The Book of Heaven
—Unofficial Version—

May 20, 1900

All things have their origin from nothing. Necessity of rest and of interior silence.

Finding myself outside of myself, it seemed to me it was nighttime and I could see the whole universe, the whole order of nature, the starry heaven, the silence of the night.… In sum, it seemed to me that everything had a meaning.  While seeing this, I seemed to see Our Lord who, beginning to speak about what I was seeing, said:  “All nature invites one to rest; but what is true rest?  It is the interior rest and the silence of all that is not God.  Look at the stars, twinkling with tempered light, not dazzling like the sun; the sleep and the silence of all nature, of men and also of animals – they all look for a place, a den, in which to be in silence and rest from the tiredness of life.  If this is necessary for the body, much more is it necessary for the soul to rest in her own center, which is God.  But in order to be able to rest in God, interior silence is necessary, just as exterior silence is necessary to the body in order to peacefully fall asleep.  But what is this interior silence?  It is to silence one’s own passions by keeping them in their place; it is to impose silence on desires, on inclinations, on affections – in sum, on all that does not call upon God.  Now, what is the means to reach this?  The only means, and absolutely necessary, is for the soul to undo her own being and reduce herself to nothing, just as she was before being created; and once she has reduced her being to nothing, she must take it again in God.

My daughter, all things have their origin from nothing.  If this very machine of the universe which you are admiring with its great order had been full of other things before I created it, I could not have put my creative hand to make it with such great mastery and to render it so splendid and adorned.  At the most, I could have undone everything that might have been there, to then redo it according to my liking.  But we always come to this:  all of my works have their origin from nothing, and when there is a mixing with other things, it is not decorous for my majesty to descend and operate in the soul.  But when the soul reduces herself to nothing and rises to Me, and takes her being within Mine, then I operate as the God that I am, and the soul finds true rest.  And here is how all virtues, from humility to the annihilation of oneself, begin.”

Who can say how much I understood about what blessed Jesus told me?  Oh, how happy my soul would be if I could reach the point of undoing my poor being to be able to receive from my God His Divine Being!  Oh, how I would ennoble myself, how sanctified I would be!  But what foolishness is mine, where is my brain, if still I do not do it?  What a human misery – instead of looking for its true good and taking wing on high, it contents itself with scrabbling on the ground and with living amidst mud and rot!

After this, my beloved Jesus transported me inside a garden in which there were many people preparing themselves to attend a feast, but only those who received a uniform were able to attend, and few were those who received this uniform.  A great yearning arose in me to receive one, and I did so much that I obtained the intent.  So, as I reached the place in which one would receive it, a venerable matronly woman clothed me in white first, and then placed on me a pale blue shoulder band on which a medal was hanging with the imprint of the face of Jesus.  While being a face, it was also a mirror, and in looking at it, one would detect the slightest stains, which the soul, with the help of a light coming from within that face, could easily remove.  It seemed to me that that medal contained a mysterious meaning.  Then she took a mantle of finest gold and covered me all over.  It seemed to me that dressed in this way I could compete with the virgins in Heaven.  While this was happening, Jesus told me:  “My daughter, let us go back to see what men are doing; it is enough for you to be dressed – when the feast begins, I will take you there to attend.”  So, after we went round for a little while, He transported me inside my bed.