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"Not so excellent, dearest daughter, is the end of
these other poor wretches who are in great misery as
I have related to you.
"How terrible and dark is their death! Because in
the moment of death, as I told you, the Devil accuses
them with great terror and darkness, showing his
face, which you know is so horrible that the creature
would rather choose any pain that can be suffered in
this world than see it; and so greatly does he
freshen the sting of conscience that it gnaws him
horribly. The disordinate delights and sensuality of
which he made lords over his reason, accuse him
miserably, because then he knows the truth of that
which at first he knew not, and his error brings him
to great confusion.
"In his life he lived unfaithfully to Me --
self-love having veiled the pupil of the most holy
faith -- wherefore the Devil torments him with
infidelity in order to bring him to despair. Oh! how
hard for them is this battle, because it finds them
disarmed, without the armor of affection and charity;
because, as members of the Devil, they have been
deprived of it all.
"Wherefore they have not the supernatural light,
neither the light of science, because they did not
understand it, the horns of their pride not letting
them understand the sweetness of its marrow.
Wherefore now in the great battle they know not what
to do. They are not nourished in hope, because they
have not hoped in Me, neither in the Blood of which I
made them ministers, but in themselves alone, and in
the dignities and delights of the world.
"And the incarnate wretch did not see that all was
counted to him with interest, and that as a debtor he
would have to render an account to Me; now he finds
himself denuded and without any virtue, and on
whichever side he turns he hears nothing but
reproaches with great confusion. His injustice which
he practiced in his life accuses him to his
conscience, wherefore he dares not ask other than
justice.
"And I tell you that so great is that shame and
confusion that unless in their life they have taken
the habit of hoping in My mercy, that is, have taken
the milk of mercy (although on account of their sins
this is great presumption, for you cannot truly say
that he who strikes Me with the arm of My mercy has a
hope in mercy, but rather has presumption), there is
not one who would not despair, and with despair they
would arrive with the Devil in eternal damnation.
"But arriving at the extremity of death, and
recognizing his sin, his conscience unloaded by holy
confession, and presumption taken away, so that he
offends no more, there remains mercy, and with this
mercy he can, if he will, take hold on hope. This is
the effect of Mercy, to cause them to hope therein
during their life, although I do not grant them this,
so that they should offend Me by means of My mercy,
but rather that they should dilate themselves in
charity, and in the consideration of My goodness.
"But they act in a contrary way, because they
offend Me in the hope which they have in My mercy.
And nevertheless, I keep them in this hope so that at
the last moment they may have something which they
may lay hold of, and by so doing not faint away with
the condemnation which they receive, and thus arrive
at despair; for this final sin of despair is much
more displeasing to Me and injures them much more
than all the other sins which they have committed.
And this is the reason why this sin is more dangerous
to them and displeasing to Me, because they commit
other sins through some delight of their own
sensuality, and they sometimes grieve for them, and
if they grieve in the right way their grief will
procure them mercy.
"But it is no fragility of your nature which moves
you to despair, for there is no pleasure and nothing
but intolerable suffering in it. One who despairs
despises My mercy, making his sin to be greater than
mercy and goodness. Wherefore, if a man fall into
this sin, he does not repent, and does not truly
grieve for his offense against Me as he should,
grieving indeed for his own loss, but not for the
offense done to Me, and therefore he receives eternal
damnation.
"See, therefore, that this sin alone leads him to
hell, where he is punished for this and all the other
sins which he has committed; whereas had he grieved
and repented for the offense done to Me, and hoped in
My mercy, he would have found mercy, for, as I have
said to you, My mercy is greater without any
comparison than all the sins which any creature can
commit; wherefore it greatly displeases Me that they
should consider their sins to be greater.
"Despair is that sin which is pardoned neither
here nor hereafter, and it is because despair
displeases Me so much that I wish them to hope in My
mercy at the point of death, even if their life have
been disordered and wicked. This is why during their
life I use this sweet trick with them, making them
hope greatly in My mercy, for when, having fed
themselves with this hope, they arrive at death, they
are not so inclined to abandon it, on account of the
severe condemnation they receive, as if they had not
so nourished themselves.
"All this is given them by the fire and abyss of
My inestimable love, but because they have used it in
the darkness of self-love, from which has proceeded
their every sin, they have not known it in truth, but
in so far as they have turned their affections
towards the sweetness of My mercy they have thought
of it with great presumption.
"And this is another cause of reproof which their
conscience gives them in the likeness of the Devil,
reproving them in that they should have used the time
and the breadth of My mercy in which they hoped, in
charity and love of virtue, and that time which I
gave them through love should have been spent in
holiness, whereas with all their time and great hope
of My mercy they did nothing but offend Me miserably.
"Oh! blinder than the blind! You have hidden your
pearl and your talent which I placed in your hands in
order that you might gain more with it, but you in
your presumption would not do My will, rather you hid
it under the ground of disordinate self-love, which
now renders you the fruit of death.
"Your miseries are not hid from you now, for the
worm of conscience sleeps no longer, but is gnawing
you, the devils shout and render to you the reward
which they are accustomed to give their servants,
that is to say, confusion and condemnation; they wish
to bring you to despair, so that at the moment of
death you may not escape from their hands, and
therefore they try to confuse you, so that afterwards
when you are with them they may render to you of the
part which is theirs.
