Jeanne Le Royer – Revelations – Book-1

The Sister of Nativity (1731-1798) 

The first of 4 books.

All content is transcribed, from old french to English, on this page from the 2′ & 3′ edition of Book-1 PDF. The reading is presented here in groups of 5 pages, which facilitates the reading. Save the following documents, in french:

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Note: Pages 36 & 37 are missing in the 2nd edition, and black spots sometimes make reading some words difficult. See the 3rd edition which is a useful complement to the lacks of the 2nd edition.

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– Tome-1 de 4 (Français): Cliquez ici

– Book-1 of 4 (English) : Click here (Updated 2020-03-17)

– Book-4 of 4 (English) : Click here (Updated 2020-03-30)

A lot of mistakes is present with the words ‘his‘, ‘him‘ and ‘her‘. Most often, we must read in sentences, ‘her‘ for the Sister, not ‘his’ or ‘him‘… All the corrections will be made gradually. Don’t forget, this text is automatically translated. The french version is the first reference.

If you want to participate to the fine translation, contact me. For all readers, thanks ! 2019-03-24  –  Updated 2020-02-24

Below, the sequency of pages refers to the 2nd edition, by groups of 5 pages.

Note: The most interesting part of the book is on pages 310 to 472.  Look the table of contents.

 

LIFE AND REVELATIONS

OF

THE SISTER OF NATIVITY,

Nun converse at the convent of Urbanists of Fougères, written under her dictation by the Editor of her revelations. Mr. Genet.

SECOND EDITION,

Adorned with the portrait of the Sister, and augmented by a
volume that contains everything she did write
shortly before her death.

Confiteor tibi, Pater, Domine cœli et
terrae, quià abscondisti hœc à sapien-
tibus et prudentibus , et revelasti ea
parvulis. Math. 11, 25 ; Luc. 10, 31.

FIRST VOLUME.

Paris,

MDCCCXIX (1819)

_______________________________________________

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTAINED IN THE FIRST VOLUME.

_______________

Preliminary Speech ……………………… Page ………….. 1

Abstract of the Life of the Sister of Nativity,
and the circumstances concerning her
Revelations ……………………………………………………….. 15

Next dispositions that God asks
to the Sister of the Nativity, to make write
what he makes known to her …………………………… .. 165

Article I. The essence of God, His attributes
and their manifestation ……………………………………. 170

Article II. Of the incarnation of the Word, and
its effects ………………………………………………………….. 216

Article III. From the church………………………………… 245

§. I. Beauty of the militant Church.
His divine characters ……………………………………..….. Ibid.

§. II. Latest persecutions of the Church.
Their causes and effects …………………………………….. 260

§. III.  J.-C. complaint about the calamities that
will desolate all the Catholic Kingdoms
France, in particular. Scandals
of bad priests………………………………………..………….. 269

Suburb Roger fire, reported here
by opportunity. A small house preserved half
of the flames …………………………………………………… 282

§. IV. Main causes of destruction
Religious Orders. Attachment to
world and to oneself. Violation of her
wishes…………………………………………………………….. 286

§. V. Other causes of the persecution of the
religion and the upheaval of the state in the
kind of apostasy of the children of the Church;
the spirit of faith is extinguished among them,
and God rekindles it in the hearts of unfaithful
peoples………………………………………………….………… 294

Article IV. Last times of the world …………………….. 310

§. I. Preludes and Announcements of the Last
Advent of J.-C. …………………………………………..……… 311

§. II. Reign of Antichrist ……………………………………. 318

§. III. Extraordinary consolations and help
that God intended for his Church in
his last fights………………………………………….…………… 330

§. IV. Last stay of the children of the Church:
their way of life; their consolation;
their sentences; their agony; their death ……………… 343

Article V. General judgment.

§. I. Renewal of Heaven and Earth
purified by fire ………………………………………………….. 366

§. II. End of Purgatory. Increase in
sufferings of souls a few years
before their release …………………………………………….. 370

§. III. General resurrection of the good and the
wicked……………………………………………………………….. 375

§. IV.  J.-C. goes down with majesty to judge
the world. Manifestation of consciences………………….. 384

§. V. Judgment of the Forsaken; fate of
dead children without baptism ………………………………. 397

§. VI. Curse of J.-C. against the reprobate;
his last sentence against them, and their
burial in the underworld …………………………………….. 416

§. VII. Triumph of the elect; their entry into
Heaven and their inexpressible happiness ………………… 429

§. VIII. End of the Church and the whole world.
Various visions of Hell; Horror torments
of the damned, especially after the last
judgment and the end of the world ……………………….. 442

End of the Table of the first volume.

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NOTICE OF THE EDITOR R.

    Mr. Genet, priest of the diocese of Rennes, director of the community of urban nuns of Fougeres at the moment when our unfortunate revolution broke out, was obliged to expatriate himself to escape death. He went to England. There he finished writing the work he had begun in France, and which he entitled: Life and Revelations of the Sister of the Nativity, religious converse Urbanist at Fougères.

    To fulfill the intentions of this Sister, who has always wished, as we shall see, to be entirely subject to the Church and to abandon to its ministers the judgment and the decision of all that she brings back, he communicated her manuscript to several prelates. learned and enlightened, and to several distinguished doctors, whose opinion is to be found in the third volume.

    Soon the manuscript was copied in England: copies multiplied rapidly and passed into France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, etc., etc.

    We thought that the time had come to bring to light this book so surprising and so worthy of attention in the present circumstances, and we were not mistaken; for the first edition has run out in a very short time, and we have found ourselves in the necessity of undertaking a second one, to answer the requests that are made to us from all sides.

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(III-VII)

    It would be, without doubt, a great infidelity on our part to want to make some changes and put ours in a work of this kind, which must necessarily be given to the public as it is. So, in this second edition, which we have endeavored to render as correct as possible, we have followed scrupulously the very autograph which is in our hands, and which has become our property.

    But as this edition will appear different in something of the first, it is necessary to make known in what consist these differences, which do not touch at the bottom of the work.

    1 ° Several passages, or unintelligible, or which presented a false sense by the omission or transposition of words, or even entire sentences have been restored in their natural sense on the autograph itself; but in correcting these typographical errors, the work of the editor has been so respected that he has refrained from touching her noble style, great, strong, and elevated, when he speaks according to the Sister, and which is astonishing) often diffuse, heavy, embarrassed, and even inconsistent with the language in many places, when he speaks according to himself.

    2° To distinguish more easily the important and various matters presented to the mind of the reader in this work, it seemed necessary, at the request of almost all those who know the first edition, to indicate in it, by specific articles, paragraphs and titles, the different topics that are treated there. In fact, for the reader’s convenience, we have frequently added marginal notes which put in front of us as a summary of each article or paragraph. But this addition, which throws a great light on the whole work, and which fixes the mind and the memory, did not change anything in the order in which the subjects were written by the editor.

    3 ° It was thought necessary to suppress, 1 °. the preliminary speech, much too long without doubt, and replace it with a shorter one, made by the editor himself. After the communication he gave of his writings in England, very judicious persons advised him to retouch his work to cut off unnecessary lengths, and to shorten his preliminary speech; what he did, by composing the one we put at the head of this edition, and which is in the third volume of the first. 2 °. Some reflections, exits or digressions of the editor, who, not belonging to the subject, cut and slow down the narration. It is better, it seems, to leave them to the reader, who, whatever he may be, likes to think according to himself. 3 °. A large part of the notes, by which the writer tries to explain the meaning of various passages of the Sister of the Nativity. In addition to the judgment of many theologians, these notes are mostly inaccurate, it seemed that it was enough to expose the text of the Sister, leaving each one free to explain and interpret the difficult places, or rather, waiting with submission, like the Sister, on these theological matters, the judgment of the doctors and the decision of the Church.

    4 ° This new edition, enriched with the portrait of the Sister of the Nativity, will include a fourth volume which contains her last writings and new developments on the persecutions of the Church. This supplement will be reported at the beginning of the fourth volume.

    This extraordinary work will certainly find contradictors. We expect it, and we can not doubt it, since already from different places we have received several objections; but we also know that he has found, and we hope he will still find admirers among the learned as well as among the simple and straight souls. Be that as it may, we will answer no objection: we give the public the work as it is; our task is fulfilled, and to all that we may object we say in advance, and we say again with the Sister of the Nativity, that we submit everything to the judgment of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, of which we are and we want to be children until death.

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(VIII-6)

PRELIMINARY SPEECH.

    Charissimi, nolite omni spiritui credere, sed probate spiritus si ex Deo sint; quoniam multi pseudoprophetœ exierunt in mundum. (Epist Joan, 4,1.)

    Charged in 1790 with the direction of the community known as the Religious Urbanists of Fougères, in the bishopric of Rennes, I was committed, by the circumstances that I will expose when it will be time, to give me the vows of the so called Sister of the Nativity, who wanted to give me an account of the lights she believed God had favored her, and which she assured me that I must be the last depository, to transmit them one day to my fellow citizens and to all the Church of Jesus Christ

    The revelations and predictions of this good girl had already made noise for many years; but in these happy times, the little appearance that what she announced was ever to be realized, had made them neglect and despise. They had even been delivered to the flames and sacrificed to a sort of cabal which had formed against it on this occasion, as we shall see.

    But at the moment when I entered this house to lead her, and where the Sister told me « that I was the last director; that in a short time I would be driven out by open force; that I should be forced to expatriate myself and flee to foreign nations; that I should pass the seas without any misfortune; that the collection of which she furnished me the materials would be read and examined, and controversial by scholars; and a thousand other similar things which have been verified and verified every day before my eyes; at that moment, I say, where the Sister spoke to me in this way, we were much back on account of her predictions. The preliminaries of a revolution which was only the literal fulfillment of it, began, though a little late, to open the eyes, by dissipating the prejudices which it had at first had to combat.

    Pressed, therefore, by the prayers of this holy nun, who repeated to me that there was no time to lose; invited besides by the advantageous testimony which all the other nuns rendered to him, and especially by the wise representations of the superiors and depositaries of the same community, I first remembered that, according to the remark of its historians, the Church of Jesus Christ has never been shaken by any jolt, however violent, which was not previously predicted by some holy personages whose virtues supported by grace, and the announcements confirmed by the event, have always formed a striking contrast with the licentious conduct and the languishing impostor of the deceivers, who so many times have deceived the universe: Quoniam multi pseudoprophetoe exierunt in mundum. I remembered, secondly, that if, on the one hand, God allows the tares to become mingled with the good grain, and the truth be fought and disfigured by counterfeiting, sometimes even in the Church itself; on the other, he has always provided our weakness with sure means to discern one from the other, and to distinguish in all the truth from error: Probate spiritus siex Deo sint.

    Then I said to myself that the arm of God never being weakened, nor his power diminished, he could still today all that he could formerly; that the circumstances being the same, the Church of Christ had a right and could count on all the help that its divine founder had promised him for all the times of its duration. Now, it is indisputable that the gift of prophecy, like that of miracles, etc. it was granted for an unlimited time; it is a promise she has received from the mouth of him who assures him that he is with her until the end of the ages. I told myself, moreover, that the old prophecies announcing the latter, we could not reject them without at least insulting them, and without falling into a contradiction as contrary to the principles of the faith as it would be to the rules of reasoning. Everything depends on the proofs. Now, I told myself at last that the circumstantial announcement, added to the literal fulfillment of an event of which the whole human policy could never foresee the details, being, in the judgment of God himself, the most certain mark of the truth of the prophecy, 1 this well-pronounced character must have already appeared to be at least an imposing title for every soul who seeks to know the truth in the uprightness and sincerity of the heart. This is what I said to myself, the following will show if I misunderstood.

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    (1) Propheta who is vaticinatui is pacem: quùm venerit verbum ejus, scietur prophet quem misit Dominus in veritate. (Jer., 28, 9.)

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    On this, taking the middle ground between the ignorant credulity which admits all without proof, and the incredulity, still more ignorant, which rejects everything without examination, I went to repeated instances. So I listened to the stories the Sister had to tell me; I have written them before her eyes, I have written them in the way that I will explain it, always in the same sense, as much as I have been able, according to the order and the commission gave. These stories, I must admit, have seemed worthy of attention in every respect; I believed, moreover, to discover in the whole of the characters of truth, I would even say of divinity, which seemed to me of nature to command the respect, and capable of undergoing all the kinds of tests which one has right to demand in such cases; in a word, judging of everything by the comparison of all the circumstances, and not by some isolated points, I saw there, or the work of God, or an incomprehensible enigma.

    I did not stop there; but warned of a just distrust of my own judgment, I presented, according to the order received, my collection to more competent and enlightened judges, who found themselves in large numbers in the various places of my exile, and I can not and must not conceal that I have seen with real satisfaction so many worthy prelates, respectables,

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(7-11)

profound theologians, (1) to assemble in my opinion on the merits of a work of which they have all thought the reading useful and very clean, they said, to produce the most desirable fruits of conversion, ‘advancement and salvation. Such was their unanimous feeling, although, moreover, the nature of this extraordinary production did not allow them to add the sanction of their authority by allowing their names to be published following the repeated eulogies they had made voice and writing; or can doubtless only applaud this wise circumspection which fears to prevent the judgment of the Church in a matter in which she alone has the right to pronounce;

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    (1) The work has been read and examined by more than a hundred profound theologians, namely: seven or eight bishops and archbishops, 20 or 30 vicars-general of different dioceses, doctors and professors of theology, abbots, authors of various works estimated even academics; more than 80 parish priests, vicars and other French and English priests who are also pious and learned; not to mention several very educated people of the world, who read it with the same edification and contentment.

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and yet they have, for the most part, repeated that the finger of God is manifest at every step, and that the work, as it is, needed no other authorization; that he drew his proofs and all his strength from himself: Digitus Dei is hic . Many have asked for and made copies, many have taken extracts, and all have seemed desirous of publication. So that this universality of votes, this meeting of opinions on the capital point, gave me some confidence that a production so desired could one day, according to the announcement of the author, contribute to the salvation of souls as to the glory of the God who takes all the means to procure it. May the event meet our expectations, and our hope not be frustrated! ……

    Without entering, then, in any dissertation on the degree of belief that can be given to the stories of this extraordinary girl, eh! what can they produce that a particular faith! I dare to hope that the Holy Spirit, which I believe the author, will enlighten better than anybody, on all that concerns this production, the souls of good will who will read, not from curiosity, nor to find fault, but for the sole purpose of learning and profiting by edification.

    Yes, I repeat, and I dare to promise it, mere reading, done with the righteousness of proper intention, will do more on such readers than would all that one could say to those whom this reading would not have. not persuaded. It is true, and that is what I may be reproached for, in all the part I have had in this affair, I have spoken of the intimate persuasion in which the special relations others have not found themselves in this respect. I have everywhere presented the narratives as they present themselves, that is to say under the glance of the inspiration, and as the result of the confidences of a soul that the sky educates and promotes; it was impossible for me to present them in another aspect without distorting them by a reprehensible infidelity which would have made me substitute for the work I was in charge of writing, a work entirely foreign to would have had almost no report. I had to present them or not to touch them: No possumus que vidimus non loqui. (Act 4, 20.)

    It is very possible that I am mistaken about all this; for I still want to be abstracted from all other authority; but in this case I do not see, after all, how and why this opinion, which is peculiar to me, and without which I would never have undertaken such a task, could impose on any other the obligation to think like if he does not think it appropriate, and if he does not find sufficient reasons after he has read: Charissimi, nolite omni spiritui credere, sedprobate spiritus if ex Deo sint .

    Take, then, and read; tolle, lege . Count for nothing neither my opinion, nor that of so many enlightenments of which mine has rested; see for yourself whether we should not be deceived; perhaps your eyes, happier or more clairvoyant, will discover errors that we have not noticed, and you will render us a true service by indicating them to us. Examine the reasons, weigh the reasons, use of even right. Wherever authority has not decided, men can have their different ways of looking at things; it is natural that each of them should be persuaded on the grounds that he has or thinks of having them. The Church having not spoken, you are free, once again, in your judgment; but you can only judge well after reading with the proper dispositions. Tolle, lege .

    Examine then, the banner on the games, if it would not be possible to suppose that such a work would be the effect of the imagination exalted saintly, or of the saintly heated heart of an ignorant, rather than the effect of the impression of Divinity. See if it could be attributed rather to the spirit of the devil than to that of God; Probate, etc. It is especially for the purpose that it is proposed that you will judge healthy. Probate .

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(12-16)

    We will provide you with the various details that should make the subject of your judgment; only, before wearing it, we urge you to wait until you have seen it all, and not to stick to certain isolated details. Above all, it is interesting to let you know, at least by and large, the miraculous person whom we believe God has used to speak to you; and so we will begin by exposing Him to her outer life, as it appeared to men since her childhood, reserving for another time the details of her inner life, or of God’s conduct on the movements of God. her soul: one will serve as a preparation, and the other on her revelations; it is the natural order that we propose.

First protest of the editor.

    Our s. Father Pope Urban VIII, having defended, by his decrees of 13 March 1625 and 5 July 1634, to print, without the examination and approval of the diocesan Bishop, no book containing the actions, the miracles and the revelations persons dead in the odor of sanctity, or regarded as martyrs; having furthermore decided by his decree of June 5, 1631, that, in the event of giving these persons the name of saint, or of blessed persons, we should be obliged to declare that we use this title only to express the innocence of their lives and the excellence of their virtues, without any prejudice to the authority of the Catholic Church, to which alone belongs the right to declare the saints and to propose them to the veneration of the faithful; As a consequence of these decrees to which I am sincerely and inviolably subject, I protest here that I recognize as saints, blessed, or true martyrs only those to whom the Apostolic Holy See grants these titles, and I declare that all the facts reported in this book have only private authority, and that they can acquire a true authenticity only after having been approved by the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff, to which I submit my particular opinion on all that is contained in this book, which I present to the public.

Second protest:

    I ask the reader to observe that in this book I have reported many traits that prove the holiness of the person I made history. I have told things that pass nature, and that we could look like real miracles. My intention is not to give these facts as approved by the Holy Roman Church, but only as certified by private testimony.

    Accordingly, therefore, from the decrees of our Holy Father Pope Urban VIII, I protest here that I do not intend to attribute to the person whose history I have made, neither the quality of blessed nor that of saint, that of a way subordinate to the authority of the Roman Church, to which alone I recognize that belongs the right to declare those who are holy. I respectfully await his judgment on all the points contained in this work, and I submit to it with heart and mind, like a very obedient child.

LIFE AND REVELATIONS

THE SISTER OF NATIVITY.

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Abstract of the Life of the Sister of the Nativity, and the circumstances concerning her Revelations.

Her birth.

    Jeanne Le Royer, known as Religion Sister of the Nativity, daughter of René le Royer and Marie le Sénéchal, came into the world, following the excerpt of her baptism, on January 24, 1731, in the village of Beaulot, parish of La Chapelle. Janson, situated on the side of Lorient, two leagues from the town of Fougeres (ferns), bishopric of Rennes, in Brittany. She was, the day after her birth, baptized at the church by the vicar of the parish.

    She will teach us herself of the circumstances of her childhood and of all her life, as much as they relate to her interior; but according to the march of all the saints, she will be shown only on the most disadvantageous side; it will speak of itself only to humiliate itself by the public and exaggerated confession of its defects, its vices and its sins: if it is forced to make known also the favors it has received from heaven, this It will only be to tremble on the account which it will be necessary for him to make us notice how much grace had to do to overcome malice and heal the corruption of her heart; finally, returning constantly to the depths of her nothingness, she will bring everything back to the one to whom glory is due.

    This is the idea she will give us of herself at the end of her collection; but before hearing her testimony, before even entering into any details about her stories, it seems to me indispensable to make known at least something of her external life, on the testimony of the persons

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(17-21)

who lived with her; it is from their mouth that I will draw all that I want to say, and I hope that the public will be grateful to me for a little trickery which this humble girl would have had a hard time forgiving me during her life, if God would have allowed her to know it.

Her education and the first graces which heaven favors.

    Born of Christian parents, as it is easy to conjecture, Jeanne the Royer had as sucked with milk this living and active faith, this zeal of the holy law, this tender and filial piety, this fear and this love of the Lord who have always makes the distinctive character of the true children of God, and the least equivocal proof of their predestination. That was all she could inherit from her poor parents. But that the gifts of heaven are a rich succession, and that those who share them can easily do without everything else! …

    This first disposition of an attentive grace had much to suffer, for a time, from the attack of the passions and the contagion of the bad example; but grace always brought her back to the end where God wanted her. From childhood she had felt such a keen attraction to give herself to God in the retreat, that, in answer to her vocation, she overcame all the obstacles which the devil, the world, the flesh, and all the dangers of her condition.

    It appears from the account she must give us that the favor of her good angel, and especially her great confidence in the Mother of God, have been helpful to her in many meetings; It also appears that of all the devotions which were first impressed upon him in the soul, the one at the Most Blessed Sacrament of the altar has always been the tenderest and most lively, and that her love for the adorable person It has always been, in her heart, proportionate, if we can say so, to the favors she has continually received. Happy is the soul who knows how to maintain with her God this sweet correspondence of reciprocal tenderness, that delicious commerce of love which makes heaven on earth! this is what we have seen in the Catherine and Bernardine of Siena, the Magdalenes of Pazzi, the Therese, the Gertrude, the Angela of Foligny, the Philip of Nery, the Francis of Assisi, the Francis Xavier, the Francis de Sales, and in so many thousands of other saints, in proportion to the degree of their holiness, and according to the different ways in which it pleased God to make them walk.

Indices of her vocation.

    Young, robust, of a pleasant figure and of an advantageous size, gifted with a good heart, a soul naturally as sensitive as right, of a sweet and sociable character, the young Royer could without doubt, like another, to pretend to an advantageous party according to its condition; so there was a number for whom she felt no repugnance; but never could we come to any positive engagement; there was always some unforeseen obstacle which disconcerted all the measures. The divine husband, who had views on her, ordered otherwise; he called it, through trials and by unusual means, to the perfection of a more sublime state. The sky destined her for greater things than the care of a household, and it was to make it a model of the religious state, that Providence, who had watched over her from her cradle, led her as by the in the midst of the dangers of a corrupt world, made her avoid a thousand shipwrecks, and constantly broke all that was opposed to his designs.

The death of her parents.

    At the age of fifteen or sixteen, our virtuous villager lost a father whom she loved tenderly, and whose death caused her a considerable pain; disillusioned from the vanity of the world, whose dangers she had felt in some circumstances, and besides being pressed to respond to the inner lights by which God drew her to him in an unusual way, she reproached herself for having so balanced; she gives way to grace, and to cut off all temptation to the world, she consecrated herself totally to God by the vow of perpetual chastity which she made in presence and under the auspices of the Queen of Virgins.

Her designs and projects of perfection.

    She only proposes to stay with her mother, to feed her with her work and to assist her until the end of her days. But this end was closer than she thought, for soon the funeral of this Christian woman came to renew the grief that had caused her husband’s grief in the heart of their daughter. After this new reason to leave the world or to get away from it more and more, since she had no longer any resources, nor almost any link which could hold her there, Jeanne would have liked to find in some house a servant’s place, to make it more secure, and her salvation and her vow of continence; but, unknown to everyone, deprived, therefore, of every recommendation and every human means, she dared not carry her pretensions so far.

Her tender trust and sincere devotion to the Mother of God.

    So she contented herself with talking to God in prayer, and put all in the hands of the one who had received her con-

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(22-26)

secration: prostrate before his image, as she will tell us, she prayed to the Blessed Virgin to obtain from her son the grace and the means to be constantly faithful to the devotion she had made to him in all her person, and of which she had made it herself the depositary. A prayer, at once so simple and so fervent, could not remain without effect. The woman to whom she was addressed never deceived the trust placed in her. Here is another trait: from that moment the Blessed Virgin appeared to be in charge of negotiating the thing, or rather of conducting the execution herself; Soon it became clear that the affair was in good hands, so as not to be, sooner or later, successful.

The prudence in the choice of a director, and in her plan of life.

    Before deciding to live alone, Jeanne le Royer wanted to make the spiritual retreat that was announced at the Suburb Roger in the city of Fougeres. Her purpose, in going there, was to find means of sanctification, and to consult God on the part which she had to take to know and follow her will. Mr. Debrégel was then director of this house of spiritual retreats; a true evangelical workman, he had made himself known as much for his knowledge in the conduct of privileged souls as for his zeal for the often brilliant conversion of the most hardened sinners; it was Ananie that the heaven destined her; it was also to him that she addressed herself to learn what she had to do. She discovered the depths of her conscience to show him what was going on, and gave him an account of his extraordinary ways, which had already astonished others, and which, despite his care, had perspired enough to alarm his humility. . After having examined it several times, this man of God approved her ways and her projects, only he dispensed with the part of her resolutions which went as far as austerities which could have harmed the health of her body.

She enters at the nuns Urbanist as a servant from outside.

    A stone’s throw from the retreat house was a community of Clarists, mixed up by Pope Urban V, and for this reason called the Convent of the Urbanists of Fougères, where they settled in 1655. The rule was always well observed, the nuns were then as numerous as fervent. M. Debrégel thought that he ought to propose his penitent to these good souls, of whom he directed a part, to be received at their house as a servant of the boarders. It was the first year they had been allowed to have one, that is to say in 1752. (1) After having obtained their consent, he presented it to them himself, saying to them: « Bless God, ladies, he still gives to the world extraordinary souls and that he wants to lead himself by his divine spirit. The following will show if the skilful director was wrong.

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    (1) This permission was revoked under Mr. Lemarié, about twenty or thirty years later.

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She passes inside the Convent. (She is admitted to the convent).

    After having served six weeks outside, she was introduced into the very interior, to help the lay sisters. Jeanne foresaw the effect of her prayers; he was no longer wanting in his happiness but to see himself irrevocably united by solemn vows to those she served: she had always aspired to this precious advantage. This fortunate time for her did not arrive until more than three years later: she employed these three years to prepare for it by the postulate, the habit and the novitiate. During all this time, the demon caused him many obstacles; but with the help and grace of God, she overcame them all and was never utterly disconcerted.

Temptations and obstacles opposed to her designs.

    Obstacles on the side of poverty. She was asked for three hundred pounds in dowry, and she had only six pounds in all, without hope of ever having more, all her patrimony being barely enough to pay the legal costs after the death of her parents. Obstacles on the side of jealousy, which soon took umbrage at her solid and tender piety, as well as the esteem and friendship she was able to conciliate, to begin to pursue her. Obstacles on the side of her own passions, that the demon woke up more than ever as she prepared to immolate them to her God. Obstacles, especially on the side of an excessive fear inspired by the spirit of darkness; he held her in continual terror; he even made her discouraged: he told her that she would never make her salvation in such austere profession; that she was not called there. He never ceased to show her hell at the end of a career that would be for her without consolation and without fruit. She herself will tell us how far God allowed the devil to feel her constancy, and in what manner, with what care, he always hastened to support and defend her but this looks at her inner life.

Her trust in God and in Her protector.

    Against so many enemies, Sister Jeanne put all her trust in God, in Jesus Christ and in Mary; and under the protection of the Son and the powerful protection of the Mother, she hoped against all hope … She promised the Blessed Virgin to have a Mass said and to burn a candle in front of her image,

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if she got her to be received in religion; and that the name she would take there would be that of one of the feasts established by the Church in her honor. Such firm hope is never deceived. J.-C. himself undertook to dispel her infernal terrors, assuring her of her vocation, and making her secure again by the means of her confessor.

    She triumphs by the help of heaven, and takes a name of religion which reminds her of the obligation she has to her protectress.

    Several chapters were held concerning her, or the opinions were long divided. Finally, though there were subjects with big dowries; in spite of the kind of cabal formed against her, she triumphed, presumably by the help of the mother of God, her protectress. She was therefore admitted, without a dowry, to pronounce her vows of religion; she took the name of Sister of the Nativity, which will be the one we will give her henceforth, because it is the one she has always worn. Since then, these good nuns had already known her enough, to give her preference over the other subjects that presented themselves; afterwards they congratulated themselves, more and more, on their choice and the acquisition they had made; but never before have they known the full value of the treasure they possessed, and God will probably permit it only after many years. Who would have told them then that this poor girl, to whom they were willing, as alms, to give the last place among their servants, would soon be and was already the most favored of God; that one day it would become the glory, the ornament, and perhaps the resource and the support of their order; finally, an oracle of religion for its century and the following centuries?

    The new nun was therefore at the height of her wishes, and her joy was the same when she became acquainted with all the trials by which she was to pass in her new state. She did her utmost to testify her gratitude to God and to her benefactors: to God, by her whole and perfect devotion; and to her benefactors, by all the services they could expect. Her hardened hands, and all her body accustomed to the hardest work in the country, were playing, so to speak, the heaviest burdens; and God knows with what zeal and ease she hastened to unload the arms of her sisters from all that was most painful in their obediences and their different duties.

Her great qualities on the spiritual side, and her progress in virtue.

    But it is especially on the spiritual side that we must consider this young Sister, to appreciate her merit and see all that it is worth in itself. A profound humility, a blind obedience, an invincible patience, a renunciation of all, to seek only God, were the solid foundations of this edifice of perfection, where it made, in a short time, such great progress. This is the plan of life which, by divine inspiration, she traced in concert with her wise director, from whom she always received and followed the advice.

Her plan of life and her fervor as a nun.

    Having gone into solitude only to sacrifice to the true God the different animals which are the object of the worship of the Egyptians, I mean the passions and vices, of which the world is at one and the same time the slave, and the idolater, she applied herself, like all the saints, to tame and destroy her pride by humility, and all kinds of covetousness by the voluntary deprivation of pleasures permitted. The desire to satisfy divine justice made her secretly employ the instruments of penance to which she devoted her whole body.

Her corporal and spiritual mortifications.

    The haire and the hair shirt, the disciplines, the fasts and the vigils, all were put in work. Her bed was sometimes strewn with stinging nettles and herbs. One day she was caught keeping in her mouth, and swallowing drop by drop, animal gall and other bitter liquors. Each sense thus had its own mortification.

Her progress in perfection.

    It was by continual victories over nature, that this holy girl advanced, by leaps and bounds, in the career of perfection, where she left far behind those of the nuns who had made the most sensible progress. Such a prodigy was surprising; and also only too much sensation: a virtue of this character was to be shaken, or rather strengthened by violent trials; and who has accepted the name of Deo, he shuns ut tentatio probaret te, says the angel to Tobias: the devil can not witness it without conceiving a bitter spite, which leads him to do everything possible to prevent what he already foresaw perhaps. Let us go into some details about the occasion of the principal persecutions she suffered, and the sorrows she still suffers today. The extraordinary graces with which she had been favored in the world itself, and which, as we have said, had since then sufficiently perspired to alarm her modesty, seemed to redouble in her new state, in proportion to her virtues, and God seemed jealous of compensating her for all that she had to endure on the side of the demon and her other enemies, until then, she says, that Jesus appeared to him in person, and spoke to him at several times, as we will see in the rest of her collection.

God therefore allowed, despite the care of her modesty, his

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extraordinary  favours appear to a certain extent. Also, such a light was not made to stay under the bushel; it was hardly possible to be struck by the dawn that announced a greater day. At first she gave admiration and soon shade, as it almost always happens, especially for eyes easy to offend.

Testimonials from her guides.

    The various guides to whom she made herself known, were struck by what she told them from within, and agreed that it was not for her alone that God had communicated so many lights to her. I would like, said one of them, that it was permissible for the Sister of the Nativity to ascend the pulpit of Saint Leonard, especially on days when the Church celebrates the great mysteries of religion. Nobody is able to talk about it like her. Without ever having studied theology, she possesses all the treatises perfectly. Above all, I wish that our sinners could hear him speak, as she does, of God, of his infinite mercy, as of the terror of his judgments. No, I do not doubt that she did the most salutary impressions about them. But above all, what a soul that his! what tender piety! what deep humility! what a solid virtue! what a perfect religious!

    Such was also the judgment of MM. Larticle, Duclos and Audouin directors; Lemoine, Beurier-de-la-Porte, missionaries: so much so that, according to his consent, he was arrested between them, that M. Audouin, then director of the community, and in whom the Sister had much confidence, would write the great things that God had made known to him concerning the fate of the universal Church and that of France in particular. The little she had told him was enough to convince them that she did not speak according to herself; consequently, Mr. Audouin made very long writings on what the Sister told him of all this; but as his writings never appeared, and, moreover, I have never known Mr. Audouin, I am absolutely ignorant of the plan he had formed;

Her confidant is responsible for writing what she announces from God.

    I conjecture only, on the circumstances and what the Sister made me hear, that she had given him much more details about our revolution, and much less about the consequences.

How successful was it?

    It is the fate of truth and extraordinary things, to be fought, like that of the virtue of being tested. Obstacles and contradictions are the touchstone of God’s work. How many times has it been possible for the vices, the imprudence or the mischief of men, to have delayed, even prevented the execution of his great designs? Here, I think, is a most remarkable example. Either the time had not yet come, or hell had succeeded in defeating a project of which he had every reason to fear; or, as the Sister says, that Heaven, in her justice, punished guilty men, by punishing the pride of her whose design he had intended to use to warn them and preserve them from so many misfortunes; all these causes at once, and still others that we do not see; what is certain is that the project failed, and that all was missed. Here is the occasion and how it went.

Great trials for her on this occasion.

    Mr. Audouin had no more hurry than to communicate his writings to his ordinary council. It was Mr. Larticle, director of the Ursuline nuns of the same town, who did not approve of everything, very much: let us not be surprised. The Sister announced so great misfortunes to France, disasters so terrible for the Church and the State, events so unlikely for the time, that we should not make her a crime for not having faith in this circumstance, to a prophecy from which our descendants can scarcely believe the fulfillment. What was the appearance, only eight or nine years before our time, that we had witnessed what is happening to us today?

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(1) St. Francis de Sales.

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False reasonings and judgments on what she had said; and contradictions of those who experience it on this subject.

    Undoubtedly fulfilled by the sage advice of the holy bishop of Geneva (1), who says in his letters: « That the visions and revelations of girls must not be found strange, because the ease and tenderness of the imagination of girls makes them much more susceptible to these illusions than men. »  Mr. Larticle did not pay much attention to the fact that the Sister could well be regarded as an exception to this rule, and that the wise precaution of the holy bishop was entirely in her favor, since her revelations had all the qualities which he demands and which prudence demands in such a case.

    No matter: after first admiring the Sister, he decides to rank it among the dupes of their imagination. He treated his director as a young man who, for lack of experience, had given in the illusion. He even thought he saw heresy in the announcement that the Sister was making a terrible shock for the Church of France, of which she saw, she said, the pillars agitate, stagger and fall in great numbers. « Hold firm , » said she one day to himself,  » hold firm; and what I say, I say to everyone in your state. Try to support the Church against the assaults of this terrible power that I see coming forward; of grace, support the Church; I tremble for her; etc.

    To impose silence on him, or perhaps to test him on threats to which he understood nothing, he decided to frighten him by the fear of error. « Luther, » he said abruptly, « and other prophets of this caliber, have also announced the fall of the Church, against the experience and against the word of Christ, which assures us that his Church will never fall. . Sister, « he added, » or you are mistaken, or you are mad, take care. For me, I confess that I do not know what you mean. What he told him in other circumstances. But although the mere idea of ​​heresy would have forbidden and overwhelmed the poor Sister, this did not prevent her from repeating to her: « May God make known to her that the Church of France, as well as the State, were going to experience a shock violent and a persecution such as had never been seen before in this beautiful kingdom. « 

    The experience has shown too much nowadays which side was the illusion. Mr. Larticle was evidently there for fear of falling. A little too much warned against the Sister, he confused, perhaps without too much notice, the jolt or the agitation of the Church of France of which she spoke, with the fall of the universal Church, announced by the fiery incendiary of Germany and by all the false prophets of the so-called reform. However, what a huge difference from one to the other! He was still making a false application of the passage of the Gospel in which Jesus tells us that the gates of hell will never prevail against his Church; but where he does not say that his Church will not be agitated or shaken: this would be contrary to the Gospel itself and to the experience of all ages, nothing being more formally or more often announced to it by its divine author, that the persecutions she was

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to experience, and to experience, all the rest of it. It is true that, without ill intention, the most skillful theologians can sometimes be mistaken in the very clearest points, if they are not on guard against the prevention, which soon leaves no more to see things in their true day, and sometimes lose sight of even the most obvious principles. How many examples could we not quote, and which would prove that in such matters a judge must not be less afraid of the illusion of his own mind than that which he wishes to fight in the minds of others! otherwise he can easily fall into the trap that he tries to avoid.

