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"You have now seen how excellent is the state of him
who has attained to the love of a friend; climbing
with the foot of affection, he has reached the secret
of the Heart, which is the second of the three steps
figured in the Body of My Son.
"I have told you what was meant by the three
powers of the soul, and now I will show you how they
signify the three states, through which the soul
passes.
"Before treating of the third state, I wish to
show you how a man becomes a friend and how, from a
friend, he grows into a son, attaining to filial
love, and how a man may know if he has become a
friend. And first of how a man arrives at being a
friend.
"In the beginning, a man serves Me imperfectly
through servile fear, but, by exercise and
perseverance, he arrives at the love of delight,
finding his own delight and profit in Me. This is a
necessary stage, by which he must pass, who would
attain to perfect love, to the love that is of friend
and son. I call filial love perfect, because thereby,
a man receives his inheritance from Me, the Eternal
Father, and because a son's love includes that of a
friend, which is why I told you that a friend grows
into a son. What means does he take to arrive
thereat? I will tell you.
"Every perfection and every virtue proceeds from
charity, and charity is nourished by humility, which
results from the knowledge and holy hatred of self,
that is, sensuality. To arrive thereat, a man must
persevere, and remain in the cellar of self-knowledge
in which he will learn My mercy, in the Blood of My
only-begotten Son, drawing to Himself, with this
love, My divine charity, exercising himself in the
extirpation of his perverse self-will, both spiritual
and temporal, hiding himself in his own house, as did
Peter, who, after the sin of denying My Son, began to
weep.
"Yet his lamentations were imperfect and remained
so, until after the forty days, that is until after
the Ascension. But when My Truth returned to Me, in
His humanity, Peter and the others concealed
themselves in the house, awaiting the coming of the
Holy Spirit, which My Truth had promised them. They
remained barred in from fear, because the soul always
fears until she arrives at true love.
"But when they had persevered in fasting and in
humble and continual prayer, until they had received
the abundance of the Holy Spirit, they lost their
fear, and followed and preached Christ crucified. So
also the soul, who wishes to arrive at this
perfection, after she has risen from the guilt of
mortal sin, recognizing it for what it is, begins to
weep from fear of the penalty, whence she rises to
the consideration of My mercy, in which
contemplation, she finds her own pleasure and profit.
This is an imperfect state, and I, in order to
develop perfection in the soul, after the forty days,
that is after these two states, withdraw Myself from
time to time, not in grace but in feeling. "My Truth
showed you this when He said to the disciples 'I will
go and will return to you.'
"Everything that He said was said primarily, and
in particular, to the disciples, but referred in
general to the whole present and future, to those,
that is to say, who should come after. He said 'I
will go and will return to you;' and so it was, for,
when the Holy Spirit returned upon the disciples, He
also returned, as I told you above, for the Holy
Spirit did not return alone, but came with My power,
and the wisdom of the Son, who is one thing with Me,
and with His own clemency, which proceeds from Me the
Father, and from the Son.
" Now, as I told you, in order to raise the soul
from imperfection, I withdraw Myself from her
sentiment, depriving her of former consolations. When
she was in the guilt of mortal sin, she had separated
herself from Me, and I deprived her of grace through
her own guilt, because that guilt had barred the door
of her desires. Wherefore the sun of grace did not
shine, not through its own defect, but through the
defect of the creature, who bars the door of desire.
When she knows herself and her darkness, she opens
the window and vomits her filth, by holy confession.
Then I, having returned to the soul by grace,
withdraw Myself from her by sentiment, which I do in
order to humiliate her, and cause her to seek Me in
truth, and to prove her in the light of faith, so
that she come to prudence.
"Then, if she love Me without thought of self, and
with lively faith and with hatred of her own
sensuality, she rejoices in the time of trouble,
deeming herself unworthy of peace and quietness of
mind. Now comes the second of the three things of
which I told you, that is to say: how the soul
arrives at perfection, and what she does when she is
perfect. This is what she does.
"Though she perceives that I have withdrawn
Myself, she does not, on that account, look back, but
perseveres with humility in her exercises, remaining
barred in the house of self-knowledge, and,
continuing to dwell therein, awaits, with lively
faith, the coming of the Holy Spirit, that is of Me,
who am the fire of charity. How does she await me?
"Not in idleness, but in watching and continued
prayer, and not only with physical, but also with
intellectual watching, that is, with the eye of her
mind alert, and, watching with the light of faith,
she extirpates, with hatred, the wandering thoughts
of her heart, looking for the affection of My
charity, and knowing that I desire nothing but her
sanctification, which is certified to her in the
Blood of My Son.
"As long as her eye thus watches, illumined by the
knowledge of Me and of herself, she continues to pray
with the prayer of holy desire, which is a continued
prayer, and also with actual prayer, which she
practices at the appointed times, according to the
orders of Holy Church. This is what the soul does in
order to rise from imperfection and arrive at
perfection, and it is to this end, namely that she
may arrive at perfection, that I withdraw from her,
not by grace but by sentiment.
"Once more do I leave her, so that she may see and
know her defects, so that, feeling herself deprived
of consolation and afflicted by pain, she may
recognize her own weakness, and learn how incapable
she is of stability or perseverance, thus cutting
down to the very root of spiritual self-love, for
this should be the end and purpose of all her
self-knowledge, to rise above herself, mounting the
throne of conscience, and not permitting the
sentiment of imperfect love to turn again in its
death-struggle, but, with correction and reproof,
digging up the root of self-love, with the knife of
self-hatred and the love of virtue."
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