Jesus says:
“Listen to Me carefully, daughter, for the lesson today is very difficult.
“Man, every man, possesses in himself the image which God has conceived of for Man. But not all men possess the likeness to God in themselves.
“It is stated, ‘God made man in his image and likeness.’522 How can it be, then, that some have only the image? And how can they have the image of God if God is incorporeal, purest Spirit, infinite, sempiternal Light, operative Thought, and creative Power, but not a body?
“This ignorance still exists among you believers! An ignorance which is both understandable and not understandable.
“Understandable ignorance is that which derives from really elementary instruction, religious instruction stopping at the ABC’s of Religion, caused by distance from religious facilities or - something quite blameworthy on the part of the blameworthy - by the neglect of ministers who do not consume themselves in making God known to their lambs, idol pastors whom I observe with a severe expression.
“This ignorance does not take Heaven away from those undergoing it. For I am just and do not accuse a spirit if I know that its ignorance is not voluntary. But, rather, I observe it in terms of faith, and if I see that it is upright, with that thread of the knowledge of God it has been given, as if it had known a lot, I reward it as I reward a holy doctor. It is not to blame if it knows little. It has merit if it is able to turn a little into strength with these few, coherent ideas: ‘God exists. I am his son. Obedience to his Law makes me such. And by obeying I shall come to possess God eternally through the merits of the Savior, who has restored Grace to me.’ The Spirit of God substitutes with lucid ideas in illuminating the believer neglected by his pastor or living in areas rarely visited by a pastor.
“But there is also ignorance that is not understandable. That of those who, though able to, do not want to receive instruction or, after being instructed, neglect it and become ignorant again because this is what they want for their own convenience. It is necessary for those wanting to live as beasts to forget the Truth.
“I curse this ignorance. It is one of the sins drawing down my disdain without forgiveness. Why? Because it is repudiation of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
“A son who does not want to know anything about his father or who, in knowing, wants (and comes) to forget him - what sort of son is he? I do not say he is a rebel against supernatural voices, but also against the voices of blood. Inferior, then, to the beasts, that, as long as they are subject by age to their father, recognize and follow him. I shall then leave you to consider what kind of rebellion revolt against a God who is a Father in terms of flesh and blood and also of soul and spirit is.
“They repudiate the Son because, with no thought for the sacrifice of God the Son, who has become incarnate to bring the Truth to man, in addition to Redemption, they cancel out every voice of this Truth in themselves to live in their deceit.
“They repudiate the Holy Spirit because Truth is always joined to Knowledge, and it is Knowledge that with its light brings you to comprehend the most sublime truths. I said, ‘I am leaving and still have many things to say to you, but for the time being you are not capable of comprehending them. But when the Spirit of Truth comes, He will instruct you on all truth and complete my work as the Teacher by making you able to understand.’523
“O eternal Divine Spirit, who love us so much that for the glory of the Father You descended to the purest marriage to beget the Redeemer and who, though equal to Me, became my generator. You that proceed from Me and from the Father! O eternal Divine Spirit, who for the glory of the Son poured forth your Fire and continually pour it forth so that the Word will be understood and creatures will change from men into gods by living according to Grace and the Word! The mystery of our Love! An inconceivable poem which only in Paradise will be fully known by the elect!
“I said, ‘Blasphemy against Me will still be forgiven. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.’524 What blasphemy is used towards Him? A lack of love which is expressed by refusing to receive the Truth illuminated by Him.
“And let us return to the beginning of the dictation.
“Widespread ignorance among believers generates erroneous ideas about the image of God. It is not a physical image. God as Spirit has no face, height, or structure. But man has the image which God the Creator has conceived of for man.
“Of course the Powerful and Infinite One had no need to obtain man from the evolution of quadrumans over centuries. The quadruman was such from the moment he was created and made his first jests in the trees of the earthly paradise. Man was such from the moment God created him from the mud and - something which was not done with any other creature - breathed the spirit into his face.525
“The likeness to God is in this eternal, incorporeal, supernatural spirit which you have in yourselves. It is in this spirit, an atom of the Infinite Spirit, which, enclosed in a narrow, precarious jail, waits and longs to be reunited with its Source and with It share freedom, joy, peace, light, love, and eternity.
“The image persists even where there is no longer a likeness. For man remains physically such in the eyes of men even if in the eyes of God and the supernatural inhabitants of the Heavens and of a few elect on the earth he appears with his new countenance of a demon. With his true appearance, from the moment mortal sin deprives him of the likeness to God, and the spirit in him no longer has life.
“Man without Grace, which sin takes away, is nothing more than the tomb where the dead spirit putrefies. This is why, at the resurrection of the flesh, human beings, though all of them will have a common physical image, will be very dissimilar in appearance. The blessed, with a semi-divine appearance; the damned, with a demoniac appearance. The mystery of consciences will then shine forth externally. A terrible knowledge!
“The more man lives in Grace and increases it - which is itself already infinite - with the merits of his holy life, the more he comes to resemble God. One must make an effort to reach the perfection of the likeness. You will never reach it, for the creature cannot be like the Creator, but you approach this supernatural Beauty to the extent that it is granted to you.
“I said, ‘Be perfect as my Father is.’526 I have set no limit on your perfection. The more you strive to reach this perfection, the more the diaphragms of what is human will fall, like a wall attacked by victorious forces, and the distances will diminish, and vision will grow, and the capacity to grasp, comprehend, see, and know God will increase.
“But it is necessary to tend towards it with all your strength, with all your generosity. Without ‘looking back,’527 to observe what is left behind. Without ever stopping. Without tiring. The reward justifies heroism, for the reward is to plunge into the enjoyment of Love, to possess God, then, as you will in Heaven.
