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November 25th, 1904. The nature of true love is to transmute pains into joys and bitterness into sweetnesses. Since my most sweet Jesus delayed in coming, I was almost afraid he would not come. But then, to my surprise, all of a sudden he came and told me, "My beloved, do you want to know?" And it is that a work is done for one's beloved when encountering sacrifices, bitterness, and pains. It has the virtue of changing them into sweetnesses and delights. In fact, this is the nature of true love: to transmute pains into joys and bitterness into sweetnesses. If one's experience is the opposite, it is a sign that it is not true love that is acting.
"Oh, and how many works they say I do this for God! But then, at some encounters, they draw back. With this, they show that it was not for God but for their own interest and for the pleasure they felt." Then he added, "Generally, it is said that one's own will ruins everything and infects the holiest works. Yet, if it is connected with the will of God, there is no other virtue that can surpass this. One's own will, because where there is a will, there is life in operating good. But where there is no will, there is death in operating, or one operates with difficulty, as though agonizing."
November 25th, 1909. Volume 9. Both in Jesus and in souls, the first crafting is done by love. Finding myself in my usual state, I was thinking about the agony of Jesus in the garden. And blessed Jesus, making himself seen for just a little, told me, "My daughter, mended nothing but worked the skin of my humanity, while the eternal love worked all of my interior. So in my agony, the eternal love, the immense love, the incalculable love, the hidden love, not men, opened large wounds in me, pierced me with flaming nails, crowned me with burning thorns, made me drink boiling gall. And my humanity, unable to contain so many different martyrdoms at the same time, poured out large streams of blood. It writhed and reached the point of saying, 'Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done.' Which it did not do in the rest of the passion. Everything I suffered during the course of the passion, I suffered all together in the agony, but in a more intense, more painful, more intimate way, because love penetrated deep into the marrow of my bones and into the most intimate fibers of my heart, which creatures could never reach. But love reaches everything. There is nothing that can resist it. So my first executioner was love. This is why, in the course of my passion, there was not even a reproachful glance from me toward those who acted as my executioners, because I had a more cruel, more active executioner in me: love. And where the external executioners could not reach, or a little part of me was spared, love would continue its work and spare me nothing."
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This happens in all souls. The first work is done by love. And once love has worked her and filled her with itself, what appears on the outside is nothing but the outpouring of the crafting that love has performed inside.
November 25th, 1912. Vol. 11. Jesus makes Luisa content, making her suffer without moving her from his most holy will. There are two stairways to heaven: one of wood for those who take the path of virtue, and one of gold for those who live in the divine will. This morning, my always adorable Jesus, though he came in the usual way, seemed to me as if he was just passing through. He was anxious to see me again and to be with me in a familiar way. And seeing him so good, so sweet, and benign, I forgot all about my troubles, my privations. And seeing him with a big, thick crown of thorns, I told him, "Sweet love and my life, show me if you still love me. Remove this crown from around your head and place it on mine with your own hands." Soon, adorable Jesus removed it and pressed it on my head with his own hands. Oh, how happy I felt with the thorns of Jesus! Sharp, yes, but sweet. He looked at me with loving tenderness, and feeling so tenderly observed, I bravely added, "In Jesus, my heart, the thorns are not enough for me to be certain that you love me as before. Don't you also have the nails with which to nail me? Hurry, oh Jesus, don't keep me in doubt, for the only doubt of not being always loved by you gives me continual death. Pierce me." And he, "Dear daughter, I cannot find the nails, but in order to make you content, I will pierce you with a piece of iron." So he took my hands and ripped them open very far, and then my feet. I suffered, yes, I felt as if I was swimming in a sea of pain, but also of love and sweetness. It seemed that Jesus could not remove his tender and loving gaze from me, arranging, covering me completely with his royal mantle. He told me, "My sweet daughter, cease now any doubt about my love for you. Even more, in order to give you courage, I tell you that no matter your state, or whether you see me concerned or flashing by or silent, remember that one single renewal of my thorns or nails to you will be enough to place us again in our loving closeness and intimacy more than before. Therefore, be content." And I will continue with the scourge.
"As of the world," he told me other things, but the intensity of the pain does not allow me to remember them well. Then I remained alone again without Jesus, and I poured myself out with my sweet Mama, crying and praying her to make Jesus come back. My Mama told me, "My sweet daughter, do not cry. You must thank Jesus for the way he behaves with you and for the grace he gives you, not allowing you to move away from his most holy will. In these times of chastisements, greater grace he could not give you." After this, Jesus came back and noticing that I had cried, told me, "Have you cried?" And I, "I cried with Mama. I didn't cry with anyone else, and I did it because you were not here." Jesus took my hands in his hands, and it seemed that he was soothing my pains.