She lets herself be persuaded, and her timidity makes her herself condemned by the fear of being in error. – She burns her first revelations.

    However, the fear of heresy, of which the timid Sister had been struck, contributed not a little to make her decide to abandon everything. She even resolved to fight even to the thought of her project, like a trap of the devil that heaven disapproved of. (It was precisely in this that her illusion was, or rather the one in which she was forced to give.) She even made a general confession of it, and mourned her enterprise as a crime. Knowing that M. Audouin had received grief, and that on his occasion there had arisen some little confusion between him and his confidant, she did so much with him that she obliged him, as it were, to burn the notebooks. which contained all that she had told him and had written on behalf of God.

    He did so, and was strongly reprimanded by it, and by his own conscience, and by Mr. Larticle himself, which, after accusing it of credulity, reproached it with having acted with too much haste. « At least, » said he, « it was necessary to preserve all that was concerned with the subject of the Church; I should have been glad to examine it with a little more attention. It was too late, the flames had consumed the whole thing. But God knows, when he wills, to reproduce all that has been destroyed, and nothing hinders his plans: this is how we saw the work of a great prophet reborn from the ashes where an impious King l had reduced.

Humiliations and sorrows that come back to her.

    What sorrows! what humiliations did not this holy daughter have to devour at that time, and to which the death of Mr. Audouin soon came to put an end to it? Grief and humiliation on the part of the other Sisters, and even of some who, in spite of her precautions, had discovered his conversations with the late M. Audouin, and who secretly triumphed over his disgrace. Those, especially, who had little virtue for having taken offense at her, no longer regarded her as but a hypocrite, whom it was good to humble to cure her of her presumption and her pride.

    As a result, we undertook to humiliate him in every way and with every intention. She became the object of the most pungent ironies; it was called the Visionary, and we know enough what insulting meaning is attached to this word. What made her more ridiculous in their eyes was to have heard her, from a place where they had come to listen to her, to tell Audouin that she had seen the King, the Queen, and the Family. Royale compromised, and probably enveloped in the misfortunes which she announced to France, and victims themselves of this revolution; which, no doubt, seemed the height of delirium and extravagance.

    Grief and humiliation on the part of her directors (1), to whom, since M. Audouin, she could not and dared not open her conscience, without exposing herself to being overwhelmed with reproaches, and to which she no longer had to to say that human miseries were used to humiliate them even more.

    Grief and humiliation, finally, from God himself, who sometimes seemed to withdraw from her all his consolations and favors to abandon her to herself and to the triumph of her enemies. During these times of

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    (1) This is not the first time that, in order to test his saints, God has allowed their directors, for a time, to despise the judgment they have made in the extraordinary ways in which he led them. St. Therese alone would provide proof. It is here especially that one can say with St. Gregory, that it is the art of the arts: Ars artium regimen animorum . From Pastor ……

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evidence, she felt nothing but disgust, dryness and unbearable drought. Heaven, turned bronze, seemed to have joined the earth, and even to hell, to torment her and make her suffer.

    It is true, in a sense, that virtue is self-sufficient, and that it finds in itself, or rather in that which never allows it to be tempted above its strength, what to compensate for everything else. So, without abandoning herself to grief or, still less, to complaint, the Sister did not oppose all that could be said or done against her, but the sweetness, the patience, the most perfect resignation to the will of Heaven; and her constancy even compelled her sisters to render her an esteem and friendship too well deserved, and which for a long time had only increased more and more.

Her sorrows and sufferings of body.

    It was not enough to form a cross worthy of her courage. To these sorrows and humiliations of mind were to be added sufferings and humiliations of body, to

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the sacrifice, complete and perfect, and the worthy victim of God and the designs which he had upon her; at her request, Heaven granted her of all kinds. It may be said of her, as of Job, that God allowed the devil to strike her body after vainly trying to shake her soul. But he who gave so much power against her to hell, has always so strongly supported her against his attacks, that he can also boast of the constancy of his servant, insulting the weakness of his enemy. Well, Satan, can he tell you, did you consider this girl who belongs to me and that all your efforts could not bring down? Numquid considerasti servum die? (Job, 2, 3.) Have you seen this little maid who also despises your offers and threats, as well as your mistreatment? Numquid considerasti? What do you think? Is it a common virtue that is his, and is it not above all your efforts? Yes, Satan, I predict, your defeat is assured, malice is vanquished, and all that you do against it will only end up with your shame and confusion.

Following her afflictions. – Continuous fever.

    The Sister of the Nativity was attacked at first by a slow fever which, for three or four years, undermined her strength to the point of being feared for her life: this fever continued to give her unbearable and very obstinate headaches: her chest was affected to the point that it was treated as pulmonic. Some time later, a large and fleshy tumor appeared in her left knee, and it was necessary to amputate it by a most painful incision. The surgeon (M. Chauvin), who performed the operation, seemed moved, and shared, so to speak, the failure of the nuns who assisted him; the patient was the only one to be insensible: her eyes fixed on her crucifix, she encouraged them and exhorted them to resignation and patience by the examples given to us by Jesus on the cross: it seemed as if all that she suffering was happening on the body of another. We shall be less surprised when she has explained this mystery to us, by telling us how God, on this occasion, wished to suspend the natural sensibility, as he sometimes did in favor of the martyrs of the faith.

Her patience in her troubles, and her resignation in a very painful operation.

    The place from which so much live flesh had been drawn became a large wound, which, instead of closing, degenerated into a deposit of cancerous mood, where the paralysis threw itself and made the limb crippled, so much that at the judgment of the doctor (Revault) and the surgeon who saw her, she should never use it; and, indeed, she was sometimes obliged to use two sticks to walk, and there was no appearance, I should perhaps say no natural possibility, that she could never do otherwise.

Surprising and unexpected healing of her wound considered incurable.

    After a few weeks of bandages, the Sister, filled with confidence, had recourse to God and the protectress whose power she had already experienced so many times. She begged the director (I think it was still under Mr. Audouin) to be willing to tell him a Mass in honor of the Passion of our Lord J.-C. and pains of the Blessed Virgin at the foot of the cross: she also asked the community to make a novena for her with the same intention. During this novena, the Sister felt a better way to return the use of her leg, until she could do without sticks, which she carried for a few more days so that one would be less struck by the thing. But what was the astonishment of the nuns when they perceived the Sister of the Nativity carrying to the kitchen a log of wood which would have made the charge of a strong man, and that, however, she had put all alone on her shoulder? All she had left, she told me, was discomfort in her knuckle, almost as if it had been a little too tight from the garter, a discomfort which never ceased until the director had fulfilled her promise.

She is alone in not daring to ensure a miracle.

    This event caused a stir in the city. Mr. Revault declared that he should not be grateful for a cure which he did not naturally think possible; the surgeon, seeing the patient and her scar, exclaimed:  » Here is a miracle! The whole community believed him and repeated it as he did; the Sister was, of all, the least bold in assuring him; she even declared to me that she did not dare yet, but that she did not doubt, however, that there had been there a particular assistance of J.-C. and her holy Mother who, nevertheless, did not want to exempt him from suffering in many other ways.

    This is certainly not the tone of an enthusiast, even less of a hypocrite who would not fail to take advantage of this opportunity to make dupes and admire them, by exaggerating all he could to be miraculous in this surprising cure. There true virtue always seeks to hide itself; always timid as to what can make her remark, she hides the extraordinary graces; and the conduct of the Sister in this circumstance, as in many others, sufficiently proves that she had never spoken of the favors of which heaven has filled her, if she had not known that it was the will of God, and would have believed that his glory was too much interested in this revelation.

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Her usual infirmities. – The generosity of her resolve to make God the sacrifice of her life in a critical point.

    No year passed, or very little, in which she suffered a serious illness which she had asked of God: the most considerable led her to the gates of death and weakened her so much that he it has always remained a tremor that is felt especially in the head. For the height of disgrace (if, however, one can name disgrace of the sufferings she had solicited as favors from heaven), an effort led to a hernia which, for many years, has been her heaviest cross, the one of which she is She’s sure she has to die. It is not, however, what afflicts him, but it is the fear of having to resort to the help of art. The Sorbonne was consulted in this respect; and on the decision which she gave, that they were not obliged to use these kinds of means, she generously and without balancing the sacrifice of her life: she abandoned herself to the help of Providence alone; and, in spite of all that the doctors said, she only trusted God. Thus this generous girl rose above all consideration by fear and at the mere appearance of what could displease the infinitely pure eyes of her divine spouse, and braved to the fear of death.

    Thus, in the most severe trials, in the most profound humiliations and in the most intense sufferings, the last ten or twenty years of the life of this holy daughter, whose tribulations have only rendered the virtues always more pure and unshakeable, according to the testimony of the Community. Nothing has changed her patience, her gentleness, her obedience, or her charity; she is so profoundly humble, that she always puts herself under the others, and is always bothered by the esteem and trust she has for her.

Her worries on the occasion of the new inspirations that God sends her.

    We have seen that she repented and even accused of her past revelations; she had even thanked God for having drawn her from error and forced her to open her eyes, depriving her of all means of succeeding in a project which had caused her so much trouble; she had even for a while regarded thought as a temptation of the devil to be rejected; and it was as she herself admits, precisely in that consisted of her illusion: she was persuaded that so many obstacles together, which seemed to make the thing absolutely impossible « were a good proof that God does not did not approve; and in the views of God these very obstacles were so many means of succeeding. Finally, she believed that heaven had rejected her, while he was working to make her more fit for her grand designs. Such has always been the conduct of Providence, the instrument which it uses only pleases it when it is weak, and its work appears only when all the human means have disappeared: Infirma mundi elegit Deus, ut confundat fortia. (I. ad Cor 1, 27.)

Unnecessary of her new attempts.

    The time of great trials passed for the Sister; the droughts had given place to new lights which, by dissipating her errors, made her, as if in spite of herself, conceive new hopes without her being able to foresee clearly what would be its success. God appeared to appeal decisions he had permitted without ever ratifying them; for a long time an inner voice pressed her; but she dared no longer share with anyone any of her new favors: M. Audouin was no longer alive, and since his death no director had entered her sights and had taken the matter on the same side. One day, however, she went so far as to say to one of them that God was telling her that one day, and soon, she would be allowed to renew forever the vow of practices, of which we shall speak. soon, and she was very much at heart. « It will not be while I am there,  » he retorted. The humble and timid Sister says no more; she calmly waited for God himself to provide him with the means to execute what he seemed to ask of her, for she was more than ever opposed between the fear of illusion and that of disobedience to grace.

What she announces is true to the letter.

    Whether inspiration or simple conjecture, what she said was soon to run. M; Lesne de Montaubert was appointed to the vicariate of Saint-Leonard de Fougeres; it was a question of casting eyes on someone to replace this excellent director with the nuns of the city. One day, at their parlor, they were talking to the Sister, who kept a profound silence, one of whom came to name two or three subjects, one of which was supported more. I assure you, mother, that it will not be this one, interrupted the Sister; it will not even be one of those named. So we changed characters; and among the names that came on the scene, it was found that there was one which seemed to please her, though she had never before seen him who bore it. She has confessed to me since God gave her knowledge. The subject that was first named, and that she had rejected so

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vividly, has been placed by the municipality in a cure which he owes only to his scandalous and schismatic oath, and from which the legitimate pastor has been driven off by force. She will tell us what she thinks of the schism and intrusion that make the Church of France groan today.

    It was already a few weeks ago that, on the powers that I had received unexpectedly from the abbot of Goyon, superior of the community, I exercised with these good nuns the function of director, which I entered on July 18, 1790.

    With the deepest humility and the most tender love of God, I had noticed in the Sister of the Nativity a faith so strong that it made her as to discover the person of Jesus Christ even in the director, who, unworthy as he is, held his place: no, she would hardly have spoken to himself with more submission or respect … For my part, I confess that I found in everything what she said to me was a good natural sense, an unusual sense of reasoning and reasoning, a rectitude of conscience and of justice, I do not know what finally captivated me, especially when she spoke to me about God and his divine attributes.

Praise that the superior, supported by the testimony of the whole community.

    Madam Superior, who was then Madame Michelle-Pélagie Binel, said in the religion of the Seraphines, giving me the list of nuns, « Sir, » said she, « we have one, among others, who has been waiting here for a long time, and who has particular reasons for giving you a discharge of heart in all her life; it is our Sister of the Nativity. She has asked me a great deal to propose it to you and to ask you at what time she might say a few words to you in the little parlor. This is my commission, she continued; but, Sir, I think I ought to add something of myself in favor of a saint whom you do not yet know, but that you may have occasion to know better than any one; that is at least her wish. It would be necessary, monsieur, to live with her to be able to appreciate the solidity of her virtues; to see how much she carries obedience, self-denial and true humility. Always simple and always equal in her manners, she carefully avoids all that seems to deviate from the common way and could observe the point of perfection where she has come, and the graces that God has made her; for, sir, God has given her some lights which he has given to very few persons, and of which, I believe, he has a design to make known to you more things than he has done to any other since very long time.

    « You will know, sir, that there was a time when her predictions made noise, as well as her virtues. She had a lot to suffer, and was tested in many ways, especially on this occasion: she was alarmed to the point that, to cut off the visits of the people of the world, there are more than fifteen years that she has given up the parlor altogether and never goes there. We hardly dare to show him either esteem or friendship; and the surest way of pleasing her is to appear to despise her, and to make no mention of what she says, what she does, or all that concerns her. She only eats and is clothed with our remains. According to the custom of the Community, each nun wears the same dress seven years a day, and another seven years a night. After fourteen years of service, these old dresses are discarded, and some kind of clothing is made for the poor. Well, sir, it is from those old, faded dresses that the poor Sister of the Nativity especially loves to be clothed; she makes at least some undergarments which she wears to the last piece, although no poor man would receive them or use them. One day, entering her cell, I saw her so adorned with these poor rags, and I said inwardly: Here are the liveries of virtue, the ornaments of humility! How is such a precious treasure so badly hidden, while one so magnificently covers vice even personified? This is so with her food; I will not speak to you, sir, of the extraordinary manner in which this holy soul has been conducted. It will be up to you to appreciate it on the account that it must give you: all I can say to you certain is that I would like to be like her. « 

Justice rendered generally to all the nuns of France, on the occasion of their courageous conduct in the revolution.

    My expectation of being edified by many of these good nuns has not been frustrated, it is an admission that I owe to truth and oppressed innocence. Among some inevitable and inconsequential minutiae, I have seen virtues that the world despises because it does not know them; and he does not know them because he is not worthy. When once we have piety an idea modeled on the manner in which it is spoken in circles, it is not surprising that there is only disgust and contempt for the practices of the cloister. How can we not find ridiculous rules that make us a duty of evangelical perfection, when we have no other gospel than the maxims that the gospel disapproves of, nor any other religion than certain philosophical jargon, which means nothing, or does it only mean ignorance and impiety?

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    It is not known, in this licentious tone, that religious souls must take all that which relates and can contribute to the perfection of their state; so they have not done it; and who can say how much this fidelity to the little things done for God gives strength for the accomplishment of spiritual duties? These are the opportunities that learn to judge. Yes, it is the moments of trial that make known what we are, as the tree knows the fruit. In a circumstance where it was all about them, a circumstance which caused so many people of every sex and condition to be apostatized, these souls, whom we regarded as weak and minute spirits, did not believe that they could to add to the sacrifice of their goods that of their consciences; they have distinguished what they owed to God and what they owed to Caesar. These Christian heroines did not balance to expose, to offer even their own life, to keep their faith.

    Thus, to the shame of a sex which owes them the example, we have seen these timid doves rise by their constancy, and glide at the height of the eagle; those who did not know what to pray and groan, armed themselves with heroic courage, which made them superior to threats, and almost inaccessible to the fear of death; leaving no resource for calumny, they have silenced impudence, made crime pale, and fend off the fury of tyrants. Infirma and contemptibilia elegit Deus, ut confundat fortia . (I. Cor. I, 27, 28.) Yes, in spite of hell and all its henchmen, in spite of all that their rage had been able to vomit against them slander and insulting suppositions, the nuns France proved by their firmness in the most eminent dangers, that their cloisters, which were destroyed, still contained virtues worthy of the first centuries of the Church; virtues that honor the society of the faithful; virtues which religion reveres and which the world itself is compelled to admire; virtues, finally, that God alone inspires and supports and that he alone can reward. It is with a great heart and with much joy that I take this opportunity to pay homage to the nuns of France in general. Let’s go back to the one that must, in particular, occupy us.

First interview with the Sister of the Nativity.

    She was waiting for me alone, with a thoughtful air, at the place where I went at the appointed hour. After greeting each other, she asked me for permission to sit, and sat on the spot. It was the first time we saw each other. I confess that I was struck by that venerable and emaciated face, by that veiled brow, by her eyes where modesty was painted, and especially by that air of predestination which can not surrender, and which trumps infinitely all this which is called beauty and personal merit in the people of the world. One of the most advantageous and proportioned limbs, with hunched shoulders, a neglected and somewhat rustic gait, a trembling head, a slightly elongated figure, strongly pronounced features, that is all that I have noticed from her physique; but to render this imprint of sanctity, I will almost say of divinity, which sometimes recalls, even on her face, a certain image of the beauty of her soul; it ought to be painted at the table of communion.

The Sister intends to give full confidence to her new director.

    Sir, « she said, lowering her eyes and speaking slowly (this is the only time she gave me that name), sir, my name of religion is » Sister of the Nativity. «  I come, on the permission of our mother, to ask you for your care and kindness, which I need more than anyone. « If I can be of any use to you, my Sister, » I replied, « you can count on me, for all will be well, if I render you as many services as I have the will. « You can do much, » she replied, « if, as I have every reason to believe, God wants to use you for my sanctification and my tranquility. » Even before I had the honor to know you or to have never seen you, « she continued, » I was already convinced of your good will in all that concerns the glory of God and the salvation of souls, and that is what give me so much confidence. I will give you something to exercise your zeal, Father, for my needs are great, and I will give you work. (I can assure you that in this, at least, she was not mistaken.) You see me, she continued, aged sixty, to something close; my infirmities, even more than that age, warn me that I am approaching the end of my career, and everything makes me feel that this term can not henceforth be very far removed.

    Father, allow me the term, she added, because already you are, and I see that you will be even more (this is the only name she has always given me later, even in My Father, I have many things to do before appearing before my judge: sins to expiate, virtues to acquire, a great account to give you of the state of my soul and of a conscience which I wish to make you the depositary. Is it permissible for me, Father, to speak to you here with an open heart? – Yes, my daughter, I told her,

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you can explain yourself with all confidence and freedom; so she went on almost in these terms:

    Then you will know, Father, that, no matter how sinful or unworthy I am, God looks at me with an eye of compassion; However, it has been many years since he gave me enlightenment and knowledge which, at the time, suffered from contradictions which they might not have experienced, if one had been a witness then of what is happening today and what I’m still planning … I feared a lot to be in the illusion; but for some time, and still more recently, on the occasion of your entry, my conscience makes me fear to bury with me in the tomb what God has made known to me only for the salvation of many. Eh! which account!

    These overwhelming reflections make my life an unbearable burden, if an enlightened guide, and speaking to me in the name of God and his Church, does not share it with me. It seems to me, Father? that God, who sends you to us, inspired me to address you for that purpose, to appeal in the last resort to your tribunal, and to refer to your decision on all the points which concern me. According to what I see, Father, you will be our last director, and I wish you to be mine in particular. I assure you that I will die happy in your hands, when you have heard the detail of my life, as of all that has happened to me on the side of God; when I finally have discharged my conscience on yours. In all this one must only want what God wants. But will you, my Father, have the charity to relieve me in advance by promising me to use it all the good and decide that God will lead you, and that you will see him according to his will and his laws, like those of his holy Church, from which one can never depart?

    Yes, my daughter, I replied, I promise you to do my best. I will see you. Pray for God to enlighten me and not allow me to be mistaken in a point of this importance. What she granted me right away, adding: On my part, I promise you, Father, to faithfully expose you my doubts and worries as best as I can, to go through everything what you will, and to have for you the docility of a child; it is the conduct that God prescribes for you. You have come, Father, to give me the word I desired and which calms me; but, as your retreat exercises do not permit you to engage in any other occupation now, we shall, if you please, hand over our first eight-day interview.

She gives to him, her interior practices to which she had formerly engaged by vow.

    I will only pass to you some pious practices, which I beg you to examine at your leisure; they will give me an opportunity to tell you many things. I will explain in the following why, how and by whom they were prescribed to me. You will then tell me whether or not I have to renew the wish for the rest of my life.

    At these words, the Sister passed me a half sheet of paper, folded into a roll and tied with a thread; after which she left me, begging me to excuse her.

    Having returned to my apartment, I opened the Sister’s paper, and read the following six practices, which, during her last illness, she had had the abbess write. I will transcribe them word-for-word, with a few spelling mistakes.

    « Praised, adored, loved and thanked be Jesus Christ in heaven and the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

    1. »I will make as many visits to the Blessed Sacrament as there are hours in the day, from five o’clock in the morning to nine o’clock in the evening, and every hour, reflecting on the interior of the room. Sacred Heart of J.-C, in memory of every mystery of the life and glory of this sweet Savior, I will meditate on all the virtues of which he is the exemplary, according as they will present themselves to me in every mystery; and, in particular, I will meditate on his humiliation and annihilation.

    « I will take the mysteries one by one, beginning at five in the morning with Creation, and at nine o’clock in the evening with the eternal Kingdom of Jesus Christ in Heaven. I do, however, except Thursdays, from six o’clock in the evening until Friday, all day, the visits of which will all be used to honor, in turn, the mysteries of Death and Passion of my Savior. All these visits will be of mind and heart in the pure spirit of faith and love, and not of body, except at the hours when I will find myself in observance with the Community. This first practice will be in the spirit of sacrifice, by which, by adoring Jesus Christ to the Blessed Sacrament, I intend to repair by his Sacred Heart, and in union with him, all the ingratitude, scorn, irreverence and sacrilege committed against this adorable sacrament of love in particular, to repair the outrages he has received and receives from my sins.

    To fulfill this first practice, it will be enough, every hour of the day, to occupy myself internally with each mystery, the length of a Pater and a Ave. In case of forgetfulness in an hour, I can pay for it in the next hour; I may even, willingly, foresee some dissipating affair, advance or delay these visits, by putting an hour on another.

    2. I will not spend a quarter of an hour without remembering the presence of God, either by raising my heart towards him, or by praying him by mental or vocal prayer, unless I am asleep or surprised by some hasty occupations or embarrassments. extraordinary and unforeseen. The only voluntary dissipation will make me guilty of failure at this point.

    3. I will love the neighbor only of pure charity, in the union of that of J.-C, renouncing, for this purpose, all natural inclinations or aversions, which I shall take care to combat and to stifle the movements as soon as I see them.

    4. I will try to live, by the grace of God, in a general detachment from all things and from myself, to attach myself only to God and only to him.

    5. I will take care to hold myself in complete surrender and submission to the will of God, in the different pains of mind and body that will come to me, and generally in the different events of life, and that by a sacrifice where I will try to converse with this feeling: My heart is before you, O my God! as a victim always ready to be sacrificed according to your pleasure, your pure love and your greatest glory.

    6. I will observe my vows and my rules in the way that I will know to be the most agreeable to God and the most perfect, in the sense that I will not commit myself voluntarily and with reflection

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this imperfection. Nor will I be allowed to overlook the opportunities for practicing virtues, especially humility, with a view and a deliberate purpose. By the principle of this virtue, I will always cling to the truths of the Faith. I want to « live and die a daughter of the Holy Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church. I will follow in all the movements of grace, and be entirely subject to obedience.

    « I put these six practices in the sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary, to obtain the grace of the Son and the protection of the Mother, so necessary to be faithful to it until death. With regard to these practices, any involuntary forgetfulness, sickness, infirmity of body or mind, any spiritual or temporal occupation, will exempt me from fault; there will be only the deliberate and thoughtful will that makes sin. »

    As a result of these practices we read an approval which was not signed, and that Sister and Madam Superior told me of the late M. Audouin. It allowed her to engage in it for all her life, but on the condition that, if ever this promise were to cause her trouble and anxiety, it would not subsist, and that besides, her confessor would always, in in this case, the power to explain it, to cut it off, or even to suppress it altogether, if he thought it more expedient … .. For a time, the Sister had been very troubled on this occasion by a certain decision which made her understand that a nun could not make any wish without the participation of the superior, and that consequently this one was null of right. It seemed to me that this decision was not correct, at least as to the application made by the author, and I thought that a nun could of herself make herself a vow to purely interior practices, which, far from disturbing good order, are but the perfection of the very rule which it has embraced, and tend evidently only to the greater glory of God, as to the greater good of that soul. ; especially if it seems that it is God Himself who prescribes it; for the divine will, well manifested, always bears its proof with it. Such was the decision of a saint and religious scholar, that God had, so to speak, sent a retreat to this Community, expressly to destroy in the mind of the Sister the bad effects which one of her confessors.

The Director authorizes these practices.

    Finally, after having weighed everything at leisure and examined this wish in all the circumstances which we shall see in the following, I found that the old and new reasons of the Sister were likely to tip the scales. As a result, I gave, in the sense of Mr. Audouin, a last decision to which the Sister is determined to abide, without consulting anyone. This decision allows him to renew this wish at the Christmas holidays in 1790, with this condition: « without being obliged under pain of sin. By that I was accomplishing, without knowing it, what the Sister had said a few months before, that in a short time she would be allowed to resume her practices, and even to renew her vow for ever. Let’s go back to our narration.

A historical account of the various interviews that the editor had with the Sister.

    So this first interview took place, which was soon followed by forty or fifty more or less long conversations, the detailed account of which forms the collection which I present to the Christian reader, in the name of the author whom I alone believe, and to whom, according to all appearance, Christianity is indebted to it. The Sister is, in my opinion, only the organ of the instrument which God has used; and the faults, I repeat, of whatever nature they may be, which will be found in the work, are the only part which the secretary or editor has the right to claim, the only one which he begs to be attributed to him in this whole thing.

    Only two nuns were in our secret, that is to say, the first who had made the opening for me, and Madame le Breton, known as Sister de Sainte Madeleine, then depositary, and having become superior (1) a few months after my entry. All that happened between the Sister and me was a deep mystery to the rest of the Community. The little parlor communicating with the director’s room was again chosen for the place of communications; and, notwithstanding the precautions which have been taken, we have seen, and the Sister herself, as a kind of miracle, that, passing necessarily before the doors of the other Sisters, in all her comings and goings, she was not perceived, nor even suspected of any of them; the step was all the more slippery, especially since it had all been missed the first time, and this unfortunate little parlor had been the source of the persécutions she had suffered in

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    (1) Upon request, I was charged by the superiors to secretly make this election to prevent the one the municipality proposed to do. This step was probably one of the main reasons for the particular persecution that forced me to flee to escape death.

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inside the community, and it was even banned for that reason.

    When I had come to speak theology, or to argue over some philosophical question, I had sometimes carried simplicity to the point of making myself inwardly grateful, as if I had known something; but when I heard the Sister of the Nativity speak to me openly about certain points of spirituality, I saw the edifice of my own love vanish; and, almost overwhelmed by its light, I was often obliged to confess internally my ignorance and to agree with myself that I had scarcely been the schoolboy of the one of whom, however, I was the director; It was not that I had not had occasion to hear certain souls take a turn that announced enough that they thought they were inspired, and perhaps they wanted me to have believed it. Yes, others had told me about inspirations; but I can assure you that no one had spoken to me about it, and I think it would not be easy to mistake it, if we had some principles as to how to discern in this with the false, which is solid and real, of what is only imaginary.

    Nothing more edifying, nothing more capable of bringing to good, than the conversations of the Sister of the Nativity: everything in her breathes virtue and makes hate vice. Since, above all, she had given me unreserved confidence, I have criticized myself a hundred times for being so far from perfection; and a hundred times I have thanked God, as with a grace of extraordinary salvation, for having called me to the conduct of such a virtuous and holy soul. Make heaven realize that this grace does not become a new motive of condemnation! All who have had the advantage of knowing it, have said the same thing to themselves: when will I be the Sister of the Nativity? When will I love God, when will I serve him, when will I be as humble, as mortified as this good nun is, so faithful to my duties, so detached from me?

How she received the light that God communicated to her.

    I was always charmed to find some pretext to introduce it into certain discussions, because of the advantage that I would obtain for myself and the others; it was then that, with the intention of realizing what was happening in herself, she told me, with the simplicity of a child, the most astonishing and marvelous things. I was surprised at the last point to see so much knowledge with so much timidity, so much elevation of mind with so little culture; thoughts so sublime with so much humility; her great ideas and her luminous reflections filled and captivated my mind so much, that the hours flowed like moments, and that often, without our noticing it, our conversations were pushed well into the night.

    The most abstract points of dogma and morality she explained to me with a precision and a precision, a depth and a clarity capable, in my opinion, of astonishing the theologians most versed in these kinds of matters, as it is arrived by reading her reflections. With her energetic expressions and her ever-natural and always just comparisons, she discovered the pitfalls of the enemy of salvation, like the means of preventing or avoiding them. It marked the gradation of the attentions or abandonment of God, the struggles of nature and grace in a still shaky soul, the secrets that God uses to achieve his ends, despite all obstacles …. If she had not stopped suddenly, to say to me, God do not make me see any more, or forbid me to go further, I should have thought that she had been present at the council of the Godhead .

    It sometimes happens, she said to me one day, that I see in God things that I do not understand; I feel the truth without understanding them. So when God wants me to explain myself, he suggests to me terms whose meaning I do not always see, I only see that I have to use it. And indeed, every time she asked me what it meant to say that she had to use, it was a term that no other could match the energy, and it was impossible to replace . I do not hear it, she said, but I see that it must be written: such was, for example, the term vulture, to express an infernal monster she had seen in hell tearing her victims with terrible nails and beaks. She saw that the shape of this monster was a lot of the bird; but as she could not imagine that there had ever been a bird of this kind, nor of this cruelty, she did not know what name to give it to him, and J.-C. told him that it was necessary to name him vulture; what she did. Thus she sometimes had the idea without the expression, and sometimes the expression and the idea, without knowing its propriety or true analogy.

    Most often, she continued, God gives me the idea and leaves me the task of rendering it by myself; I work there with more or less success. Soon, or he approves of my efforts, or he provides me

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the proper terms that I could not find. When he discovers something of the decrees of his providence, for example, he begins by making me feel at the bottom of the blade that I must not even desire to go farther than he wants; this respectful fear which he impresses me, forbids me any question on knowledge which he reserves for himself; and this defense on my part is so sharply intimated to me that I would rather die than go beyond; but it is rare for God to make such rigorous defenses; most often he gives me more freedom over what he makes known to me: I see in him a certain desire for complacency which not only allows me to ask him more, but which seems to invite me to it; then he satisfies my desires by this inner way; a thousand times more eloquent than words; and whose human eloquence can never approach.

    That’s where she came from, that at times she had so much trouble giving up her ideas. She found no term, no comparison to make herself heard; but then her silences, her breathing, her energetic tone said much more than the rest, and usually made up for the lack of expressions. « Father, » she said to me, « ah! I see or see things that I can not say, and yet I would like to witness to you. Ah! that man is weak! he can only speak or be heard; he can not speak of God; but also, with so much weakness, how would he speak of this infinite being? My Father, I saw in God I was invested with Divinity … Diving and absorbed in the divine being, I had, so to speak, no more existence of its own … I adored the high majesty of the one who preceded all times …. And so he escaped from those expressions of which the truly prophetic energy prevailed over everything, and could say that, like Moses, Isaiah, the prophet king, and St. Paul, this happy ignorant was deprived of the word that because she had too much to say, and that she had approached too near Divinity, etc., etc. Dominas Deus, ecce nescio loqui . (Jer 1, 6.)

    More than once, he has asked me all at once: « Do you hear me, father, for I confess that I do not understand myself? All I can assure you is that I think I see all this in God, and that he forces me, so to speak, to speak as I do: tell me only if you do not find anything there contrary to Holy Scripture or the decisions of the Church; because, in this case, I promise you that I would give it up altogether (he needed an answer before continuing). As for what is contained in Holy Scripture, among the things I say to you, I can assure you, Father, that I only speak to you because God shows it to me; and when I would never have had knowledge of either Holy Scripture, Faith, or Church; when there has never been a gospel in the world, I will not say less to you all that I say to you, because I see it in God, and God commands me to say it to you without my being able to to dispense; Which she repeated to me several times, adding to me, like Saint Paul in the Galatians, that what she had told me and had written, she had neither learned in the commerce of men nor in their writings, but that she knew it only from Jesus who had revealed it to her: Neque enim ego ab homine accepti illud, neque didici, sed per revelationem Jesu-Christi. (Gal 1,12).

Sister’s instructions on distractions in prayer.

    The Sister was not always on this elevation of thoughts, she knew how to lower the tone and vary her style on the variety of objects she had to deal with. This is how, when she told me of her way of praying, she was talking to me one day about distractions, bad thoughts, and all that hinder the exercise of God’s presence. « In my opinion, Father, there are bad thoughts like conversations; both are often harmful to innocence as well as to prayer and the exercise of God’s presence. I think there are few people, no matter how inward they may be, who have more or less experience. At first the mind stops at foreign thoughts, vain, frivolous, and useless; he stops there all the more willingly, as they present him nothing but very innocent and very legitimate in appearance. The very necessity of a permitted recreation makes them look upon it as indispensable recreation; but one does not pay attention that from there to a bad thought there is only one step, and a very slippery step, that it is only too easy and too ordinary to cross.

    « For, first, this vain and frivolous thought distracts and draws the spirit from the presence of God: disposition, already very dangerous. It’s a fish out of the water; it is a vessel which has left the harbor, and which, tossed by the waves, may become the plaything of a storm; it is a soldier who has left his entrenchment and has exposed himself to the blows of the enemy. So, Father, see how the demon knows how to take advantage of a position that is so advantageous to him!

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from this innocent thought soon succeeds one which is less so; another arises, which still bids and soon gives way to an often very criminal thought. The demon, always on the watch, never fails to take advantage of these kinds of imprudences to seize our imagination. It is then necessary to fight against a powerful enemy, to whom we have had the clumsiness of giving the entrance: what attempt does it not suggest, and what becomes if we stopped there with some complacency? ! Alas! Father, we escape shipwreck only when we return to the asylum of the presence of God, and we seldom return without having received some considerable wound in the fight.

    « How many times did Jesus not show me the danger to which I had exposed myself when I left his holy presence! So, my Father, I try never to leave it: that is why conversations are so dependent on me, they give me more to do than the most abstract meditations. The reason is, Father, that I must continually be on my guard, so as not to give a prize, on leaving the holy presence of God, as to allow nothing to be seen from my efforts to those of my Sisters with whom I find myself. Judge what work! how much I must desire the end of recess! Oh! I assure you that I often desire it. However, my Father, God makes me see that I must not refuse myself; that, on the contrary, charity should make me a duty to find myself with my Sisters and to converse with them. I try to lend myself to it without giving myself up to it.

Her kind of prayer.

