The Book of Heaven
—Unofficial Version—

October 24, 1905

The miseries of the human nature serve to reorder in it the order of all virtues.

While considering my misery, the weakness of human nature, I felt I was an object so very abominable to myself, and I imagined how much more abominable I am before God; and I said to myself:  ‘Lord, how ugly the human nature has become.’  Now, coming for just a little, He told me:  “Nothing has come out of my hands which is not good; on the contrary, I created the human nature beautiful and striking, and if the soul sees it as muddy, rotten, weak, abominable, this serves the human nature like manure serves the earth.  One who does not understand what it is all about, would say:  ‘This one is crazy, for he smears the earth with this filth’; while one who understands, knows that that filth serves to fecundate the earth, to make the plants grow, and to render the fruits more beautiful and tasty.  So, I created the human nature with these miseries to reorder in it the order of all virtues; otherwise it would remain without the exercise of true virtues.”  Then I saw in my mind the human nature as though full of holes, and in these holes there was rot, mud; and from within them branches loaded with flowers and fruits were coming out.  So I comprehended that everything is in the use we make, even of miseries themselves.