice to be unsheathed over the Shepherd and descend
upon the Godman with all its deathly force. In this
prayer Christ our Lord offered Himself anew to the
eternal Father in satisfaction of his justice for the rescue
of the human race; and He gave consent, that all the
torments of his Passion and Death be let loose over
that part of his human being, which was capable of suf
fering. From that moment He suspended and re
strained whatever consolation or relief would otherwise
overflow from the impassible to the passible part of his
being, so that in this dereliction his passion and sufferings
might reach the highest degree possible. The eternal
Father granted these petitions and approved this total
sacrifice of the sacred humanity.
499. This prayer was as it were the floodgate through
which the rivers of his suffering were to find entrance
like the resistless onslaught of the ocean, as was foretold
by David (Ps. 68, 2). And immediately He began to
be sorrowful and feel the anguish of his soul and there
fore said to the Apostles: "My soul is sorrowful unto
death" (Mark 14, 34). As these words and the sorrow
of Christ our Lord contain such great mysteries for our
instruction, I will say something of what has been shown
me and as far as I can understand concerning them. The
Lord permitted this sorrow to reach the highest degree
both naturally and miraculously possible in his sacred
humanity. This sorrow penetrated not only all the
lower faculties of his human life in so far as his natural
appetites were concerned; but also all the highest facul
ties of his body and soul, by which He perceived the in
scrutable judgments and decrees of the divine justice,
and the reprobation of so many, for whom He was to
die. This was indeed by far the greater source of his
sorrow, as we shall see farther on. He did not say that
He was sorrowful on account of his death, but. unto
death; for the sorrow naturally arising from the repug
nance to the death He was about to undergo, was a
minor fear. The sacrifice of his natural life, besides
being necessary for our Redemption, was also demanded
as a return for the joy of having in his human body ex
perienced the glory of the Transfiguration. On account of
the glory then communicated to his sacred body He held
Himself bound to subject it to suffering, deeming that a
recompense of what He had received. This we see veri
fied also in the three Apostles, who were witnesses as
well of the glorious as of the sorrowful mystery. This
they themselves now understood, being informed thereof
by an especial enlightenment.
500. Moreover the immense love of our Savior for us
demanded that full sway be given to this mysterious sor
row. For if He had caused it to stop short of the high
est which that sorrow was capable of, his love would
not have rested satisfied, nor would it have been so evi
dent that his love was not to be extinguished by the mul
titude of tribulations (Cant. 8, 7). At the same time He
showed thereby his charity toward the Apostles, who
were with Him and were now much disturbed by per
ceiving, that his hour of suffering and death, which He
had so often and in so many ways foretold them, was
now at hand. This interior disturbance and fear con
founded and confused them without their daring to
speak of it. Therefore the most loving Savior sought
to put them more at rest by manifesting to them his own
sorrow unto death. By the sight of his own affliction
and anxiety they were to take heart at the fears and
anxieties of their own souls. There was still another
mystery contained in this sorrow of the Lord, which re
ferred especially to the three Apostles, saint Peter, John
and James. For, more than all the rest, they were im
bued with an exalted conception of the greatness and
Divinity of their Master as far as the excellence of his
doctrine, the holiness of his works, and the power of
his miracles were concerned. They realized more com
pletely and wondered more deeply at his dominion over
all creation. In order that they might be confirmed in
their belief of his being a man capable of suffering,
it was befitting that they should know as eye-witnesses
his truly human sorrow and affliction. By the testimony
of these three Apostles who were distinguished by such
favors, the holy Church was afterwards to be well forti
fied against the errors, which the devil would try to
spread against the belief in the humanity of Christ our
Savior. Thus would the rest of the faithful have the
consolation of this firmly established belief in their own
affliction and sorrow.
501. Interiorly enlightened in this truth, the three
Apostles were exhorted by the Author of life by the
words : "Wait for Me, watch and pray with Me." He
wished to inculcate the practice of all that He had taught
them and to make them constant in their belief. He
thereby reminded them of the danger of backsliding
and of the duty of watchfulness and prayer in order to
recognize and resist the enemy, remaining always firm
in the hope of seeing his name exalted after the ignominy
of his Passion. With this exhortation the Lord separated
Himself a short distance from the three Apostles. He
threw himself with his divine face upon the ground and
prayed to the eternal Father: "Father, if it is possible,
let this chalice pass from Me" (Matth. 26, 38). This
prayer Christ our Lord uttered, though He had come
down from heaven with the express purpose of really
suffering and dying for men; though He had counted
as naught the shame of his Passion, had willingly em
braced it and rejected all human consolation; though
He was hastening with most ardent love into the jaws
of death, to affronts, sorrows and afflictions ; though He
had set such a high price upon men, that He determined
to redeem them at the shedding of his life-blood. Since
by virtue of his divine and human wisdom and his in
extinguishable love He had shown Himself so superior
to the natural fear of death, that it seems this petition
did not arise from any motive solely coming from Him
self. That this was so in fact, was made known to me
in the light which was vouchsafed me concerning the
mysteries contained in this prayer of the Savior.
