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Then the Eternal God, to enamor and excite that soul
still more for the salvation of souls, replied to
her, and said: "First, as I have shown you that for
which you wished, and ask Me, I will now explain to
you the nature of this Bridge.
"I have told you, My daughter, that the Bridge
reaches from Heaven to earth; this is through the
union which I have made with man, whom I formed of
the clay of the earth. Now learn that this Bridge, My
only-begotten Son, has three steps, of which two were
made with the wood of the most Holy Cross, and the
third still retains the great bitterness He tasted,
when He was given gall and vinegar to drink.
"In these three steps you will recognize three states
of the soul, which I will explain to you below. The
feet of the soul, signifying her affection, are the
first step, for the feet carry the body as the
affection carries the soul. Wherefore these pierced
Feet are steps by which you can arrive at His Side,
Which manifests to you the secret of His Heart,
because the soul, rising on the steps of her
affection, commences to taste the love of His Heart,
gazing into that open Heart of My Son, with the eye
of the intellect, and finds It consumed with
ineffable love. I say consumed, because He does not
love you for His own profit, because you can be of no
profit to Him, He being one and the same thing with
Me. Then the soul is filled with love, seeing herself
so much loved. Having passed the second step, the
soul reaches out to the third -- that is -- to the
Mouth, where she finds peace from the terrible war
she has been waging with her sin.
"On the first step, then, lifting her feet from the
affections of the earth, the soul strips herself of
vice; on the second she fills herself with love and
virtue; and on the third she tastes peace. So the
Bridge has three steps, in order that, climbing past
the first and the second, you may reach the last,
which is lifted on high, so that the water, running
beneath, may not touch it; for, in My Son, was no
venom of sin. This Bridge is lifted on high, and yet,
at the same time, joined to the earth.
"Do you know when it was lifted on high? When My Son
was lifted up on the wood of the most Holy Cross, the
Divine nature remaining joined to the lowliness of
the earth of your humanity.
"For this reason I said to you that, being lifted on
high, He was not lifted out of the earth, for the
Divine nature is united and kneaded into one thing
with it. And there was no one who could go on the
Bridge until It had been lifted on high, wherefore He
said, -- 'Si exaltatus fuero a terra omnia traham ad
me ipsum,' that is, 'If I am lifted on high I will
draw all things to Me.' My Goodness, seeing that in
no other way could you be drawn to Me, I sent Him in
order that He should be lifted on high on the wood of
the Cross, making of it an anvil on which My Son,
born of human generation, should be re-made, in order
to free you from death, and to restore you to the
life of grace; wherefore He drew everything to
Himself by this means, namely, by showing the
ineffable love, with which I love you, the heart of
man being always attracted by love.
"Greater love, then, I could not show you, than to
lay down My life for you; perforce, then, My Son was
treated in this way by love, in order that ignorant
man should be unable to resist being drawn to Me.
"In very truth, then, My Son said, that, being lifted
on high, He would draw all things to Him. And this is
to be understood in two ways.
"Firstly, that, when the heart of man is drawn by the
affection of love, as I have said, it is drawn
together with all the powers of his soul, that is,
with the Memory, the Intellect, and the Will; now,
when these three powers are harmoniously joined
together in My Name, all the other operations which
the man performs, whether in deed or thought, are
pleasing, and joined together by the effect of love,
because love is lifted on high, following the
Sorrowful Crucified One; so My Truth said well, 'If I
am lifted on high,' &c., meaning, that if the heart
and the powers of the soul are drawn to Him, all the
actions are also drawn to Him.
"Secondly, everything has been created for the
service of man, to serve the necessities of rational
creatures, and the rational creature has not been
made for them, but for Me, in order to serve Me with
all his heart, and with all his affection. See, then,
that man being drawn, everything else is drawn with
him, because everything else has been made for him.
It was therefore necessary that the Bridge should be
lifted on high, and have steps, in order that it
might be climbed with greater facility."
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