    As for my meditations, its nature Father, I’ll tell you two words today, so that you can tell me if I can reassure myself on how I usually do it. First, I try to apply my mind to prayer; but it often happens that a more powerful attraction leads to other considerations, especially in my communions. The presence of God takes hold of my understanding so strongly that sometimes the senses are affected by it. I then see God have things that leave me no freedom to remember the subject of meditation. All my time is spent considering what God makes me see. Upon which, Father, it must be observed that when I would have been guilty of some unfaithfulness, I then receive reprimands which cover me with confusion and repentance. I ask God for forgiveness, who always receives me with the same kindness; for his reproaches are always those of mercy and tenderness.

    « The good God never reproached me for this method of making prayer; only my conscience makes me understand that it would be good to consult you to be more at ease on this side. So, Father, if you find it good and you have no reason to oppose it, I will continue to do it in the same way.

Graces she received in communion.

    « It is rare for me to receive communion without receiving some special favor from God. Far from asking for it, I have asked him more than once to take it away from me or to moderate its effects, of which I am all ashamed, recognizing me as absolutely unworthy. It is impossible for me to understand how such a great God can descend to this point; how he can love so much a puny and poor creature, an unfortunate sinner as I am … Alas! Father, he does not listen to me: the more I try to represent my indignity to him, the more I put interest in my petitions, and the more he seems to persist in filling me with graces I have never deserved, and of which I fear the account that I will have to make, especially considering the little profit that I have drawn so far. « 

Anticipated account of the persecution excited against the editor.

   From the first day that she had me write, she had told me that there was no time to lose for us. For three or four months she told me about her conscience and her revelations, she repeated to me twenty times that she was afraid that we would not have time to write down everything she had to me. to say before I had to flee; what happened as she had planned. Although there was then no appearance of me being chased away so soon and with so much haste, there was talk, on the contrary, of assigning to the priests officials a fixed fate which could assure them an honest subsistence, without their being nothing indebted to the public for the august functions of their ministry. It seems that the Sister of the Nativity was never fooled by these beautiful appearances, which deceived so many politicians, however, since after announcing them, she took so many measures to prevent the consequences and tear off her project to the sinking which He was still threatening him.

    With this intention, she often repeated to me that she feared the effects of the storm which rumbled against us and our project; she told me that the furious demon was going to make the last efforts to make it fail a second time; she told me how he should go about it, and how I should deceive his waiting with the help of God … .. « My Father, she came to tell me one day, beware of your enemy ;

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war is declared against you, even your loss has been conjured; we are already looking for all the means to catch you in default: we want first to your reputation. There are bad guys trying to blacken you in the public eye. Grace, my Father, do not admit any woman to your home, under any pretext whatsoever; for I see that this is where we must begin: so if we come to consult you for some affair of conscience, answer immediately that you only speak of it in the confessional, and return it on-the-spot. field those consultants at church or at home. Believe me, Father, you will be well pleased to have followed my advice. » I did not want to miss it. I knew, a little later, that this unworthy maneuver had been attempted in the very time that the Sister gave me this advice, and I knew it from one of the very people who had been asked to employ it. .

    « Then, » she continued, « you must pursue yourself as disobedient to the law of the oath, which you will not be able to do, and which you will not do: you will be forced to separate from us: what a blow, Father, for the Community, and for me in particular! At these words, the poor Sister seemed to be deeply moved by grief; after a few tears, she added: « But something must happen, to adore divine providence and resign itself to its orders in everything. The test will be terrible, Father! I can not tell you how far the thing will go; but I see and I can assure you that there will be blood spilled and a terrible disorder in France. Let us prepare to suffer; all press for the notes you intend to draw. « 

    However one wishes to explain the various warnings of the Sister, everything arrived as she had foreseen and announced. Outraged by the firm resistance and invincible opposition shown by these cloistered heroines to recognize no order emanating from the National Assembly, and to receive neither pastor, nor director, nor anything sent from them, The principal members of the municipality did not fail to attribute to me at least a good part of what they called the stubbornness of the religious fanaticized by their director, nor to make me responsible for it, especially since the event which I will tell .

    It was customary for the clergy of the parish of Saint-Leonard to processionally attend the nuns of the town, to celebrate Holy Mass there on the days of St. Mark, as well as on the days called the Rogations . The director, in surplices and stole, was going to receive the procession and escorted her to the gate, or even to the parish church. After Mr. Méneust-des-Ausnays was chased out and replaced by an intruder, the superior received a letter in which the mayor told him that he hoped and that he understood that everything would be the same with the new Pastor, who proposed to go to their homes with the clergy, the whole municipality, and the procession: consequently, he ordered that the bells of the convent be sounded at the beginning of the procession, and that all was ready in the sacristy for the mass that would be sung, etc.

    Without astonishment, the superior answered the mayor that if it was the legitimate pastor, the true pastor of the parish, who was to present himself, he could well count that he would always be welcome and received as usual, without it being necessary for the municipality to undertake to make no recommendation, since it knew what it ought to do; but that if he were the one whom he called the new pastor, she did not know him or would not know him until he had proved the canonicity of his mission; that, consequently, if he would absolutely say Mass at home, he had to take care of all that was necessary for it, since he could count on the fact that he would not even find water in the sacristy, and that all she could do best was not to close the door of the chapel, which was usually open at the same time for the convenience of the public. The mayor raged, and the municipality, which Nothing could have been gained on her, neither for the election, nor for the acceptance of the decree, nor of the new bishop, & c., promised himself to have the upper hand. On the following day, or the same day, the intruder sent a letter in which he tried to insinuate himself by exculpating himself by flattery and submission almost as low as his own intrusion. « What will we answer to this one? asked the superior.- Nothing, madame; we said everything in our first letter. There are people with whom it is good to have nothing in common, not the least relationship. As a result, the intruder’s letter was burned and remained unanswered.

    At last the critical day arrives, and, the mass of the director being said, everything was tight in the sacristy, to the water; only the very small side of the gate was left open. No sooner had the sound of the bell of the parish announced that the procession was in progress, than two riflemen sent by the municipality came to summon the Abbess to ring the bell,

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as we had done elsewhere; to receive the advancing procession; she replied that she would do nothing, that the bell would certainly not be sounded from him. The two riflemen are going to make their report, and at once the mayor, the public prosecutor of the commune, and the president of the district are seen running, all three in slings. They repeat to him the same order on the part of the National Assembly; she replied boldly that she did not recognize in them, or in the Assembly, the power to give him such orders, nor to regulate anything in fact of religion; that on this point she knew to whom she ought to obey, and that they might do well, that, on her part, the bell of the convent would not announce their schismatic and illegal entry.

    Meanwhile, the intruder and his two or three assistants passed, as they could, to the little door; and then they went to the church, where they sang mass. The church and the court were soon filled with those whom curiosity attracted. The municipality, seeing that there was nothing to hope for the firmness of the nuns, took a moment to break the conventual door. As the force alone could give them this right, a locksmith was brought by violence: after having tried, he declared that with two clubs of iron he would not dare to promise to have broken it in three hours. One attacks one of the gates and one does not succeed better, although it was only wood. It was then that it was easy to see which side was fanaticism. In the Community everything was closed, but quiet. The nuns, determined to do anything, said that nothing was to be given up, and prayed for themselves and for those who labored to break the fence with a truly schismatic rage and fury. All their efforts were useless, and during this din the intruder left the chapel and passed with his family through the brocades and the whistles of the people, witnessing the shameful success of their expedition. God knows how they and the municipality prayed for the nuns and for me in particular! They spoke so loudly, that their intention was not equivocal, and that such a devotion had never been seen. We did not know, seeing them all leave the church, if their countenance was to make laugh, fear or pity, and I think it could excite all these feelings at once.

Her escape.

    Thus ended this bizarre, scandalous and ridiculous scene, in which impiety and rage fought against those who would prevail against right and unarmed innocence; and, notwithstanding the rage which animated them, they found themselves compelled to yield to the firm and unshakable constancy of a poor girl, exhausted by force, and usually of a health as weak as her courage, appeared great on this occasion. So true is it that God assists His people, and gives them, when He wills, forces which are often wanting to their persecutors. This is not the first time he has used the weakest sex to humiliate the pride of tyrants. In spite of all the threatening apparatus of this rodomontade, it was true to say that the nuns of the city were the only ones on whom neither persuasion, nor threats, nor all the transports of fury were able, nor degree, nor strength, get a single inch of ground. There is no need to be surprised that the same evening, and the following days, the Community was surrounded and besieged on different occasions by all those whom the municipality had been able to put under arms, in order to have dead or alive, whom they regarded as the only cause of so much obstinacy. They even threatened to set the house on fire, if … But, in order to reassure the nuns, I decided to go out at night, and to go, disguised, to a few friends, from where I could write to the community and receive the letters sent to me. It was very shortly after the feast of Ascension 1791 that I was obliged to leave this place, where I had entered, as we have seen, on the 17th of July, 1790. The dispersion of the nuns did not take place than on October 27, 1792.

    At the moment of my departure, the nuns flattered themselves, and I, like them, that we would soon be reunited, because it was not possible, we said, that such a violence could last a long time. This hope, at least, consoled them a little. But for the Sister of the Nativity, who spoke almost to no one but God in these moments of crisis, she came and whispered to me: « My Father, do not be fooled: God knows we will never see each other again. I confess that I desire it much more than I hope; that’s the beginning, but it’s not the end, and who can boast of seeing it? She then withdrew crying.

Places where he wrote, on the notes he had taken, the interviews of the Sister.

    As soon as I was in safety, I took care of writing the notes she had given me to charm the boredom of my retirement; and it was during the first weeks that I received from Madame la Superieure a letter in which the Sister of the Nativity made me write: « Father, do not tempt Providence, hide yourself well; but do not lose heart. God informs me that we will not carry out the cruel project against you. There is another that he will make succeed by

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your means, and of which he must one day derive his glory; hurry to contribute; you will not be caught or stopped, although you are searched for; work safely … « I was hiding for about four months in the countryside, and as much in Saint-Malo, before moving on to Jersey. Everywhere I took care of my notes. I was neither imprisoned nor arrested anywhere; I even ran on land and sea extraordinary dangers without any misfortune.

    But we realize that the desire to present a glance at these different circumstances made me anticipate times and things; it is therefore indispensable to return now to the point we have left, and to resume the conversation and the narratives which must occupy us.

Second interview with Sister.

The eight days which had elapsed since our first conversation had been too long for the tranquility of the Sister; the demon had known how to take advantage of this interval to make a last effort, in order to throw at least the trouble in her soul, if he could not succeed in making it change her ideas and renounce her design. Finally, the day and the hour had arrived or she had to be rescued against temptations. She approaches me in the little parlor where we had agreed to do our sessions. After making the sign of the cross, invoking the holy name of God and the lights of the Holy Spirit, as she always practiced, she spoke to me almost as follows:

Her perplexity about the project to write.

    « Father, before going into any detail about the things I must report to you, it seems to me important, and even indispensable, to make known what has happened to me in recent days, and what has happened. There is still going on now with regard to the project which we have formed, and that, so that you may judge of all that concerns me, because I am determined not to undertake anything, and even to admit nothing except what you have approved, after an exact knowledge or at least enough to decide it. For it is thus, my Father, that I must seek to know the divine will, which, as I hope, will be manifested to me by yours.

    « You will then know, Father, that especially since the moment when we have formed the project of writing what God has made known to me, and that you have appeared to lend to it, I found myself strangely opposed on this occasion: I feel like two opposing parties fighting each other, but I can not often know who will win. On the one hand, God reproaches me for my past unfaithfulness, my innumerable sins which, perhaps more than all the pitfalls of the demon, have hindered his great designs; but he adds that circumstances have come, that the time has come when his work must appear in spite of all the efforts of his enemies, and in spite of all the obstacles that I can still put myself in it. He tells me that the building that was missed by my fault is not so destroyed that there are still the foundations and the stones of waiting, that is to say materials for a new construction. He makes me understand that the hand that must work there is found, and urges me to enjoy it without losing a single moment, because they are all very short and very precious.

    « On the other hand, my Father, I feel another power, an impression which I believe is that of the devil, who is making every effort to make the enterprise still miss. Continually he repeats to me that I am in the illusion, and that it is my pride which deceives me and which blinds me; that I take for inspiration from heaven, which is only the effect of a heated imagination, of a brain disturbed and exalted by the vapors of a secret pride, and which is covered with a false devotion; that I make God speak where God does not speak, and that I believe to obey him, while I obey only a mad imagination. He makes me understand that I am still going, as in the past, to throw a ridicule to me that will finish to cover me with confusion by recalling all the sorrows that I have already suffered. He paints to me the dangers to which I expose myself, and the misfortunes which I will occasion in the Church: if the National Assembly is aware of this project, as it will not fail to happen, it makes me understand; you will be burned alive, and your confessor will also be the victim; After having thus occasioned the loss of his time, you will answer for his death, as well as for the massacre of so many other priests, who will be held responsible for it; all communities will be destroyed because of you, etc., etc.

    Ah! Father, who could say how much these murderous reflections made me suffer! But that is not all: he torments me even more, if one may say so, by the inevitable danger to which, he says, I expose my soul and my salvation. It threatens, if I carry out my plan, that the approaches of my death will be disturbed by ghosts, as I have already done, in a great malady which reduced me, a few years ago, to the last extremity; that these specters will throw me into despair; and that, as a reward for my singularities, the demon

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will be from my soul to precipitate it into hell with all the proud and the hypocritical. This, he tells me, is the unfortunate and tragic end of all those who, like you, imagine themselves following the will of God, when they obey only their passions: others escape by obedience; but, for you, you will lose yourself by obedience to your so-called lights, which are only deceptions and traps for your director as well as for you. You will both be terribly punished in eternity.

    « This terrible struggle, which has lasted for a long time, becomes every day more obstinate, and at that moment appears to announce a complete victory of one party or the other. They are two rivals who are struggling and seem to have to yield, neither, until after a decisive blow, whose frightening preludes I feel. More than once, Father, their debates have thrown me into a pitiful state. A few days ago, among other things, my mind was so troubled, so agitated, that I remained very much in the forenoon for three quarters of an hour, without being able to rise. I had neither strength nor courage; my senses were agitated by a great shudder. Trembling and out of me, I did not know what to decide when I felt inspired to turn to my ordinary resource. I therefore addressed God with confidence, and begged him to have pity on me, to put an end to my agitations and troubles, and especially not to allow my eternal loss or any of the misfortunes which frightened me so much. For my God, I said to him, you know that I want, that I seek only your holy will … Then, Father, I heard in the depths of my soul a voice that said to me very distinctly: « Eh! my daughter, do you not see that it is the devil who always plays his role and only seeks to oppose my plans? This does not mean losing courage. Trust only the one who speaks to you, and you will soon see who will win. You have only one simple way to resist the attacks of this terrible enemy, it is obedience to my Church. Go, therefore, to instruct the director whom I send to you, who is to speak to you in my name; he will put an end to perplexities that you can not get out of yourself: be docile to his voice, and take, without hesitation, the party he has to tell you from me.

    « It is therefore to you, my Father, that I address myself now; and it is even, as you see, by order of God, that I have begun by making known to you the present state of my soul, by giving you a description of the fierce combat, the result of which was so consoling and so agreeable for me. ; for the last words were scarcely uttered, when the most profound calm succeeded the most furious tempest; the disturbance of my mind disappeared, and I felt the sweetest hope arise in my heart. Once again, my Father, it is your turn now to tell me what you think of it before God, so that I may conform to it with the most perfect obedience and docility I have given you for life. « 

Answer given and reassuring.

    To satisfy your expectation, I replied, I will begin with an incontestable principle, the application of which will be easy to apply to you … .. The apostle Saint John warns us not to believe in all that seems inspiration, but to examine whether this inspiration comes from God or from another principle: Probate spiritus if ex Deo sint. (I Ep, ch 4, v- 1.) Eh! how to believe also inspirations that fight and destroy, like those you experience! So there is necessarily a choice to make: Nolite omni spiritui credere.

    But, you will ask me, what are, in this genre, the certain characters of Divinity? What incontestable proof can I know if such a suggestion comes from God or the devil? There is a very large number of them, my dear Sister; but I will confine myself to one alone, which the same apostle specially indicates to us, and which, I believe, will suffice us. Listen to me, my daughter. This infallible mark is, do not doubt it, the inviolable attachment and blind obedience to the person of Jesus Christ, to the word of J.-C. at the Church of J.-C .; that is what the devil can not imitate, which he even fears to counterfeit; and therefore, in three words, this is the true touchstone for distinguishing truth from error, and the true inspiration from what looks like it.

    So any suggestion, or so-called inspiration, that would be contrary to the love that is owed to the person of Jesus Christ, or to the truth of his word, I mean to the maxims of his Gospel or to some extent let it be from holy books; any suggestion that would tend to make us contradict in any way the laws and decisions of the true Church, to escape the yoke of his obedience, and especially to make us break the unity of the faith … by preferring our particular opinion on some not that it was … be well persuaded, my dear Sister, that it is the pure error that can come only from the father of the lie.

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    By a natural consequence, all that, in this kind, opposes the glory of God or the conversion of sinners; everything that hinders peace, sanctification and the salvation of souls, all that brings us to trouble, distrust or despair, can not be the work of the God of truth, peace and mercy, but that of the angel of darkness who, in spite of the illusions which sometimes transform him into an angel of light, nevertheless brings his trouble and his hell wherever he is.

A way of discerning the spirit of God from the spirit of the devil.

    To better understand this, my Sister, recall here what I said to the nuns during their retreat, on the difference of the motives which usually agitate the timorous consciences; to know, I said, if it is the spirit of God, or that of the devil, which then disturbs our minds, we must see where the trouble which we experience is tending and ending; for there is nothing more just, more sure, nor more natural, than to judge of the cause by its effect, as one judges the source by the stream, and the tree by its fruit. It is even J. who gives us this infallible rule.

    The trouble which comes from God inspires a sweet confidence in his mercy, at the same time that he strikes by the terror of his judgments; instead of the disturbance which comes from the devil leaves us only a purely servile fear, which leads to mistrust and despair. It is, I added, that God strikes and saves; it hurts and heals; he cuts down and raises; it thunders, and does not strike, but the devil wounds and does not heal; cut down and do not rise. In a word, God performs the penance of David, Peter, Madeleine, Augustine, and the devil performs the penance of Cain, Antiochus, and Judas. As the analogy is very great, you can, my Sister, apply all this to the state you are in, and judge by comparison. The purpose of every inspiration always discovers the principle; and if we pay attention to it, we see infallibly where it comes from, considering where it is going. A fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos. How many other subjects could we not apply this rule that indicates the supreme wisdom!

    « Father, interrupted the Sister, who had kept a deep silence, my Father, ah! what a stroke of light! … it is the obvious. It is necessary, please, before going further and for my greater security, that you allow me to make an observation here that will give you an opportunity to help me to apply your principle to the circumstance where I find myself; this application will immediately make the discernment between the two spirits that seem to inspire me, and show which side should tip the scales.

    « The one of the two who leads me to give up our project, has always seemed suspect to me on the side of faith, and even he has often suggested to me ideas which were quite contrary to it; for example, doubts about our holy Mysteries. He has always filled my mind with troubles and perplexities, worries, temptations and darkness. He has always left in my heart the agitation, the frivolous desires which drive him away from God, and in the depths of my soul sorrow, sorrow, desolation and discouragement.

    « On the contrary, the spirit that leads me to follow your opinion is a spirit that enlightened me, consoled me and reassured me in my doubts and sorrows. He leaves in my soul peace, tranquility, confidence; he dissolves, in a flash, the thick darkness that his enemy had thrown into it, and my soul is then like a fine day after a dark and stormy night. One of the two spirits always inspires me with humble trust; the other sometimes suggests to me a proud presumption, after all the trances of discouragement. Here is, Father, a line of these contradictions, which, according to me, unfailingly reveals the cunning of the spirit of falsehood; for a thousand times he has attacked me by opposite and entirely contradictory means; you will judge.

    « One of these days, after having horribly tormented me by representing, as I have said, the dangers to which I was about to expose myself by writing, he made me consider my salvation as impossible, and my reprobation as inevitable. . To hear it, all my efforts were vain, my evils without remedy, my unforgivable sins, and my eternal loss stopped in the eternal decrees of the divine justice …. Tired, no doubt, himself of this kind of attack, which apparently did not succeed him as he would have liked, he tempted me by pride and presumption, he who, a few moments ago, had wanted to throw me in despair. From the bottom of the hell where he had put me, he tried to raise me to the top of the sky, passing from one end to the opposite end.

    « He suggested to me, and it happened more than once, that I was going to pass for another Saint Teresa; than

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God had granted me more favors than anyone; that I was, by my fidelity to grace, reached a degree of merit of which we had never seen an example, and that I myself could go much further. If I had wished to believe it, He would have lifted me above the Apostles, the martyrs, the virgins, and all the saints of heaven and earth; I do not know whether he had not carried impudence to the point of placing me above the mother of J.-C .; at least we would have walked in company … What is certain is that it made me understand that after having said such beautiful things in favor of the Church, she would not fail to be grateful for it; that they would canonize me; that my relics would one day be placed on the altars erected to honor my memory, and that I could deserve all this by my own strength, which, an hour before, had to be burned alive, and even condemned by my extravagances, and to cause the greatest misfortunes in the Church and in the State … Good heaven ! can one contradict oneself so openly and with so much effrontery!

    « Ah! for once, Father, the trap was too rude to be taken; so I was not fooled. Unfortunate demon, I exclaimed, yes, it is you! yes, it is yourself! I recognize you in your contradictions, your impertinent language and your impostures. It’s you! but I renounce you forever, and wish to follow only the law of my God and obedience to his Church; withdraw yourself, and even from confusion and spite. Then, Father, everything disappeared, and I remained quiet at least for some time. « 

    So, my daughter, I replied, that this roughly crafty enemy made you pass successively from Pelagianism to Jansenism, and from Jansenism to Pelagianism, two heresies equally condemned by the Church, by Scripture and by the good meaning. Truth always holds the middle ground between all excesses; she does not want to fall to the right or to the left, and also flees all the abuses. Sacred Scripture tells us that God’s mercy outweighs His righteousness; that he does not want the death of the sinner, but his conversion and his life; that he is always ready to receive and forgive him … So, no despair. The Church recognizes that in the order of salvation we can do nothing without grace, but with grace we can do everything; Whence it follows that, also avoiding and defiance of grace, and confidence in our forces, we must join fear with hope, to surely operate the great business of our salvation; cum metu and tremore ; that we have nothing that we did not care about God and that we should not bring him back.

    « What! Father, « cried the Sister, » would it be possible for me to have been a heretic? No, my daughter, I replied, no, believe me, it was your tempter who was. I can assure you that you have only entered it by battle. Yes, it was your enemy who, like a Proteus, became sometimes Jansenist and sometimes Pelagian, but always deceitful and wicked, according to his destination; for, my Sister, it is a long time since, to seduce us, he plays roles as often opposed to each other as they are to all our true interests. He is often obliged to resort to very rude tricks, to worn and poorly covered traps; if they are discovered sometimes, if it happens especially that he himself is in his own nets, he is left for shame; and to console himself with it, he invents new means which only compensate him too often for his lack of success. After all, what does it matter to him? Provided that he succeeds finally in deceiving us on the capital point, either by persuading us to be false, or by hiding the obvious from us, or by blinding us on our own interests, or, finally, by making us take the change on this matter. which concerns our salvation, it will have also fulfilled its purpose.

    Yes, my Sister, do not doubt it, yes, it is thus that the demon likes to confuse everything, in order to make us take the change on everything; and if we leave for a moment the infallible authority of the tribunal which Jesus established in his Church to govern it, we must necessarily be tossed by arbitrary opinions which he substitutes for it. He deceives religious men by vain and insane cults, by false and misunderstood devotions; and he deceives the people of the world by convenient maxims, as beautiful in appearance as they are contrary to the rules of the Gospel and the maxims of Christ. The power of the spirit of error and falsehood on the mind of the weak mortals! that man is easy to blind, since we can thus make him ignore the obvious! How, after that, can he still conceive of pride!

    « This is what we humiliate, no doubt, » replied the Sister; but, Father, allow me a reflection: it appears that you are very determined to admit the influence of spirits, good or bad, on the minds and actions of men. I think as you do about all this, and I can say that I have strong reasons for it; but you will be able to find

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people of mind who will not be of your opinion, and who will not make it difficult to attribute all that is said and all that we say about it, or the imagination, or the physical constitution, or for any other natural reason … « 

    That is to say, my Sister, that these men of the spirit will speak of the effect without going back to the cause, like a man who pretends to give reason for the fever by the agitation of the blood; but we would always ask him who is stirring the blood? Here’s the point: believe me, Sister, we can have a lot of wit without much common sense, and we can have both, although we lack absolutely necessary knowledge to make sound judgment especially in these kinds of matters.

    For the rest, my Sister, people of mind will no doubt have their ordinary way of seeing and thinking above the common; but they will allow us, I hope, to have ours also, which is supported, not only on the fathers and teachers of the Church, but on all the word of God, and specifically on the Gospel, where we see on every page the power that God gives to the devil, not only on the spirits, but also on the bodies.

    « I ask you a thousand pardons for having stopped you so long on this question, » said the Sister here to me: « Would you now, my Father, take back what you have to say to me for my instruction and my tranquility? I will continue to listen to you with all the attention I can. « 

    It will not be difficult to return to it, since I have only proposed to remove your troubles, showing you the traps and illusions by which the demon causes them, and that’s what we tried to do until ‘right here; it is therefore only a question of continuing a little more time. The demon accuses you of complacency in your own ideas, and of a search for yourself, to which he attributes what pleases him to call the illusion of your pride, or in the ghosts of your imagination; but if we think about it, we clearly see that he is mistaken, or rather that he wants to deceive you. This illusion of self-esteem would certainly take place, if, in your own ideas, you bring back to yourself what God has placed in you only for his glory alone; but to seek to penetrate his ways precisely to know and follow his will, it is your duty, do not displease him; and to wish to make it a crime, it would be, on pain of damnation, to forbid the meditation of the law of God and eternal truths, which nevertheless contain the science of salvation. What nonsense was ever more revolting? And where can it come from, that of the father of lies, of the spirit of error, whose sole occupation is to fight the truth, to make us embrace the ghost?

    He will tell you, if he has not already done so, that if God would manifest to men his holy will, and reveal to them his decrees on the future, it would not be for a poor girl like you that he would serve for that. But nothing is more false than this assertion contradicted by more than five thousand years of experience. God has always used the weakest instruments to work the greatest things, so that his glory might burst forth more, and that he alone appeared the author of the work of which he was jealous. In this way, the unbelievers of all times have themselves been forced to recognize him in his works, and to bring back the glory of him: Digitus Dei is hic . (Exod 8, 19.)

    When one sees, for example, twelve ignorant, poor and destitute of all human help, to adore J.-C., his cross, and to make embrace his austere morality to a whole world, more idolatrous of the senses and the passions than of his false deities to whom he paid his homage only to obtain the right of resembling them, how to attribute it to human power? The means of not recognizing the arm of the Almighty! And was it not, among other things, which occasioned the astonishment of the judges of St. Peter and St. John, who had healed a lame man at the door of the temple of Jerusalem? They could not understand how men of this kind spoke and acted with so much science, boldness, and freedom: Videntes autem Petri constantiam and Joannis, comperto qubd homines try sine litteris, and idiot- admirabuntu. (Act 4, 13.)

    « This representation, my Father, the devil had done to me many times, » interrupted the sister again; but immediately our Lord Jesus Christ had been good enough to suggest to me exactly the same answer that you have just given me; until he told me one day, that all that was happening in me did not come from me; that I did not enter it for nothing; that I had almost no part there, or at least that I was a weak instrument in his hands; that the lights he gave me were not for me, but for others who might know how to take advantage of them; and to repress my pride, he added, « Ah, my Father,

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I shudder again!), he added that it was possible for me to be damned one day, and that that would not prevent him from drawing his glory from it. But continue, please … And I continued.

    The devil will tell you, if he has not already done so, that the proof that you are in error is that your project had already failed, which would not have happened if God had mingled with it; but this false reasoning proves again that he is in error himself, since by virtue of their free will there is nothing more common than to see men, by their bad dispositions, obstruct the graces and to all the benefits of heaven; and here is a truth of which we bear only too much proof in ourselves. Yes, my Sister, it is essential to the work of God to be combated, and the sins of men have always done so with too much success, unless God wishes to triumph over it absolutely; for nothing can resist his holy absolute will: it is then that he uses obstacles even to overcome his designs, by destroying either the cause by its effect, or the effect by its cause, and sins. men by the very passions that gave birth to them; but it does not always act thus, one can even boldly say that this conduct is not in the ordinary order of Providence by which it regulates the universe.

    The people of God remained forty years in the desert that became his tomb. Was the promise of Moses doubtful, and his mission uncertain? Not at all; but the people had prevaricated, and his fault had prevented the effect. It is so with a thousand other events; for example, still, the crusades have not done as well as one would have liked? Was it the fault of S. Louis or S. Bernard? No offense to writers who only know how to decry thaumaturgists and supporters of the faith, it can not be said of the first, without insulting his virtue as his military talents; and the second has proved his mission by wonders which have shut his mouth against his detractors. Who is to blame? To the army of the Crusaders, who behaved badly, and did not keep the conditions prescribed by the abbot of Clervaux, and did not follow the example given to him by the bravest and the best of kings. Thus the wickedness of men often makes all the purposes of the Lord’s mercy useless. How many souls are damning every day, for whom Jesus had shed all his blood! From which one can conclude that the bad success of our project is not a good proof that it does not come from God.

    Let us come now, my Sister, to this frightful prospect that has thrilled you so much, and that he keeps putting you under the eyes for you

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(1) Historians report that, to answer his detractors, St. Bernard having put his hand on the head of a blind man, prayed aloud to God, to restore his sight, if it was true that it was by his order that he had preached the crusade; and the blind man was enlightened before an innumerable people who had no more doubts. This is indeed enough to persuade all those who are susceptible. (See Bercastel, last Crusade.)

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scare. If, unfortunately, he tells you, you succeed in making your ideas appear strange and fantastic, you would cause the greatest disorders in the Church, and in the State a bloody persecution. The massacre of priests and nuns, temples destroyed and desecrated …, the holy name of God blasphemed …. I agree, Sister, they are terrible; but the oracle which announces them here is too suspect for us to believe it on his word, and we have too much acquired the right to reject it. Nothing is more false than the reasoning he uses to prove his authority …. for, under this beautiful pretext, it would have been necessary that the men sent by God had not spoken in his name, and that the apostles themselves had not announced the Gospel; for what were they not exposed by announcing it? What was not a Moses, an Elijah, and all the prophets exposed to? To what have not been exposed so many holy missionaries and martyrs who, in the new law, have walked in the glorious footsteps of the apostles? Could they without exciting the fury of tyrants, whose threats they knew how to brave, and without causing bloody persecutions against the Church, and the Church still in the cradle? They believed, without hesitation, that the order of God should prevail over all these human considerations; that when God wants us to speak, He alone takes upon himself the inconveniences he has foreseen, and no one of common sense, at least as far as I know, has yet thought of making them responsible for them.

    The demon is not the only one to hold this suspicious language, he has many echoes that repeat it after him …. And notice, Sister, what is the illusion of most people in the world: accustomed to judge only on the relation of the senses, to see, in all and everywhere, only the means and the human interests they hardly follow anything but human fears and hopes, and relate to men only what is to be related to God. You would say

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that religion does not deserve to be exposed to any danger, or to make any sacrifice; that it is a matter of pure politics, which must be conducted only by the prudence of the flesh; provided that all human propriety and all human interests have been consulted, all is well, if we have betrayed the cause of God and sacrificed all the interests of religion. Thus, on the pretext that we must not tempt God, we conclude, more or less, that it is permissible to abandon one’s work, or to work there only so long as there is nothing to be feared. by doing his duty. This is their prudence, which I think very condemnable, to be said between us.

    Once again, my Sister, it is not so that the Saints have heard that God has charged, and it is not thus that you must hear it. They joined, it is true, the prudence of the serpent with the simplicity of the dove, according to the advice of their divine master; but they did not make this prudence consist in being silent when it was necessary to speak, nor in concealing their faith when it was a question of showing and defending it, some inconveniences which might have resulted from it for the temporal. They went about it with a zeal which showed sufficiently that they saw no greater misfortune than that of being unfaithful to a point of this consequence, and of wanting in their vocation.

    So, my daughter, you must behave according to their example, at least if it is God who speaks to you, because it is the only point which it is important to assure you well. To swallow for a moment what he demands, whether out of fear, interest, or human respect, or otherwise, would be to insult him, by supposing him to be important or weak; it would betray the truth by holding it captive, while it would order you to make it shine in the eyes of your brothers; it is a deposit which you have received only for them, and of which you will give them an account; Finally, it is necessary that people of good will take advantage of it, and that others find in it, as in the gospel itself, a new subject of condemnation. This is my opinion, my Sister, and I will never part with it.

    As for the threats that he makes to you, to terrify you and to despair you at the hour of death, you must despise them, and not, as they say, tremble with the fear of being frightened: these are the last ones the tricks of a vanquished foe, who plays with his remnant, and at least tries to scare when he can not hurt. No, my daughter, I can assure you, your last hour will not be delivered to its fury; God will not allow it, he does not abandon, at this last passage, those who put their trust in him. If your enemy dares to present himself there, it will be, no doubt, to receive there a last confusion, as at the death of the holy archbishop of Tours. It is a ferocious animal, it is true, and of which we must prevent fury, especially for the moment when it redoubles with rage; but J.-C. has attached it to the feet of the cross: it can bark, says St-Augustin, but it can only bite those who approach it and agree to its suggestions malignant. His scepter is broken, his empire is overthrown, he has power only what his conqueror gives him; and the true children of God, of Jesus Christ, and of his Church, would do him too much honor to fear him by dying, after the brilliant victories of their divine leader over this ancient enemy of the human race.

    Here, then, in my opinion, my daughter, what you can boldly, what you must even answer him on this point, to dispel the panic terror he seeks to inspire you: My life is in the power of God, who alone may dispose of it at will; only he knows what will happen, and I abandon him entirely. It can, if it allows it, depend on men; but I hope everything from his goodness, and with his grace I will gladly make the sacrifice, if it is agreeable to him, and if it may be useful to the salvation of any one. I declare, therefore, that if it appears that God requires of me that I make known to man his will, at the risk of my life, nothing will be able to stop me; no consideration will silence my zeal; and the childish fear of not living a few more bad days, will not make me act against my conscience by opposing its plans.

    Here, again, my Sister, since you want to know it, what I think of your condition and the great difficulties that the demon makes you. I do not see anything that should prevent you from following the path of God, which leads you to execute the project of writing what he makes known to you. We have examined them, these great difficulties, these terrible obstacles, these refined subtleties, and you see that all this is reduced to very little, to say nothing: they are only pitiful sophisms, or, if you you understand it better, it is only a continual abuse of a few good principles, which it turns in a thousand ways, and of which it constantly makes a false application to your state. It is the ordinary logic of this lying spirit, and it is by such an abuse of reasoning that he comes to the point of deceiving so many false scientists that he precipitates in all the consequences of the most

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fatal blindness. But, Sister, whether he proposes his objections by himself, or that he makes them propose by his own, they will never be better; in whatever way he chooses, he can only disguise the error and obscure some of the truths which he can not destroy, and which must subsist despite all his efforts.

    « May you console me, Father! cried the Sister, breaking her long and deep silence! Ah! Father, may you console me! It is, I think, the Holy Spirit who has suggested to you all that you have just said for my tranquility. Yes, Father, all this, God had told me before: these are the same thoughts and almost the same terms. Ah! I see him now better than ever. I am not deceived, the time has come, and it is you who must … Do not think anymore, you and I, than to render us worthy of executing the will of Heaven, having no other views, in all this, that the glory of God and the salvation of the souls that Jesus Christ redeemed by his Blood. What a joy for us to work on it! May we not do it needlessly!

