The Book of Heaven
—Unofficial Version—

February 16, 1924

Immense sorrow and infinite joys which are incessantly renewed in the Heart of Jesus. One who, with love, shares in His sorrows, also shares in His joys.

I was thinking of the sorrows of the Most Holy Heart of Jesus. Oh, how my pains disappeared when compared to His! And my always adorable Jesus told me: "My daughter, the sorrows of my Heart are indescribable and incomprehensible to human creature. You must know that every beat of my Heart was a distinct pain. Every heartbeat brought Me a new pain, one different from the other. Human life is a continuous palpitating; if the heartbeat ceases, life ceases. And so now imagine what torrents of pain each beat of my Heart brought Me. Up to the last moment of my dying, from my conception to my last heartbeat, it did not spare Me from bringing Me new pains and bitter sorrows.

However, you must also know that my Divinity, which was inseparable from Me, watching over my Heart, while letting a new sorrow enter at each heartbeat, in the same way, at each heartbeat, It let enter new joys, new contentments, new harmonies and celestial secrets. If I was rich in sorrow and my Heart enclosed immense seas of pain, I was also rich of happiness, of infinite joys and of unreachable sweetness. I would have died at the first heartbeat of pain, if the Divinity, loving this Heart with infinite Love, had not let each heartbeat resound in two within my Heart: sorrow and joy, bitterness and sweetness, pains and contentments, death and life, humiliation and glory, human abandonments and divine comforts. Oh, if you could see my Heart, you would see all possible imaginable sorrows centralized in Me, from which creatures rise again to new life, and all contentments and divine riches, flowing in my Heart like many seas, as I diffuse them for the good of the whole human family.

But who shares more in these immense treasures of my Heart? For those who suffer more, for each pain, for each sorrow, there a special joy in my Heart, which follows that pain or sorrow suffered by the creature. Pain renders her more dignified, more lovable, more dear, more worthy of sympathy. And since my Heart drew upon Itself all divine sympathies by virtue of the pains suffered, in seeing pain in the creature, which is a special characteristic of my Heart, watching over this pain, with all my love I pour upon her the joys and contentments which my Heart contains. But to my highest sorrow, while my Heart would want to let my joys follow the pain I send to the creatures, not finding in them the love of suffering and the true resignation which my Heart possessed, my joys still follow pain, but in seeing that the pain has not been received with love and honor and with highest submission, my joys do not find the way to enter that sorrowful heart and, grieving, they return to my Heart.

Therefore, when I find a soul who is resigned, who loves suffering, I feel her as though regenerated within my Heart, and – oh, how sorrows and joys, bitterness and sweetness, alternate. I hold nothing back of all the goods which I can pour upon her."