Then he showed me two high stairways from earth up to heaven. On one of them, there were more people; very few on the other one. The one on which there were only a few people was of solid gold, and it seemed that those few who were going up were other Jesus's. Each one of them was one Jesus. On the other one, which seemed to be made of wood, there were more people, and they could be distinguished and identified, almost all short and not very developed. Jesus told me, "My daughter, those who lived their lives in my life ascend on the golden stairs. I can say that they are my feet, my hands, my heart, the whole of myself. Just as you can see that they are another me, they are everything to me, and I am their life. Their actions are all of gold and of incalculable price because they are divine. Nobody will ever be able to reach their height because they are my very life, almost without anyone knowing them, because they are hidden within me. Only in heaven will they be perfectly known."
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"On the wooden stairs, there are more souls. These are the souls who walk along the way of the virtues, but not in union with my life and with the continuous connection of my will. Their actions are of wood, since only the union with me forms golden actions, and therefore their price is minimal. These souls are short, almost granny, because many human purposes are mixed in with their good actions, and human purposes do not produce growth. They are known to everyone because they are not hidden within me but within themselves. Therefore, nobody covers them. They will not cause any surprise for heaven, since they were known also on earth. Therefore, my daughter, I want you completely in my life with nothing in yours, and I entrust to you the ones you know and see that they may keep themselves strong and constant on the stairway of my life." He pointed to me someone whom I know and disappeared. "May all be for his glory."
November 25th, 1934. Volume 33. To live in the Divine Will is like one who would live between father and child. Her acts are visits to the celestial father, divine abyss in which one who lives in the Divine Will is placed. I am always returning into the celestial inheritance of the divine Fiat. Every act that I do, it seems to me that I returned into the arms of my celestial father, but in order to do what? In order to receive one glance, one kiss, one caress, one little word of love, one additional knowledge about his supreme being, in order to be able to love him even more. And not only in order to receive, but also in order to give him the exchange of his paternal tenderness. As to him, in the Divine Volition, nothing other is done than God develops his paternity with a tender and indiscernible love, as if he were awaiting the creature in order to rock her in his arms, so as to tell her, "Know that I am your father, and you are my daughter. Oh, how I love the crown of my children around me! With them around me, I feel happier. I feel myself Father, and there is no greater contentment than possessing a numerous offspring who attest love relationship to their father." And the creature, by entering into the divine volition, does nothing other than act as daughter to her father. Instead, outside of the Divine Volition, the rights of paternity and of relationship cease.
But while my mind was lost in the crowd of so many thoughts about the divine Fiat, sovereign celestial Jesus, my dear life, surprising me with a love more than paternal, in the act of taking me in his arms, told me, "My daughter, my daughter, if only you knew what are my anxieties, my yearnings, and how I wait and wait again to see you return into my will, you would be more attentive to returning there more often. My love arrives at rendering me restless when it does not see you jump into my arms in order to give you my love, my paternal tenderness, and to receive yours. But do you know when you jump into my arms? When, seeing yourself tiny, tiny, you want to love me and you do not know how to love me. You tell me, 'And I love you,' and your 'I love you' forms the jump in order to throw yourself into my arms. And since you see that your 'I love you' is little daring, you take my love and you tell me, 'A great, great I love you,' and I enjoy that my daughter loves me with my love, and I delight myself so much as to exchange my acts with those of the creature. After all, in my will, it is not to strangers that I give; that I must use the weight, the measure, but I give to my children. Therefore, I let them take what they want. In fact, every time I remind you to make your acts, your prayer, your sufferings, your 'I love you,' your labor flow in my will, they are little visits that you make to your father in order to ask for something, and he, in order to tell you, 'Tell me, what do you want?' and be certain that you will always obtain other gifts and favors."
Jesus was silent, and I felt the extreme need of resting in his arms in order to reassure myself from his so many privations. But to my surprise, I saw sweet Jesus with a brush in his hand, and with an admirable mastery, he vividly painted in my soul the acts of the divine will done in creation and redemption. And then, taking up the word, he added, "My will contains everything inside and outside of itself, and where it reigns, it does not know how to be nor can it be without the life of its acts, because its acts can be called the arms, the step, the word of my will. So for my will to be in the creature without its works, it would be like a broken life that which cannot be. Therefore, I do nothing other than paint its works so that where there is life, its works are concentrated. See, therefore, in what divine abyss the creature who possesses my will finds herself. Inside of her, she feels its life with all its works concentrated in her littleness, for as much as it is possible for a creature. Outside of herself, she feels its interminability, of which the limits are not seen, such that possessing the communicative strength, she feels herself as under a copious reign that reigns its works, its love, the multiplicity of its divine goods over her. My divine will encloses there everything, and it wants to give everything to the creature. It wants to be able to say, 'I have denied her nothing; I have given everything to the one who lives in my will.'"
End of November 25th. Fiat.