    « My Father, » she went on, « I have many more things to say to you before I finish this long preamble, but I would be afraid to exceed you; on the other hand, I can not bring myself to silence anything that can put you in a position to know and appreciate my situation well. My peace, like my safety, depends absolutely on the knowledge you have had of me, in the judgment you must make of it. Thus, Father, if you do not see any impediment, I will finish this evening at five o’clock, to give you the knowledge so necessary to my perfect tranquility. We’ll be left for one more session. « 

Dreams that come from God.

    Before finishing this one, it seems appropriate to me to expose again, and to destroy a chicane of the demon of which the Sister had informed me, and that I did not remember to its place, in my writing; here it is, as well as my answer:

    « Father, the demon still makes an objection to me which I ask you to answer. I have already told you that, even in sleep, I often thought that God had made himself known and heard to me, no doubt acting upon the faculties of my soul and my understanding; or at least, by striking my imagination with the memory of what had happened in me. I even count, if you find it good, to speak later of these different dreams which I think are mysterious and prophetic; but the demon claims to find in dreams a good proof that I am in the illusion, and that all my pretended revelations are only the ghosts of a working imagination. Dreams, he tells me, can never be anything but dreams, and I can see other differences between yours and your inspirations, except that some are the dreams of the night, and the others the dreams of the day: all this is only the story of temperament. « 

    Answer . It seems well, Sister, that the demon walks on the principles of great philosophy; One could even, I believe, suspect him of a bit of materialism: at least he uses here the language of all those who regard man as a machine where they see only the physical and the material: to believe them, all our intellectual faculties, all the operations of our mind, depend absolutely on the organization of our body, and are only a pure effect of it. The disciples should not speak other than their teacher, nor the teacher other than the disciples. So there is nothing to be surprised; but, not displeasing to one or the other, relying on revelation and even reason, we hold it certain that God can act and act sometimes, even during sleep, on the intellectual faculties of our souls; and Sacred Scripture mentions a very great number of mysterious and prophetic dreams, which he alone could produce, as he alone could explain them well. Not to mention the famous dreams of Pharaoh and those of Nebuchadnezzar, it was in a dream that the Three Wise Men were warned not to go to Herod after having had the good fortune to worship the rising Savior; it was in a dream that Joseph was ordered to flee to Egypt with the child and the mother; and it was again in a dream that he was warned to return: Ecce Angelus Dei appeared in somnis Joseph, dicens, etc., etc. (Math 2); it was also in a dream that he had been warned not to leave his wife who was pregnant. Will it be said, without blasphemy, that all this was only the effect of her temperament or her imagination? It was in a dream that Abraham chose and received the land of Canaan, with the promise of countless posterity ……. There are dreams, then, that God produces: one must be atheistic or at least deistic, to deny it: one only has to make a judicious choice, without believing in all dreams; there is one that can not be despised. Let us take care, my Sister, to give in a superstitious credulity; but also let us not be of those of whom St Paul speaks, when he says : Animalis autem homo non percipit e qua sunt spiritûs Dei. (I. Cor., 2, 14.)

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Third interview with Sister. – How God manifests itself to her.

    I had approved the proposal of the Sister, and at the stroke of five she approached me: « So far, Father, » she said to me, « I have hardly talked to you about anything but the agitation and disturbances which are produced in me. the demon ; let us now say something of the very opposite effects which the party of God makes me feel: this knowledge which you must have of it seems to me, as I have said, absolutely indispensable. Already, Father, I spoke to you of the sensible presence of God; I have even confessed to you that Jesus Christ had often appeared to me visibly and in the human form that he had on earth, although there are only three circumstances in my life to take it, where I can say absolutely, and assure without any fear, that this presence of my God was visible to the eyes of the body: other times, I think, it may have been hardly visible to the eyes of the mind, and it is scarcely felt in the depths of the soul; it is at least what I suppose, without, however, daring to assure it; for there are in this conduct of God many things which absolutely surpass the feeble scope of human intelligence, and still more the relation of the senses. Be that as it may, Father, here is the impression that this divine presence makes me feel.

Effects that produces this divine presence.

    « At first, this holy and divine presence brings me to a great humility, to a holy fear, to a profound annihilation with a respect mingled with a loving confidence. When all the powers of hell, unleashed against me, would have upset all my interior and carried the most deadly trouble in all the powers of my soul, the only approach of God who makes himself visible in any way whatsoever, give a calm so profound that nothing in the world could imitate him. His only approach imposes silence on the tumultuous passions, by this imperious order which he makes sound in the depths of the soul by entering:  » Hold your tongue, behold the Lord, respect his presence and pay homage to his Divinity … So, my Father a sweet voice is heard in me, like the echo, which answers the first: Here is my Creator, my Redeemer and my God! This is the one my soul adores and my heart loves! Here is the dear and adorable object of my most vivid desires and my most tender love!

Terrible assaults that the Sister experienced on the part of the devil.

    « Then I invite all the powers of my soul, I invite all the angels and all the saints, I invite all the creatures to join me to adore it: Venite, adoremus et procidamus ante Deum.

    « At the same time all my mind and my understanding, my memory, my heart and my will unite together to pay homage to him, to adore him and obey him in all that he asks of me … Here, my Father, what the devil has never been able to counterfeit, and upon which it is impossible to be mistaken when one has experienced it.

    « I have told you again, my Father, and I will have occasion to repeat it to you often, that God had spoken to me, that I had heard his voice. It is not that it has always been heard in the ears of the body; but here is the impression which this holy word also gives me when it addresses it to me: it imprints itself to the depths of my soul, where it bears a luminous light which enlightens all my inner senses; and here again is how this operation is done:

    « It is sometimes addressed to me, shot by blow and as quickly as a flash appears in the clouds. A single word, thus part of the mouth of our Lord, has such extended meanings, makes me see in God so great a multitude of different objects, that it would take enormous volumes to make them feel and understand; and still it would be impossible to succeed, since the word of God, this eternal word, this ineffable expression of divine thought, infinitely surpasses the language of angels and men. What blessed spirit, what creature can ever grasp and fully understand all the strength and energy? This, my Father, is what must be understood by these words which I will often use: God says to me, God makes me known, I see in God, I see in the light that shines on me; the presence of God was felt, see to me; God has made me sensitive to my soul, etc., etc … Sometimes this divine word acts more slowly and with more gentleness, but always with the same force.

    « While these singular graces last, all my interior is attentive and collected in God, without being able to dispense with it, or distract myself for a moment, but always by the freest and most sweet constraint that can be imagined. I think it is a lot of that of the blessed. While the mind gives itself to contemplation, the heart gives itself up to love, and the will to the desire to please the beloved object. All powers ignite and burn to execute his orders, at whatever price. How many times, Father, have I not wished to sacrifice myself to publish what we must write, when he showed me that his will was to publish it!

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Anxiety that the devil gives her about the operation of God in her.

    On this, my Father, it is necessary, while I think about it, that I tell you of a quibble which the devil still makes on the occasion of a disposition of which I have already spoken to you: among the things which God show me, there are some that are expressed to me as if by word of mouth, and then I have no other care than to remind myself of the expressions which God uses, of which I must not depart, and to which, sometimes, I must not change anything; but most often I have only ideas without receiving the terms, I see things without being able to express them; at least, that’s what gives me great embarrassment and hard work, that God puts an end to saying to me: here’s what to say. So I’m comfortable, and I find great pleasure in these thoughts. But the demon makes me understand, in his turn, that all this can not come from God who, he says, does not act thus by caprice, but always with wisdom and uniformity: thus, he concludes, there in all this I had only imagination, a fund of convenience in my own ideas, and a refinement of self-esteem all the more dangerous because it is more hidden. What do you think, my Father, and what will you answer to this last attack, where my enemy seems to fix me with a triumphant air? « 

Answer to the quibble of the demon.

    I think, my daughter, and I answer that it will not be very difficult for you, with the grace of God, to force him again in this last retrenchment: indeed, this objection, which perhaps will be repeated by many, it seems to me nothing but a last trick of a vanquished enemy who returns to the charge after his defeat, and arms himself with all he can find under his hand. But I begin by asking him, as well as his henchmen, what right they have to speak of divine wisdom, and especially to prescribe to God the way he must act? … .What they learn, these rash, that God has no other rules to follow than his own will; that all is wisdom in this will, and that there can be caprice, defect, folly, only in the minds of those who dare to censure its effects: glory, jealousy, anger, revenge which are imperfections in men, are perfections in God. What we call caprice and inconstancy, is a defect only in relation to us, and not in relation to a being in whom all is wisdom, and which is not subject to any change. We do not know either his reasons or his way of being, and that is all the fault.

    But, Sister, to better take away this weapon, or rather this vile scarecrow, I will compare you here to those inspired people to whom God has sometimes dictated the words themselves, as when it was a question of making them dogmatic expressions proper to consecrate or to make unambiguous the true belief of the faithful on the essential points (what the Church has imitated sometimes). He contented himself with letting them know the substance of things, by leaving them the choice of expressions; what is easy to see by comparing together the four evangelists who often report the same facts, but in different terms: we see that the expressions vary, because they are men; but the substance of things is the same, because the spirit which inspires them does not vary; he has only, by favor, wished to leave to his secretaries some kind of merit in the thing, that they should not be merely passive instruments in his hands. It is so with you. In all this, the Holy Spirit wants, for your good, that you enter it for something; and this is how we will merit only so much as we correspond to the graces of the Lord, who, moreover, are very independent of us. That’s the whole mystery already. But it is too much to stop us on trivialities; please continue to tell me about your interior.

The Sister’s instruction on temptations, and how to resist them.

    « It is necessary, Father, » continued the Sister, « that I should point out again, in my case, how he is fighting to fight us, and in what way can we go about discovering and disconcerting his wiles? and his projects.

    The party which I believe to come from the demon causes me, as I have said, at its approach, a considerable trouble in the imagination. This is the seat where he places himself to make a great noise; it is from there that he raises to the spirit and the understanding a black vapor to darken, embitter and chagrin, revolting against all obedience. Fortunately, Father, I have noticed that at the height of the storm the infernal suggestions can not reach the depths of the soul or the understanding; this one meets with the heart and the will, to hold firm against the attack. The imagination, infected and upset, often communicates its bad impressions to the mind, which is very near; but as the imagination can be agitated without the mind feeling it, the mind too can be disturbed without the understanding, the heart, or the will receiving any damage.

    « Imagination presents good or bad things in the mind: the mind proposes them to the understanding; it transmits them to the heart or to the will, which

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rejects or admits almost always according to the impression of the understanding, which is like the function of judge between the other powers. It is very important, as you see, that it be neither obscured nor infected, in order to be able to consider the object presented to it under the true point of view, and to make a sound and free judgment, without consulting the interest of the passions; what he would not be able to do if he were not clear of it, even less if he were won and corrupted in advance: he must not even propose dangerous objects to the will; on the contrary, it must be carefully removed to the images which the mad and indecent imagination would constantly wish to retrace in his eyes (1) : the slightest curiosity would make him guilty already, by exposing him to become even more.

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    (1) Some good theologians had observed to me that this gradation of the Sister did not appear to them in the rules of metaphysics, which admits of no distinction between the mind and the understanding; after having thought of it, I went, in this last writing, to resolve to suppress one or the other of these two terms; but all at once I made this reflection: Eh! why, after all, would one rather confuse the mind with the understanding than with the memory and the will? Are not these three very distinct faculties of the same mind? The understanding therefore has with the mind the same relation of distinction as the other powers. On that I decided to keep exactly the terms of the graduation of the Sister, who perhaps had her reasons to speak thus.

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    It is indeed here that it may be said that who loves danger will perish, because it is already a formal infidelity to be exposed to it recklessly with will and reflection, although one did not want the sin in him -even. What am I saying, Father! Is it not wanting a crime to want to taste its criminal pleasure? God, in defending the evil action, has he not defended the accessory circumstances, all that disposes of it and leads to it, all that is the prelude, the continuation and the accompaniment? Now, if all this displeases God, as part of sin, all this, therefore, is forbidden to us, because all this is naturally, and as necessarily enclosed in the defense of sin, to which we are no longer permitted to apply our mind, that we are not allowed to apply our body or any of our senses.

    « So, Father, all remembrance of certain actions, all research, all look, all curiosity on certain matters, all complacency, finally, on a bad or dangerous object, would be bad or dangerous, especially if it joined a a kind of presumption of power always by oneself, to remain master of one’s will, without ever allowing it to consent to the declaration or satisfaction of sin. Ah! My Father is to tempt God, it is to tempt oneself, it is to deserve an abandonment always followed by a more or less heavy fall, because, in its just indignation, God always abandons the reckless who has also cowardly abandoned to satisfy himself; and this abandonment on the part of God is the most terrible punishment of his temerity. Let us conclude with what care, with what care, we must watch over our imagination, our memory, our eyes and our hands, our ears and our language, in a word, all the movements of our heart and all sense of our body, to give no hold to a subtle enemy, always alert to surprise us, who knows how to take advantage of the least opportunity, and with whom the slightest imprudence, even the slightest negligence, can have consequences so fatal.

    « But, Father, what is very consoling for those whom temptation feels is that, as I said, the imagination, the senses, and sometimes even the spirit, can be beaten and upset by the storm, without the heart being damaged. For the rest, only God can calculate exactly what he enters, in all this, of temperament or of physical and inevitable causes: he alone can compare and balance the degree of attack with the degree of resistance, the means which he gave. Finally, alone, he can well discern the grace of nature, and the nature of grace, and see how man is guilty or not, according to the abuse or the good use of the graces of liberty . All I know, no doubt, is that God, ever faithful to His word, and always better than we are wicked, will never allow us to be tempted beyond the forces that we are has data; that he will know, if we are faithful to resist in the beginning, to take advantage of the temptation itself, to help us triumph over it and overcome the tempter.

    « Provided therefore that the heart and the will unite to resist the assault, there is nothing lost; on the contrary, everything must turn to our advantage: the success of the combat depends therefore very much on the understanding; All will be well, if he is faithful to warn the other powers of the arrival of the enemy, especially to join them to repel his effort, without hearing any accommodation: he may even sometimes be forced to abandon him the imagination, the senses, and even the spirit; but the enemy will not stand long in a position where there will be more

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to lose than to gain for him, while he will have to deal with a determined will to whom he procures as many victories as he delivers to him with assaults. Behold, my Father, what God has made known to me in this respect; if you see anything against the good and true principles, please tell me. Let us continue to show how God makes me aware that we must behave in the battles that the devil gives us.

    « I found myself, my Father, the space of ten or twelve years, fought and besieged by different passions, temptations and diabolical suggestions, which, imprinting themselves in my imagination by different bad representations, rose strongly against the spirit A thick black vapor spread through all my powers, so that it was for me like a dark and dark night, where there appeared neither moon nor stars: the demon, placed in my imagination, threw its primer into sense and in memory, reminding me of a hundred things that I would have liked to forget. God ! what a fight and what a situation!

    « Plunged into the darkness, my understanding was as captive under my frank will, which seemed to be the only one to fight. Seeing myself then unable to think of God in my ordinary way, I no longer tended to him except by means of the will, deprived of all sensible help and of all human and temporal interest, for it sometimes seemed to me that I was absolutely abandoned to the rage of my enemy, who made a play of my affliction and my pain; he had seized all the avenues of my soul, so that he had besieged it on all sides (1).

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    (1) God, no doubt, allowed this holy daughter to be in such unfortunate positions, only to provide in her and a motive of consolation, and a model of conduct for all souls violently tempted, and who would be found in similar or similar situations. To retain one’s will, to have recourse to God, behold, in this case, the rampart that the devil can not force.

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    It was then, Father, that he strongly represented to me that it was made of me, that I was at his disposal and lost without hope: in this desperate and fierce fight, my mind was agitated and troubled like a man who, attacked on all sides by superior forces, has no other means of saving his life than to cry for help. Yes, my Father, in such an extremity the soul must call God to his aid and then shut himself up in his powers, I mean, in the firm, constant and determined will, to rather die than to ever consent to sin. and stop there, something that can happen. That is where the triumph is. She feels weak; but it is necessary that it puts its strength in the one who supports it: it feels desperate; but it is necessary that, supported by the mercy of her God, she hope against all hope. The only mark where she can know that she is not defeated will be if she is still the mistress of her free will and of her own will; it must therefore be as close as the skilful sailor is to the rudder, that he must not let go for a moment during the storm, if he wishes to preserve his vessel from sinking, and preserve himself from the death. And this is what is called holding his soul with both hands. This queen of powers can command as sovereign, and forbid them all complacency in the objects presented by the devil to memory, imagination, and understanding; then she is sure of victory, even if they had been upset, because she was able to tear the weapons from the hands of the enemy and use them against himself. That is what, with the help of grace, the human will or the free will, always free to choose and to determine for the law and the duty, in spite of all the efforts of the temptation and the devil. Now, what the free will can do, in such a case, there is no doubt that he owes it to God, on pain of disobedience and cowardice which would render him very guilty to himself, on pain of damnation. That’s when you have to conquer or die.

Woe of a soul who yields to temptation and consents to sin.

    But, Father, ah! who could express what a misfortune it is for a soul to have abandoned all its powers to the perfidious attractions, to the pleasures forbidden of sin, when the memory, the imagination, the understanding and the will are of intelligence to deliver the heart to the devil! Then this cruel and subtle enemy advances in triumph, and penetrates through the senses, the imagination, the memory and the spirit, even into the will, where he establishes his seat and fixes his residence. He says, This is my home, and no one can drive me away. It is a conqueror who has made himself master of the center of the city, he exercises a tyrannical power and puts everything to fire and blood. The way to resist him now! How can one even dare to rise against his cruel and despotic domination? Ah! a horrible state for a soul who could so easily avoid it by holding firm, without granting anything from the beginning of temptation!

    Do you represent, Father, a deep pit where this unfortunate

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captive is thrown out without being able to get out of it, nor even to make a single effort to shake off his yoke, nor to break his bonds: this is the state of a soul whose demon possesses the will, and which acts only by the impression that she receives … All his powers are inclined towards evil, without them being able, so to speak, to distract himself from it. Yes, my Father, all becomes sin and occasion of sin for the unfortunate slave of the devil and his depraved will; everything he sees, everything he touches, everything he wants makes him guilty in a sense that is too real, because all his faculties are turned and brought to evil, although he is not always in danger. opportunity or in the power to commit it in action, he always has the will and always commits it in his heart. Usually he has the thought, the desire, the will, the inclination; all his spiritual and sensory faculties being captive and chained by that accursed will to offend God, he commits at every moment a multitude of crimes; and I think, Father, that it would be easier to revive a four-day death than to convert such a sinner. « 

    This is so, and with as much clarity, precision, accuracy and depth; it is with this force and this abundance of ideas that, in this circumstance, the Sister talked to me for a considerable time about these metaphysical and purely intellectual matters; this first attempt, of which I only gave the precise one, was like the sample by which God wanted, I think, to make me glimpse and to foresee all that I could expect from her for the continuation of our conversations . It is also, I think, in the same sense that the reader must take it for himself, because it seems to me to see many designs.

    How many things are contained in this few pages, and therefore what to think about what they contain, for a prudent Christian who reads, not to read, nor to have read, but to learn, retain and enjoy Let us compare what we read in the different works of the moralist philosophers, ancient and modern, with what we have just seen, and it will be easy to understand that the trial of this ignorant person wins the day. a lot about what they said or thought more beautiful and more sublime.

    Let us read and meditate with all the attention we are capable of, reflections and rules that can only come from Heaven. Let us take advantage of the salutary advice which a servant of the J.-C., imbued with these great maxims, must give us, and which seems to be incited to inculcate them by a way all the more admirable as it is more extraordinary. If the devil is sometimes transfigured to speak to men, it will never be assured of such a language; he will never teach them maxims so sublime nor so essential to salvation. He has too much interest in his empire to throw into our hearts the seed of the virtues which must ruin him from the ground up: Omne regnum in seipsum divisum desolabitur, et domus supra domum cadet. (Luke 11, 17.)

    Let us prepare ourselves to listen to him as an oracle of Heaven; let us open our ears to his voice; and if today the consoling spirit wants to use her to be heard by us, let us beware of obstructing her grace and closing her entrance to our hearts: Hodie si vocem ejus audieritis, nolite obdurare corda vestra. (Psalm 94, 5.)

    Let us look at what it must tell us about the future as a new Apocalypse, whose reading and meditation must guard us from a salutary fear for the critical times, which will hold us in duty and preserve us from sin; Beatus qui legit et audit verba prophetiœ hujus, et servat ea quœ in eâ scripta sunt; tempus enim propè est. ( Apoc. 1, 3.)

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REVELATIONS

THE SISTER OF NATIVITY.

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FIRST PART.

Ne que enim ego ab homiae accepi illud, neque didici, sed per revelationem

J.-C. (AD GAL.1, 12).

INTRODUCTION.

Next dispositions that God asks to the Sister of the Nativity, to make write what He makes known to her.

    Finally, the fears of the Sister had ceased, her troubles were dispelled, and this assurance which she enjoyed, she was indebted infinitely more to the inner voice that spoke to her, which has all I could tell her, although God would not have allowed to take advantage of it, if only to confirm it in her persuasion, and prove to her moreover

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the merit of obedience and faith, the only motive, for her, of peace and tranquility in a point of this nature.

    To finish raising all her doubts in this respect, and to put her conscience more at ease, I spoke to her in the name of God, and I ended up demanding the account of her interior, on pain of disobedience: he It was then a question of receiving this manifestation, and of coming to what I call its revelations, and what more skilful people, in great numbers, could not name otherwise. Having thus knelt behind the little double gate (which she always practiced afterwards, unless her weakness obliged her to sit down, it was almost always necessary to order her), she began by making the sign of the cross, to which she added the words which she begged me to write in the head:

    « By Jesus and Mary, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, I obey. « 

    My Father, she continued, in the agitation and anxiety I have spoken of so much to you, I had once more addressed myself to J.-C, who was kind enough to help me by finishing my troubles; the presence of God made me sensitive, and this is what our Lord told me on this point, and where he wants me to start writing to you: « Give up, my daughter, all the suggestions of the demon, who seeks only to worry and to trouble you. To triumph more surely, as well as your self-esteem, listen to this important notice: Put your heart and mind in my divinity, as a safe harbor against all their attacks … deal with my holy presence, and you will have the Peace… rise to that divinity whom I have shown you so many times by the beautiful torch of faith; this divinity who fills heaven and earth; this divinity, which the world does not know, and which nevertheless encloses and engulfs, the world with all that it contains; that divinity, finally, of which you are surrounded, and penetrated inside and out, as well as all creatures. It is, my daughter, of this deity that I make you see the great things that I charge you to have written by your director, to whom you will say that my will is that he put a title, which means that it I am the author of this work (1).

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    (1) According to this warning or order, I first entitled: The New Apocalypse, or Recueil followed by revelations made to a Christian soul, touching the last days of the Church, etc. ; and for epigraph: Beatus who sins … (Revelation 13) The only word of apocalypse has seemed too much to many, although others have seen nothing but the right word. At last, seeing that we seemed to be disapproving of it, without being able to substitute anything for it, I have changed this liter in the one we read, and which must appear more modest.

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God wants the Sister to return to the depths of her nothingness, and to be like an echo.

    Then, my Father, the Lord made me Sister enter the depths of my nothingness. I want, he said to me, that you are disposed, with regard to my voice and my lights, as an echo, which responds to all that he hears without understanding it. This echo is nothing but an empty and deserted place. So, my daughter, empty yourself of all pride, of any search for self-love, of all that is created to lose you in my divinity … .. Being so empty of yourself and every creature Let my voice ring in the depths of your soul, and immediately, like the echo, you repeat what you have heard to him who must hear it to repeat it in his turn. After having heard the echo sound, go and seek it in the desert, and in the void where it is heard you will see nothing, you will hear nothing; however, speak, and he answers you again. So there is something in this void? Yes, and I put it there; I am the author, as I am of all creatures … Apply this comparison, my daughter, and do not forget that you are nothing in front of me, or at least that you are not more than the echo in all that I make you know. I am the author of everything you have and all that you are; your duty, then, is to listen to me and then repeat, as an echo, what you often do not understand yourself.

    After a beginning that seemed to me so magnificent and so sublime, the Sister began by telling me about God and the divine essence, the great mystery of the Most Holy Trinity and all its divine attributes. I will repeat as faithfully as possible what she has said to me on several occasions, endeavoring everywhere to use her terms, to follow her plan, and especially not to deviate from her ideas, which are as follows:

FIRST ARTICLE.

FROM THE ESSENCE OF GOD, FROM HIS ATTRIBUTES AND FROM THEIR MANIFESTATION.

    My Father, Our Lord wants me to speak to you about the divine essence; May I tell you something of the first and most august of our mysteries, the Most Holy and Adorable Trinity … But how can one be heard on this supreme and ineffable majesty? We speak without understanding ourselves; we say a lot and we say nothing; we are like a child who has not yet

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the use of his tongue, and who can not express what he feels; like him, we can not articulate anything that answers the idea that we have some: this is precisely the case where I find myself. However, my Father, I am ordered to stammer: I will stammer therefore what God makes known to me of himself, since it is God himself who asks for it, and that he wants to be obeyed. Write, Father, what I see.

Eternity of God

    The Father, in his divine and eternal essence, who understands everything and which nothing can understand, as it is in himself as well as in his manner of existence, is independent of all existing and imaginable beings … takes away essentially and infinitely everything that exists, as it preceded all times … This eternal and supreme independence was represented to me in the form of a powerful and formidable monarch, covered with a shining mantle, and seated, crown in the head, on an unshakable throne; on her adorable face, one could notice at one and the same time the strength of youth and the imprint of antiquity; he was surrounded by a circle of gold, which he supported without hindrance, on the right and on the left, with the tips of his fingers. This circle, which marked his eternity, contained the assemblage of all the beings who had left his In this circle, which had neither beginning nor end, I saw that it is as impossible for man to understand eternity that it is impossible for him to understand God himself, since eternity is only the duration of God. I also saw that each of her operations contained an infinity of mysteries impenetrable to all human intelligence. What will be their assembly? But what will it be of their author?

Divine people.

    I saw; my Father, and I still see in this divine essence an infinity of infinite attributes, an infinity of infinite perfections, which are from all eternity as the Lord … This great God has never been produced, and he has not produced himself … I see … I see in the infinite and eternal love of the Father who has, in his adorable bosom, produced and produced from all eternity as he still produces and will produce endlessly, his adorable Word, by way of intelligence, as the living and substantial image of his divine being …. This living and substantial image of being par excellence from which it is produced and begotten is the second person of the most holy and adorable Trinity; it is uncreated wisdom, Divine Word who is incarnate, true God and true man, equal and consubstantial with God his father, to whom he has always been intimately united by an essential unity of divine nature, unity of wisdom, unity of love and will, finally unity or at least the close and necessary union of those primitive and substantial attributes which constitute the supreme essence, without ever being able to find opposition, confusion, division or rivalry, but a perfect equality, or rather a real identity that makes them all common and reciprocal.

    I see in the divine essence of this divine love of the Father and the Son, that this ardent and infinite furnace of beautiful love eternally and necessarily produces the Holy Spirit, third person of this adorable Trinity, production, result or necessary effect of the reciprocal love of the Father and the Son. This third person is the fiery furnace, the living term of this mutual love … True God of the true God, substantial love of the other two persons, the Holy Spirit is consubstantial and equal in everything; having the same nature by which he is the true and even God, he really exists in it, although he has, like each of them, a proper and personal existence which makes him one of the divine persons. This is, Father, what constitutes the essence of the divinity who is so necessarily one in nature and three in person, that it is absolutely impossible that she ever was or could ever be otherwise; a mystery of faith which is the basis of our holy religion, and which we must believe and adore, although it infinitely surpasses the range of our intelligence, as well as all the arguments by which we would endeavor in vain to attack it as to explain it.

    If I have already said, Father, that the Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and the Son, he is also the love of the Holy Spirit, the personal love to himself, I mean divine love personified, the divine will personified (1); in a word, the living and eternal term of this eternal and living love of the two other persons from whom it proceeds by way of substantial love … So, my Father, there is one God in three persons, and three persons in one God. O adorable mystery that can not be understood, and which will never be understood by any creature! How deep! … I see in God three persons who are like three Gods, as to the distinction of personalities; but in the union or rather in the unity of divine essence, in the unity of love and will, in

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    (1) What is aliud charitas quam votuntas? (St. Aug., Trinitate, 15, 20, Ennemium Contract. )

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the identity of the divine attributes of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I see only one and the same God in three very distinct persons; one and the same God, without division, without opposition, without rivalry; so that when the divine Word became incarnate, I see that he never ceased to be united in the bosom of divinity with the Father and the Holy Ghost; as it also continues to be united to them, though substantially and truly present to the sacrament of the Eucharist; similarly, I see that the Holy Spirit did not separate himself from the Father or the Son by descending upon the apostles, nor does he separate himself from it by governing the Church as he has done so far and will do it in all the times of its duration.

Infinity of divine attributes. Supernatural view of the Sister of the only attribute of love.

    Ah! Father, I see mysteries shut up in the first of our mysteries, in the most high mystery of the holy and adorable Trinity! Hey! who could relate all that Jesus Christ has pointed out to me concerning the infinite number of the divine attributes of the divine essence which bear their mark of the Divinity! … Yes, my Father, the immensity as the eternity of the Divine Being are painted in all the attributes that derive from it. For example, on the attribute of divine love, behold, my Father, what I saw and understood by a supernatural impression of which I was seized twenty or thirty years ago.

    I found myself absorbed in the meditation of the only attribute of God’s love, in which I saw all the divine essence and all the immensity of the Supreme Being, and that in a point of view and in a way that it is impossible for me to understand, and even more to explain. I can tell you, however, that I saw God in this only attribute, as much as I believe that he can be seen and known by a living creature; I saw God in his love, and this attribute of divine love presented me as the face of God. What do I say, the face of God! ah! I can assure myself that I have never seen her, that adorable face, and I fear I will never see her. What did I see? I do not have expressions, I miss the terms to return what I saw … My Father, I saw God all love in all its attributes, and these different attributes I saw them in this moment only in terms of love …. Allow me, Father, to breathe a little to collect my ideas and my senses, to better follow the light which guides me and which must remind me here of all that I saw then in the Divinity.

    After breathing for about two minutes, the Sister kept talking, and I wrote, roughly as follows:

    My Father, finding me in a astonishment of admiration of all that I saw in God by his divine love, it seems to me that I would have liked to distract myself without, however, departing from the object which occupied me so agreeably. I cast eyes on all sides on the spectacle of nature, and in all the objects she presented to me I saw only the love of God; everything offered me the ravishing image, and nothing existed without love; it seemed to me that each creature had lost its own being and existed only in love and divine love; that all in the world was only love, and that the world itself had been produced only by love.

Love is found even in the punishment of the reprobate.

    Seeing me as lost and absorbed myself in this ocean of love, I dared to address our Lord and say to him: I see him, O my God! everything here below announces your love; but unfortunately! allow me to represent it to you, not that I disprove in any way the attribute of your justice: but your love is not found in the punishments of the reprobate, nor in all that announces your just wrath at for unrepentant sinners, especially after they have appeared before you. On this, Father, here is what the Lord made me know and that I ask you to write exactly:

    I saw clearly in this clarity of the divine love of which I was so busy, that the reprobates had fallen and fell into hell only for want of love on their part. Yes, my Father, Our Lord made me understand that they were damned only for not having loved him, and that, when he had dug the hell, he had acted by a passionate love, if we can to say, and jealous of uniting with him his conquests at any price. If it was not by the freedom of pure love, that it was at least by the free and salutary fear of falling into the braziers destined to avenge despised love.

    To make it better understood, Father, this divine love provides me with the comparison of a husband who is extremely passionate about his wife, whom he wants to be loved only. His love can not suffer neither rivalry nor sharing, because he loves madly; he prays, he conjures, he threatens, to better secure the heart of the beloved object. The only fear of infidelity gives him the strongest alarm; he adds to the promises and attentions the terror of punishments; For this purpose he invents terrible punishments, the whole threatening apparatus of which he spreads in his eyes, lest it be exposed to it.

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    But if the wife responds to so much ardor only by ingratitude, rejection and infidelity, it is then that outraged love becomes furious in proportion as it has been more lively and more sincere. We know, at the severity of his blows, that it is an infinite love that avenges the infinite outrages he has received. Thus, my Father, it is always love that acts in everything, and hell itself is only an effect of love: the most sensitive, the most damning and the most appalling torment that One feels there is never to be able to love the one who wanted to be eternally of his creature, and who had done everything to deserve his eternal love. It is, Father, to preserve us from this last and most terrible misfortune, that this divine love makes us portraits and threats so terrible, and that it still speaks to us here by my voice.

Distinction of divine attributes, and their union in that of love.

    It was so, Father, with all the other attributes of God that are innumerable to the most intelligent creatures … Our Lord pointed out to me that each of them represented the image of God and the immensity of God entirely, but always in relation to this particular attribute. I said the image of God and his divine immensity in all his eternal attributes, and that was to make me understand; for, Father, be well persuaded that in this order of things there are neither images, nor portraits, nor figures, nor statues, nor anything that approaches them: everything is alive in God, and it is everywhere that reality and life. In each attribute are thus represented, but in an ineffable manner, all the other attributes in the relation of the first which predominates and seems to absorb them all, without however any confusion. This is what J.-C. made me notice well. For example, still, under the attribute of mercy we see eternity, immensity, justice and all others, but always in the relation of mercy, as we have said of love; so that all appear mercy in God, and that we see nothing that is not mercy, not even the most severe justice. It is the same with justice, power, wisdom, if we take them separately (1).

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(1) Inter attribute Dei absoluta, multa sunt que de invicem et aliis prdicicari possunt per modum concreti adjetivi propositio certa juxta pictaviencem theologiam, 1 vol., P. 313.

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    Thus all these attributes are united together with a delightful and inconceivable order, and united in the unity of the divine essence … O my Father, I repeat, only mysteries in a single mystery! They will make the occupation, the admiration, the contemplation of all the saints during all eternity, without that they can never exhaust this inexhaustible source of their happiness … The blessed, told me about that J.-C. will constantly make new discoveries there, and will never lack material for their holy and ardent curiosity. They will have no more sensible pleasure than to contemplate God, the assembly of all the perfections together that God will please to discover to satisfy the eagerness and vivacity of their love … What transports of joy and joy! … What a complete and perfect happiness! What paradise in one paradise!

Happiness of the Saints. Incomprehensibility of God.

    On this, my Father, I remember that being still young enough, and meditating one day on the greatness and the perfections of God, I abandoned myself to sad reflections, which God permitted, no doubt, only to have occasion to to explain to me a very consoling truth. I thought that when I was in Heaven I could only with great difficulty see the good God; that I might never have the happiness of talking to him alone, to open my heart to him once, as I so much desired. These sad reflections afflicted me appreciably; but he who was the object of it was anxious to dispel them, by making it plain to me that every blessed in Heaven enjoys as freely the familiarity of his God as if he were the only one whom God wished to favor by this privilege; and that this happy freedom does what is most lively, most sensitive and greatest in the happiness of the saints, since it gives the enjoyment of God himself, in which consists all the essence of the sovereign happiness . From that moment all my anxiety was dissipated, and the purest joy took possession of my heart, which enjoyed in advance all that great happiness which it dared to hope.

    Let us return again, Father, to this happy knowledge that God will give us of himself, by communicating himself to us in the abode of the blessed, for we can not think about it too much and take care of it.

    In the admiration and astonishment of all that I saw in the Divinity, with regard to the enjoyment which God gives of himself, to all the Saints of Heaven, I still felt in my heart a little sorrow that God, so great, was liberal to his creature, to the point of lavishing on him all his treasures and even his infinite being, with almost nothing to reserve for himself. My God, I told him, do you want to strip yourself of all your possessions and everything

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you yourself to enrich your chosen ones? Do you want to raise them up to yourself, or lower yourself to them, to go on an equal footing with your creature? O supreme grandeur! you, whose unshakeable throne rests on eternity, how can you make yourself accessible to nothing? Where was your home before all the ages, and in this vast eternity which had no beginning and which will never end?