502. In order to explain what I mean, I must state,
that on this occasion Jesus treated with the eternal
Father about an affair, which was by far the most
important of all, namely, in how far the Redemption
gained by his Passion and Death should affect the hidden
predestination of the saints. In this prayer Christ
offered, on his part, to the eternal Father his torments,
his precious blood and his Death for all men as an
abundant price for all the mortals and for each one of
the human born till that time and yet to be born to the
end of the world; and, on the part of mankind, He pre
sented the infidelity, ingratitude and contempt with which
sinful man was to respond to his frightful Passion and
Death; He presented also the loss which He was to
sustain from those who would not profit by his clemency
and condemn themselves to eternal woe. Though to die
for his friends and for the predestined was pleasing to
Him and longingly desired by our Savior; yet to die for
the reprobate was indeed bitter and painful; for with
regard to them the impelling motive for accepting the
pains of death was wanting. This sorrow was what the
Lord called a chalice, for the Hebrews were accustomed
to use this word for signifying anything that implied
great labor and pain. The Savior himself had already
used this word on another occasion, when in speaking to
the sons of Zebedee He asked them : whether they could
drink the chalice, which the Son of man was to drink
(Matth 20, 22). This chalice then was so bitter for
Christ our Lord, because He knew that his drinking it
would not only be without fruit for the reprobate, but
would be a scandal to them and redound to their greater
chastisement and pain on account of their despising it
(I Cor. 1, 23).
503. I understood therefore that in this prayer. Christ
besought his Father to let this chalice of dying for the
reprobate pass from Him. Since now his Death was
not to be evaded, He asked that none, if possible, should
be lost; He pleaded, that as his Redemption would be
superabundant for all, that therefore it should be
applied to all in such a way as to make all, if possible,
profit by it in an efficacious manner; and if this was not
possible, He would resign Himself to the will of his
eternal Father. Our Savior repeated this prayer three
times at different intervals (Matth. 26, 44), pleading
the longer in his agony in view of the importance and
immensity of the object in question (Luke 22, 43).
According to our way of understanding, there was a con
tention or altercation between the most sacred humanity
and the Divinity of Christ. For this humanity, in its
intense love for men who were of his own nature, de
sired that all should attain eternal salvation through his
Passion; while his Divinity, in its secret and high judg
ments, had fixed the number of the predestined and in
its divine equity could not concede its blessings to those
who so much despised them, and who, of their own free
will, made themselves unworthy of eternal life by repel
ling the kind intentions of Him who procured and offered
it to them. From this conflict arose the agony of Christ,
in which He prayed so long and in which He appealed
so earnestly to the power and majesty of his omnipotent
and eternal Father.
504. This agony of Christ our Savior grew in propor
tion to the greatness of his charity and the certainty of
his knowledge, that men would persist in neglecting to
profit by his Passion and Death (Luke 22, 44). His
agony increased to such an extent, that great drops of
bloody sweat were pressed from Him, which flowed to
the very earth. Although this prayer was uttered sub-!
ject to a condition and failed in regard to the reprobate 1
who fell under this condition; yet He gained thereby a|
greater abundance and secured a greater frequency of
favors for mortals. Through it the blessings were mul
tiplied for those who placed no obstacles, the fruits of
the Redemption were applied to the saints and to the
just more abundantly, and many gifts and graces, of
which the reprobates made themselves unworthy, were
diverted to the elect. The human will of Christ, con
forming itself to that of the Divinity, then accepted suf
fering for each respectively : for the reprobate, as suffi
cient to procure them the necessary help, if they would
make use of its merits, and for the predestined, as an
efficacious means, of which they would avail themselves
to secure their salvation by co-operating with grace.
Thus was set in order, and as it were realized, the sal
vation of the mystical body of his holy Church, of which
Christ the Lord was the Creator and Head.
505. As a ratification of this divine decree, while yet
our Master was in his agony, the eternal Father for the
third time sent the archangel Michael to the earth in
order to comfort Him by a sensible message and con
firmation of what He already knew by the infused
science of his most holy soul; for the angel could not
tell our Lord anything He did not know, nor could he
produce any additional effect on his interior conscious
ness for this purpose. But, as I related above (No.