"Oh, wretch! the dignity in which I placed you,
you now see shining as it really is, and you know to
your shame that you have held and used in such guilty
darkness the substance of the holy Church, that you
see yourself to be a thief, a debtor, who ought to
pay his debt to the poor and the holy Church. Then
your conscience represents to you that you have spent
the money on public harlots, and have brought up your
children and enriched your relations, and have thrown
it away on gluttony and on many silver vessels and
other adornments for your house. Whereas you should
have lived in voluntary poverty.
"Your conscience represents to you the divine
office which you neglected, by which you fell into
the guilt of mortal sin, and how even when you
recited it with your mouth your heart was far from
Me. Conscience also shows you your subjects, that is
to say, the love and hunger which you should have
felt towards nourishing them in virtue, giving them
the example of your life and striking them with the
hand of mercy and the rod of justice, and because you
did the contrary your conscience and the horrible
likeness of the Devil reproves you.
"And if as a prelate you have given prelacies or
any charge of souls unjustly to one of your subjects,
that is, that you have not considered to whom and how
you were giving it, the Devil puts this also before
your conscience, because you ought to have given it,
not on account of pleasant words, nor in order to
please creatures, nor for the sake of gifts, but
solely with regard to virtue, My honor and the
salvation of souls. And since you have not done so
you are reproved, and for your greater pain and
confusion you have before your conscience and the
light of your intellect that which you have done and
ought not to have done, and that which you ought to
have done and have not done.
"I wish you to know, dearest daughter, that
whiteness is better seen when placed on a black
ground, and blackness on a white, than when they are
separated. So it happens to these wretches, to these
in particular and to all others in general, for at
death when the soul begins to see its woes, and the
just man his beatitude, his evil life is represented
to a wicked man, and there is no reason that any one
should remind him of the sins that he has committed,
for his conscience places them before him, together
with the virtues which he ought to have practiced.
Why the virtues?
"For his greater shame. For vice being placed on a
ground of virtue is known better on account of the
virtue, and the better he knows his sin, the greater
his shame, and by comparison with his sin he knows
better the perfection of virtue, wherefore he grieves
the more, for he sees that his own life was devoid of
any; and I wish you to know that in this knowledge
which dying sinners have of virtue and vice they see
only too clearly the good which follows the virtue of
a just man, and the pain that comes on him who has
lain in the darkness of mortal sin.
"I do not give him this knowledge so that he may
despair, but so that he may come to a perfect
self-knowledge and shame for his sins, with hope, so
that with that pain and knowledge he may pay for his
sins, and appease My anger, humbly begging My mercy.
The virtuous woman increases thereby in joy and in
knowledge of My love, for he attributes the grace of
having followed virtue in the doctrine of My truth to
Me and not to himself, wherefore he exalts in Me,
with this truly illuminated knowledge, and tastes and
receives the sweet end of his being in the way which
I have related to you in another place. So that the
one, that is to say, the just man, who has lived in
ardent charity, exults in joy, while the wicked man
is darkened and confounded in sorrow.
"To the just man the appearance and vision of the
Devil causes no harm or fear, for fear and harm can
only be caused to him by sin; but those who have
passed their lives lasciviously and in many sins,
receive both harm and fear from the appearance of the
devils, not indeed the harm of despair if they do not
wish it, but the suffering of condemnation, of the
refreshing of the worm of conscience, and of fear and
terror at their horrible aspect. See now, dearest
daughter, how different are the sufferings and the
battle of death to a just man and to a sinner, and
how different is their end.
"I have shown to the eye of your intellect a very
small part of what happens, and so small is what I
have shown you with regard to what it really is, to
the suffering, that is, of the one, and the happiness
of the other, that it is but a trifle. See how great
is the blindness of man, and in particular of these
ministers, for the more they have received of Me, and
the more they are enlightened by the Holy Scripture,
the greater are their obligations and more
intolerable confusion do they receive for not
fulfilling them; the more they knew of Holy Scripture
during their life, the better do they know at their
death the great sins they have committed, and their
torments are greater than those of others, just as
good men are placed in a higher degree of excellence.
Theirs is the fate of the false Christian, who is
placed in Hell in greater torment than a pagan,
because he had the light of faith and renounced it,
while the pagan never had it.
"So these wretches will be punished more than
other Christians for the same sin, on account of the
ministry which I entrusted to them, appointing them
to administer the sun of the holy Sacrament, and
because they had the light of science, in order to
discern the truth both for themselves and others had
they wished to; wherefore they justly receive the
greater pains.
"But the wretches do not know this, for did they
consider their state at all, they would not come to
such misery, but would be that which they ought to be
and are not. For the whole world has thus become
corrupt, they being much more guilty than seculars,
according to their state; for with their stench they
defile the face of their soul, and corrupt their
subjects, and suck the blood from My spouse, that is,
the holy Church, wherefore through these sins they
make her grow pale, because they divert to themselves
the love and charity which they should have to this
divine spouse, and think of nothing but stripping her
for their own advantage, seizing prelacies, and great
properties, when they ought to be seeking souls.
"Wherefore through their evil life, seculars
become irreverent and disobedient to the holy Church,
not that they ought on that account to do so, or that
their sins are excused through the sins of My
ministers."
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