    Then, my Father, I heard a voice saying to me, « My child, I dwelt within myself, where I am still now, and where I will always remain without ever going out. Believe me, my daughter, « continued he, » I have a blessedness of my own, and a kingdom where my favorite dwelling is, a divine palace where I preserve for myself only an apartment worthy of me: no creature can enter it; this kingdom or palace is higher above the most sublime intelligences, than Heaven is raised above the earth. This is my eternal home … This is where I am a hidden and unknown God, a God whom nothing can understand. This is where all the attributes of my omnipotence and divine being, which is known and understood only by myself, will go. No, my daughter, it is only me and I alone to see the point of my greatness, the infinity and the relations of my perfections, like the springs of my providence; all that is not God can not have access to it. I am eternal and eternal; I count every minute of it: it is in front of me like a point.

Love alone has been for all eternity the motive for the creation of the world and the incarnation of the Word.

    Thus, my Father, throughout all eternity God has been self-sufficient and has found his bliss in his own enjoyment. For all eternity he has received in the immolated lamb adorations worthy of him. For all eternity he has tasted in himself beatitudes, honors, jubilations, a happiness at last proportioned to his supreme grandeur. But, as we have said, this God, full of love and goodness, did not wish to be happy alone and forever; in one point of its duration (if it can be said that its duration has a point), it has determined to realize abroad the great design which it had eternally conceived, and whose execution was halted in its eternal decrees. . He therefore wanted to draw creatures out of nothing to share with them, in a way, his own happiness with himself, without doing any harm either to his greatness or to his happiness; he has, therefore, poured out, like a flow, upon the elect whom he has created for his own glory, without being inclined by any need or interest other than that of his love. But, Father, some liberal, however prodigal of this happiness, which consists in the knowledge which he communicates to them of his perfections and his amabilities, he always reserves enough for us to say to the letter, and in all truth, that it has never been and will never be perfectly understood by any creature, not even by the one who surpasses them all by its outstanding quality of Mother of God, and that his essence, like all his perfections which flow from it, will always be, for any other than himself, an impenetrable mystery.

    My Father, what astonishes and astonishes me more in this sublime and incomprehensible mystery, is to see the greatness of this high majesty descend on the earth in the person of the Incarnate Word …. If the works of mortal life as well as the sufferings and humiliations of her death are only the consequences of her incarnation, and are nothing compared to her, how can such a great God become so small? remain, Father, let us not be surprised; when we consider carefully the purpose and the great motives of his mission, when we consider the importance of this step of a God, we will feel that, in a certain sense, there was nothing too much in all this that he did, and that it was necessary, if one may say so, the humiliations, the sufferings, and the death of a God, to make a worthy reparation for the glory of a God so outrageously outraged.

    J.-C. had the divine justice to satisfy, the divine anger to appease, the man to reconcile with his true God and only mediator between heaven and earth, he took the cause of the human race, he was charged with all his present and future debt, he made himself a guarantor of our common insufficiency, he made himself responsible for all; and it can be said that in the satisfaction he has given, if he has passed the bounds of exact and exact justice, he has not passed the desires of a heart which knows neither bounds nor measures when he this is to ensure our eternal happiness. In a word, if he has done too much for his glory, he has done too little for his love. But what an excess of depression in this excess of grandeur!

    It is for this very reason, my Father, that he still descends so deeply into the adorable Sacrament, where his love keeps him continually in the state of a suppliant victim, to worthily satisfy the justice of God,

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his father. It is this same love which constantly opposes the voice of his blood to that of our crimes; which makes of his adorable flesh a shield impenetrable to all the features of our enemies, as to the features of divine vengeance; a rampart that lightning can not reach, that it would not even dare to attack … Yes, it is this infinite love for his creature who has covered the earth with the blood of a God, to hide it from the anger of heaven … O greatness! O annihilation! O mystery impenetrable to the very angels who, to speak of it, have nothing but silence and adoration! It is, my Father, that prodigious annihilation of the Word incarnate, that the voice of the Most High reminded me one day, telling me I have seen my power diminish before me, and my greatness and my justice have nothing more to demand.

God’s power in the creation of the world and in the formation of spirits.

    It was therefore, Father, it was only when it pleased the divine will to be determined, that this supreme and inaccessible Being came out of himself, if it is permissible to speak thus, by manifesting outside this a power to which nothing can resist, and which can not find invincible obstacles in what it absolutely wants. It manifested itself by a first attempt which was a masterpiece; I mean the creation of bodies and minds: God says, and all was done; he wanted, and everything was done. He spoke to that which did not yet exist, and what did not yet exist heard his voice. He calls heaven and earth, and heaven and earth come out of nothing to answer him. Nothingness is astonished at their existence, and in spite of his astonishment he feels the whole of nature forming in my bosom.

    With the same ease God combines the elements, imprints the movement on nature, assigns to each part the place which it must occupy in the great whole, establishes these constant and invariable laws of nature, which regulate the universe, and to which the author has reserved for himself only to derogate. This, Father, is the six-day work on the creation of bodies; but God also showed me the creation of minds and souls in the form of a globe of light, from which brilliant sparks of different sizes, which traveled at different distances to animate bodies, successively left. I was told: Here is the formation of spirits. All that God has done is good and perfect as much as he can be: the work is worthy of the workman, and is not him; what there is imperfection comes from the work itself; These perfect spirits, I am told, when speaking of souls, are soiled only by their union with the bodies they animate, and this defilement comes only from man.

Abominable system on predestination, which must reappear in the Church, confused in advance.

    To convince myself of this great truth, and at the same time to confound, in advance, the abominable system which must one day reappear upon predestination, here is what I have seen in the light of God; for, know, my Father, and God has made known to me, that at the approach of the reign of the Antichrist, that is to say towards the last times of the Church, he will rise in his bosom. a sect of people versed in the art of giving to error all the colors of truth; men who, by their false reasonings and their diabolical and twisted subtleties, will attack the truths of the most incontestable and best proven Faith, even the attributes of divinity.

    The predestination of the saints and the reprobation of the wicked will be the battlefield, and the bottom of their irreligious system. The malice of the ungodly will go so far as to give to God perverse and unjust feelings like theirs. They will say, for example, that he left Adam his free will only because he knew or anticipated the abuse he was to make and his posterity; instead that he has removed the same free will from the Blessed Virgin, and from certain other favorites whom he has filled with privileges, without any correspondence or merit on their part. Hence they will conclude that God is the primitive, or at least secondary, cause of the misery of the reprobate, just as he is mediately or immediately the author of all their crimes. All this, they will say, necessarily came into his plan. Like those odious monsters who glory in having prisons filled with the victims of their tyranny, as well as seeing themselves surrounded by slaves and idolized by a large crowd of favorites, God, they will say, or rather the tyrant of heaven is also glorified by the misfortune of those whom he punishes without their fault, and by the happiness of those whom he recompenses without their merit, since everything was planned and stopped from eternity, without free will. the man never entered for nothing. This is what their infernal doctrine will be.

Adam’s state before his disobedience, and that of the Blessed Virgin. Free will.

    So in order to answer these horrible blasphemies, and to confuse in advance this abominable system of impiety, God showed me the state of the first man before his disobedience, and that of the Blessed Virgin throughout his life. It was exactly the same betting situation and other. God had created them both absolutely free from defilement and even concupiscence; but to provide them with the opportunity and the means to deserve, not to lose,

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he had given them a free will and a frank will, of which the Blessed Virgin has made such a holy use, by her vigilance and her care, to grow incessantly in merit and love; while Adam has abused it freely and by his own fault, since he acted with reflection, against his conscience and the well-known defense of his God; he disobeyed, if not with so many graces, at least with graces more than sufficient to preserve him from his fall, and from all the misfortunes that followed him.

    Whence it must be concluded that, notwithstanding her privileges, the Blessed Virgin, by virtue of her virtues and correspondence to grace, merited the crown of glory which she possesses, although she does not have by herself, deserved the favors attached to his quality of mother of God; while, by his prevarication, Adam deserved the chastisement which he felt in himself, and which he still feels in his posterity, since it was the law carried, and the condition imposed upon him by his creator He knew her, it was up to him to conform to them by the good use of the grace that God gave him for that purpose.

God can not be the author of sin: He really wants the salvation of all men.

    It is therefore very false, as we see, that God is the author of the sin of man, since in granting him his free will, he had forbidden it to him by terrible threats. Had he not been indignant at his weakness, if, by threatening him, he had not given him the power to avoid its effect? Ah! Let us not doubt it, God had put in his heart, as in that of Mary, with the love of his author, a great aversion for disobedience, and a strong inclination for fidelity; a natural horror of vice and all that deviates from all the virtues that were to be the rule of his conduct. Happy inclination that his sin has not yet completely extinguished in us! He had therefore all the means and all the interest possible to avoid his fault and his punishment; but it was necessary, as I have said, that there should be merit on his side, to be worthy or susceptible to the rewards of his Creator. It was for this reason that he had given him a free will, a free will, of which he demanded homage, before confirming him in favor, to have something in him to reward; and predicting Adam’s abuse of this present from Heaven could in no way influence an essentially free and fully voluntary determination on his part. Father, that seems to me very simple and natural.

    It is thus that by the goodness of the same God the greatest sinners still have graces of salvation from which they can profit; as also the greatest Saints can resist God and abuse the graces he gives them …. In what way, on all this, the conduct of God would be reprehensible? What can be seen that is not just, reasonable and even necessary to the established order? Are not his most terrible judgments justice and equity? And what right have the culprits to ask him, as if he had to give back to them? What is certain, my Father, and to which we must all hold ourselves, whatever reason may be made, is that God wants our salvation of a sincere, true and permanent will; it is that he has given us every means to operate it by his grace, according to the situation in which we find ourselves, and that he will ask no one to account except for the means he has given him; it is, finally, that no one will be punished without his fault, nor rewarded without having deserved it.

If man had not sinned, the Word would nevertheless have incarnated. State of innocence of man in this supposition, and short duration of the world.

    Assuming that man had not sinned, mankind would not have been, as it is, subject to ignorance, to the miseries of life, nor to the necessity of dying, which are the consequences of his fault. Yet it would have been necessary that the Divinity should have incarnated, not to redeem the world, but to make up for the insufficiency of the creature, and render the man worthy of his destination and the enjoyment of his God. This is why the incarnation of the Word was eternally fixed in the designs of God, and was the essential part of the plan of his work; but in this supposition that man had not sinned, the incarnated Divinity would not have suffered: Jesus Christ would have come only to elevate human nature and to make up for, as I have said, its insufficiency, to render to God his father adoration and homage worthy of him, and to make ourselves capable of possessing him as much as we could be. This is why I understood that it was from the incarnation of his Word that God wanted to speak to me by these words which he made me hear: I saw my power fall before me, and my greatness did not nothing more to demand, because he has rendered me worthy homage. But after the disobedience of man it was absolutely necessary that his Redeemer should have suffered something to appease anger and satisfy divine justice, although it was not necessary for him to have suffered as much as he did.

    In the supposition that man had not sinned, concupiscence would never have been felt in his limbs, nor revolt in his senses. His body, like his mind and his heart, would have been submitted to the divine law; it would have been, in all things, only the will of his God. The only desire to

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to conform, by completing the number of the elect, would have led him to his reproduction, without there being any movement of concupiscence. This act of duty would have been as commendable to him as the praises and adorations which would have made his most ordinary occupation.

    It is the revolt of our senses, and not the prejudices of education, which inspires us with the natural shame of appearing naked, a shame which grows with age, in spite of our being so, and which still compels the peoples the wildest to cover what our first pagans had hidden under leaves immediately after their sin. Alas! it was not until that time that they knew this shame from which we inherit, and we would be like them, if they had not disobeyed. God made me see the innocence and candor that would have served us as clothes, under the figure of a certain soft light of which our bodies would have been surrounded, and under which, as under the rampart of the amiable modesty, they would have been safe from indecency. Sin tore up this unofficial veil, and the guilty were compelled to make up for it by other veils which never replaced it. Man would have lived without weariness, sickness, old age, and every kind of pain and infirmity, until God had confirmed him in grace, and would have forever fixed his fate by a lasting rest and eternal bliss. The fruit of the tree of life has hitherto rejuvenated and revived its obsolescence.

    If man had not sinned, there is every reason to believe that the world would be over for a long time, and behold, my Father, the reason that can be given, and that I believe in the light that ‘enlightened. The number of the elect being arrested in the decrees of God, the world must last until this number is filled. Now all the unfortunates who lose themselves do not enter for anything. It is therefore necessary that the length of time makes up for what the multitude does not provide: so God makes me see that it is for the predestined and for their leader that he has done everything. The reign of Christ is eternal as well as his priesthood; and it is to provide him with a kingdom and subjects, that the divine power has drawn man from nothing, and that his wisdom governs him until none of those who must recognize him for their leader are wanting. and compose his court for eternity. It is therefore only to the elect that the world is indebted for its existence, since it is for them that it has been done. It is again to their scarcity, as also to the great number of the reprobate, that he is indebted for not having finished yet.

But man has sinned, and the satisfaction of Jesus Christ has become indispensable.

    Finally, my Father, man has sinned, and by his disobedience he has brought into disgrace all his unfortunate posterity, following the threat and the law imposed by his creator. He has wrapped us all up under the same curse and rushed into the same abyss. This is the source of our tears and the origin of all our misfortunes. From that moment the satisfaction of the Redeemer became indispensable; and if his mediation had not come to our aid, our eternal loss was inevitable. But let us reassure ourselves about the constant, sincere and permanent will of God to make us happy. He can not suffer our eternal loss, and his kindness extends us a helping hand that sustains us on the abyss and prevents us from falling into it. What a predilection in our favor!

Difference between the sin of the angel and that of the man. God’s sincere and permanent will to save all men.

    I have seen, he tells me, the revolt of the angel and that of the man. I put them in the balance, and judged them very differently in my advice. On the side of man, I saw more weakness and misery than wickedness. On the side of the angel, on the contrary, I saw a pure malice, an unbearable pride, and I said to myself: these two creatures must not suffer the same fate. Let us lose the rebellious angel, and save the guilty man, redeem him from the death he has deserved, and make up for his weakness by satisfying ourselves for what he owes to our justice; she will find her rights as well as our mercy. The moment of incarnation was therefore arrested, and the man, though guilty, was thereby predestined to fill the place of the prevaricating angel.

    It is therefore very false, once more, and blasphemous, to say that God is the author of the sin and misfortune of his creature, since he had drawn it from nothingness only to make it eternally happy, according to what I see in his permanent will, which can not vary and who is incapable of wanting evil. It is, my Father, by this permanent will that God has redeemed the world so dearly, and that he does everything to attract the man to him; let him forgive his crimes, and even take advantage of the obstacles that oppose him, to bring him salvation. The more the man departs from the path he has traced to him, the more he exposes himself to his eternal loss, and the more the divine mercy stubbornly sets the permanent will to save him by making him speak for him. blood and love of J.-C.

    This right and permanent will extends to all creatures, and sincerely desires the salvation of all of us, as God will show in the day when he will justify his providence, and his conduct towards every man in particular to confound the blasphemies of his enemies; so we can not

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to do better, my Father; than to abandon ourselves to that right and permanent will which can not deceive our hopes. This is what Jesus Christ showed me in an illness in which I experienced all the dangers and all the fears of an agony, during which the demon made every effort to throw me into mistrust, discouragement and even despair.

    While we are at this sincere and permanent desire to save all men, of whom J.-C. has spoken so much to me, it is necessary, Father, that I tell you something more, because I foresee that it will be violently attacked one day.

    God makes me known not only that it is because of this permanent will that he created man and redeemed him; but he tells me that it is through her that he grants graces of conversion to the greatest sinners, and to the idolaters themselves powerful means of salvation. I say to the idolaters themselves, and all this requires a little explanation.

    Besides the torch of reason, the knowledge of good or evil, the natural law, how many extraordinary means does it employ to call them to it, since the beginning of the world? In what country of the globe did not penetrate the sound of the passage of the Red Sea, the sun stopped, the walls of Jericho overthrown, and so many other wonders of a Moses, a Joshua and these famous the laws of the chosen people, who seemed to be placed in the midst of unfaithful peoples only to procure for them the knowledge of the true God? Has not the universe sounded blows that struck Egypt, Assyria, and so many other nations of the earth, because of the same people it protected in such a special way? (1).

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    (1) Corripuit pro eis reges. (Ps 104; 14).

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    Where have we not heard of Solomon’s temple, which rightly passed for the first wonder of the world, and so many other known monuments, so many brilliant and public facts that preceded even fables of mythology, which are for the most part only crude imitations? To what other purpose have all the miracles that have filled the life of the Savior of the world, as well as of most of his envoys, of the news, as of the old covenant, operated? Why did the sun go away? Why did the earth quake? Why was the veil of the temple torn up and down at the death of Jesus Christ? Why did heaven and earth, Angels and the dead, come together to proclaim and manifest His divinity, especially by the wonders of His resurrection? Why, by her command, did the voice of her Apostles sound from one end of the world to the other, to the point that no nation has heard of it? So many proofs of the general but sincere and permanent will of God for the salvation of all men, without any exception (1). But that is not all, and to the general graces he joins particular graces to operate more effectively the salvation of individuals.

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    (1) From this principle it is easy to conclude that as idolaters were inexcusable not to recognize the religion of the true God in the wonders which accompanied the revelation among the Jewish people; and as this people has been, and is still inexcusable, not to recognize their Messiah in the person of JJ, whose most incontestable miracles have attested the divine mission; in the same way all Christian sects are inexcusable not to recognize the true Church in that from which they have all emerged, and which has not emerged from any, because it preceded all separation, as Bossuet says; finally, that which bears all the characters of divinity, to the exclusion of all others. Here, therefore, speaking in general, Providence justified to all the peoples of the earth. It will not be less so with regard to each individual, who will be judged on the most or the least means he has had to know and follow the truth; as also on the more or less special graces from God and correspondence of his to avoid evil and practice virtue. What subjects of reflection for those who do not have the happiness of living in the bosom of the true Church; for those who, being born there, do not live there in a way that suits their vocation! It looks far away at once and peoples and individuals.

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Means of salvation that God gives to all men. Solicitude of Guardian Angels.

    From the moment of the conception of each man in particular, and without any exception, God, not content to communicate his help to the soul and to the body together, as he was obliged by pure goodness, and independently of his presciently, deputes one of his angels to the custody and preservation of this new creature (which will be disputed with regard to the reprobate) the pagans are not excepted. Their good angels are specially charged to dispose them by every possible means, to receive the light of revelation; so they work tirelessly. I see in God that without the help of these tutelary angels, he would perish an infinity more souls and bodies among the pagans. What do they not do to give them the knowledge of the true God and his law? They take care of it before and after their birth, during the whole course of life and until after their death, as long as it is not unfortunate.

    The soul unites with the body as quickly as it separates. By uniting with it, it sets in motion the veins, the arteries, the muscles, the moods; it

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finally wears this vital heat, in which the personal, sensitive and spiritual life consists, until God orders him to leave this post; and it is still his good angel who is in charge of announcing it to him and taking advantage of everything to ward off the dangers and give him a good death, as far as he is in his power. He increases his lights in order to increase his dispositions; he suggests to her feelings of faith, hope, and love; he exhorts him to make a sacrifice of his life by uniting his death with that of his God. Seeing that the moments are precious, he takes advantage of everything to dispose of it at this last passage; and once the soul of the righteous is separated from the body, he accompanies him to the court of God, to lead him to Heaven or Purgatory, according to the content of his judgment and the sentence of his judge. In purgatory he visits and consoles her, always endeavoring to procure the means of abridging or alleviating his sufferings, and hastening the moment of his deliverance. Finally, this moment having arrived, he removes it with joy to lead it to Heaven, where they love each other with the most perfect love.

    As for the reprobated soul, my Father, ah! it’s something else! what pain for her tutelary angel, to see her, despite all her efforts, appear before God in a state of mortal sin! Who could describe her situation to you? He follows her from afar until then; he hears only by shuddering the sentence which condemns him, after which he reluctantly abandons him to the power of the demons. It may be judged how much it cost him to remember how much he loved this unfortunate creature, notwithstanding his imperfections and ingratitudes; how much he cared for his eternal happiness and all he had done to get it for him! He was the best, the most tender and the most sincere of his friends, or rather he is not so strongly attached, nor such a friendship among men. What anguish, then, what anguish to be forever separated from it! To see in hell whom he so desired to introduce into Heaven!

    God, on my side, my Father condemns it with regret, and I see, in his sincere desire to save his creature, that it is a terrible position for him to be obliged to hate eternally and to punish a soul that he loved so much and wanted to reward; to be forced to exercise the function of inexorable judge, where he wanted to exercise only the function of father and friend …. Ah! Father, if hardened sinners understood, I do not say what it must cost them to be eternally separated from their God; but I say if they understood what it costs God even to abandon his creature and depart from it forever, I dare to believe that they could not forbear to love him, by recognition as much as by interest, and that they would like to take the trouble to save themselves in order to spare him that of condemning them: so great a penalty, that if the happiness of a God could be disturbed, it would be the fate that a sinner prepares for himself. Could it be that this unfortunate man would consent to expose him to it, and could he find himself a rather black soul, a heart so hard, so insensitive, so denatured, so terrible, as to bring ingratitude to this point? ? Truly, Father, the thing does not seem to me understandable.

    With regard to little children who die without baptism, sometimes even in the bosom of their mother, God has made known to me that before they die, they communicate to them the idea that they are reasonable creatures, men, and they will appear before him. Their good angels lead their souls to limbo, where they abandon them, their mission being over. It is so with the little children of the Gentiles, who must suffer the same fate, of which we shall speak in his place. As for the penitent sinners who are going to die, I see, Father, in this loving and permanent will, the eager desire of God to have mercy on them, by pouring upon them the infinite merits of their Redeemer.

Burning desire of the heart of Jesus for our salvation.

    Ah! Father, it is precisely this determined determination to make them happy, a desire that predates any other decree, which presses them now, with so much urgency, vivacity and interest, to forgive them! It is she who has restored to our amiable Savior her painful and agreeable passion, that he grew impatient, if you will, in the bosom of his mother, and sighed all his life after this precious moment. It was the yearning for the salvation of men and the reconciliation of sinners, which, as I said, made it run at a giant pace, so that it was hard to follow, the last time that He went to Jerusalem to celebrate his last Passover; his ardor gave him wings, he stole rather than walked. Such are, my Father, the great effects, the happy consequences of that strong and permanent will, of that sincere and ardent desire that God has to save all men; will that, as I said, is earlier

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to every decree and foresight (if, however, one can admit in God some kind of anteriority), and which can not and can never change at any time, since it is immutable as God itself. This is what these terms of permanent, fixed, determined will mean, which I have repeated so many times, and which we will resume again, because of the error which must one day challenge this disposition or the eternally constant will of God. But let us return to the incarnation of the Word which has become necessary for the salvation of each one of us, through the fault of our common Father; it will be for tomorrow.

ARTICLE II.

OF THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD, AND ITS EFFECTS.

Appearance of the Blessed Virgin to the Sister.

    I must begin, Father, by telling you what happened to me last night on the occasion of what must we, occupy, I mean the consequences of the incarnation of the Word. Seeing that I could not go back to sleep after waking up, I began to think about the order of the matter that we must follow. Suddenly he seemed to see, at least the eyes of the mind, to say nothing more, a creature of the greatest beauty and the most majestic support. She looked at me with an eye of kindness, however, making me a kind of little reproach: « What! my daughter, « she said to me, » you speak of the great mystery of the incarnation, will you say nothing, will you not write anything of the person in whom this ineffable prodigy has been effected? will you say nothing of me, who am the channel of graces and the organ of the wills of heaven? I remained confused and much distressed by this reproach, of which I felt the strength, the justice, without being able to obey it. I had a great desire to speak in myself, but I could not say anything worthy of it: my ideas were too weak and too confused. So I decided to wait until heaven came to my rescue, and I am very charmed to obey my good Mother, asking you to write what God suggested to me for the moment after.

Greatness and privileges of Mary, separated from the common order.

    In the first place, my Father, I thought I saw again the figure of that powerful monarch surrounded by a circle of gold which marked his duration, and which contained the assemblage of all the beings who were to come out of his hand. A woman brighter than the sun, radiant with glory and majesty, gazed upon her with all eyes. Immediately I realized that it was the incomparable virgin who had to give birth to the Incarnate Word. This beautiful creature was, like the others, included in the golden circle which contained the high majesty of the King of glory; but I saw that it was very high above the others, and appeared, by this very elevation, to emerge from the common order, and to have almost no part in the rest of men, for the reason that it It was not understood in the number of the children of Adam; this is what I understood from this elevation, which made it so remarkable.

    Finally, my Father, I saw her filled with gifts and privileges, whose likeness to the three divine persons appeared to me first and foremost. The Eternal Father recognizes her for her beloved daughter who, without losing anything of her purity, produced, in time, the one that she begets from all eternity. The Son recognizes her for her mother, who, after having given her the temporal life, shared all the works and all the sufferings. The Holy Spirit recognizes her for her temple and her beloved wife, who has only burned with her fires, without ever bringing any obstacle to her graces or her holy love.

    Thus, daughter of the Father, mother of the Son, spouse of the Holy Spirit who unites them, Mary resembles the Father by her fruitfulness; she resembles the Son by the sufferings of his mortal life; she resembles the Holy Spirit by the ardor of her charity. Each of the three persons is pleased to crown in her the virtues with which she had adorned it. What glory! what elevation! what dignity! Can we say something more? Can a creature climb higher? can she come nearer to Divinity? It is, however, my Father, the sublime rank occupied by God the divine Mother of Jesus Christ.

Her immaculate conception.

    Then I heard a voice from God saying, « You are all beautiful, my beloved, and there is no blemish in you… How gracious are your proceedings, O prince’s daughter. ! Remarkable words, and which, according to the intelligence which I have received, can only suit the mother of God, the true bride of the Canticles. When I speak of every other creature, said Jesus Christ to me, I can say well: You are beautiful, my beloved, there is no stain in you; but I can not say: You are all beautiful. These words have a much wider meaning, and can only apply to my beloved par excellence. They mean that there never was and there will never be a stain in it … And I saw, by the meaning of this eulogy, that it is only due to the

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Mother of God, to whom alone was reserved so great a purity. For I saw in her immaculate conception that she was pure and beautiful, separated from the mass of Adam’s children. I have also understood by this eulogy that the Most Holy Trinity gives him, that your proceedings are beautiful, oh prince’s daughter! that this means that all the inner and outer conduct of this blessed Virgin has always been pleasing to God and in all the moments of his life. I have seen and see that this pure creature has always come back to contemplate the greatness of God, to lose herself happily in the meditation of her infinite perfections, to bring back to her by her humility all that there was good in it, and burn incessantly with the fire of its purest love.

Humanity of Mary made for the holy humanity of Jesus Christ. Her elevation and perfect resemblance to Jesus Christ.

    Without wishing in any way to equal the mother to the Son, which would be an idolatry and a blasphemy, I see in the light that informs me that the holy humanity of Mary was made for the humanity of Jesus Christ, as the Adorable humanity has been for the salvation of the human race; so, Father, it would be very wrong to conclude that Jesus Christ would not be the Savior of all men, since it is only by virtue of his merits and his redemption that Mary was exempt from the original task and filled with so many favors; as it is by virtue of the same merits that all the human race has been washed and regenerated. Thus it is to him alone that everything relates. Mary is no less indebted than all others to her own son, and in this sense Jesus is the savior and redeemer of his own mother, as he is the Savior and Redeemer of all other men. The flow of his graces did not reach others until he had prepared a channel worthy of receiving and transmitting them. Also, my Father, after the holy humanity of Jesus Christ, that of his mother was and will always be the most worthy to fix the eyes of the adorable Trinity.

    It is not, once again, and God forbid that I want to suggest that, by the privileges that elevate it so far above all other creatures, this incomparable Virgin can never reach the supreme grandeur of the incomprehensible Trinity. No, Father, I am, thanks to God, very far from an error that slanderous heresy reproaches us without subject …. Mary will never be able to fully understand the Divine Being, because she is a finite and dependent creature of this supreme Being. All that I say and pretend, Father (no offense to the enemies of the Church and his own), is that Mary is so high above angels and men, that no creature can can never understand, and that the greatest saints, like the first of the troughs, will always honor him as their queen and incomprehensible sovereign.

    I see that from the moment of her immaculate conception she was endowed with knowledge and reason; she knew her author and the great designs he had on her (1).

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(1) Several authors have thought of it and have written it; we can even say that it is the feeling of the best theologians. See, among other things, the Treatise on True Devotion to Mary, by Boudon.

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    She prostrated herself in the spirit to worship the Most Holy Trinity; and this first act of adoration and devotion surpassed all that the other saints have done for God more heroic and more meritorious. She surpassed them since she was elevated above them by her prerogatives and the eminence of her destination. What a close resemblance to even J.-C. So she was the most perfect sketch of her adorable person. Ah! Father, can we love such a creature enough, knowing above all the love she has for us! Can we have too much confidence in her, knowing the power she has with her son, and all his will to do us good? She is our mother, that is to say, and we must be her children; so be it, and all will be well.

Incarnation of the Word Formation of the body of Jesus Christ. His perfection.

    After this tribute to the mother of the Word incarnate, let us now speak of the incarnation of this adorable Word. I will tell you, Father, what God has made known to me, without following any other method than that which he himself followed. When the time came to operate this great mystery in the chaste breast of the one who was to be its subject, it was then that the Trinity poured out her love and goodness towards the guilty children of Adam, to accomplish their redemption for so long. promised and figurative. The Father communicated his love to men, giving them his own Son. The Son communicated to them his love, incarnating and devoting himself to their salvation by an anticipated immolation. The Holy Spirit communicated their love to them by operating this great mystery. And behold, Father, what God is showing me on this mysterious operation, this perfect masterpiece of Divinity, this inconceivable marvel of the love of a God:

    The incarnation of the Word. Marie had hardly given her consent to

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the will proposed by an envoy of Heaven, that the Holy Spirit formed in his bosom the adorable body and the holy humanity of Jesus Christ our divine Savior, I see that this divine body was formed in it, not of this a substance destined, in other women, for the formation of bodies conceived according to the natural order, but of the purest substance, or rather the purest blood of this Immaculate Virgin, especially that which animated her heart, and whose warmth there maintained the beautiful fire of the divine love.

    Yet he was a true natural flesh, a real human body, which lacked nothing that God had put into the body of the first man, nothing that completes humanity. This body, thus miraculously formed in the body of a Virgin, did not follow the gradation of the natural formation, which requires a certain time for the development of the organs; but I see that, from the first moment, as small as it was, and, so to speak, imperceptible, it was entirely and perfectly formed in all its members, its muscles, its veins, its blood, its arteries, its intestines; all his internal and external organization was pushed to perfection, and disposed to receive the operation of his holy and divine soul. He had not a fingernail, not a hair which was not formed as much as it required, for the circumstance this perfection of the work of a God. Everything was perfect in him, even in the physical, and it was necessary to increase only in the totality of this divine body.

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    (1) The Sister of the Nativity is not yet the only one of this opinion; many teachers and fathers of the Church thought of her as she did. I will quote on this point Saint Bazile’s own expressions on these words of the Gospel. Quod in ea natum est ( Math.1, 20): Hinc aptissimè liquet, not secundum communem carnis indolem duo fuisse constitutionem … Statim enim quod conceptum is carne perfectum flee, non per intervalla paulatim formatum, uti verba ostendunt. (From humana, Christi generatione ac nativate; Serm. 25.)

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Creation of the soul of Jesus Christ. His perfections. Hypostatic union. God-man.

    At the same moment (for if we can admit a moment of pre existence for this body, it can only be an instant of reason), at the same moment, by a breath, or by a fruitful act of his entire will, powerful, the Holy Trinity drew from nothingness the most beautiful and most holy soul that had ever existed, and which could ever exist. This beautiful and holy soul, scarcely created and removed from the hands of its author, united closely with the body which was destined for it; and suddenly, by a simultaneous act, the divinity of the eternal Word unites so closely with these two substances that it can no longer be separated from them. This truly hypostatic union, according to the term of the school, is much narrower still than that of the body and the soul, since it is indivisible, whereas those can be divided: in such a way that may, in J.-C., separate man from God, nor God from man. This is called the incarnate Word, the man God or the God-man, the true Theandre; in a word, Father, these two divine and human natures are so closely united together that they form only one and the same person in AD, our divine Savior.

Lowering of the Man-God before his Father. His commitment for love to suffer for the whole human kind. Peace between heaven and earth, and overabundance of the Savior’s merit. Abuse that many will do.

    At the same moment, my Father, I saw the eternal Father, who, in concert with the Holy Ghost, turned to his Word made flesh, and said to him, casting on him a loving look: You are my son, loved, in whom I have enjoyed myself for all eternity, and in whom I only enjoy myself. Then, and always at the same instant, by virtue of the Divinity which was united to Him, the holy humanity of the Word incarnates was raised to the level of supreme greatness; However, as a man, Jesus Christ lowered himself before the majesty of his Father, and to the depths of nothingness, if we can say it, to adore him in spirit and in truth, the only homage worthy of the excellence of his divine being … This perfect worshiper of the Godhead being God himself, ironing and ratifying the great motives of this astonishing step, obliged himself to suffer as man the sorrows which man had deserved by his revolt, and gave, like God, a price infinite to each of his sufferings.

    His love for us urged him to suffer death, in order to better satisfy divine justice, by conforming to the will of a Father who at this price ransom the human race. My Father, he said to him, soothe your wrath, pardon the guilty, pardon the poor children of Adam. You have, Father, rejected the sacrifices of animals as insufficient victims, and utterly incapable of fixing your attention and of maintaining the purity of your looks; well ! Father, here I am, I present myself in their place, I come to fulfill your adorable will and fulfill the wishes of your ardent love … For that, Father, I want to immolate myself in the place of the guilty man, to whom you will give thanks for my consideration. If his fault is infinite, the reparation that I am preparing for you and which I already offer you can not be inferior to it. Strike, Father, strike the innocent bail; but, of thanks,

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spare the guilty and dear object of your wrath. I have the right to ask you, since I consent to die for him, and that it is only to make you an immolation sacrifice that I am clothed in this body that you myself have formed . Forgive, Father, forgive them! Give thanks to the human race, because of me. It is the precise of all my works, of all that my blood and my voice must make you hear until my last sigh! (1)

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    (1) This is, if I am not mistaken, the true doctrine of the Church on the Incarnation, exposed in a striking and orthodox way. Never, perhaps, had we said anything clearer, more precise, or stronger, against the false doctrines of an Arius, Apollinaire, Nestorius, Sabellius, and all. the enemies of the divinity of Christ and the divine motherhood of his blessed Mother. Never had anyone spoken better of the union of the two substances in the great mystery of the Incarnation, the fundamental dogma of our Faith; and it is also the confession of the most enlightened judges of this collection.

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    There is no need to repeat that it is impossible for me to quote here all the sacred texts. Anyone who is versed in the reading of holy books, feels at first glance, that all these details are so nourished, that the quotations would carry more space than the text itself, as I had warned.

