The Book of Heaven
—Unofficial Version—

March 14, 1900

How to draw souls to Catholicism.

Since the confessor had given me the obedience to pray to the Lord that He would manifest to me what should be done in order to draw souls to Catholicism and to remove so much unbelief, I prayed for several days, and the Lord would not deign to manifest Himself on this point.  Finally, this morning I found myself outside of myself, transported into a garden which seemed to be the garden of the Church, and in it there were many priests and other dignities, who were discussing this topic.  While they were discussing, a dog of enormous size and strength came out, and the majority of them were so scared and exhausted as to let themselves be bitten by that beast, and then they would withdraw like cowards from the enterprise.  That fierce dog had no strength to bite only those who had Jesus in their hearts as their center, who would thus form the center of all of their actions, thoughts and desires.  Ah, yes, Jesus formed a seal for these people, and that beast would become so weak as to have not even the strength to breathe.

Now, while they were discussing, I heard Jesus behind my shoulders saying:  “All other societies know who belongs to their party, only my Church does not know who Her children are.  The first step is to know who those are who belong to Her, and these you can know by establishing a reunion one day, to which you will invite them, so that who is Catholic should convene to the appointed place for this reunion; and there, with the help of the lay Catholics, they should decide what it is advisable to do.  The second step is to oblige to confession those Catholics who convene, which is the most important thing that renews man and forms the true Catholics.  And this, not only for those who are present, but they should oblige the leaders to oblige their subjects to confession; and if they do not succeed with gentle manners, they should dismiss them from their service.  Once each priest has formed the body of his Catholics, then will they be able to advance to superior steps.  In fact, recognizing the opportunity of the moment, the way to penetrate into other parties, and the prudence in exposing themselves, is like the pruning of trees, which makes them produce large and mature fruits.  But if the tree is not pruned, it does make, yes, a beautiful display of leaves and of flowers, but as soon as a frost comes, or a wind blows, since the tree does not have enough sap and strength to sustain so many flowers in order to change them into fruits, the flowers fall off, and the tree remains stripped.  The same happens in the things of religion:  first you must form a suitable body of Catholics, so as to be able to confront the other parties, and then you can come to penetrating into the other parties to form one single party.”

After He said this, I did not hear Him any more, and without even seeing Him, I found myself inside myself.  Who can say my pain at not having seen blessed Jesus for the whole day, and the tears I had to shed?