The Dialogue

How through these and through other defects, one falls into false judgment ; and of the indignity to which one comes.

" BY these and by other sins men fall into false judgment, as I will explain to you below. They are continually being scandalised by My works, which are all just, and all per formed in truth through love and mercy. With this false judgment, and with the poison of envy and pride, the works of My Son were slandered and unjustly judged, and with lies did His enemies say : ' This man works by virtue of Beelzebub.1 Thus wicked men, standing in self-love, impurity, pride, and avarice, and founded in envy, and in

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82 THE DIALOGUE OF ST. CATHERINE

perverse rashness with impatience, are for ever scandalised at Me and at My servants, whom they judge to be feignedly practising the virtues, because their heart is rotten, and, having spoilt their taste, good things seem evil to them, and bad things, that is to say disorderly living, seem good to them. Oh, how blind is the human generation in that it considers not its own dignity 1 From being great thou hast become small, from a ruler thou hast become a slave, and that in the vilest service that can be had, because thou art the servant and slave of sin, and art become like unto that which thou dost serve.

" Sin is nothing. Thou, then, hast become nothing; it has deprived thee of life, and given thee death. This life and power were given you by the Word, My only-begotten Son, the glorious Bridge, He drawing you from out of your servitude when you were servants of the devil, Himself becoming as a servant to take you out of servitude, imposing on Himself obedience to do away the disobedience of Adam, and humbling Himself to the shameful death of the Cross to confound pride. By His death He destroyed every vice, so that no one could say that any vice remained that was not punished and beaten out with pains, as I said to thee above, when I said that of His Body He had made an anvil. All the remedies are ready to save men from eternal death, and they despise the Blood, and have trampled It under the feet of their disordinate affection ; and it is for this injustice and false judgment that the world is reproved, and will be reproved on the Last Day of Judgment.

"This was meant by My Truth when He said: 4 / will send the Paraclete, who will reprove the world for injustice and false judgment^ And it was reproved when I sent the Holy Spirit on the Apostles."

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