    Then I heard the voice of the eternal Father: My son, he said, all that you ask is granted; for what can I refuse to love, to submission, to the dignity of a God who humbles himself to the point of being a surety for his creature? … Ah! … My Son, the dear object of my eternal your satisfaction is more than abundant; also, by virtue of this satisfaction, peace has already been made: my anger is appeased; My justice and my mercy have made an eternal agreement, because after your mediation they have nothing more to ask … The Word incarnate replied:

    I give you thanks, O my Father! that you have so ordained for the good of your elect; but if your mercy and justice have made a covenant, if they are happy and satisfied, our love, O my Father! is not yet. I feel very excited by the desire to give men a copious and superabundant satisfaction, to enrich my Church, and to adorn it with this superabundance of graces I want to deserve, not only to all the faithful in general, but also thanksgiving special for each soul in particular. Ordinary graces, extraordinary graces, finally all the means of salvation will be a continuation of my passion and my sufferings; and the effects of my love for them will be the inexhaustible source and their forgiveness and happiness, and a greater glory in eternity, than they would have had, if they had never had need of the Redeemer. It is for your glory, O my Father! and to satisfy your love for them, that I wanted and I want to give them in my abundant redemption so effective means of salvation …

    And on this, my Father, here is the remark that Jesus made to me: The abundance of merits that I expose you, will be the occasion of the ruin and the loss of many who, far from to profit by applying them, will only become more guilty, by the criminal abuse that they will make of it, as this same abundance of merits will be the cause of the salvation of many. Everything will depend, do not doubt, of the use that each one has made of these merits. This is the stone of which I spoke in my Gospel; this cornerstone and fundamental, which is the strength of the building where it is used, I mean of my Church as the salvation of each of its members. But if the workers reject it and refuse to bring it into the building, it becomes a stumbling block, crushing the one on whom it falls, and breaking the head of anyone who falls on it. Woe to that one (1), the building in whose construction it does not enter is infallibly overthrown by the winds and driven by the overflowing waters (2).

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(1) Who is the super lapidem istum confringetur; super quem vero concede conterit eum. (Math 21, 44.)

(2) The merits of a God are therefore the primary source and the only efficient cause of all the merits of man. The grace of Christ is so essential to salvation, that without it we must not hope, since without it we can do nothing in the supernatural order and can be counted for heaven. Nisi Dominus oedificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt which oedificant eam . Ps. 126, i.)

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Causes of the fall of the bad angels and the perseverance of the good ones.

    This, Father, is what God has revealed to me and made known concerning the incarnation of the Word and the redemption of the human race. Now, before moving on to the religion and the Church of the Son of God, I have to come back to a point that I have only pointed out in passing, I mean the cause of the fall of the bad angels and the perseverance of good. Here, as elsewhere, I will only tell you what I will see in the light that illuminates me.

    First, my Father, I see there that, like the first man in this respect, it is only by the good or the bad use of their free will, that good or bad angels are saved or reprobated. Let’s take a look at what God made me see.

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    Our Lord had told me, in complaining of the rebellious angel, that this wicked man never loved me or obeyed me; he has always been naughty, but of a malice, of a pure malice and a superb one of his own. That is why his rebellion, placed in the balance, was judged and punished very differently from that of the man whose compassion God had, because of the weakness of his nature … How, Sister, I told him, was he so high and so perfect a mind that he could offend God, and deserve to be condemned by his fault? … I was stopped by the same difficulty, she replied; but here is the answer that God is suggesting to me at this moment: write what I am going to tell you. I took the pen and wrote almost word for word.

    It is true, Father, the angels had been created in a much more perfect state than that of man; but neither were they confirmed in grace. God also wanted, in his justice, to reward them according to the use they had to make of his gifts and their free will. This is why, before admitting them to his clear vision, which constitutes the essence of perfect bliss and sovereign happiness, or of excluding them from it, he granted them, as to the innocent man, a time of test for their fidelity. This fixed time was equal for all the blessed. This, my Father, is what God makes known to me from the inside of good and evil spirits. Always write.

    St. Michael, for instance, and all those of his party, considering themselves from the first moment of creation, and seeing themselves so beautiful, so perfect, so brilliant, and endowed with such sublime intelligence, admired themselves by a movement natural; but having thus considered themselves, they ascended from the effect to the cause, and went out of themselves to go to God. So they began by raising their spirits to their author, saying, Who made us so beautiful? Who is it who, in creating us, has filled us with so many perfections and so many lights? They see it, and when they see it, they bow down to him to worship and honor him with all their being, in recognition of all his benefits, and to show him their dependence on the excellence of his supreme Being. Then the Divinity flowed, by torrents of grace, into their hearts, which she set on fire with her love. In the light of this divine torch, they know the reward for their fidelity, if they persevere; as also the punishment that awaits them, if they are not faithful. It is for them to see eternally the face of God, or to be forever removed from his presence. It’s up to them to choose.

    May this new grace make great progress in these sublime minds! they prostrate themselves and worship their Sovereign and their God with a submission and a deepest humility, as by an inviolable devotion to execute all the orders and all the wills of this supreme monarch of which they held the being, and who wanted to become eternally their magnificent paymaster. They conjured the numerous assembly of all created spirits to do as they did and by their example: and it was by these ardent desires and this fidelity to the first graces that they deserved even more considerable ones, and, among others, that of the sublime vocation to the functions of which they were honored by their Creator, who made them angels, that is, ministers of his wills.

    Such is the continuation and gradation of the favors which were granted to them, and which ended in the happiness which they will enjoy without end. Now let’s get inside the bad angels, especially Lucifer. At the first moment that he saw himself and considered himself, he compared himself to others, and found himself the most beautiful, the most brilliant, the most perfect of all minds. He therefore admired himself as well as others; but I see that instead of turning, like the good angels, his thought towards his Creator, to bring back its glory to him, to pay homage to him, to penetrate himself also with gratitude and love, he stopped on him. even by vain reflections which made him conceive of a self-love which grew more and more rooted in these same reflections. Soon he doubted whether there could be any more beautiful and perfect being than him. From this doubt he passed to a certain complacency in the love of himself, and this complacency carried him to the vanity of esteem for his own person, and disdain for the author of all he possessed.

    So far he is not yet properly rebellious; but his complacency in himself has put obstacles to grace, and prevents God from pouring into his heart that torrent of blessings which he so liberally poured into that of good angels: which made his vanity soon degenerate into a unbearable pride which obliged God to punish him. From the moment that the good angels had prostrated themselves by inviting the whole assembly to do the same, Lucifer and his followers had also prostrated and worshiped, but in a very different spirit and disposition. They did it with disdain and reluctantly, without

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love and without sincerity, with hypocrisy and a certain pride that God punishes at first, by the subtraction of the graces of which they made such a strange abuse, as we have said; which soon made them fall into much greater crimes; for, especially in this kind, an abyss leads always to a deeper one.

    The spite they had conceived against God was thus finally transformed into a formal hatred which brought scandal and division to Heaven. Lucifer, or Satan, who became the leader of the rebels, proudly declared that he did not want any subordination or suffer from a superior; that he was not made to be a slave to a tyrant. That is how this proud man had the audacity to name the author of his existence! … Heaven! … that pride will not be able on the human spirit, if he can up to this point blind the same angels ? … No, he said, I will not depend on it: using my rights and privileges, I will rise by my own strength and go to sit next to the Most High. I will share the throne of the Almighty; and if he refuses to admit me to it, if he opposes my elevation, I will be able to bring him down himself. Once again, my Father, what a frightful blindness in a heavenly spirit! and is it then necessary to be astonished at that of some feeble mortals? Thus, this proud spirit divides the inhabitants of Heaven, forms a considerable party, and dares to declare war on the holy and terrible God, who still uses patience towards this revolting nothingness.

    For his part, the Archangel Saint Michael did not lose this opportunity to point out the zeal he had devoted to the interests of his Creator. After having tried everything to remind the rebels of their duty, he ordered all those of the spirits who had remained faithful to order. He puts himself at their head, and takes for motto and cry of war these words: Quis ut Deus? Words that mean nothing is comparable to God.

    When the time had come to decide the fate of each other, two parties were organized in order of battle, each led by a powerful and terrible leader. There was therefore a great battle in heaven (1). I see, Father, that all that strength and skill, all that the art of war has ever displayed, among mortals, of wiles, bravery, and prudence, when one would add all that the imagination of the poets and the credulity of the people attributed to the giants of the fable and all the fabulous heroes, is nothing because of what was done on both sides.

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(1) And factum is prelium magnum in coel; Michael and angeli ejus prœliabantur cum dracone, and draco pugnabat and angeli ejus: and not valuerunt, neque locus inventus is eorum ampliùs in coel (Rev. 12; 7, 8).

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    The principal men, among others, and especially the two chiefs, were distinguished by prodigies of valor, worthy of their enterprise. God permitted it, no doubt, to consummate at one and the same time the revolt of some, as the attachment and merit of others. That is why the victory was somewhat balanced; but, finally, the party of justice prevailed, and that could not happen otherwise. All folded on the side of the rebels; all yielded to the efforts of the fearless archangel, when the Son of the Lord came to fix the victory and decide the fate of the combatants. It appears, and these rebellious legions have disappeared before him. Quis ut Deus? He sees them falling like lightning from heaven to the depths of the abyss. It is there that he precipitates them with a single word; He fixes their fate so much by this appalling sentence, that he is without resource, just as their conscience is without hope of amendment (1)… Thus, my Father, the pride which first set disorder and discord among the angels themselves, and who, every day still, disturbs the beautiful harmony of created beings, is once out of Heaven never to return. After that, who will not fear a monster always armed against God himself, and who, in his senseless revolt, dares to attack that inflexible master who punishes him with so much rigor, and who, in his most perfect creatures, punishes him relentlessly, without consideration, without compassion, and without resource?

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    (1) It is Jesus Christ himself who says it to his apostles: Videbam Satanam sicut fulgur coelo cadentem, (Luke 10, 18).

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ARTICLE III.

FROM THE CHURCH.

§. I.

Beauty of the militant Church. His divine characters.

    « In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, through Jesus and Mary, I do obedience. « 

Eternal priesthood of Christ, communicated to the Apostles and their successors until the end of the centuries.

    I have seen, said the Sister, in the Divinity of the three adorable people, the Holy Church come down to earth and by the ministry of the Incarnate Word, sovereign pontiff eternal priest, clothed with his royal priesthood, true God and true man. He came among us to consummate his eternal sacrifice, to redeem us by the merits of his life and death, and to establish his Church by the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

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sent to form it, to govern it and to lead it to the end, and to support it against all the attacks of its enemies.

    Ah! Father, what a pleasant and majestic spectacle was presented to me! How can I return it to you? … I saw this Church in the form of an enchanting garden, where the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy, the apostles, and all those who were to succeed them were placed in fine order. AD appeared at their head and clothed them before me with its divine power, in the form of a brilliant dress and a whiteness of which my eyes were dazzled. He began with the first of the Apostles, thence to his colleagues, and then to all their successors until the end of time. Dressed in that brilliant and mysterious dress, this brilliant assembly appeared to me so beautiful and so luminous, she exhaled an odor so sweet and so charming, that I remained all ecstatic. I imagined myself seeing J.-C. in each of these lights, and I looked almost like so many divinities …

    It is good to tell you on this occasion, my Father, that in another circumstance I happened to approach a priest, to see him, to see the eyes of the mind, to be clothed with the same light, and I learned in a communion that this light marked the priestly character of which every priest is clothed by his ordination. How great he is, how sublime he is, how divine is the priesthood of Jesus Christ! Let us return to the august assembly which contains all its ministers. Their divine master said to me, showing them to me, ‘ Here are my ministers; here are those who judge the universe with me; who listens to them listens to me; who despises them despises me; who honors them honors me; touching them touches me … Then he made me understand that it is he who has placed each of his ministers in his Church, as he himself has placed the stars in the firmament. It is he who prescribes to them the limits of their power, as he traces to each of the celestial globes the line which he must describe in his course. He assigns to each one the task which he will ask of them; his soul will answer him for that with which she is charged. What charge? But no temporal power can move them, have jurisdiction to restrict their powers, or diminish their authority.

    I live therefore, Father, this beautiful field, or garden, which must be called the true earthly paradise; but I paid scant attention only to objects, which could be regarded as so many stars illuminated by the sun of righteousness. I saw the infallible tribunal where the Holy Spirit dwells, and from which he distributes his divine oracles to all the Church which he directs and supports. He is infallible because he has the truth as his basis. I saw the merits of the Savior shining and shining with great brilliancy, and they gave all their strength, all their effectiveness to the seven Sacraments of which he enriched his Church. Ah! My Father, the beautiful sight!

Grandeur of Baptism. The sublime alliance of the baptized with the Most Holy Trinity.

    Above all, Saint Baptism was presented to me as the first source of the graces of salvation. I saw this sublime and ineffable alliance before me, the irrevocable and solemn contract between the creature and the Creator. I have heard what the two parties have engaged each other in regard to each other. The creature said: I pledge to live and die in the belief of the true Church of Christ; I pledge to fight until death the devil, the world and the flesh, who are the enemies of my God, my Redeemer and his Gospel; I give up forever, and I never want to have anything in common with them …

    Then the LORD rose from his shining throne shining in the heavens: Well, my creature, he said, here, on my side, to which I commit myself in your favor: already you belong to me as a creation, soon you will belong to me in a still more dear title, that of adoption, by which I will see in you only the living image of my beloved Son, another one himself . I therefore forget, in his consideration, the crime of which you were born guilty, and I will give to the waters of your baptism the virtue of purifying you of it; I will support you in the dangers; I will defend you against the enemies of your salvation; and if, by the fragility of your nature, you never come to lose the treasure of your innocence, you will find in the bosom of my Church, of which you become a member, all the means of recovering it ….

    Suddenly, Jesus Christ commanded his ministers to exercise their sublime function, putting the finishing touches to this divine alliance; what they did immediately. I saw the Holy Spirit descend on the fonts of Baptism and take possession of the ‘new baptized person, through the infusion of the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity. I have seen the whole adorable Trinity paint, or rather engrave its image in the depths of this newly Christian soul, by an ineffaceable character which it will carry everywhere, and which will eternally or its glory in Heaven, or its confusion in Hell … (This last thought strikes me with terror.)

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    It is thus, Father, that in all times the true children of God and J; this is how his Church of the earth was filled with inhabitants for Heaven.

    I live therefore the apostles and their successors; in their train, the triumphant army, martyrs, the glorious troupe of confessors and virgins. I saw all the children of God, all the citizens of the kingdom of J; saints of all ages, of all sexes, of all conditions, of all the countries of the world, united in body and united by the same faith, the same baptism, the same hope, and by the admirable links of the same charity, less infused; for it made me understand that no matter how far apart a Christian was, when he was placed in the center of idolatry, he was always united to his brethren of heaven and earth, while he kept with they have the same faith, founded on the same motives which animate their hope; he is entitled to the same reward, and can count on the same help to achieve it. This is called the Communion of Saints, which forms the true Church of Christ, which unites heaven with the earth, and includes the souls of the dead who are still indebted to the righteousness of God. This Church, thus disposed, is not limited either by place or by time. It is universal in its extent as in its duration. It contains and contains within it all the righteous, without excluding sinners who have not lost faith. Every baptized man belongs to him as his member, good or bad, until he has been paralyzed by schism, or cut off by the sword of excommunication …

    Placed in the midst of this beautiful assembly, rose on an admirable base this luminous torch of faith, which darted on all sides its sparks and illuminated all of its divine light. It is the true guide of the Christian; it is the true sun of men that has dispelled the darkness of idolatry and removed the human race from the deepest and most dreadful night … What a present of Heaven and how human reason is high and satisfied! how much the mind of man is enlightened and enlarged by the brilliancy of this sweet and bright light!

    As brilliant as each of the members of this admirable society of the teaching Church seemed to me, he represented only very imperfectly the supreme priest, in whom alone resided the glory and the divine majesty with the plenitude of the eternal priesthood which he receives from that which engenders him in the splendor of the saints. I saw him cast a glance of complacency upon this chosen troop, and I heard his voice saying,  » Here is the triumphant army that I oppose to the efforts of Satan. It can be attacked, but it can not be defeated. We can transport or darken the torch that illuminates it, but it will not be extinguished. Always fought, and always victorious, my Church will subsist despite the most furious storms and despite all the efforts of her enemies, because her foundations rest on the firm stone, which is the truth of my word, and that I commit myself to support. Yes, I will be, or rather I am in her bosom to animate and defend her; I am with her until the end of the ages and beyond, and never will powers of hell prevail against her. « 

    The Church, continued the Sister, was shown to me again under the figure of a vine, a field, a tree, a circle, etc., etc., as we shall see later. . But, Father, I can not dispense with a singular trait here in which God made me, as if touching the finger, that admirable union which reigns between the true children of this holy Church, which is the kingdom of J.-C. his son. Here is the feature:

An admirable concert of the virtues of the militant Church.

    Passing, one spring day, near one of the windows of the community, which overlooked an alley of large trees enclosed in our enclosure (this alley, my Father, it was many years ago that it was shot down, it occupied the place where you now see three rows of young lime trees which have been substituted for it), it was a fine morning; I wished, as I had already done sometimes, to give myself for an instant the innocent pleasure of hearing the rowing of a multitude of different birds perched there. The reflections that this charming spectacle occasioned me were at first very agreeable; soon they became sad, and finally ended as you will see ….

    How beautiful everything is in nature! I said to myself; how everything obeys it at the voice of the Creator! as everything at once celebrates the glory of the Almighty! All beings bless him, each in his own way. What order, what harmony, what perfect harmony! what a surprising concert between the creatures even unreasonable! …. Must it be, O my God! that the creature endowed with reason and filled with so many privileges and graces, be the only one to bring disorder into the world that is your work, by rebelling against you, by resisting your orders and by refusing to obey your holy will! Many other times I had heard the voices of these birds; but never this song

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had caused me such deep reflections. My mind was troubled and my heart moved with the impressions they made on me. In my affliction I spoke to Our Lord, and said to him, How is it possible, Lord, that man should rebel against you in this way, while all beings bless you, and that even animals, all sing your praises ?. .. What hardness! what a universal ingratitude on his part! … While I was complaining like this, Jesus appeared to me in a sensible and human form. Do not begrudge me, my child, « he said to me as he spoke to me, » everything is not revolted or lost, as you think, among your fellows: to acknowledge your error in this respect, « he continued, » listen and be careful what I’m going to make you hear … At that moment, my Father, I heard in myself a harmonious concert of the divine love that came out of the Godhead by various multiplied voices that burst forth in a thousand and a thousand blessings of glory, praise, honors, and adoration he gave to the Most Holy Trinity.

Communion of Saints.

    I can not properly tell you whether this divine concert came from heaven or earth, or whether my external senses were affected or not; all I know is that I heard it around me; I was at the center, or rather he was in me, he filled my mind, my understanding and my heart, he occupied all my powers … It is impossible for me, Father, to express to you how much this divine love was the soul had put in harmony with it, and especially that charming sweetness that goes straight to the heart, seizes it and removes it without violence.

    Admirable thing, and who can feel without being able to express themselves! in the variety of tones and in the difference of the modulations of this divine agreement, I distinguished the different virtues of the different Orders of saints of the Church, the ardent zeal of the apostles, the intrepid courage of the confessors, the strength and constancy of the martyrs the unalterable purity of the virgins with their burning sighs, the inviolable fidelity of the conjugal bond, the sanctity proper to each state. Everything, and every part of it all, was rendered and expressed by clean and analog tones, by often imperceptible shades, by touches more or less sensitive; lastly, these different gradations were varied and combined with so much art, delicacy, and symmetry, that on earth there was never heard of anything like it, nothing that approached it so little.

    I had quite forgotten the music of the birds; for at that moment my heart was swimming in joy and could no longer lend itself to anything else, when at the end of the concert which captivated me, our Lord addressed to me these consoling words: « You see, my child, » that all is not lost as you thought. You see that there are still souls faithful on earth who never cease to praise me, to bless me and to love me, by uniting with the triumphant Church to do here below what we do in the heaven; for all that you have just heard is only a slight sample of the concert which results from the assembly of the saints of the earth and the virtues of my militant Church: you have heard nothing yet of the delightful concerts of which the blessed spirits make the heavenly Jerusalem ring incessantly. It is, however, my Father, in the admirable union of these two parts with the souls of purgatory, and in their relation and reciprocal commerce, what is the communion of saints, the true Church of Jesus Christ. and marvelous society is the price of the blood of a God, the masterpiece of his omnipotence, and the object of his tenderest love; finally, it is his eternal reign.

    Is it necessary, Father, to have no more to announce to you from Jesus Christ than troubles, fights, persecutions, disasters, terrible misfortunes for this holy city, this formidable army to all the Hell, this Church finally that we have just considered under such a beautiful look! I confess to you that my mind is troubled by it, and that my heart would be inclined to refuse it; but, since this is to be his share until the end, would it not be to betray his cause and to harm the truth, to silence what heaven makes known to me? Would it not be disobedient to J.-C. who orders me to speak? I will speak therefore, Father, whatever it may cost me. I will say all that he demands that I say on his behalf to all the subjects that make up his kingdom, and that will be for tomorrow.

§. II.

Latest persecutions of the Church.
Their causes and their effects.

Satan unleashed against the Church.

    Ah! my father ! said the Sister, after her ordinary sign of the cross, my Father! God makes me see the malice of Lucifer and the diabolical and perverse intention of his henchmen against the holy Church of Christ. At the command of their leader, these wicked have traveled the earth like madmen, on purpose to prepare

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the ways and paths to the Antichrist, whose reign is approaching. By the corrupted breath of this superb spirit, they have poisoned men, as so many plague-sufferers have communicated to one another their evil, and the contagion has become general. What an upheaval! what a scandal!

    This, Father, is what I saw happening before my eyes. It was Satan himself who distributed to his satellites, that he made accomplices of his criminal dispositions, a certain infective matter of which he touched them on the forehead or on some place of the skin, as if to impress upon them a character of devotion to his work. These satellites, thus affected, immediately appeared to me covered with a leprosy of which they were going to infect all the persons who let themselves be touched by them. This figure, my Father, relates to the inside and the outside of the Church; and although it must have its perfect fulfillment only in the beginning of the revolution, yet it expresses well the dispositions and successes of those who have long prepared it. These are the efforts of hell to destroy in souls the reign of Christ, and to disturb the faithful in the exercise of their religion. These emissaries of the devil, these precursors of the Antichrist, as I have been made known, are the impious writers who, by their licentious and seductive systems, have for a long time laid the foundations of the irreligion which dominates the infecting matter, which communicates everywhere the contagion, and which is nothing but this impure composition of impiety, & c .; libertinage, which wins on all sides and causes all the evil, under the specious name of philosophy, which it never deserved. But, Father, here are some words which I heard very distinctly, and to which I beg you again to change nothing; they seemed to me to come from God: « The sentinels have fallen asleep; the enemies forced the barriers and entered the heart of the city. They went as far as the citadels, where they placed their seats. The power of darkness has extended its empire; she made herself a synagogue;she raised altars where she placed idols to be worshiped. Satan has just entered his synagogue, etc., etc., etc. « 

    After that, Father (do not change anything yet to what I am going to tell you), I have seen a great power rise up against the holy Church. She has plucked up, plundered, ravaged the vineyard of the Lord; she made it serve as a footstool for passers-by, and exposed it to the insults of all nations. After having insulted celibacy and oppressed the religious state, this daring superb has usurped the property of the Church, and assumed the powers of our Holy Father, the Pope, whose person and authority he despised. …. I saw the columns of the Church falter; I have even seen a great number fall from them, which one had reason to expect more stability. Yes, my Father, among those who were to support her, there were cowards, unworthy, false pastors, wolves clothed in the skin of the Lamb, who entered the fold only to seduce simple souls, slaughter the flock of Christ, and deliver the Lord’s inheritance to the depredation of the captors, the temples and the holy altars to profanation ….

    Here is what the Lord says in his anger and in the just indignation he has conceived: « Woe to traitors and apostates! woe to the usurpers of the goods of my Church, as to all those who despise His authority! They will incur my indignation; I will thunder this magnificent daring; it will disappear before me like the smoke that evaporates in the air, as a punishment for its crimes. I will ask him for an inheritance mainly for the maintenance of my temples and ministers, as well as for the relief of my poor. I will harden her heart, I will blind her spirit, she will sin on sin; by doing evil she will believe to do good; and the fall of those intoxicated will be all the more profound and all the more fatal, because they will have risen higher by their pride. Here, Father, is the first reason for this severity of the Lord; she is worthy of attention.

Nature of philosophical pride; he rebels against God himself. Terrible punishment awaiting him.

    According to what he has shown me, this superb, the most insupportable in his eyes, is not of an ordinary nature, such, for example, as that of a man who prides himself on his talents or his wealth; this is only a small gloriole which has almost no relation to the pride which attacks God himself, in order to dispute his rights and to refuse him obedience; for this species of superb is of the same nature as that which, in heaven, raised Lucifer against the Most High … It is also this same superb, God makes me see, which must characterize the revolt of the Antichrist, who already animates and who has always animated his precursors, I mean the impious of today and of all ages, who dare and who have dared to blaspheme the holy name of God and raise the standard against the Church of God. His son, by attacking the truths of the faith of which she is the depositary.

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    This superb is likely to flatter and corrupt the senses, to enchant the imagination, to dazzle reason and understanding. Its most ordinary effect is the most just and the most terrible punishment since it always blinds the mind and hardens the heart for revealed truths and whose belief is necessary to salvation … Always brought to the novelty and willing to error, it is made, according to its ambitious pretensions, systems of debauchery and impiety; Although the evidence may strike her eyes, the truth may tempt her heart, she opines in her illusory and illusory ideas, closes her eyes in the light of evidence, hardens her heart against remorse, and stubbornly to fight the truth as the most hideous insult to the spirit of God … She finally falls into such blindness, that she takes up her crimes for meritorious deeds, and by doing evil she thinks she is really doing good. So that it is not uncommon to see a man who has come there, to glory in his turpitude, to take the crime even for a good work, and to imagine doing a service to God and pleasing Him by an action that he defends, who insults and dishonors him … Yes, these monsters will believe to be religious by profaning the temples and destroying religion. In the same way they will boast of the name of patriots by overthrowing all the civil laws which make the safety of the fatherland, all the principles of patriotism and humanity: the massacre even of the citizens and the ministers of the religion will be for these blind volunteers a religious act, and the overthrow of all the most sacred laws of all duties …. That is where infallibly this kind of pride comes from! The hardening of the heart and a blindness of the mind that go so far as to misunderstand and overturn the evidence of the first principles …

    God shows me, Father, that this species of superb is so odious in his eyes, that he pursues it with a kind of obstinacy that can not be expressed, and that it is as impossible as we can hope let him relax to effect the conversion of these unfortunates. Yes, my Father, God would rather forgive all other crimes, because all other crimes are not so opposed to him: every other crime does not in itself carry that degree of malice which attacks it, who is angry at it. his divine attributes: this insupportable revolt, this open and declared war that he hates sovereignly, and of which he is the eternal and irreconcilable enemy … So let us not be surprised if, walking quietly in a cursed and reprobate way, these blind volunteers arrive at a tragic end, and fall to the bottom of a frightful abyss with Lucifer their master, just as they thought, like him, to rise to the top of heaven. Such will be their fate; and what is in this very terrible, I see in God that the sentence is as worn, and that without a miracle of grace, that can not be promised, it will infallibly perform. But, Father, as it is the hour of my obedience, I beg you to excuse me if I leave the continuation at once.

§. III.

Complaint of J.-C. on the calamities which will desolate all the Catholic Kingdoms, and France in particular. Scandals of bad priests.

    « In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. « 

    My Father, one night our mother had made me sleep in the depot, for greater security of the house, I heard, on waking, a lamentable voice which seemed to me to come from the side of the church, and it came out of the holy tabernacle where the Most Blessed Sacrament of the altar is preserved. I easily understood that it was Jesus who prayed to his eternal Father. So I listened with even more attention to this touching voice, which was indeed the voice of a man, but whose painful and plaintive accents had, I believe, an energy, a force of expression that the human voice never had, and can not have, when it is not animated by divinity. At that very moment, I felt myself penetrated by the presence of God, and I heard, as far as I could judge, an oration that had a lot to do with that of the Garden of Olives … J.-C. He spoke to me, telling me to come and pray with him. I rose immediately, according to the general permission I had obtained from our mother, for whatever reason and for whatever reason. I joined my Divine Master and spent more than an hour in prayer with him …

    How happy you were, Sister, interrupted me, to be thus associated with the prayer of the Son of God! Father, « replied the Sister, » that happiness was great, it is true; but if you knew what I had to suffer, and how much it cost me, you would see that such favors are not to be envied for nature. However, I must admit, I was happy to share the sorrows of my Savior and God, and to help him, in some

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that sort, to bear them by suffering them with him. What happiness! but what sufferings!

    I heard, therefore, my Father, the lamentations of the Son of God, and the complaints he made of sinners, whose fate he took the greatest interest. The crimes of which he seemed the most touched, and which he wept with more bitterness, were the infidelities, the prevarications, and the scandals of the bad priests and all the ecclesiastics who, by their disturbances and scandalous lives, profane the sacraments dishonor his priesthood and make his holy name blaspheme. How many ministers of my altars, he said, harm more than they serve for the salvation of the souls I have redeemed! They have robbed the goods of my Church, by their feasts, their games, and their useless expenses, at the expense of the poor whose livelihood they stole; and they said in their hearts: These goods are ours, without any burden or obligation. What usurpation! what a sacrilege!

    J.-C. cried on the offense of God, on the desolation of the Church, on the extinction of faith and charity; on the loss of souls and the misfortune of the reprobate, whose hell fills itself despite all that it has done to preserve them. He cried over all the evils of the human race, and especially those whose Christians are threatened with the punishment of so many infidelities and crimes committed … His voice was like that of a friend who speaks with confidence to his friend and complains the sorrows that are made to him … My Daughter, he said to me, in the bitterness of his heart, but in a paternal tone and with an outpouring of heart which penetrated me with pain and love all at once. My daughter, will you believe it? There were Judas in my church who betrayed and sold me: I was abandoned, I was denied again; Barrabas was delivered, and I was sentenced to death. I was cruelly flogged and crowned with thorns. I was covered with shame and opprobrium; I was led to the torture to be crucified a second time! … What punishments deserve so much and so bloody outrages! However, I have heard the prayers of my Church; his groans and his sighs made me violent, and I resolved to shorten the time of his exile …

A way of appeasing the wrath of God; to unite with J.-C. and to honor the mysteries of his Passion.

    Thus, in this fervent prayer, Jesus Christ looked like a good father who is indignant at the fact that rebellious children force him to punish them against his heart and in spite of his love for them. I sometimes saw him raise his hand against them, threatening to exterminate them, while at the same time offering him his agony, his flogging, his blood and his death. He seemed to announce to them the eternal loss, and made all the wounds speak of his divine body to exempt them. He invited me to join our prayers with his to do violence to the justice of his Father; but in the deep sweetness in which my soul was
plunged, for a part of his agony had squeezed and flooded my poor heart, I could only cry and weep at his side. It was in this sad circumstance, Father, that he himself prescribed the method that I showed you first, to appease the wrath of the angry heaven, by honoring the mysteries of his painful passion ……

Sublimity of the solemn vows of religion, which are a special grace of predestination.

    It has been many years since I had this vision; but how many other times have I not heard the complaints of Jesus Christ on various subjects relating to his Church? and here, among other things, what he tells me one day about the nature of monastic vows, by complaining in advance of the suppression that one makes of them today. He showed me that these vows are like an emanation of his very divinity; or, if you prefer, a special grace of predestination which immediately follows from the merits of his death; and this is how he explained it to me: it requires special attention.

    The overabundance of grace, and the infinite love which my Father communicated to me at the moment of my incarnation, he told me, flooded my heart and subjugated my will, without forcing it. From that moment I consecrated all my faculties to the accomplishment of his supreme will in all that could interest his glory and his love; and I made him a perfect and complete devotion of all myself. From then on, my will necessarily being in conformity with that of my Father, this same grace led me, by a free choice, to suffer all sorts of labors, humiliations and torments, and even to die on the cross. Yes, I wanted it freely and by the inclination of my love. That is why the sacrifice of my life has been constantly the object of my most eager desires. Now, « he added, » know that the solemn vows of religion, by which a creature consecrates himself entirely to God, are an emanation of my sacrifice, and must be free like him. It is a flow of this first grace which has its source only in the merits of my blood: singular grace of predestination, which I grant only to those to whom I am pleased to grant it. Without doing any kind of violence to their free will, this

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grace makes her mistress, she gently seizes their heart and their will; it separates them from the world to unite them inviolably by the narrowest knots of divine love; I mean the vows of enclosure, of perpetual obedience, and of eternal renunciation of their own will, of poverty, of unrestrained and unblemished chastity, which consecrate to me their hearts, their bodies, and their souls, and hold them to themselves. so much more continually attached to my cross by a more meritorious martyr, that it is longer and more voluntary on their part ….

Indignation of Jesus Christ against those who have done violence to the souls who are consecrated to him by the vows.

    On this, my Father, J.-C. appeared to be animated by a holy anger, and taking a lively and full of interest: I heard, he added, moans and saw the tears of these precious victims of my love; they touched me to the bottom of my heart … The unfortunates have done violence to them on their free will, of which I am so jealous, and that I leave myself to all men to use at their choice and according to their free determination. I will avenge it, he says, on the day of my judgment. We will know by what right they come today to take away the free homage of my creatures. They will answer me, of those dear wives whose will they have forced; they will feel by the blows of my just rigor that I am the absolute master to whom everything must yield and that one does not brave with impunity; they will be affected by my evidence and pierced by the features of my truth.

    Then, Father, I saw the dreadful punishments that he reserved for them and that he was ready to launch against them … Seizure of the apprehension of such a tragic event, I threw myself of heart and mind at his feet and I implored him by the merits of his Holy Passion, not to condemn them without resources and not to lose them forever, but rather to grant them graces of conversion to avoid this last of misfortunes.

    One day when I was heartbroken with grief over the number and enormity of the crimes that were being committed, I heard the bitter complaining of those crimes which, he said, had flooded the earth, and He rose up to his throne to ask for vengeance. He threw out his thunderbolt, and I trembled with fear that he would have crushed the guilty.

Jesus Christ complains of the crimes of France. Misfortunes that will follow. A striking proof that he gives to the Sister.

    The last time I had such visions was, two or three years ago, when the convocation of the National Assembly came, after that of the notables, to occasion the first troubles of France. You will remember, Father, that our first deputies were imprisoned at Paris, and that on the occasion of their enlargement there was rejoicing in different towns of Brittany; Well, it was during the preparations for that of Fougeres, on the return of the Marquis de la Rouarie, one of our deputies, that I clearly heard J.-C. complaining of the crimes of France, which he, were at their height …. I even understood that he spoke of Fougeres in particular. Fools! he exclaimed, « the blind are going to give themselves up again, they are already giving themselves up to a joy which will be followed by many tears! They bless a revolution which is only a visible punishment; they extol liberty when they touch slavery, and they will say they are happy in the midst of the misfortunes which will be overflowing upon them.

    The proof, he added, that everything will happen as I announce it to you, is that today, at such hour, the fire will take in the city; you will witness it; and the resulting damage will only be a forerunner or a light figure of universal conflagration which will soon begrudging France. Everything was done on the same day as it had been predicted. A rocket, launched recklessly, fell on a roof in the Grande Rue, where she fired. (1). I was in our room, busy praying to God, at the appointed hour, when I heard our Sisters go over and over again before the door, and warn me several times that the fire was in the city … Alas! I knew it well, and I knew it too soon for my tranquility; it was useless for me to see him with the eyes of the body.

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    (1) I saw several times the one who launched the fireworks; he had no idea that he had fulfilled a prophecy in this, as he had done.

