The Dialogue

Of many other sins which are committed through pride and self-love.

" I HAVE told thee all this in order to give the more matter for bitter grief and weeping over their blindness in that they remain in a state of damnation, and that thou mayest the better know My mercy to place by faith the greatest security in it, offering them, that is, the ministers of the Holy Church and all the world, before Me, praying to Me to have mercy upon them. And the more thou offerest to Me for them, sorrowful and amorous desires, the more wilt thou show the love which thou hast for Me. Because that service which neither thou nor My other servants can fulfil to Me you must do and show by means of them, and then will I let Myself be constrained by the desire, prayers, and tears of My servants ; and I will have mercy on My spouse, reforming her with good and holy pastors. The good pastors will reform her, correcting by force those under them, because nearly all the evils which are done by the subjects are the fault of bad pastors, because had they corrected, and had the pearl of justice shone in them with an honourable and holy life, those evils would not have been. And dost thou know what results come from these perverse methods ? It is because the one followed in the footsteps of the other that the subjects are not obedient, because when the prelate was subject he was not obedient to his prelate ; wherefore, he receives from his subject that which he rendered, and because he was a bad subject he is a bad pastor.

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" Pride founded in self-love is the cause of this and of every other sin.

" Ignorant and proud as he was when he was a subject, he is more so now that he is a prelate. And his ignorance is so great that, as if he were blind, he will give the office of priest to a man so unlearned that he can scarcely read and does not know his office ; and ofttimes, through his ignorance, not knowing well the sacramental words, he will not consecrate, and in this way he commits the same sin of not consecrating that those committed who, through malice, pretended to consecrate without doing so. They ought to choose men experienced and founded in virtue, who know and under stand what they say ; but they do quite the contrary, and do not seek them for their knowledge and experience, but for the affection they bear them, and it appears that they select children and not mature men. And they do not aim at having men of honourable and holy life who recognise the dignity to which they are called and the great mystery that they have to celebrate, but they aim solely at multiply ing persons, but without regard to virtue.

" They are blind and gatherers together of the blind, and they see not that I shall require from them an account for this, and for the other things in the last extremity of death, and they will see that after they have thus made the priests dark, and given to them the care of souls that they knew not how to take care of themselves.

" For how could such as these who do not recognise their own sin, correct and recognise it in others ? They could not and would not act against themselves. And the sheep who have not a shepherd who cares for them easily stray and are ofttimes torn in pieces and devoured by wolves. And because the shepherd is a bad one he takes no care to keep a dog who barks when he sees the wolf coming, but he keeps such a one as he is himself. And so these ministers and pastors having no solicitude, and not holding in their hand the stick of justice wherewith to correct the dog of conscience, he does not bark, and so they do not with care reprove themselves, and do not endeavour to bring back to the way of Truth and Justice those sheep who have strayed

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from it in not observing My commandments, and so prevent them from being devoured by the infernal wolf. Did this dog bark, and were their sins laid upon them with the rod of holy justice, their sheep would be delivered and would return to the fold. But because he is a shepherd without a rod, and without the dog of conscience, the sheep perish, and he does not trouble himself, because the dog of his conscience is enfeebled, and therefore does not bark, because he has not been given any food.

" The food that should be given to this dog is the food of the Lamb, My Son, because in so far as the memory, as the vessel of the soul, is full of the Blood, so does the con science feed on it, that is to say, that through the memory of the Blood the soul is enflamed with hatred of vice and the love of virtue, the which hatred and love purify the soul from the stain of mortal sin, and give so much vigour to the conscience that it watches over the soul so that if any enemy — that is to say sin — should wish to enter, not only the affection but even the mind, like a watch-dog, warns with its prick at the dictation of reason, and on this account the man does not commit the sin, for he who possesses conscience, possesses justice. But such wicked men as these, not worthy to be called My ministers or even rational creatures, having become animals through their sins, are without a watch-dog through their weakness, and are also without the rod of holy justice, having been made so timid by their sins that a mere shadow frightens them, not with holy but with servile fear. They ought to be ready to die in order to snatch souls from the hand of the Devil, but on the contrary they place them there themselves, depriving them of the doctrine of a good and holy life, and being unable to endure an unkind word for their salvation. Often the soul of a subject will be entangled in very grave sins, and he will have to make satisfaction to his neighbour, and in order not to deprive his family through the disordinate love which he bears to them, he will not pay his debt ; his life will be known to a great number of people and also to his wretched priest, who will have been par ticularly informed, so that, like the physician which he

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should be, he may heal that soul. The wretched minister will go to do his duty, and for one rough word said to him, or for one evil glance directed at him, he will be afraid to have anything more to do with the affair. And sometimes a present will be made to him, so that between the bribe and his servile fear he will leave that soul in the hands of the devils, and will give him the Sacrament of the Body of Christ, My only-begotten Son, while he knows all the time that the communicant is involved in the darkness of mortal sin. Nevertheless, to please worldly men, and through his disordinate fear and the gift which he has received from them, he has administered the Sacraments and buried a man with great honour in the Church, when he should have cast him forth as an animal and a corrupt member cut off from the body.