“O beatific union and wonderful possession! It is yours, faithful children. Come and satiate yourselves!”
I had planned this morning on writing the continuation of my joy last night. But as soon as the day began, Jesus dictated, and I am thus doing so only now.
After having observed the hour of agony with Jesus in the Garden, I lay back in stillness, thinking of the lovely hands of my little saint.528 As regards her appearance, I could think only of her hands, having seen nothing but these. And, like a child, I greatly wished to see whether she is really the way she appears in the portraits included in her autobiography. But I did not hope to see her. However, like a picture which is gradually illuminated, she revealed herself. After her hands, her arms, slightly extended towards me as if in a gesture of embracing, and then her body, and finally her face.
Yes, the portraits, particularly the first ones - for now, with touches and retouches, they have almost deformed her - resemble her. But I find that they give her an oval rounder than it is. I find a strong resemblance to the thin oval in her final moments.
Perhaps because the spiritualized face I saw seemed to be consuming itself in the luminous flame it was emitting.
She was smiling with her mouth and eyes. Very beautiful and young, with two dimples at the corners of her mouth - and two very lovely, almost periwinkle gray eyes. She did not seem very tall to me. More or less like Paola,529 but she looked taller because of the long habit and her dignified - I would say royal - bearing. She was not wearing a mantle or a crucifix covered with roses. She looked as she must have during her monastic occupations, with just a simple dark brown habit and a white whimple under her black veil. Her hands really are longer than Mary’s, but very lovely. She let herself be observed with a soft smile and prayed to with a smile of promise. She then departed, and I was left with only the memory and a tenuous scent in the air.
I think very few saints have appeared to me for myself. St. John, often. St. Joseph, once in January (the vision of Paradise) and several times in the horrendous days from April 10th to the 24th. Then St. Francis, once, here, at the beginning of May, I think.530 And now, St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. I have seen the others in visions, and for everyone. Ah, no! St. Agnes, too, when she dictated her words to me.531 And that’s all. Some will think that I see many. But I don’t think so. In over a year of... special mission, shall we say, for myself I have seen only five - six, if I add Nennolina.532 And the ones I always pray to, St. Francis and Thérèse, after over a year of dictations, and neither of them as they are generally portrayed.
I am very happy, you know? Last night, while I observed her, I said, “One petal, just one petal of your roses to tell me that I have been granted a grace.” And I would not have been at all astonished if I had really found one. Instead, I perceived only a slight rose scent after she departed, in the place where the saint had been.
She and St. Francis were my masters when I began to seek Jesus. For years I had no other guides. And now, when I think the end is near - or, rather, the beginning - I am very happy to feel them close to me. They will help me to understand Jesus. Serenity is still in me, in spite of the fact that I am greatly suffering physically. Isn’t it beautiful that, in preparation for the feast of Carmel, I should have received a visit from Mary, the Queen of Carmel, and from the little saint of Carmel?
I consider that on July 16, 1897 Communion was brought to the seraphic Thérèse as Viaticum and that she was bid farewell to by the song I often sing.
You that clearly understand my nothingness, O God,
That do not fear to bend down to me....
Sacrament I adore! Into my heart
Descend, into my heart, which longs for You.
I want your goodness, sweet Lord,
After this to make me die of love.
Listen to the voice of my deep desire.
Descend into my heart....
I was then a few months old - four. Perhaps I may now have four to live, to wait for Life. But don’t I have the same sentiments as Thérèse, though more imperfect? The same thirst for the Eucharist, the same desire to die of love, the same single hope: Jesus?
Not out of a desire for human praise, but out of love for God, I would like to resemble the little saint. I do what I can. Oh, no! I do not repent of having given myself to Love; I do not repent, either. I only regret having given myself to it too late and very poorly, and I am sorry only because Love is consuming me so slowly.
I have no voice to make myself heard by the world. But if I did, I would like to say to everyone: “Don’t be afraid to give yourselves to Jesus, to gentle, merciful Love. He pays back our donation with such sweetness that there is no word capable of explaining it. Every comparison is a reflection of the quivering light of an oil lamp alongside the great sun. And for the little souls that have sinned and now return to God or the little souls that are unable to do great things, there is only this way to follow to reach those who did not err and were able to reach the summits of penitential heroism: to give oneself to Love and let Him act.... Let Him do what He wants with us and in us. He will always enlighten us much more than we would on our own, even by many years of austere, generous life.”
Love! What a Master! What an initiator! What a purifier! I have only this coin: my love given to Love. And with this one, not by my merit, but by the mercy of my Love, I am certain I will conquer Heaven.
As I am certain that the extraordinary things which happen to me are surely not coins for conquests by me, but rather... reverse coins, for they may lead me to pride. And I must receive them with humility, with real recognition that they are not for me, but for all. I am just the channel by which they descend, and I am obliged to sanctify myself increasingly to be worthy to receive them without profaning them with impure contact. A gift, then, not devoid of danger.
Whereas, when I love with all my strength and out of love for Love sacrifice myself, oh, then I am sure I am not mistaken! Indeed, precisely this love will be my absolution for the imperfections I may have in every field. And may it grow and grow and grow to become my eternal salvation. Lord, I do not ask You for the glory of the visions, but for the grace to love You more and more.
522 Genesis 1:27.
523 John 16:12-15.
524 Matthew 12:30-32; Mark 3:28-29; Luke 12:10.
525 Genesis 2:7.
526 Matthew 5:48.
527 Luke 9;62.
528 St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Cf. July 13.
529 Paola Belfanti.
530 May 1.
531 January 20.
532 July 6.