498), Christ had suspended the consolation, which He
could have derived from his human nature from this
knowledge and love, leaving it to its full capacity for
suffering, as He afterwards also expressed Himself on
the Cross (No. 684). In lieu of this alleviation and
comfort, which He had denied Himself, He was recom
pensed to a certain extent, as far as his human senses
were concerned, by this embassy of the archangel. He
received an experimental knowledge of what He had
before known by interior consciousness; for the actual
experience is something superadded and new and is cal
culated to move the sensible and bodily faculties. Saint
Michael, in the name of the eternal Father, intimated
and represented to Him in audible words, what He al
ready knew, that it was not possible for those to be
saved who were unwilling; that the complaisance of the
eternal Father in the number of the just, although
smaller than the number of the reprobate was great;
that among the former was his most holy Mother, a
worthy fruit of his Redemption; that his Redemption
would also bear its fruits in the Patriarchs, Prophets,
Apostles, Martyrs, Virgins and Confessors, who should
signalize themselves in his love and perform admirable
works for the exaltation of the name of the Most High.
Among these the angel moreover mentioned some of the
founders of religious orders and the deeds of each one.
Many other great and hidden sacraments were touched
upon by the archangel, which it is not necessary to
mention here, nor have I any command to do so; and
therefore what I have already said, will suffice for con
tinuing the thread of this history.
506. During the intervals of Christ s prayer, the
Evangelists say, He returned to visit the Apostles and
exhort them to watch and pray lest they enter into temp
tation (Matth. 14, 41 ; Mark 14, 38; Luke 22, 42). This
the most vigilant Pastor did in order to show the digni
taries of his Church what care and supervision they were
to exercise over their flocks. For if Christ, on account
of his solicitude for them interrupted his prayer, which
was so important, it was in order to teach them, how
they must postpone other enterprises and interests to
the salvation of their subjects. In order to understand
the need of the Apostles, I must mention, that the in
fernal dragon, after having been routed from the Cenacle
and forced into the infernal caverns, was per
mitted by the Savior again to come forth, in order that
he might, by his malicious attempts, help to fulfill the
decrees of the Lord. At one fell swoop many of these
demons rushed to meet Judas and, in the manner already
described, to hinder him, if possible, from consummating
the treacherous bargain. As they could not dissuade
him, they turned their attention to the other Apostles,
suspecting that they had received some great favor at
the hands of the Lord in the Cenacle. What this favor
was Lucifer sought to find out, in order to counteract
it. Our Savior saw this cruelty and wrath of the prince
of darkness and his ministers ; therefore as a most loving
Father and vigilant Superior He hastened to the assist
ance of his little children and newly acquired subjects,
his Apostles. He roused them and exhorted them to
watch and pray against their enemies, in order that they
might not enter unawares and unprovided into the threat
ening temptation.
507. He returned therefore to the three Apostles,
who, having been more favored, also had more reasons
for watchfulness in imitation of their Master. But He
found them asleep; for they had allowed themselves to
be overcome by insidious disgust and sorrow and in it
had been seized by such a remissness and lukewarmness,
that they fell asleep. Before speaking to them or waking
them, the Lord looked at them for a moment and wept
over them. For He saw them oppressed and buried in
this deathly shade by their own sloth and negligence.
He spoke to Peter and said to him: "Simon, sleepest
thou? couldst not thou watch one hour?" And imme
diately He gave him and the others the answer : "Watch
ye, and pray that you enter not into temptation (Mark
14, 37) ; for my enemies and your enemies sleep not as
you do." That He reprehended Peter especially was
not only because he was placed as head of the rest, and
not only because he had most loudly protested that he
would not deny Him and was ready to die for Him,
though all the others should be scandalized in Him and
leave Him; but also because Peter, having from his
whole heart made freely these protests, deserved to be
corrected and admonished before all the rest. For no
doubt the Lord chastises those whom He loves and is
always pleased by our good resolutions, even when we
afterwards fall short in their execution, as happened
with the most fervent of all the Apostles, saint Peter.
When the Lord came the third time and woke up all
the twelve, Judas was already approaching in order to
deliver Him into the hands of his enemies, as I shall
relate in the next chapter.
508. Let us now return to the Cenacle, where the
Queen of heaven had retired with the holy women of
her company. From her retreat, by divine enlighten
ment, She saw most clearly all the mysteries and doings
of her most holy Son in the garden. At the moment
when the Savior separated Himself with the three Apos
tles Peter, John and James, the heavenly Queen sepa
rated Herself from the other women and went into an
other room. Upon leaving them She exhorted them to
pray and watch lest they enter into temptation, but She
took with Her the three Marys, treating Mary Magda
len as the superior of the rest. Secluding Herself with
these three as her more intimate companions, She begged
the eternal Father to suspend in Her all human allevia
tion and comfort, both in the sensitive and in the spir
itual part of her being, so that nothing might hinder Her
from suffering to the highest degree in union with her
divine Son. She prayed that She might be permitted
to feel and participate in her virginal body all the pains
of the wounds and tortures about to be undergone by
Jesus. This petition was granted by the blessed Trinity
and the Mother in consequence suffered all the torments
of her most holy Son in exact duplication, as I shall
relate later. Although they were such, that, if the right
hand of the Almighty had not preserved Her, they would
have caused her death many times over; yet, on the
other hand, these sufferings, inflicted by God himself,
were like a pledge and a new lease of life. For in her
most ardent love She would have considered it incom
parably more painful to see her divine Son suffer and
die without being allowed to share in his torments.
