The Book of Heaven
—Unofficial Version—

September 2, 1910

One should pay attention to what he must do, not to chatter.

I was thinking about Jesus carrying the Cross to Calvary, especially when He met with the women, and He forgot about His pains and occupied Himself with consoling, answering and also instructing those poor women. How everything was love in Jesus! He was the one who needed to be consoled, yet He was consoling – and in what a state He was consoling! He was all covered with wounds, His head pierced with most pricking thorns, panting and almost dying under the cross – and He was consoling others! What an example, what a humiliation for us – a little cross is enough to make us forget the duty to console others! So I remembered the many times in which, finding myself oppressed by sufferings or by the privations of Jesus that pierced and lacerated my interior through, and being surrounded by people, Jesus would spur me on to imitate Him in this step of His Passion; and I, though embittered down to the marrow of my bones, would strive to forget about myself in order to console and instruct others. And now, finding myself free and without having to deal with people, because of and thanks to obedience, I was thanking Jesus for I no longer found myself in those circumstances… I feel I can breathe a freer air, to be able to occupy myself only with myself.

And Jesus, moving in my interior, told me: "My daughter, yet for Me it was a relief, and I felt as though refreshed, especially in those who were truly coming to do good. In these times, truly, there is a lack of those who cast true interior spirit into souls, because not having it themselves they cannot infuse it in others; so they teach souls to be touchy, scrupulous, light, without a true foundation of detachment from everything and from everyone, and this produces sterile virtues, which go about blooming, and they die. And some think they make progress with souls, because they reach minuteness and scrupulousness; but instead of progress, these are true hindrances which ruin the souls, and my love remains on an empty stomach with them. Therefore, since I have given you much light about the interior ways, and I have made you comprehend the truth about true virtues and true love, since you are in the truth, through your mouth I could make others comprehend the truth about the true path of virtues, and I felt contentment because of this."

And I: ‘But, blessed Jesus, after the sacrifice I would make, they would then go around talking, and so obedience, justly, has prohibited the coming of people.’ And Jesus: "This is the error – that one pays attention to chatter, rather than to the good one is supposed to do. About Me also they chattered, and if I wanted to pay attention to this, I would not have accomplished the Redemption of man. Therefore, one must pay attention to what one must do, and not to what people say; and chatter remains with those who make it."