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Then the Divine Goodness, regarding with the eye of
His mercy, the hunger and desire of that soul, said:
"Oh, My most delightful daughter, I am not a
Despiser, but the Fulfiller of holy desire, and
therefore I will show and declare to you that which
you ask Me.
"You ask Me to explain to you the figure of three
steps, and to tell you what method they who want to
come out of the river must use, to be able to ascend
the Bridge. And, although above, in relating to you
the delusion and blindness of men, tasting in this
life the earnest-money of Hell, and, as martyrs of
the Devil, receiving damnation, I showed you the
methods they should use; nevertheless, now I will
declare it to you more fully, satisfying your desire.
"You know that every evil is founded in self-love,
and that self-love is a cloud that takes away the
light of reason, which reason holds in itself the
light of faith, and one is not lost without the
other. The soul I created in My image and similitude,
giving her memory, intellect, and will. The intellect
is the most noble part of the soul, and is moved by
the affection, and nourishes it, and the hand of love
-- that is, the affection -- fills the memory with
the remembrance of Me and of the benefits received,
which it does with care and gratitude, and so one
power spurs on another, and the soul is nourished in
the life of grace.
"The soul cannot live without love, but always wants
to love something, because she is made of love, and,
by love, I created her. And therefore I told you that
the affection moved the intellect, saying, as it
were, 'I will love, because the food on which I feed
is love.' Then the intellect, feeling itself awakened
by the affection, says, as it were, 'If you will
love, I will give you that which you can love.' And
at once it arises, considering carefully the dignity
of the soul, and the indignity into which she has
fallen through sin. In the dignity of her being it
tastes My inestimable goodness, and the increate
charity with which I created her, and, in
contemplating her misery, it discovers and tastes My
mercy, and sees how, through mercy, I have lent her
time and drawn her out of darkness.
"Then the affection nourishes itself in love, opening
the mouth of holy desire, with which it eats hatred
and displeasure of its own sensuality, united with
true humility and perfect patience, which it drew
from holy hatred. The virtues conceived, they give
birth to themselves perfectly and imperfectly,
according as the soul exercises perfection in
herself, as I will tell you below.
"So, on the contrary, if the sensual affection wants
to love sensual things, the eye of the intellect set
before itself for its sole object transitory things,
with self-love, displeasure of virtue, and love of
vice, whence she draws pride and impatience, and the
memory is filled with nothing but that which the
affection presents to it. This love so dazzles the
eye of the intellect that it can discern and see
nothing but such glittering objects. It is the very
brightness of the things that causes the intellect to
perceive them and the affection to love them; for had
worldly things no such brightness there would be no
sin, for man, by his nature, cannot desire anything
but good, and vice, appearing to him thus, under
color of the soul's good, causes him to sin. But,
because the eye, on account of its blindness, does
not discern, and knows not the truth, it errs,
seeking good and delights there where they are not.
"I have already told you that the delights of the
world, without Me, are venomous thorns, and, that the
vision of the intellect is deluded by them, and the
affection of the will is deluded into loving them,
and the memory into retaining remembrance of them.
"The unity of these powers of the soul is so great
that I cannot be offended by one without all the
others offending Me at the same time, because the one
presents to the other, as I told you, good or evil,
according to the pleasure of the free will. This free
will is bound to the affection, and it moves as it
pleases, either with the light of reason or without
it. Your reason is attached to Me when your will does
not, by disordinate love, cut it off from Me; you
have also in you the law of perversity, that
continually fights against the Spirit. You have,
then, two parts in you -- sensuality and reason.
"Sensuality is appointed to be the servant, so that,
with the instrument of the body, you may prove and
exercise the virtues. The soul is free, liberated
from sin by the Blood of My Son, and she cannot be
dominated unless she consent with her will, which is
controlled by her free choice, and when this free
choice agrees with the will, it becomes one thing
with it.
"And I tell you truly, that, when the soul undertakes
to gather together, with the hand of free choice, her
powers in My Name, then are assembled all the
actions, both spiritual and temporal, that the
creature can do, and free choice gets rid of
sensuality and binds itself with reason.
"I, then, by grace, rest in the midst of them; and
this is what My truth, the Word Incarnate, meant,
when He said: 'When there are two or three or more
gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst
of them.' And this is the truth. I have already told
you that no one could come to Me except by Him, and
therefore I made of Him a Bridge with three steps.
And those three steps figure, as I will narrate to
you below, the three states of the soul."
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