The Book of Heaven
—Unofficial Version—

April 29, 1902

One who wants everything from God must give all of himself to God.

This morning my adorable Jesus came for a little, telling me: "My daughter, one who wants everything from God must give all of himself to God." And He stopped, without telling me anything else for the time being. Seeing Him close to me, I said to Him: ‘Lord, have compassion on me; don’t You see how everything is dry and withered? It seems to me that I have become so dry, as if I had never received a drop of rain.’ And He: "So much the better. Don’t you know that the drier the wood, the more easily the fire devours it and converts it into fire? One spark alone is enough to ignite it. But if it is full of humors and not well dried, it takes a big fire to ignite it, and much time to convert it into fire. The same in the soul: when everything is dry, one spark alone is enough to convert her completely into fire of divine love." And I: ‘Lord, You are making fun of me. How ugly, then, everything is; and besides, what do You have to burn if everything is dry?’ And He: "I am not making fun of you; you yourself cannot comprehend that when not everything is dry in the soul, complacency is a humor, satisfaction is a humor, one’s own taste is a humor, self-esteem is a humor. On the other hand, when everything is dry and the soul operates, these humors have no place from which to arise, and the Divine Fire, finding only the soul naked, as dry as she was created by It, with no other extraneous humors, since it is something that belongs to It, it is extremely easy for It to convert her into Its very Divine Fire. And after this, I infuse in her a garment of peace, and this peace is preserved by interior obedience, and kept by external obedience. This peace gives birth to the whole of God within the soul – that is, to all the works, the virtues and the ways of the Humanate Word – in such a way that one can see in her His simplicity, His humility, the dependency of His infantile life, the perfection of His adult virtues, the mortification and the crucifixion of His dying. But it always begins from this: one who wants the whole of Christ must give everything to Christ."