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"I will now return to the three steps, which you must
climb in order to issue from the river without
drowning, and attain to the Living Water, to which
you are invited, and to desire My Presence in the
midst of you. For in this way, in which you should
follow, I am in your midst, reposing, by grace, in
your souls.
"In order to have desire to mount the steps, you
must have thirst, because only those who thirst are
invited: 'Whosoever thirsts, let him come to Me and
drink.' He who has no thirst will not persevere, for
either fatigue causes him to stop, or pleasure, and
he does not care to carry the vessel with which he
may get the water, and neither does he care for the
company, and alone he cannot go, and he turns back at
the smallest prick of persecution, for he loves it
not.
"He is afraid because he is alone; were he
accompanied he would not fear, and had he ascended
the three steps he would not have been alone, and
would, therefore, have been secure. You must then
have thirst and gather yourselves together, as it is
said, 'two or three or more.'
"Why is it said 'two or three or more'? Because
there are not two without three, nor three without
two, neither three nor two without more. The number
one is excluded, for, unless a man has a companion, I
cannot be in the midst; this is no indifferent
trifle, for he who is wrapped up in self-love is
solitary.
"Why is he solitary? Because he is separated from
My grace and the love of his neighbor, and being, by
sin, deprived of Me, he turns to that which is
naught, because I am He that is. So that he who is
solitary, that is, who is alone in self-love, is not
mentioned by My Truth and is not acceptable to Me. He
says then: 'If there be two or three or more gathered
together in My name, I will be in the midst of them.'
I said to you that two were not without three, nor
three without two, and so it is.
"You know that the commandments of the Law are
completely contained in two, and if these two are not
observed the Law is not observed. The two
commandments are to love Me above everything, and
your neighbor as yourself, which two are the
beginning, the middle and the end of the Law.
"These two cannot be gathered together in My Name,
without three, that is without the congregation of
the powers of the soul, the memory, the intellect,
and the will; the memory to retain the remembrance of
My benefits and My goodness, the intellect to gaze
into the ineffable love, which I have shown you by
means of My only-begotten Son, whom I have placed as
the object of the vision of your intellect, so that,
in Him, you behold the fire of My charity, and the
will to love and desire Me, who am your End.
"When these virtues and powers of the soul are
congregated together in My Name, I am in the midst of
them by grace, and a man, who is full of My love and
that of his neighbor, suddenly finds himself the
companion of many and royal virtues. Then the
appetite of the soul is disposed to thirst. Thirst, I
say, for virtue, and the honor of My Name and
salvation of souls, and his every other thirst is
spent and dead, and he then proceeds securely without
any servile fear, having ascended the first step of
the affection, for the affection, stripped of
self-love, mounts above itself and above transitory
things, or, if he will still hold them, he does so
according to My will -- that is, with a holy and true
fear, and love of virtue.
"He then finds that he has attained to the second
step -- that is, to the light of the intellect, which
is, through Christ crucified, mirrored in cordial
love of Me, for through Him have I shown My love to
man. He finds peace and quiet, because the memory is
filled with My love. You know that an empty thing,
when touched, resounds, but not so when it is full.
So memory, being filled with the light of the
intellect, and the affection with love, on being
moved by the tribulations or delights of the world,
will not resound with disordinate merriment or with
impatience, because they are full of Me, who am every
good.
"Having climbed the three steps, he finds that the
three powers of the soul have been gathered together
by his reason in My Name. And his soul, having
gathered together the two commandments, that is love
of Me and of the neighbor, finds herself accompanied
by Me, who am her strength and security, and walks
safely because I am in the midst of her.
"Wherefore then he follows on with anxious desire,
thirsting after the way of Truth, in which way he
finds the Fountain of the Water of Life, through his
thirst for My honor and his own salvation and that of
his neighbor, without which thirst he would not be
able to arrive at the Fountain.
"He walks on, carrying the vessel of the heart,
emptied of every affection and disordinate love of
the world, but filled immediately it is emptied with
other things, for nothing can remain empty, and,
being without disordinate love for transitory things,
it is filled with love of celestial things, and sweet
Divine love, with which he arrives at the Fountain of
the Water of Life, and passes through the Door of
Christ crucified, and tastes the Water of Life,
finding himself in Me, the Sea Pacific."
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