The Book of Heaven
—Unofficial Version—

October 4, 1907

The exaltation of the cross. The cross grafts Divinity to humanity.

Continuing in my usual state of privation, and therefore with little suffering, I was saying to myself: ‘Not only of Jesus am I deprived, but also the good of suffering is taken away from me. Oh, God! You want to put me to fire and the sword, and touch the things which are most dear to me, and which form my very life: Jesus and the cross. If I am abominable to Jesus because of my ingratitude, He is right in not coming; but you, O cross – what have I done to you, that you left me so barbarously? Ah, did I perhaps not welcome you when you came? Did I not treat you as my faithful companion? Ah, I remember that I loved you so much that I could not be without you, and sometimes I even preferred you to Jesus. I didn’t know what you had done to me, that I could not be without you. Yet, you left me! It is true that you have done much good to me; you were the way, the door, the room, the secret, the light in which I could find Jesus. This is why I loved you so much. And now, everything is over for me.’

While I was thinking of this, blessed Jesus came for just a little and told me: "Daughter, the cross is part of one’s life, and only one who does not love his own life, does not love the cross, because it was with the Cross alone that I grafted the Divinity to lost humanity. Only the cross continues Redemption in the world, grafting anyone who receives it into the Divinity; and if one does not love it, it means he knows nothing of virtues, of perfection, of love of God, and of true life. It happens as to a rich man who has lost his riches, and is presented with the means to reacquire them again - and maybe even more. How much does he not love this means? Does he perhaps not put his own life into this means in order to find life again in his riches? Such is the cross. Man had become so very poor, and the cross is the means not only to save him from misery, but to enrich him with all goods. Therefore, the cross is the richness of the soul." And He disappeared, while I remained more embittered, thinking of what I had lost.