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    Shortly after this event, I heard for three days the same voice that loudly complained of a party formed against the Church and the religion of the kingdom. Jesus Christ uttered terrible invectives against this party, which he called ferocious, barbarous, bloodthirsty and impious …. He accused them of resenting his children, and conjured his father to avert the storm and not allow them to carry out their dark designs. Ah! the wicked, he said, they have conjured against my Church, my ministers, and all those who belong to me! it is angry with myself; but they will be punished … They will shed their blood; but this shed blood will fall on those who shed it, for I will take vengeance on it … He will overwhelm them with his weight … But, Father, « he continued, » please, if

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it is possible, spare them this terrible punishment by sparing them the crimes which must attract them! … The complaints ceased after three days, and we soon learned the taking of the Bastille, the disguised captivity of the King and the royal family, the massacre of his guards, the dangers which his sacred person and that of his companion had run, in a word, all the troubles of Paris, in which, happily still, the crimes and disorders had been much less than the audacity of the factious did not give rise to apprehend …

    Finally, my Father, I can tell you in general, that in France there has not been an interesting event, especially for the Church, that I have not received any similar warning from J. But I must also tell you in what manner he has shown me the primary cause of so fatal upheaval in Church and State; I will always speak according to himself, but I think it will be good to postpone details until tomorrow, if you agree. The request was accepted, and the next day the Sister resumed the thread of what she had announced.

Suburb Roger fire, reported here by opportunity. Small house miraculously preserved from the flames.

    To conclude the paragraph, I think I can place here an anecdote which has much to do with the preceding one, although the motive was probably different; here is how the Sister spoke to me in another circumstance:

    You will know, Father, if you do not already know, she told me, that the fire took a few years ago (it was about a fortnight after the fire, which I have just mentioned) to some houses of the suburb Roger. The nuns, like me, witnessed this distressing spectacle. There were some who climbed into the steeple of the community to better observe the progress of the flames which rose to whirlwinds. Through the flames we discover, at times, a little white house, which seemed all the more threatened because the flames were directly and violently carried on it by the direction of the wind. I felt especially inspired to pray to God to preserve it; for I judged it to be the home of some poor family. While I was praying, a voice that I believed God’s, said to me inwardly: « This house for which you pray to me, will not perish, because I also have regard to the prayer that makes me the one who lives in it . Soon after, the flame changed direction, because the wind blew on the opposite side, and the little house was preserved; which struck everyone with such astonishment, that they thought they saw a miracle there.

    A few days after this story of the Sister, which I had found consistent with that of other nuns and even the noises I had heard previously, I went to the little white house in question, located next to Roger’s door, and everything near the ruins of the houses burned. She belonged to a very honest butcher, whose wife was considered one of the best Catholics in the place; this family was then very well known to the community of which I was director.

    After some indifferent remarks I dropped the conversation on the object that brought me, asking them how their house had been preserved, to which they attributed the preservation. What could be attributed to it, answered the woman, if not to the help of the Blessed Virgin and to the power of God? Follow me, she continued, and I’ll tell you how everything went … The husband stays home, we go out into the garden, she, me and her big daughter, named Marie, aged eighteen to twenty, newly married.

    You see, sir, this vegetable, she said to me; well! we knelt in the same place, my daughter Marion here and me, while the fire was gaining at our house. Marion will tell you if I lied. We were both facing the church of St. Sulpice where, as you know, is the holy image of Our Lady of the Marshes. I made this prayer to God, and Marion did it with me. I said: « My God, you know that I have done no wrong to anyone, and that I would not want to have for a penny of others: I have only this little dwelling of mine on earth; if you let her burn, here is my poor little family homeless and reduced to the last misery; My poor children will go and fetch their bread, and me with them. My God, have pity on them and me, save our lives, saving our little house, for I only expect it from you: I ask you by the intercession of your holy Mother, in whom, after you, I put all my trust. If you grant me this favor, I will have at least one Mass said and burn a candle in his honor before the holy image of S. Sulpice. « 

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    I was very animated by faith, speaking thus; we repeated the same prayer three times, and each time I sent my daughter to see if the flame did not change direction, and we began again without losing courage. Finally, at the third time, she told me that the wind was changed, and that the flames were on the opposite side; what everyone observed with astonishment, and our house was saved.

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(1) It was precisely at that moment that the Sister had just heard this voice telling her what we saw above.

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§. IV.

Main causes of the destruction of religious orders. Attachment to the world and to oneself. Violation of his wishes.

    First, for religious communities, I have had many visions and even dreams through which God has shown me the source of their decadence; Here are some of the most striking: I have seen, but several times, pigeons and doves rise and fly perpendicularly to the sky, at different heights: what surprised me was to see that these pigeons and doves were almost all returned to the ground by some nets that held them tied, and by which an invisible hand made them fall back as in a cage or in a trap that awaited them …. For a long time this vision had embarrassed me, without any director having told me anything satisfactory on this point. Finally, after much prayer, here is the explanation that J.-C. gave me himself. These pigeons and doves, he tells me, are the religious communities of both sexes: yes, it is the religious souls who, against their engagements, are always attached to the creature and their own will, and are still slaves of their passions, which, like so many nets, always bring them back to the earth, and prevent them from taking flight to heaven according to their destination. Thus, the neglect of their duties, the transgression of their vows, the attachment to the world and to themselves, that is the cause of their future suppression.

    I see one night (this might look at our order in particular), I thought, I say, to hear the voice of a great preacher. I went closer; it was our father Saint Francis who preached religious men and women of his order; he reproached them with force for their infidelities, their offenses, their negligence. He complained that his rule was unknown and forgotten, and he announced to them the greatest misfortunes, in punishment for their slackening; he even seemed to fear for their destruction.

    Another time I had in dreams the devotion of putting on my robe; while I was looking for her everywhere, he appeared to me and said: My dress is worn, my daughter, put on my spirit, and never give up my rule: it is, believe me, the most sure to save you from the storm that is getting ready.

    A few years later, I saw a vine plundered and desolated by the incursions of brigands who threw themselves everywhere: it was neither cut nor cultivated; its branches, detached from their shingles, had fallen to the ground, or at least only a few remained in good condition. These different figures, according to what I have since learned, represented at one and the same time the disorders and the punishments of the monks and nuns who prevailed by the transgression of their vows and their rules, and by the detachment of the spirit of their state.

    Another night, I still had a prophetic dream, and which, according to the explanation that God gave me, was the true emblem of the terrible fight that the revolution must deliver in France to the State, and especially to religion and religious orders. I saw on a mountain a beautiful tree, tall and strong; it was rounded symmetrically by the outline of its branches and the pleasant arrangement of its verdant branches; its flowers and its fruits presented all at once the sweetest odor, the most charming glance. A few steps from this beautiful tree I saw another much less strong, but which appeared of the same species by the fruits with which it was charged and the flowers of which it was covered; he was not so well rounded, nor so well disposed as the first, and I noticed that his summit ended in two points or peaks.

    While I admired these two beautiful trees, I suddenly saw a third tree rise up right in the middle of the space separating them, so that it was also distant from the one and the other: it had neither flowers nor fruits, but a certain appearance which consisted in its beautiful leaves which had some kind of resemblance with those of the first two trees: he proudly raised his superb head, much above them, then he began to beat them alternately, with a movement to the right

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and on the left, as long as I was terrified; I noticed, however, that he was only crushing strongly, and as if splashing, the branches of the first tree, which still resisted without losing anything of its flowers or its fruits; but he broke all the branches of the other tree, so that only the trunk and the roots remained, and it was difficult to distinguish his two summits.

    After this terrible operation, I heard a voice which cried out: Cut the savage by the root, let it be destroyed, and take care to preserve the first two trees. No sooner were these words pronounced than I heard the cursed tree struck, and I saw it fall and roll with a crash to the bottom of the mountain. Here, I am told afterwards, what is meant by what you have just seen: the first tree marks the Church of JJ, and the second, that is to say, the tree with the double crown, the religious state of the two sexes, which has been formed in its bosom; they are of the same species, and that is why they bear the same fruits. This unsuccessful and beautiful tree which has grown between the two, and which has surpassed them by its height, is the pride of modern philosophy, which will soon make in France the last efforts to destroy and annihilate the Church. and the religious state.

    You would have said that the savage was produced from the root of the first tree, and modern philosophy will take the appearance of respect for religion and for the Church; she will even want to persuade her that she is only to protect her and bring her back to her primitive perfection: the effects will show what we must believe, by revealing all the hatred she bears to them, as well as to the evangelical virtues. who make the Christian; it will begin by contrasting purely human and moral virtues which it will make great ostentation in spite of their insufficiency for the salvation: it has already been a long time that it shows the false brilliance to make the exchange, while it would like to replace the reason to faith. That’s why the savage had beautiful leaves, and had only that. The ravage of this monstrous philosophy must have its time, religion and the Church will survive this storm. The root and the trunk of the second tree, which still remain, as well as the few vines which escape the plunder of the vine, mark that all is not desperate for the religious state, which will one day find the resource against his oppressors, will be reborn from his ashes and reappear after his shipwreck …. We have seen, moreover, the first cause of the humiliation of the Church in the scandals and the disordered life of the bad ecclesiastics. So much for the secular and regular clergy, and even for the nuns; We shall now consider in the disorders of the laity a last reason which forces God to punish us, and consequently an aggravating cause of the misfortunes of the Church and the upheaval of the State… Let us, Father, give this part to the first session. ; it will be, if you like, for tomorrow, about ten o’clock in the morning, or about four o’clock in the evening.

§. V.

Other causes of the persecution of religion and the upheaval of the state in the kind of apostasy of the children of the Church; the spirit of faith is extinguished among them, and God rekindles it in the hearts of unfaithful peoples.

    « In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, through Jesus and Mary, I do obedience. « 

    It is here, Father, one of the circumstances of my life where I can say with more certainty, if I can have any of this, that Jesus Christ appeared to me visibly, I thought at least to see him. eyes of the body, and I am still in this persuasion; it seemed to me very well made and of an advantageous size; his grave and majestic bearing inspired virtue, breathed decency, and commanded respect; I do not know what was divine in all his exterior and shone especially in his face, so that seeing him and responding to everything he said to me, I never dared to fix his face to discern the features. But suppose, if you will, that all this happened in the purely interior light, however it happened, here was the conversation that we had together and to report the precise result to you:

    Jesus Christ, clothed in a cloak, walked most often before me: he led me thus to a height situated in the middle of a vast country; there he made me see two men standing motionless, distant from each other with a good stone throw; we place ourselves in the middle of this space; he was a Christian and an idolater: J.-C. said to me, pointing at the Christian placed on our right, on the side of the East: « Here is the unfortunate apostate child of my Church; he has extinguished in him the light of faith, he knows me no more, he blushes of my doctrine and does not

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only to get away from me … « And indeed, I noticed that he had his back turned towards J.-C., while the back of the other was only half turned, since he was on the side, having the shoulder towards us.

    Suddenly, by a divine light, J. C. made me penetrate into the interior of the first, and I saw there a conscience so criminal, that the only memory makes me still shudder …… Sky! it was a frightful disorder of abominable crimes! A certain light that passed through this dark chaos, made me see all the horrors. Yes, my Father, in favor of this ray I saw terrifying specters, monsters of different kinds, sizes, and figures, who, always on the move, seemed to clash, fight, and fight each other, to tumble, to pass and to pass again and again. on top of each other; in their struggle, when they seemed a little to part, and to part, by falling backwards and forwards, they let me see a multitude, an infinity of other little monsters, even more hideous figures, who, like an anthill, seemed to be reborn and to reproduce; they went out buried in certain recesses where they had been hidden under the greatest; this apparition, my Father, inspired me with such terror that I was half dead; I saw only around me the shadow of death, the image of hell and the last misfortune; for such a consciousness is only the transport to the unfortunate eternity.

    From there, J. C. turned to the idolater placed on the opposite side of the West, and said, showing it to me: « To every reasonable soul I have printed a certain idea of ​​my existence and even a certain attraction to know me and to adore me, which is why the infidels, abusing this first grace, and behaving only through the senses, take the change and make gods to their own fantasy, gods in accordance with their ideas rude, and favorable to the passions they want to satisfy ……… Then, turning to me, he said to me: You will see and admire the power of my grace on the soul of an unfaithful to whom I want to communicate the lights of my faith. « 

    At the same moment I saw a ray of Divinity, which, like a flash of flame, penetrated into the interior of this happy infidel, and showed me all that was happening there as clearly as that which appeared in it. Outside: at first, this idolater, who had hitherto only appeared to one side, turned himself and placed himself straight in front of J.-C. I observed on his exterior and on his face a certain air of terror. mingled with a certain admiration of surprise: then, considering the depths of his soul, I saw that this trait had made him know the true God, creator of heaven and earth, supreme arbiter of life and death … …. Ah! he exclaimed in himself, and by interior lamentations, I had been deceived, here is the true God! here he is, whom my heart desired, whom my mind sought, whose whole nature announced to me the existence ……. it resounded in my heart, I felt it in spite of myself without being able to agree with it. What blindness! that man is impotent without the help of his author, since he can not himself seize the evidence that presents itself and surrounds it with its striking characters! Finally, I found it; but how have I lived so long without having the happiness of knowing him and loving him? Yes, here is my author and my sovereign, the one by whom and for whom I feel that I am done! From that moment on, I renounce for ever the false deities, to whom I no longer wish to offer my adorations or my incense. At these words, without swinging, he prostrates himself and adores with heart, mind, and body, the high majesty of the true God, the first homage rendered to the divinity of his being.

    To this illustrative and preparatory grace, God wished to add another still more precious, and which, however, was in a way only an increase and an increase; I mean, the desire for the three theological virtues that came to be painted in his soul with the knowledge and faith of the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity, the mystery of the Incarnation, the only true Church, and baptism. who gives us the entrance by regenerating us at J.-C. A still more precious grace, if we can say it, is that this happy convert begins to love with all his heart the God whom he now has the happiness to know: as he believes in him, he hopes to see him one day in the blessed eternity: finally, he reaches out to him with all his might, he even has an insatiable desire to reach it by the holy baptism which is its door.

    It was then that he painfully recalls the indecent mockery and taunts he had perhaps done so many times against the truths of which he feels himself penetrated today. The first knowledge of the religion of the true God, he had previously taken only for the opportunity to despise: yet he feels that these first knowledge was a seed of faith, that the divine goodness had, as unknowingly, hidden in

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his heart to make it one day germinate and fruit; she was there, without being aware of it himself, while waiting for the happy moment: he introduced himself, or rather Providence had spared him, and grace profited at the same time, and from the favorable opportunity and disposition of this man to triumph over all that hinders his salvation; that’s all I’ve seen inside his soul.

    « It is thus, » J.-C. then tells me, « that my grace and my enlightenment are taken away from the one who abuses it, to pass on to the one who makes it more worthy, and that by the same substitution my religion itself passes from ‘One nation to another … I assure you,’ he went on, ‘that if these two men die in their present state, the one who has the appearance of the Christian will be eternally reprobate, and the one who has the appearance the idolater will be eternally happy, because with the baptism of desire he has, by infusion, faith and all the virtues essential to the salvation of the Christian, and that he is united to my Church even though among the infidels, while the other has no virtues, but all the vices of idolaters; he will be lost like them, and his character will only serve his shame and condemnation. « 

    This is the unfortunate disposition in which France has been for so many years, and this unfortunate disposition is the principal, or at least the most universal, cause of the general upheaval and the numberless misfortunes she will soon experience. This disastrous and disastrous revolution of our fatherland, a long time ago, my Father, it has been figured to me still in the way that I will tell you to end this interview:

    I was in spirit on the summit of a beautiful mountain, where I enjoyed a pure air and a glimpse of a most charming horizon. On this beautiful mountain rose a house very regularly built and of a most imposing appearance; what shocked me was to see all the free avenues, and all the entrances open on all sides to the strangers who flocked there in crowds with a very dissipated air.

    While I admired everything with very attentive eyes, I observed that the air was suddenly obscured by the vapors which rose from the earth, and which, reaching the middle region, formed a black cloud. and thick, which was insensibly pushed towards the mountain by a burning wind, which started from a certain side of the horizon. This evil vapor, which stole the light of day, announced a terrible storm, as well as the whirlwind which agitated it. I suspected a disaster; but I perceived under the cloud a sensible object, which for a moment made me count on a help from above. It was a kind of crescent, of a red color, which was agitated in all directions by a very hasty movement. I did not know if I should hope or fear of this apparition that I could not understand: the more he advanced, the more I saw his agitation increase, and the more I felt that my anxiety increased.

    At last, as far as the mountain, it is detached from the cloud, and comes, as it were, to fall at my feet. O God, my Father, what a fright! it was a dreadful dragon, whose body covered with scales of different colors, presented a frightening aspect; he had fire in his eyes and rage in his heart, he proudly raised his head and his tail; and armed with his claws and a double row of long, deadly teeth, he threatened to put everything in pieces. He immediately rushed to the beautiful house, and yet taking a certain detour, as if to avoid me, although he seemed very animated against me. I shuddered at this sight, and my first impulse was to shout with all my strength that we closed the doors and took care of the fury of the dragon … They listened to me with a distracted and mocking air: they took me for a madwoman, a visionary, an extravagant. No one took pains to profit by my advice, and all my zeal was only paid for by ironies and insults.

    However, the dragon was advancing, and already he had made victims of his rage. We began to open our eyes and ask for help when God commanded me to attack the monster and prevent it from doing harm. But what appearance, I said, that a poor girl like myself, without arms and without strength, who does not even have the courage to think of it, can ever get through it? Although I defended myself, it was necessary to obey the order which required the sacrifice of my life for the salvation of all. I did it, without further deliberations. So I rushed on the dragon, to stop him and fight him … O prodigy! scarcely had I attacked him, than he could resist me; it was the lion in the hands of Samson. At that moment I tore it to pieces, despite all its efforts … I tore, in a vehement transport, its throbbing limbs; and the spectators understood the danger of which I had delivered them.

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    It has been a long time, Father, before this vision has been explained to me. Finally, J.-C. has just given me the meaning, almost in these terms: Remember, my daughter, the vision you had in such circumstances of your youth. I remembered it, as I have just told you; on that he said to me:

    The mountain where you were then, represented the kingdom of France; doors and avenues were open to all foreigners, because for a long time the dissipation and curiosity of the Frenchman, and even more so the love of liberty, which are so natural to him, made him very susceptible to innovations in fact of belief., and very capable of giving in the most extravagant systems. There is nothing that can not be admitted with such dispositions.

    These gross vapors which have risen from the earth and which have darkened the light of the sun, are the principles of irreligion and debauchery which, partly produced in France, and partly from abroad, have arrived to confuse all the principles, to spread darkness everywhere and to darken even the torch of faith, like that of reason … The storm has pushed towards France, which must be the first theater of its ravage after having The object which appeared under the cloud was the revolution or the new constitution which is being prepared for France; it seemed to you to come from heaven, though only the vapors of the earth were formed; you have known him only by seeing him, according to his form and his disastrous projects; likewise, the new constitution will appear to many others than it is; it will be blessed as a present from heaven even though it is only a present of the hell that heaven allows in its just anger: it will be only by its effects that we will be forced to recognize the dragon who wanted to destroy everything and all devour … .. Finally, by my order and my help you have triumphed. Here, my daughter, you represent my assembled Church, which must one day defeat and destroy the vicious principle of this criminal constitution. This is still the small work of which I will give you the ideas, which must so fight the efforts of the dragon and cause him so much displeasure, that he would die of spite, if he could ever succumb to his infernal rage.

    There is no doubt, Father, very terrible misfortunes; but I must not conceal from you the hopes that God gives me of the restoration of religion and the recovery of the powers of our Holy Father the Pope. What a consolation for you and for me! what joy for all true believers! I see in the divinity a great power led by the Holy Spirit, and which, by a second upheaval, will restore good order … I see in God a large assembly of ministers of the Church, who, like an army arrayed in battle and as a firm and steadfast column, will uphold the rights of the Church and her head, restore her former discipline; In particular, I see two ministers of the Lord who will be distinguished in this glorious struggle by the virtue of the Holy Spirit, who will inflame with ardent zeal all the hearts of this illustrious assembly.

    All false cults will be abolished, I mean, all the abuses of the revolution will be destroyed, and the altars of the true God will be restored. Old usages will be reinstated; and religion, at least in some respects, will become more flourishing than ever. But, alas! Lord, when will come this happy time … and how long will it last? It’s probably a secret that you are reserving yourself for yourself; I only see here that at the approach of the last advent of Jesus Christ, there will be a bad priest who will cause much affliction to the Church; but on the other circumstances a thick curtain hides me and the length of time, and the time of its deliverance … The will of God forbids me to go further … Let’s stay there for today, Father, because I am afraid to tire you, or at least to abuse your complacency. Tomorrow, if you find it good, we will speak of a very important point for all the nations of the earth.

ARTICLE IV.

LAST TIME OF THE WORLD.

    After putting in a certain order the principal notes concerning the combats and the revolution of the Church of France, it seems appropriate to place here what God has shown to the Sister concerning the persecutions of the universal Church up to ‘to its last revolution, which will be the outcome of the history of the world. It seemed to me that it was also the order she had intended to follow, although the notes were not all given exactly in the same arrangement. Moreover, it is like the natural sequence and the sequence of facts which present themselves to discuss, or rather to render according to his ideas, of which we will always endeavor not to deviate.

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§. I.

Preludes and announcements of the last advent of J.-C.

    « By Jesus and Mary, and in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, I obey. « 

    Then she said to me:

    My Father, today we are going to begin with a very terrible matter; it will be the announcement of the last judgment, of which we must then follow the dreadful circumstances. I confess that this task is painful for me in more than one respect; finally, we must, let’s start.

Our Lord tells her that the world is coming to an end.

    I have found myself more than once, at least in spirit, in this vast campaign of which I have already spoken to you. One day when I was there alone, and with God alone, J.-C. appeared to me, and, from the summit of an eminence, showing me a beautiful sun attached to a point on the horizon, he said to me sadly « The figure of the world passes, and the day of my last advent approaches. When the sun is at sunset, « he went on, » it is said that the day is going away, and that night is coming. All ages are a day before me; judge therefore of the duration that the world must still have, by the space which still remains in the sun to be traveled. I considered carefully, and judged that there was only about two hours left in the sun. I also observed that the circle he described had a certain environment between long days and short days of the year.

    Seeing that J.-C. did not seem to me opposed to the desire which he undoubtedly gave me, to ask him questions about certain circumstances of this striking vision, I ventured to ask him if the day he spoke to me should count midnight to another, or from dusk in the morning to evening, or from the rising sun to the setting sun. On this he replied: My child, the workman only works while the sun is on the horizon; because the night puts an end to all the works. Woe to him who works in the darkness, and who will not have profited by the light of the sun of righteousness that rose up for him. So, my daughter, from the rising sun to the setting sun, we must measure the length of the day …… .. Do not forget, he added, that we must not speak of a thousand years for the world; it is only a few centuries old, of short duration. But I saw in his will that he reserved for himself the precise knowledge of this number, and I was not tempted to ask him more about this object, glad to know that the peace of the Church and the The restoration of his discipline was to last a considerable time.

Calamities of all kinds that will precede the reign of Antichrist.

    Without benefiting from anything that Scripture tells us of the warning signs of the general judgment, and speaking only from the light that enlightened me, I see in God that long before the antichrist arrives, the world will be afflicted with bloody wars; peoples will rise against nations, nations against nations, sometimes united and sometimes divided, to fight for or against the same party; the armies will shock each other frightfully, and fill the earth with murder and carnage. These internal and foreign wars will cause enormous sacrileges, profanations, scandals, infinite evils, by the incursions that will be made in the Holy Church, usurping her rights, from which she will receive great afflictions … .. Besides this, I see that the earth will be shaken in different places by tremors and terrible tremors. I see mountains that split and burst with a crash that throws terror into the surroundings. Too happy if we left it for noise and fear! But, no, I see these mountains, separated and half-open, emerging from the mountains, whirlwinds of flame, smoke, sulfur, and bitumen, which reduce whole cities to ashes. All this and a thousand other disasters must precede the coming of the sin man …… ..

    J.-C. showed me a certain narrow, dark and dark path, surrounded by satellites and armed people to prohibit the approach Suddenly appeared a strong and robust man, who was willing to go through this way: he held a torch in his left hand, and a double-edged sword on the right. He entered the dark path, walking by the light of his torch, and fighting on the right and left with his sword, as if he had had an entire army to fight. There were a great number of precipices around the dark road where the satellites were trying to knock him down. Finally, despite their pitfalls and their efforts, this powerful and courageous man arrived happily at the end, and then turned to his enemies to insult in turn their weakness and their cowardice …… ..

    The closer we get to the reign of the antichrist and the end of the world, J.-C. tells me in explaining this apparition, the more the darkness of Satan will be poured out on the earth, and the more his

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satellites will make efforts to bring down the faithful in its traps and nets. To escape so many dangers, it will be necessary for the Christian to walk with his sword and torch in his hand, and to arm himself with courage like this robust man whom you have just admired.

    The closer we come to the end of the world, the more I see that the number of children of perdition is increasing, and that that of the predestined is decreasing in the same proportion. This diminution of some and this increase of others will be done in three different ways, which J.-C. has indicated to me: 1st. by the great number of the elect whom he will attract to him, to shield them from the terrible scourges which will strike his Church; 2 °. by the great number of martyrs, which will greatly diminish the children of God, and yet will strengthen faith in those whom the sword of persecution has not reaped; 3 °. by the multitude of apostates who will renounce (to) J.-C. to follow the party of his enemy, fighting the mysteries and the great truths of religion.

Martyrs of the Faith to the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

    One day of communion I found myself more keenly struck and penetrated by the real presence of the Holy Eucharist …… I was amazed that such a great God had made himself so small. Is it possible, I said to him, O my divine Savior! that you are this great God, this mighty and terrible God, who reigns at the top of Heaven and governs this vast universe? Where are the marks of this omnipotence, of this supreme grandeur? But, yes, my God, yes, my amiable and powerful Redeemer, it is you; I recognize you in the most divine manner of which you speak to my heart. Based on the truth of your promise, I really believe you are present, and I would consider myself happy to be able to suffer martyrdom for the defense of this truth.

    Then I heard inwardly a voice that said to me: There will be many who will suffer one day for her, because towards the end of the centuries it will be roughly attacked and victoriously defended. A few years before the coming of my great enemy, he continued, Satan will raise up false prophets who will announce the Antichrist as the promised true Messiah, and will try to destroy all the dogmas of Christianity …… .. And I, added t- he will prophesy little children and old men; young people will announce things that will make my last advent ……. What I am telling you here, my daughter, as well as all that I have shown you, will be read and narrated until the end of the centuries ……

§. II.

Reign of the Antichrist.

    Alas! My Father, in what sad detail brings me the order of things! … I find myself obliged to speak to you of the person of the antichrist, as well as of the evils that his malice must occasion in the Church of J. C …

Gracious blessings of which God will warn the Antichrist, and of which he will abuse.

    As for his person, J.-C. showed me that he had put him among the number of men redeemed with his blood, and that he gave him, from his childhood, all the necessary graces, and even some considerate and extraordinary graces. in the order of salvation. In a more advanced age, he will not refuse him the strong graces of conversion which he will abuse like first: I see that he will turn them all against himself, by an outrageous abuse, by an obstinate and superb resistance, which will will lead to the height of the blindness of the mind and the hardening of the heart; he will despise all the advice and good examples of his friends; he will stifle all the remorse of his conscience; He will trample under foot every means by which Heaven will attempt to recall him, without ever wanting to surrender to the voice of God, who, on his side, will at last abandon him to his reprobate sense, as well as his accomplices.

The excess of his pride and fury against the children of the Church.

    That superb who revolts them thus against the Supreme Being, I see, my Father, that she must be so humiliated and confused in the light of judgment, that they will all be obliged to confess that it is only through their fault that they will be reprobate, since they will have had graces more than sufficient to make their salvation. Every unbeliever, every idolater, will confess the same thing, and by that they will condemn themselves, justifying the cause of justice and the goodness of God to all.

    When this wicked man appears on earth, all the pride, all the malice of the rebellious angel and his accomplices will appear with him. It seems that he will be accompanied by all hell and followed by all the crimes. All the henchmen of this unfortunate child of perdition will gather around their leader to make war against the Lord. J.-C., then, will seem to tell them what he says to the satellites of Judas who came to take him to the Garden of Olives: Your time has come; the power of darkness will extend his empire over me …… And he will allow them to push their mischief to the point where he has scored, and where he has a plan to stop them, without them ever going beyond.

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    I see such a terrible scandal in the Church, a carnage so general in the universe, that the thought alone makes it shudder. We have never seen so many deceptions, betrayals, hypocrisies, jealousies, abominations, villains in all genres. A multitude of enlightened, false devotees, false devotees, will greatly favor the imposture, and spread everywhere the empire of charlatanism by magical illusions capable of seducing the understanding, the spirit and the heart of men who would be the least likely. Never will we have seen so many false miracles, false prophecies, or false prophets; we will go so far as to make appear resplendent lights and figures that we will take for divinities … .. In a word, all that hell can invent illusions and prestige will be implemented to deceive the simple in favor of the antichrist (1).

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(1) Saint Paul speaks of the antichrist, whom he also calls the son of perdition: Cujus est adventus secundum operationem Satanæ in omni virtute, and signis, and prodigiis mendacibus, and in omni seductione iniquitatis iis who pereunt, etc. . (II, ad Thess, 2, 9, 10) Surprising enim pseudochristi and pseudoprophetae and dabunt signa magna and prodigia ita ut in errorem inducantur (si fieri potest) etiam electi. (Math 24, 24.) Ecce prædixi vobis. (v.25)

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    It is true that the ministers of J.-C. will fight first the seductive novelty of these false doctrines and the imposture of these prestige, and that their zeal, animated by the Holy Spirit, will put great obstacles in supporting the cause. of J.-C. and the truth of his Gospel But, alas! these precious victims will soon be treated as their divine master; we will fall on them; they will be led to torture: the madmen will believe, by putting them to death, to absolutely destroy his reign; but they will only strengthen it more and more. Yes, Father, I see that far from weakening the faith by the martyrdom of her children, they will only rekindle it in the hearts of the true faithful, and especially the good priests … God has shown me that in hatred of his religion and his adorable person, they will study to renew on his last disciples all the circumstances of his painful passion.

    God will keep silence for some time. But what can all the infernal rage against the omnipotence of a God? It is at the moment that she applauds her victory that he triumphed with brilliance and made it serve itself to his glory … God, I see it, conceals so, as to see to what point will go the insolence of his enemy … .. Ah! my Father, can she go further? Blinded by the pride of Lucifer himself, I see this reckless rising in his presumption to the throne of the Lord, as if to take away his crown and place it on his own head; he carries blindness to the point of believing himself to be Divinity, even to the point of destroying it, in order to occupy his throne and to receive there the adoration of all creatures, and spread everywhere his empire over the ruins from that of the Almighty … What are you doing, unfortunate? I exclaimed: rash, what are you doing? Ah! you put the height to your crimes and you consume your reprobation! You are running to your eternal misery … Stopped; thank you, acknowledge your Master: adore your Sovereign; return to your God; perhaps there is still time! …

He is struck and exterminated by his accomplices.

    I am wrong, Father; it is too late … The line is gone from the cloud … the storm has burst on his guilty head, and the unfortunate man is finally struck by the lightning he dared to challenge. While, by a last attempt, he endeavored, so to speak, to reduce the Lord under his feet, J, C. exterminates him with a breath of his mouth; From the height of his elevation he thrusts him with his accomplices to the bottom of hell, to experience the fate of the rebellious angel, whose revolt and pride he had imitated. I see them fall so quickly and with so much force that the depth of the abyss is troubled, and that all hell reverberates! What a crash! Satan himself is appalled …

Several of his accomplices are converting.

    I said, Father, that the antichrist had fallen with his accomplices; but all his accomplices must have fallen with him; there were only the principal and the most culpable; for I see that in the designs of mercy, divine goodness has reserved a very large number to whom it is destined for the graces of conversion, of which, indeed, many must profit. God will even want, as he shows me, to suspend, in their favor, some signs and some disastrous events to give them more time to do penance, and it will only be after they have satisfied his justice. and disarming his anger with sincere and true grief, and with the sighs and satisfactions of a contrite and humbled heart, let the Lord give free rein to all the warning signs of his judgment.

New warning signs of the last judgment.

    Then, Father, we will see earthquakes redoubled; thick darkness will spread over its surface, which will have no more stability, but will open in a thousand places under the feet of its inhabitants; cities,

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castles, innumerable men will be engulfed in these openings; the elements confused will shock each other frightfully, and the virtues of the heavens will be shaken. The fire, launched from heaven and vomited from the entrails of the earth, will join the thunder and lightning, whose air will be continually agitated and burning; the sea in wrath, threatening to flood the world, will cross its limits and raise to the sky its foaming waves … ..

    At the sight of so many disasters, nations will dry with terror. However, my Father, I see in God that even sinners will be destroyed only separately. God will wait for them until the last moment, and the punishment of some will give rise, by fear, to the conversion of others; and by a marvelous agreement of justice and mercy, which will consume the pearl of the former will serve the salvation of the latter. They will open their eyes, do penance and come back to God, while hell will be filled with the unfortunate victims that war and other plagues have reaped … Ah! Father, I see them falling in such numbers that hail falls on a campaign when it is precipitated by a violent and furious storm! Despite the severity of the blows by which divine goodness will recall the most desperate sinners, I God sees that there will be a certain number of them who will separate themselves from the true penitents and assemble to form still systems of impiety and debauchery. They will refuse nothing to their desires and their passions, and will put the height of their condemnation by putting it to their crimes. Plunged in debauchery and scoundrel, I see them, the cups of gold in their hands, mocking at the threats of the Most High, and also playing with the effects of his mercy and those of his anger. What a frightful, what a criminal entertainment! and who can comprehend the enormous audacity, and how much it must be fatal to them?

    I hear their former accomplices conjure them, groaning, to change their behavior to their example and return to God while there is still time … What are you doing, O our friends! are they shouting to them? What are you thinking of, and what fatal blindness appeals to you? Do you not see the vengeance of the sky that breaks out on our heads and strikes us on all sides? Is it not obvious that we have been fooled by the promises and the prestige of this impostor who has been worshiped as a God and whose insolence J.-C. has so rigorously punished? … If the sky has not spared him What should we promise ourselves by following his error? and will not the chastisement which he feels be the end of the conduct that we hold? O our friends! we conjure you, open your eyes to recognize and adore with us the true God who chastises us so justly to then make us mercy …. Companions of our crimes, be it of our penance; let us unite to disarm the divine wrath, after we have united to light it. Let us do violence to his justice, and try, if possible, to avoid the fate of the impostor who had seduced us …

    It is true, reply the wretches, that we have seen the God whom we adore precipitate; but it is for us one more reason to recognize and adore none, since it is no longer possible to know what to expect. Whether our leader has fallen to the right or to the left, we do not care: we are well here, and the wisest course is to enjoy the certain without worrying about a future that may not exist, and we trouble about the fate that he feels or the one who awaits us … Yes, they repeat, yes, enjoy the season of pleasure and banish everything that can alter the enjoyment, pick, before they are fading, the flowers of the beautiful age, it is the only party of the wise, and that is all our philosophy. We will not dig our brains by the atrabilistic ideas of a theology which torments minds and bodies, and consume at a loss the fine days that nature only grants us to enjoy … Thus speak these fools, in the blindness of their minds and the hardening of their hearts, turning against themselves all the means of salvation … Alas!they do not see the sad fate that awaits them; for the moment according to God strikes them, and precipitates them with their leader, and that in the midst of their passions, in the arms of pleasure, and while they still had the bite in their mouths.

§. III.

Extraordinary consolation and relief that God intends for his Church in his last battles.