509. The three Marys were instructed by the Queen
to accompany and assist Her in her affliction, and for
this purpose they were endowed with greater light and
grace than the other women. In retiring with them the
most pure Mother began to feel unwonted sorrow and
anguish and She said to them: "My soul is sorrowful,
because my beloved Son is about to suffer and die, and
it is not permitted me to suffer and die of his torments.
Pray, my friends, in order that you may not be over
come by temptation." Having said this She went apart
a short distance from them, and following the Lord in
his supplications. She, as far as was possible to Her and
as far as She knew it to be conformable to the human
will of her Son, continued her prayers and petitions,
feeling the same agony as that of the Savior in the gar
den. She also returned at the same intervals to her
companions to exhort them, because She knew of the
wrath of the demon against them. She wept at the per
dition of the foreknown; for She was highly enlight
ened in the mysteries of eternal predestination and repro
bation. In order to imitate and co-operate in all things
with the Redeemer of the world, the great Lady also
suffered a bloody sweat, similar to that of Jesus in the
garden, and by divine intervention She was visited by
the archangel saint Gabriel, as Christ her Son was visited
by the archangel Michael. The holy prince ex
pounded to Her the will of the Most High in the same
manner as saint Michael had expounded it to Christ
the Lord. In both of Them the prayer offered and the
cause of sorrow was the same ; and therefore They were
also proportionally alike to one another in their actions
and in their knowledge. I was made to understand that
the most prudent Lady was provided with some cloths
for what was to happen in the Passion of her most be
loved Son; and on this occasion She sent some of her
angels with a towel to the garden in which her Son was
then perspiring blood, in order to wipe off and dry his
venerable countenance. The Lord, for love of his
Mother and for her greater merit, permitted these min
isters of the Most High to fulfill her pious and tender
wishes. When the moment for the capture of our
Savior had arrived, it was announced to the three Marys
by the sorrowful Mother. All three bewailed this in
dignity with most bitter tears, especially Mary Magda
len, who signalized herself in tenderest love and piety
for her Master.
INSTRUCTION WHICH MARY, THE QUEEN OF
HEAVEN, GAVE ME.
510. My daughter, all that thou hast understood and
written in this chapter will serve as a most potent incen
tive to thee and to all the mortals who will consider it
carefully. Estimate then, and weigh within thy soul,
how important is the eternal predestination or reproba
tion of the souls, since my most holy Son looked upon
it with such great anxiety, that the difficulty or impossi
bility of saving all men added such immense bitterness to
the Death, which He was about to suffer for all. By
this conflict He manifests to us the importance and grav
ity of the matter under consideration, He prolonged his
supplications and prayers to his eternal Father and his
love for men caused his most precious blood to ooze
forth from his body on perceiving, that the malice of
men would make them unworthy of participation in the
benefits of his Death. The Lord my Son has indeed
justified his cause in thus having lavished his love and
his merits without measure for the purchase of man s
salvation; and likewise the eternal Father has justified
Himself in presenting to the world such a remedy and
in having made it possible for each one freely to reach
out for such widely different lots, as death and life, fire
and water (Eccli. 15, 71).
511. But what pretense or excuse will men advance
for having forgotten their own eternal salvation, when
my divine Son and I have desired and sought to procure
it for them with such sacrifices and untiring watchful
ness? None of the mortals will have any excuse for
their foolish negligence, and much less will the children
of the holy Church have an excuse, since they have re
ceived the faith of these admirable sacraments and yet
show in their lives little difference from that of infidels
and pagans. Do not think, my daughter, that it is writ
ten in vain: "Many are called, but few are chosen"
(Matth. 20, 16) : fear this sentence and renew in thy
heart the care and zeal for thy salvation, conformable
to the sense of obligation arising from the knowledge
of such high mysteries. Even if it were not a question
of eternal salvation for thee, thou shouldst correspond
to the loving kindness with which I manifest to thee such
great and divine secrets. That I call thee my daughter
and a spouse of my Lord, should cause thee to pay no
attention to any visible thing and embrace only love
and suffering for his sake. This I have shown thee by
my example, since I applied all my faculties continually
to these two things with the highest perfection. In order
that thou mayest attain this, I wish that thy prayer be
without intermission and that thou watch one hour with
me, that is during the whole of thy life; for, compared
with eternity, life is less than one hour, yea less than
one moment. With such sentiments I wish that thou
follow up the mysteries of the Passion, writing them,
feeling them and imprinting them upon thy heart.
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