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"The Devil, dearest daughter, is the instrument of My
Justice to torment the souls who have miserably
offended Me. And I have set him in this life to tempt
and molest My creatures, not for My creatures to be
conquered, but that they may conquer, proving their
virtue, and receive from Me the glory of victory.
"And no one should fear any battle or temptation of
the Devil that may come to him, because I have made
My creatures strong, and have given them strength of
will, fortified in the Blood of my Son, which will,
neither Devil nor creature can move, because it is
yours, given by Me. You therefore, with free
arbitration, can hold it or leave it, according as
you please.
"It is an arm, which, if you place it in the hands of
the Devil, straightway becomes a knife, with which he
strikes you and slays you. But if man do not give
this knife of his will into the hands of the Devil,
that is, if he do not consent to his temptations and
molestations, he will never be injured by the guilt
of sin in any temptation, but will even be fortified
by it, when the eye of his intellect is opened to see
My love which allowed him to be tempted, so as to
arrive at virtue, by being proved.
"For one does not arrive at virtue except through
knowledge of self, and knowledge of Me, which
knowledge is more perfectly acquired in the time of
temptation, because then man knows himself to be
nothing, being unable to lift off himself the pains
and vexations which he would flee; and he knows Me in
his will, which is fortified by My goodness, so that
it does not yield to these thoughts. And he has seen
that My love permits these temptations, for the devil
is weak, and by himself can do nothing, unless I
allow him. And I let him tempt, through love, and not
through hatred, that you may conquer, and not that
you may be conquered, and that you may come to a
perfect knowledge of yourself, and of Me, and that
virtue may be proved, for it is not proved except by
its contrary.
"You see, then, that he is my Minister to torture the
damned in Hell, and in this life, to exercise and
prove virtue in the soul. Not that it is the
intention of the Devil to prove virtue in you (for he
has not love), but rather to deprive you of it, and
this he cannot do, if you do not wish it. Now you
see, then, how great is the foolishness of men in
making themselves feeble, when I have made them
strong, and in putting themselves into the hands of
the Devil.
"Wherefore, know, that at the moment of death, they,
having passed their life under the lordship of the
Devil (not that they were forced to do so, for as I
told you they cannot be forced, but they voluntarily
put themselves into his hands), and, arriving at the
extremity of their death under this perverse
lordship, they await no other judgment than that of
their own conscience, and desperately, despairingly,
come to eternal damnation. Wherefore Hell, through
their hate, surges up to them in the extremity of
death, and before they get there, they take hold of
it, by means of their lord the Devil.
"As the righteous, who have lived in charity and died
in love, if they have lived perfectly in virtue,
illuminated with the light of faith, with perfect
hope in the Blood of the Lamb, when the extremity of
death comes, see the good which I have prepared for
them, and embrace it with the arms of love, holding
fast with pressure of love to Me, the Supreme and
Eternal Good. And so they taste eternal life before
they have left the mortal body, that is, before the
soul be separated from the body.
"Others who have passed their lives, and have arrived
at the last extremity of death with an ordinary
charity (not in that great perfection), embrace My
mercy with the same light of faith and hope that had
those perfect ones, but, in them, it is imperfect,
for, because they were imperfect, they constrained My
mercy, counting My mercy greater than their sins.
"The wicked sinners do the contrary, for, seeing,
with desperation, their destination, they embrace it
with hatred, as I told you. So that neither the one
nor the other waits for judgment, but, in departing
this life, they receive every one their place, as I
have told you, and they taste it and possess it
before they depart from the body, at the extremity of
death -- the damned with hatred and with despair, and
the perfect ones with love and the light of faith and
with the hope of the Blood. And the imperfect arrive
at the place of Purgatory, with mercy and the same
faith."
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