"What is the reason of this? Self-love and the horns of pride. For if he had really loved Me above everything and that poor wretch's soul, he would have been humble and without fear would have sought his salvation.

" See, then, what evil follows these three vices which I have presented to thee under the form of three columns, from which proceed all other sins — pride, avarice and im purity of mind and body. Thy ears would not be strong enough to hear how great are the evils which issue from these columns like wings of the Devil. And through their pride, dishonour, and greed it sometimes happens (and thou hast seen such cases) that they will make simple women of good faith like to themselves, for the poor creatures, fearing in their minds on account of their defects that they are possessed by the Devil, come to the wretched priest believing that he can liberate them, but in reality they are merely applying to one devil to drive out another. And he in his greed receives their offering, and like a dishonourable, las civious brute will say to these poor souls ' The defect which you have can only be removed in one way ' — and thus will he cause them miserably to sin with him. Oh ! demon, and more than a demon ! For in everything hast thou become worse than a devil. For there are many devils who hold this sin in horror, wherefore thou hast become worse than them, for thou rollest thyself therein with

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delight like the pig in his stye. Oh ! foul animal, is this what I require of thee by virtue of the blood of which I have made thee My minister? That instead of driving the Devil out of souls, thou should put him within them ?

" Dost thou not see that the axe of Divine justice is already laid to the root of thy tree ? And I say to thee that thy iniquities shall be punished in due season with usury, if thou do not punish them with penance and contrition of heart.

<( No respect will be paid thee, because thou art a priest, and thou wilt rather be miserably punished and suffer, not only for thyself but for them also, for thou wilt be more cruelly punished than others, and perhaps thou wilt then remember how thou wast wont to drive out the Devil with the demon of concupiscence.

" And so will it be with that other wretch, who goes to absolve a fellow-creature in mortal sin, and binds her instead with another and greater sin, sinning himself afresh with her. If thou remember, thou hast seen with thine own eyes such a case, on whom an evil man laid hands. Truly is such a man without the dog of conscience, indeed, he stifles others' consciences as well as his own.

" I have appointed them to chant and sing psalms during the night, reciting the divine office, and they occupy them selves in making charms and invoking the demon of mid night in order to cause those whom they sinfully love to come to them through their devilish incantations. It will seem to them that they come, but they do not really do so.

" Wretched man ! I have appointed to thee to pass the vigils of the night in prayer and watching, so that on the morrow thou mayest go rightly disposed to the altar, and give forth the odour of virtue to the people and not the stench of vice. Thou hast been placed in an angelic state to converse by holy meditation with the angels in this life, and at last with them to enjoy Me ; but thou delightest in being one of the devils and in conversing with them even before thy death. The horns of thy pride have pierced the pupil of holy faith in the eye of thy intellect. Thou hast lost the light, and therefore seest not in what misery thou art ; and

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thou believest not truly that every sin is punished and every virtue rewarded, for if thou didst truly believe it thou wouldest not act so ; thou wouldest not seek or desire such conversation as the devil's ; rather wouldest thou flee in terror •at the mention of his name ; but because thou obeyest his will and takest delight in his actions thou seekest him, one blind man seeking another.

" I would have thee ask the Devil what reward he can give thee for the service thou payest him. He would reply that he will give thee the reward that he himself has obtained, for he can give thee nothing else than the cruel torments of the fire in which he continually burns since he fell from the height of heaven in his pride.

" And thou, an earthly angel, fallest by thy pride from the height of the dignity of the priesthood and from the treasure of virtue, into the poverty of thy many miseries ; and if thou do not correct thyself thou wilt fall further into the depths of hell.

" Thou hast made the world and thyself thy god and thy lord. Tell the world to answer for thee before Me, the supreme Judge, with all its delights which thou hast enjoyed in this life, and tell thy own sensuality to answer for thee — for it is thy sensuality which has caused thee to enjoy the things of the world — when I had placed you in the state of the priesthood in order to despise both thyself and the world. They will reply that they cannot help thee ; they will make mock of thee, saying that success is thy own affair, and thou wilt remain confounded and guilty before Me and the world.

" All this loss of thine thou seest not actually, because, as I have said, the horns of thy pride have blinded thee ; but thou wilt see it at the extremity of death, when thou canst seek no remedy in any virtue of thine own, except only in My mercy if thou hopest in that sweet Blood of which thou wast made the minister. This hope, indeed, will never be taken from thee, or from any one, as long as you are still willing to hope in the Blood and in My mercy, although no one should be such a fool, nor thou so blind, as to go on up till the last moment without conversion.

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" Remember that at that last extremity the man who has lived wickedly is accused by the Devil and the world and his own fragility, and they do not deceive him or show him pleasure where is bitterness, or perfection where is imper fection, or light for darkness, as they used to do during his life ; they show him things as they are in truth. The watch-dog of conscience, so enfeebled, begins now to bark so loudly that he leads the soul, as it were, to despair ; but all should lay hold with hope on the Blood, in spite of the sins which they have committed, because My mercy which ye receive in the Blood is without any comparison greater than all the sins that are committed in the world.

" But let no one put off his repentance, for it is a terrible thing for a man to find himself disarmed on the field of battle in the presence of many enemies."