The Book of Heaven
—Unofficial Version—

April 9, 1901

If fervors and virtues are not well rooted in the Humanity of Jesus, as tribulations or unfavorable circumstances arise, immediately they wither.

As I was in the fullness of delirium, I was speaking nonsense, and I believe I also mixed some defects with it. My poor nature felt all the weight of my state; the bed seemed worse to it than the state of those who are condemned to prison. It would have wanted to free itself of this state, with the addition of my refrain that ‘it is no longer Will of God, and this is why Jesus does not come’. And I kept thinking of what I should do. While I was doing this, my patient Jesus came out from within my interior, but with a grave and serious appearance, such as to strike fear in me; and He said to me: "What do you think I would have done had I been in your position?" In my interior I said: ‘Certainly the Will of God.’ And He, again: "Well then, that is what you are doing." And He disappeared.

The gravity of Our Lord was such that in those words He spoke to me I felt all the power of His word – not only creative, but also destroying. My interior was so shaken by those words, it was so oppressed, embittered, that I did nothing but cry. I remembered especially the gravity with which Jesus had spoken to me, so much so, that I did not dare to say: ‘Come’. Now, being in this position, in the afternoon I did my meditation without asking for Him, when, all of a sudden, He came, and with a sweet appearance, all changed compared to the morning, He told me: "My daughter, what a disaster, what a disaster is about to happen." And as He was saying this, I felt all of my interior changed – that He was not coming for no other reason but the chastisements. At that moment I saw four venerable persons who were crying at the words which Jesus had spoken; but blessed Jesus, wanting to cheer Himself, said a few words about virtues, and then He added: "There are certain fervors and certain virtues which seem like those saplings that grow around certain trees: since they are not well rooted in its trunk, as a strong wind comes, or a cold a little more intense, they wither; and even though after some time it may be that they become green again, being subject to the intemperance of the air, and therefore to changing, they never become grown up trees. Such are those fervors and those virtues which are not well rooted in the trunk of the tree of obedience – that is, in the trunk of the tree of my Humanity, which was all obedience: as tribulations or unfavorable circumstances arise, immediately they wither, and they never come to producing fruits for eternal life."