    Finally, Father, we are coming out of a subject that has made me suffer, the persecutions and sufferings of the Church. I now have things more consoling to tell you about him, the help and consolation that heaven has for the last days of his life. The divine sun of justice never darted rays more

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his sunset. I mean that the deity of J.-C. never appeared with more brilliance than when he was about to expire on the cross. It will be so with his wife, who will never appear more divine than when she nears its end, and she will be about to expire … Conducted then and assisted more than ever by the spirit of truth, strength and consolation, I see this holy wife in the arms and under the protection of her author, who will not cease to assist and redouble her, in proportion to her needs, her most eager cares, her most powerful help, her most considerate favors, his most conspicuous favors, his sweetest consolations …

    The divine torch of faith, which directs its children in all their steps, will become for them four times brighter, and the flames of the divine love which the Holy Spirit maintains in their hearts will then be incomparably purer and more ardent. I see that the zeal of the glory of God will increase in them in proportion to the faith, and hope, and charity that should animate them. They are disposed not only to suffer martyrdom, but also to face the fury of ten thousand antichrists. So they desire so ardently to shed their blood, that I see them in crowds run to present themselves to the sword, to suffer with joy the most painful torments to nature. It is enough for them to have once declared themselves for J. C, to win the most complete and glorious victory over all their enemies. To attack and conquer them is the same thing for a true believer, and especially for a Christian of the caliber of these.

St. Michael leads in a desert the small number of the faithful who remain after the persecution of the Antichrist. Miracle in their favor.

    God will raise up new prophets who will send them to console his Church, announcing on his behalf the favors he has for him. The true faithful will have frequent appearances of their good angels and other spiritual powers to protect and console them, especially the archangel Saint Michael, the most ardent defender of the militant Church, and who will always be with her for the drive to the end. He will even appear visibly in different meetings …. God will do many miracles in favor of this afflicted Church, and I see that he will make of it the first order and the greatest brilliance, such as the public and notorious resurrection of many of those who have been put to death for the Faith. They will be resurrected, to the great consolation of this Church of which they will become the support and the defenders all the more invincible, that the fury of the persecutors will be able any more against them. They will be impenetrable to the features of pain, and inaccessible to the fear of death. These resurrected saints will join the angels and men sent from God to comfort and support the faithful; though visible to their brethren, they will be like the saints of heaven, enjoying here below the sight and presence of God …

    I have already said, Father, that among the various kinds of torture that will be made to suffer the martyrs of Jesus Christ, the most ordinary will be to renew on them all the circumstances of the crucifixion of their master, hate and in defiance of his painful passion. Thus, by a truly diabolical invention, the rage of hell will find a way to play again his adorable person, and satisfy himself, still giving death to the leader in each of its members … .. But also, I see that God will know how to restrain the fury of these madmen, to die of it only as much as he has decided. They will throw themselves like hungry lions on this beloved flock, with a view to slaughter everything, they will never reap except those of his sheep, which he himself will have marked for martyrdom, and intended to be immolated to his glory. This number being filled, I see his all-powerful hand stop their rage, without it being able, in any way, to override, to put one to death against his will ……

    Suddenly, Father, the glorious Saint Michael presents itself visibly to the ministers and children of the Church, reduced from then on to a very small number, in comparison with what it was formerly: Follow me, my friends, « he said to them, » flee. It’s the order of God … Let us go to another country to seek a more secure asylum against the fury of our persecutors. At these words he walks at their head, and the whole Church follows him, as the children of Israel followed Moses to the land of promise. Then, Father, I see that by a prodigy of his all-powerful arm, J.-C. renders invisible to his enemies his whole Church, to steal it from their pursuit, as he had himself disappeared, to escape from the hands of those who wanted to rush him one day from the top of a rock …

    The armies which pursue them seeing no more trace, imagine that they have all exterminated them and applaud their victory, while the archangel who is at their head, following the movements of the Holy Spirit, leads them to the bottom of a desert, in a vast solitude, where they

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will have much to suffer from hunger; thirst and all the miseries of famine and poverty; but trials will become, with grace, true means of sanctification for them. God will support them with true miracles … He will nourish them sometimes with a miraculous bread, sometimes with his divine word, and most often with the reception of his own body. There will then be more than the Holy Communion to the substanter ….

    The people of God thus gathered in the desert, the most sinister events for the rest of the men will become favorable to him, and the whole nature will seem to lend itself to his needs … The earth, which on all sides opens under the feet of the profane, becomes stable and is strengthened under the feet of the children of God. Rocks and mountains, which will be overthrown by violent tremors, will have opened vast undergrounds where the faithful will take shelter from the insults of the air and the pursuits of the enemy nations … These favorable retreats will soon be changed into temples, where the praises of God will resound night and day. Altars will be erected to his glory, and his ministers will use the sacred stones, vases and ornaments they have brought, to celebrate every day the divine mysteries, the building of the holy assembly of the elect of the Lord …

    Thus the Almighty will play the malice of his enemies; he will make fun of those who, like fools, will roam the earth by blaspheming his name and indulging in all the excesses, without being able to discover a single vestige of Christianity that they will boast of having annihilated … .. Thus the two parties Opposites will triumph, as they already do, each in his own way, until the last decision, by irrevocably fixing the fate of both, has already shown which of the two was to triumph …

Holiness of the faithful thus united.

    This beautiful army, composed of the remains of Israel, God shows it to me, my Father, under the figure of a small chariot of triumph which contains its elected, and that it will win all that will oppose his peaceful walk … .. Sheltered by all the features, under the protection of the sky, this holy and admirable society will take care only to bless and praise its liberator and his God. United by the bonds of charity, they will have only one heart and one soul; but their love will be so pure and so free from passions, that, although the two sexes are there, there will be no abuse or scandal; we will not even talk about marriage: I doubt if we will think about it, at least God does not make me know anything about it. It seems that these predestined ones will already participate in the state of the blessed, so much they will show an aversion for what flatters nature and satisfies the passions. They will only apply to the exercises of religion, and will only care for the care of praising and serving the Lord; to ask him that his reign comes and that his cause triumphs … They will not ask him to punish his enemies, but to enlighten and forgive them …

     During all this time they will be warned of the maneuvers of their persecutors by the ministry of the good angels their protectors. These blessed spirits will travel the world, to dispose sinners to penance and bring back to the Church those who had never known, or who wish to return to the bosom after deviating from it, they will take great care to to warn the faithful of all that will happen there, and especially of the vain efforts of the enemy nations which have sworn their loss. They will know by what point their wickedness, and all that their fury makes them undertake, until St. Michael comes to announce to them the vengeance that God drew from the relentless who pursued them still, always trying to discover the place of their retirement …

    Our most furious enemies are exterminated, he will say to them; there is not a single vestige of their impious and devastating army. The Lord has taken over our defense; he has done justice to the enemies of his people and of his name: the time of our captivity is finished; we can now appear and come out of our underground … .. Follow me again and I will lead you to the last earthly stay that Heaven has for you, a more pleasant and convenient stay, where we must wait for the fulfillment of our most ardent wishes . For I tell you from him, the day of the Lord is at hand; soon we will be witnesses of his glorious advent, and of the authentic vengeance which he must draw from all his enemies and ours … Let us go, « he said, » and I see his already victorious army following him to his last encampment. to this new country which we will speak the first time.

    The crimes and punishment of the antichrist and his followers, the persecutions and triumphs of the Church, had consecutively occupied several sittings; the pulpit and the court had also tired me for two solemn days: I felt pains of head and chest, which

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obliged me to rest a few days; so that it was only after a week that we were able to resume the game. The time elapsed, I heard the Sister beating gently at the little gate where she usually spoke to me. I went over, she asked me in a whisper of my news. I am much better, my Sister, I replied. If you believe me, my Father, « she replied, » you will not apply yourself to this day; I have only come, so to speak, to invite you to rest; you must need it, I understand it perfectly.

    However, my Father, « she continued, » I can not conceal from you that time is running out for our enterprise. I see that we are experiencing obstacles … We touch on open persecution (1). In few,

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(1) Everything arrived as she had planned. This announcement she made to me towards the end of 1790 or the beginning of 1791; and in that time it was still said, it was only a question of finding the means of honorably salving the priests, and not of persecuting them.

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you will be obliged to leave us and to flee, and I fear that it will happen before you have finished your notes on everything that remains to be said to me. This sad separation, Father, I fear, be assured, for you, for the whole house, and for me in particular … However, it is not necessary, I beg you, to expose you, for that, to make you sicker: it would be to some extent tempt God. I will come when you make me say … No, my daughter, I tell him, we must never put off until tomorrow what we can do the same day. I have waited for you all these last days; I am presently in the case of hearing you with much pleasure; and far from boring me, all that you will say to me will be for me the best remedy against the headache that I sometimes feel. You are too honest, Father, « she replied; but since you ordain it, I will obey you: God grant that you will not be worse off! you know how much I would be mortified … I will resume the thread of my speech, following the light that guides me. I will say less today; besides, I beg you to inform me if you are the least embarrassed; because I’ll leave immediately … ..

§. IV.

Last stay of the children of the Church: their way of living; their consolation; their sentences; their agony; their death.

« In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, through Jesus and Mary, I will do obedience. »

    Imagine, Father, a certain district, or space of ground, where nature has collected all her riches and beauties, and where man has nothing to desire for the life of the body; a land of delight, a true earthly Paradise, where God has planted fertile trees of all kinds; a soil that naturally produces all that is necessary for the food and happiness of its inhabitants; this is the enchanted place which God gives to his children, and to which they go in good order; singing hymns to his glory. This is the promised land which they put in their possession, under the guidance of the first of the archangels, who forbade them from God to cross the boundaries of the district which he prescribes for them, because the land which surrounds them is a land accursed and polluted by the crimes and corruption of those who live in it, and from which they must always be separated … What strikes me more in this happy country is a body of light made for it, and of which only its inhabitants will benefit … But I do not know how to make myself heard …… Represent, Father, a dreadful storm that has stolen the light of day and spread darkness on the earth. If the light of the sun comes to pierce the dark cloud by some place, you see in the distance a circle of light on the place of the globe where its beneficent rays bear, whereas everywhere else the eyes discover only lands delivered to the darkness as to the fury of the storm …

    This will be the new homeland of the true children of God, in relation to the rest of the world … They will enjoy, besides the other advantages of this pleasant place, the sweet and consoling light of a sun which will be made only for them, and which, by the luminous circle of its rays, will illuminate only the sensible horizon, and the narrow enclosure of this other Gessen, while one will perceive only horrible chaos in all the extent of the distant countries and circonvoisins.

    I see the faithful attending first to build temples to assemble, and to attend divine services and the celebration of holy mysteries. I say temples, because I see that the faithful will be too many in number so that only one temple can suffice them all. It will even take several; because I do not think there has ever been in the world any parish as numerous as this

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a fine troupe of the elect of the Lord, whose field was as extensive as that which it will occupy; and yet this troop will be very small compared to what it will have been, and the ground very narrow, compared to the countries occupied by the enemy nations ……

    God himself will supply all the materials necessary for the building, and will indicate the manner of putting them into effect, as well as the plan and drawing of the works consecrated to his glory. Every day the Holy Sacrifice of the altars will be offered there. The priests will restore the beautiful order of the Church, as far as possible; they will celebrate, preach, instruct, exercise all their functions, and will not cease to prepare the hearts for the coming of the Messiah, although they can not absolutely know the precise time of this second event. On their word, we will wait for him day by day. The communion of the faithful will be frequent and daily for the greatest number. The blessed spirits, always delighted to have good news to announce to the Church on the part of God, as to render him all kinds of good offices, will redouble their zeal as much as they can to the fervor of the first faithful. that she will approach the end of her labors …… .. I see them flying from heaven to earth, with a speed inconceivable and proportionate to their inconceivable agility. They travel in a blink of an eye immense spaces, visit the most distant regions, to separate the wheat from the chaff and the straw intended for fire. They bring back to the fold of the Church a number of true penitents who had separated themselves from it, and even brought in barbarians who had not received baptism, and had never had the knowledge of God.

    I see both of them presenting themselves as half-dead to the priests of J.-C., to be received by them by the grace of regeneration and by public penance. They will confess highly their infidelities and their crimes, but with feelings of pain that would inspire the most insensitive and would be able to kill them, if God did not preserve their life. The ministers will administer holy baptism, or penance, according to their needs. They will be received in the bosom of the Church, in the edification and consolation of all the faithful …… .. Thus by executing the orders of the Most High, according to their destination, these blessed spirits will give rise to divine mercy. on the predestined ones, and will thus find the means of filling abundantly, in the Church, the places of those who will be cut off by the apostasy, or could retreat from it later; for the faithful will not be constituted in a state of faith, nor inamissible graces; but they will be able by the abuse of their free will to decay and prevaricate … ..

    These true children of the Church, united thus by the bonds of charity, will form between them a little republic, the most perfect that has ever been seen on earth. There will be no civil laws, no jurisdiction, no external police, because we will only know the authority of God, whose holy law we will follow, solely for the principle of conscience and love, without move away from a single point. Happy state! it will be the true theocracy, which would have been the only government of the human race, if man had not sinned. All the goods will be common there, without distinction of mine and yours . So that the primitive Church was only a sketch of it …… .. Each one will take care by reason, more than by need, of a moderate work, able every day to make subserve a body almost all celestial, and maintain a life that will be expected to finish every moment ……

    The greatest care for all will be that of the worship of the altars, and the maintenance of all that relates to religion and may contribute to the common salvation and perfection of his children. In this holy society we shall hear nothing but hymns and canticles of joy, tunes of jubilation, harmonious chords which divine love will incessantly form, in honor of the God who is three times holy; and not of these profane songs, of those lascivious and corruptive accents of an effeminate music that today amuse and soften so criminally the guilty children of the century …… By these divine accents all the hearts will be penetrated and burned with the purest flames and from the bosom of the Church of the earth will continually rise a pleasant concert, to unite it and answer the concerts of the Church of Heaven, and restore to music its natural function and its first destination.

    Is it any wonder, then, that this terrestrial troupe is becoming more and more the object of the glances and the compliments of Heaven? …… Is it any wonder that the Son of God takes his dearest delights there, and he wants to live to the end in the middle of these children of men? Is it any wonder that, if it is there, as J.-C. has made known to me, a multitude of martyrs of desires and will, which the most ardent love will consume with its ardor? These happy victims will dry in the meantime

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to see and possess J.-C. in his glory. For his part, J.-C. will seem to be delighted to be so desired by his dearest children. He will receive with pleasure the tender sighs of their hearts. These earthly angels will share the flames of the seraphim, and will dispute in love with the first inhabitants of Heaven …

Vision of the Sister in her childhood, which expressed the state of the Church in recent times.

    On this, my father, I must tell you a singular trait of my childhood, because it is to tell you that God gives me the explanation today, that I had ignored until today . Being only seven or eight years old, God gave me a vision here; it affected the eyes of the body and those of the mind at the same time: Toward the middle of a very dark night, I awoke, and waking I saw in the middle of my father’s house a certain round of light about two feet in circumference. This circular space appeared to me to be exactly filled with burning and contiguous coals, arranged with so much symmetry and union that it was difficult to discern some lineaments of separation, so that there was no sensible difference except in their The fire of which they were all animated and penetrated gave them all a certain small movement that they communicated to one another without ever leaving their place. Their color was like that of a beautiful setting sun in a cold season, whose disc appears larger and more inflamed than it was during the height of the day. So we say it’s a storm announcement … .. I noticed again that this dazzling roundness was lined with a blue celestial circle, pulling a little on the purple, and the width of a good inch ….

    All slept in the house, and the whole apartment, at this place, was filled with thick darkness. It occurred to me that it might have been the fire of our hearth, which would have been badly covered under the ashes at night, though it was not the place of the hearth; and to clear myself of it I rose, without feeling the slightest fright. I approach this place, which was not that of the hearth; I very carefully consider this extraordinary object to which I could understand nothing. Then I went to discover the fire of the hearth, which I felt the heat … I then returned to the first object, which remained always in the middle of the house …. Curiosity made me want to touch him several times with my fingertip; I was on the point burned, I do not feel no pain, just the color of the light circle had to paint on my hand, and every time I approached, I heard an inner voice saying to me: Do not touch me . This voice made me understand that I would one day know what this vision meant …. I went back to bed and everything disappeared … I felt neither fear nor desire to tell anyone, so that everything remained there, until J.-C. explained everything to me ….

    This apparition, he told me recently, then represented to you the state of my Church, as I now show it to you, that is to say, in the state where it will be towards the end of the centuries and the last time of its duration. It is my light that shines in the darkness and the darkness does not understand. The roundness that you saw in the darkness of the apartment, marked the space it will occupy in the midst of profane and unfaithful nations. It is separated from their darkness only by an effect of my special protection, represented by the circle of a celestial blue which surrounded it. The symmetrically contiguous burning coals, which filled the luminous space, designated the ministers and the true faithful of whom the Church will be composed; the difference in size marked the difference between places and merits, and especially degrees of love and virtue; their contiguity, the fraternal union that will reign between them and should already reign among all Christians. The ardor that animated them showed that these holy souls, thrown thus into the furnace of divine love, will be only fire and love … Yes, once again, here is my light: this light has it in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it …

    I am still going, Father, to report to you what happened to me last Sunday at the same time. J.-C. appeared to me in human form and very much during my thanksgiving, after my communion. He was standing near the Holy Table: I saw him stretch out his right arm while staring at me, as if to show me something with his fingertip. I did not see what he seemed to tell me, and I did not know what he meant to make me understand. However he always looked at me and remained in the same attitude … Lord, my God, what do you want to say to me or to make me hear, I asked him? … I show you my approaching judgment, he answered me, and he disappeared … I remained without knowing and without asking for more … In another circumstance he showed me his Church and said to me:

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    He who is holy, sanctify himself still, and he who is pure, purify himself more; because the time is short … You will see, my child, by what last proofs I will prepare my Church to appear before me at my last judgment.

Inner sufferings of the Church.

    Suddenly, Father, I saw a severe pain that spread over all the ministers and children of the Church, a sentence that was harsher and more sensitive to them than the hunger and thirst, the misery and all the persecutions of Satan and the antichrist … It was the privation of the sensible and inner consolations. I saw that God removed all the help from heaven …. They are no longer visibly assisted by the angels, they no longer hear the comforting voice of the prophets. They are no longer reassured by sensible graces; their ministers themselves, hardly knowing what to expect from promises they do not see being fulfilled, would be almost tempted to lose hope; yet they never cease to urge them to patience. He will come infallibly, they repeat to them, but we must wait for his time without losing heart. Heaven wants to test us to the end, for an opportunity to increase our merits. Redoubled zeal, ardor and penance: let us ask him with more fervor that his reign comes … My Father, God makes me know that it is in these so pleasant dispositions that he must find them … .. that it is then that they will touch his judgment with the end of the finger and it is what he wanted me to make one’s voice heard by the attitude of which we spoke, and that serious look that gave so much importance to the thing he announced …

His agony of love.

    But, Father, this is only the beginning or part of the inner pains of the Church. J.-C. shows me how he likes to martyrize this sad and sorrowful holy wife: she drinks in long strokes in the bitter chalice of holy Passion; he loves to satisfy her with anguish and opprobrium which make her exclaim: My soul is sad to the death. I see the cause of his deep desolation: it is the divine love which throws all his arrows at him and unhooks him all his fiery features. Like the brick in the furnace that bakes it, all the powers of its soul are burnt and parched; it falls into fatal failures and languor, and is reduced to a sad agony. At the height of her anguish and inner sorrows, she exclaims: O all who pass by, consider and see if there was ever pain like mine! I languish in expectation of my beloved: I have a burning desire to see him; I would at least know the time of his arrival, after which I have sighed for so long! O all of you, hearts sensitive to the attractions of her charms, take part in my pain!

    What saddens him more is the kind of uncertainty in which he has left her, if she is worthy of her love or hatred; it is to know almost nothing if he has not abandoned her, and as repudiated in her aversion. The apprehension, the only idea of ​​being separated from it for a time, the unlimited length of which would seem to her like an eternity, by the violence of her love, is for her a sword of pain that pierces her and tears her entrails; as the murderous spear pierced the heart of her divine husband on the cross, a mark of resemblance by which divine love draws in her the most perfect copy of her divine object. My God! my God! Have you abandoned me? « she exclaims, in the bitterness of her anguish! Ah! My dear husband, what have you become for me, or what have I become for you? By grace, take away my worries and my alarms; and if it be possible, turn from me the sight of a chalice which I can not endure! But what am I saying, O my Father! Ah! that your holy will be done, and not mine; I submit to the last breath! I too deserved the effects of your fair rigor, and I want to suffer in the way and as much time as you like ….

    Thus speaks this tearful and contented lover of the fate that overwhelms him …. But soon her heart can no longer suffice the ardor that consumes her, she addresses the daughters of Zion; I want to say to the blessed souls of the heavenly Jerusalem, to find out news. Tell me, I implore you, where is the home of my beloved! Instruct me on everything that touches him, and if you have seen him somewhere; tell me where he has gone, so that I will fly in his footsteps; for I languish with love for him … I am determined to do everything to find him wherever he may be … I will pass the city barriers; I will ask the sentinels, have you not seen my beloved, the dear object of my sighs and my vows? I will run in the country, and I will not rest, until I have found this object which my heart loves, and after which I have sighed for so long; that I did not see his kind face and heard the pleasant sound of his voice …

    Who would believe it, Father! this desolate wife is looking for a husband who is so near her. While

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she runs and calls him, it is he who leads her by the hand, or rather who holds her in his arms … It is he who forms in her those sighs and these ardent wishes: finally he answers him, and she recognizes him by the voice that makes her shudder… How pleasant are your proceedings, my dear wife, « said he; May your love be sweet to me, and may I be sensitive to the tender affection you have for me! Yes, my beloved, you have wounded my heart, you are very beautiful to me.

    Then, my Father, what joy, what joy! … I see that the divine love unleashes and exhausts all its features, to which the heart of the holy wife can no longer suffice …. Ah! she said, my dear husband, I can not stand it anymore. I fall into failure … my heart languishes with love for you! He burns with desire to unite with you, and to possess you without fear of ever losing you! Forgive my expressions, Father, nothing unclean in my ideas, I can assure you. I must not omit anything that God makes me see to be written … Woe to him who, against the designs of God, would find an opportunity for scandal in a completely spiritual allegory, which is only for its edification. I see then in this moment the holy husband and the holy wife in embraces and raptures of love the most tender and the most alive … It is like a perfect union … But being no longer sufficient, the heart of the saint wife succumbs under the efforts of divine love … What makes her say, as in J.-C. on the cross: everything is consumed … My God! … my beloved, my heart delighted with your beauties falls into failure …. I put my soul in your hands …

    So, Father, I see her as exhaling ……. But what am I saying! she is immortal, and like J.-C. on the cross she feels redoubled her ardor. It is then that she utters the strongest and most ardent sighs towards her divine spouse, until I see her falling asleep on her breast and in her arms. Then I hear the divine spouse who tells all nature: do not wake my beloved until she wakes up or wakes me up (1) … ..

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    (1) After the Sister had told me what we have just seen concerning the mutual love of the two mysterious husbands, I asked her if she had not seen the book of Canticles; She answered me: « Father, I know, without any doubt, that there is in Holy Scripture a book called the Canticle of Canticles; but that’s all I know: I’ve never read it, be sure. Besides, you know that I do not speak from Scripture, still less from human knowledge. All I have just told you is looking inside the Church with regard to J.-C.; I saw it recently in the same order that I just returned it to you … But, Father, I have seen it in God, and in a manner so spiritual and divine, that it is infinitely above the senses and the nature, which has no part in it; so, my Father, that in all that I have seen, there has not fallen into my mind any slightest dishonest idea …

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    This new situation of the bride represents, therefore, Father, the state of the children of the Church and her ministers, whose inner and outer sufferings we have seen. Punishments and desolations, afflictions and fears are for them the most severe trials; they are the arrows whose love constantly hurts their hearts and which leads them to the most painful agony, in which, nevertheless, love makes them find true happiness. I hear them say to each other: alas! we do not know when the Lord will come; How boring!How many years have we yet to languish in this sad situation! Will we never see the day of his triumph and his eternal reign? It will be then, says the Lord, that they will touch him with the finger and that they will be finally witnesses of the end of the world, his last judgment and the great advent of the one whom they so much desired ……

Death of the Church and all the rest of men.

    I see the ministers who gather in the churches, with all the people, to celebrate the divine mysteries, as they have always done, but without knowing yet that it is here, for the last time, that they will never celebrated ……. They give Communion to all the faithful people. So, my Father, it is then that these tender embraces, this mysterious union of the husband and the wife, these raptures occur ……. these ecstasies, these transports of the tenderest and most vivid love … Finally, being unable to sustain the effort of divine love, they succumb to it, and I see them all exhale gently in the kiss of the Lord, like a tender child who falls asleep peacefully on the breast that has carried him …

    This is the precious death of all the children of God and of his Church. The other children of men are also dying at the same time, and all living things have suffered death … Let us also rest, Father, during the universal silence of created beings, until we speak of the general awakening which must enlighten the imposing spectacle of a new order of things. What God makes me see should hold the attention of every reasonable creature ……. Tomorrow, if you wish, we will sketch the frightening picture. May he make the most salutary impression on the minds of hardened sinners, according to the designs of him who inspires me in their favor! …

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ARTICLE V.

OF THE GENERAL JUDGMENT.

§. I.

Renewal of Heaven and Earth purified by fire.

    « In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; by Jesus and Mary, and in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, I obey … .. « 

    My God, my Father, what a frightful matter we are going to begin today the postponement given to all creatures for the execution of all promises and all threats; the term assigned to the righteous and to the sinner; the tragic denouement of so many scenes and so many intrigues; the day of the Lord when the truth must finally triumph over so many errors, and where everything must ever return to order; the last catastrophe of the universe; let’s say the word, the end of the world, the universal judgment with its terrible circumstances! … For me, my Father, I am so frightened in advance, that I need an order from God to oblige me to you by to speak …… The fear that it inspires me hardly leaves the courage to you to sketch the terrible spectacle, and I do not know if I will have the strength to execute it ……. I will obey, however, my Father, and I will repeat to you trembling what God has shown me so that you may write it … Let us follow the light that enlightened me and lead me ….

    After the death of every living creature, which is called the end of the world, I heard a confused noise, a universal complaint of all inanimate beings, of which each one at this moment took an eloquent and terrible language. It was the cry of nature. The sun became dark and dark, stopped in its course and said to his Creator: Sovereign Master, since you pulled me from the void I have not stopped executing your orders, illuminating the world of my light and animating my life-giving warmth; but what gratitude have men shown you for so many benefits which have come to me by my means? The ungrateful! they abused my light; they infected my rays by committing crimes on crimes in my presence and before my face! I ask you for reparation, justice and vengeance, Lord, for so many outrages that they have made you on my occasion, and I ask to be purified of so many dirty pleasures of which they have defiled the purity of my looks ….

    More animated still, and the blush on the forehead, the moon demands justice and revenge for the shameful crimes that men have entrusted to its rays, trying to envelop them under the shadows of the night to hide them from the light of day. All the stars ask to be purified of the crimes of which they have been witnessed, by a kind of complicity; … still more strongly the earth cries out for vengeance against the ingratitude of sinners, and wants to be purified of the abominations with which they have defiled it and made the theater impure … I fed them, « she says, » by your orders; I used them as a stool and provided all that was necessary for their lives; and, for all recognition, they infected me, dishonored me and abused me in every way. The sea, the fire and the air, and all the elements, the trees, the plants, the different animals, the whole nature, all take a language of vengeance, which solicits divine justice against sinners; everything comes together to reproach him for the services he has received and the abuse he has made of them, his ingratitude for the benefits of his creator …. All at last demands to be purified anew, and the whole nature wants a repair, a regeneration, and like a new existence which delivers it forever from the slavery which had reduced it to serve the vanity and passions of men … .

    Immediately I hear an omnipotent voice which says: Yes, here is the moment when I will renew everything … .. I will make new heavens and a new earth …. and it will be done in the blink of an eye. A prodigious fire from the firmament, poured out into the air, descends to the earth, where, in the minute, it has consumed everything, destroyed everything, purified everything, without leaving a single vestige of defilement. Thus will be done by fire this substantial purification of this wonderful renovation of the elements and of the whole of nature, from which will result a new earth and new heavens.

§. II.

End of Purgatory. Increased suffering of souls a few years before their release.

    At this great spectacle, Father, God makes another succeed him, which is neither less imposing in itself, nor less preparatory to the grand denouement; I mean the view he gives me of purgatory that will end …

    So here I see, my Father, an innumerable multitude of souls

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in the devouring flames, and that the desire to see and to possess the object of their love causes even more suffering. They all suffer a lot from fire, but not equally. I see some who suffer so excessively, that their troubles would be equal to those of the damned, if we except despair and eternity … They love God, and are not desperate, and by that they enjoy a kind of peace in the midst of their torments. There is, however, and this is the greatest pain of purgatory, who do not know, to say well, where they are, and who are as uncertain of their fate; who doubts, in a sense, whether God has made them merciful, and whether they will ever have the happiness of seeing and possessing it. Only they do not remember that he cursed them; and in this thought, which gives all their hope and consolation, they bless him and resign himself to his will. This essential difference between them and the reprobate suffices to alleviate an uncertainty, which would without it from their purgatory a kind of hell. But it will be easily understood, and, no doubt, how much in such torments it is different to know not well where one is, or to know, no doubt, that one is in hell; to remember what sentence one has endured, or to have always in the memory the sentence of his condemnation, without being able to distract himself for a moment. The first state is terrible; but the second alone makes the fate and the hell of a reprobate ….

    The fire that burns them works discerningly upon these poor souls, and punishes them in proportion to their faults or to what they are indebted to divine justice. The first relief that God, bowed by the length of their troubles or by the suffrages of his Church, grants them, is to take from them that kind of uncertainty which left them in such a cruel situation. They remember then very distinctly that they are not rejected; that they are, on the contrary, destined to see and possess God. O consoling memory! they suffer their purgatory with even more resignation and love …

    I see a multitude without number who are there only for very slight faults, as idle words, complacency in useless thoughts, return of self-love in the good, a little voluntary distractions in prayer, little gossip moods, promptness, vivacity in contradictions, lack of support for the faults of others; others, will it be believed, my father, for only imperfections, for example, for not having corresponded to grace with enough fidelity or in all the extent that God wanted it; for not tending to God with enough strength and perseverance; not having served him with enough fervor and love; not to have been as saintly as he asked of them, and according to the measure of the graces he had granted them for that …. Everything must go through the flames, let everything be punished and purified in purgatory; and to judge well of faults called light, and to know well the hatred which God bears to them, one should see and feel the rigor with which he punishes them in his own friends, and with what exactitude he destroys them to the slightest degree. vestige, so that no stain of sin appears in his eyes, nor defile the purity of his presence and the sanctity of his house … But there are souls to whom God makes suffer a purgatory of love rather than sense … We must love like them, to understand the rigor …

    God shows me that, several years before the judgment, the sentences of Purgatory will be increased for each soul, in proportion that it will have more to pay of debts: because I see that in a single year, God, if it wants it can do more to hurt a soul than in the space of a hundred years. I hear the angels announce to them that they suffer so cruelly only because the judgment approaches, and that God increases their suffering in rigor, only because he wants to shorten them in duration …. I also see that when J. C will be ready to give the signal for the great resurrection, the angels will go to Purgatory to remove all the purified souls, which they will bring with those of the children of the Church expired in the kiss of the Lord, as we have seen lately, and whose bodies will be guarded by blessed spirits.

§. III.

General resurrection of the good and the bad.

    The firmament renewed in its nature and adorned with all its stars, will present a sun and stars of a matter as spiritual, and of a tempered light which will never disappear, and which carried much more over all that the the visible sky has now more admirable … The earth, become a transparent globe, will have all the clarity of the most beautiful crystal, without having the hardness. Nothing will be destroyed except animals and all that is necessary for their sustenance in the present state of things. Everything will be renewed,

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except the bodies of the reprobate, who will be changed to worse, and whose condition will be a thousand times more unfortunate and the fate a thousand times more fatal than ever …

    I say, Father, that except for animals no being will be destroyed, and that must be understood as to the substance, which will remain identically the same; but the fire will destroy, by the renovation, all that was there of corruptible. For the rest, I see that God will keep everything he has done. They are creatures out of his hands and he wants eternally to draw his glory. Eternally, as much as they will be able, it will be praised and thanked; he will give them all a new blessing. Each of them, nearing her Creator, will leap for joy, like a lamb to her mother. The earth will be covered with flowers and incorruptible trees that will probably be used by some creatures destined to inhabit it again. Without saying any more on this point today, God made me predict that this beautiful and vast house must be occupied eternally by creatures who will glorify it in their own way, and that it does not want me know….

    I see the angels descend on the earth in greater numbers than before; at the command of the Lord, I see them trumpet, and share in the four corners of the world, to give the terrible signal of the great resurrection of the dead …….

    They sound their trumpets, and in the moment the bodies of the blessed are found in their same flesh, with their muscles, their nerves, their tendons, their bones and all that constitutes the essence of the human body, without there being missing no part. When they were mutilated and put in a thousand pieces; when their ashes thrown to the wind would be divided by all the earth; when they had been absorbed in the vast bosom of the ocean, in the abysses of the sea, they will meet miraculously at the same time, to compose still the same bodies, which by this second composition will be rejuvenated, renewed, purified as a beautiful crystal. They will be endowed with all glorious qualities; but their souls having not yet returned, I see them without movement and without life. I see then arrive an innumerable troop of guardian angels followed by souls who must enter these bodies thus recomposed … What a joy! what consolation! What a triumph for one and the other, at the moment when these glorious souls will find and recognize each one’s own body, and will meet there, giving each other a thousand blessings and a thousand praises! .. Finally, I find you after such a long time absence, dear companion of my penances and my labors, will say this fortunate soul! I find you after such a long absence! Ah! how sweet it will be for me never to leave you again, for you never seemed so handsome, so dear, so kind! What a joy it is to share my eternal happiness with that dear companion of penances and mortifications that have deserved it! Excuse me, my body, if I have made you suffer so much on the iron floor; but you will soon see that I was working to make you happy. You have shared my sorrows, come, because it is right, come to taste the reward that must not end … I feel that I am for you and that our fate is so linked, that I can not, in a way, be perfectly happy without your participation! … Come and make the most of my happiness, by tasting it yourself, by sharing it with me!, ..

    Then, my Father, will be the true resurrection, that is to say the substantial and hypostatic meeting, by which these blessed bodies will become living and animated men in all their parts … I see them rise on their feet, shining like so many luminous bodies, all in a flourishing youth, and as at the age when J.-C. left the earth … God, supplanting by his power to the accidents and the defects of the nature we will no longer see in them any deformities or imperfections on any side. The size will be the same in all, as well as the construction; but the crowns and the glorious qualities will be different, according to the difference of the merits …

    These bodies, thus miraculously resurrected, will imitate, as it were, the glorious qualities of the body of J.-C. coming out of the tomb. It will be the same qualities that will reflect on them, and their resurrection will be only an emanation of his own … .. However brilliant they are by themselves, how much do they become more so by their union with their souls ! From that moment they enjoyed a new life which they had never felt, although they had so often received the principle and pledge of participation in the body of the chief of the predestined. A torrent of delights floods them; it spreads in all their inner and outer senses, to which it makes feel a sensation peculiar to each of them in particular, so that it will truly be a deified humanity. They will have aspiration and breathing, a charming smell, and to the palate an admirable satisfaction produced by a

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pleasant and nutritious saliva; a juice, the sweetest and the most inextricable, will flow in their veins and in their intestines, to constantly maintain the principle of life and immortality. There will be no missing parts, none of the necessary members for the integrity of the human body. God does not mutilate what he has done to keep …

    I see the heavenly spirits share in three bands the blessed whom they have already separated from the wicked. The pure souls who have followed the lamb closer to the earth, will take the first flight, and will be first removed to the highest airs; they will join the heavenly court to accompany the triumph of the king of glory and come down again with him … The second band will be placed in the firmament, and will fill the air to adorn its passage and its pompous march to the place where it must stop. Mixed with the different choirs of the angels, we will see these blessed ranks in beautiful order, line the way and raise to its immortal glory triumphal arches and the most brilliant trophies, sing its dazzling victory, and make all the sounds of the most harmonious and the most beautiful … ..

    The third part of the blessed will remain on earth to await his coming, with an anxiety mingled with a kind of fear, that will inspire them this great apparatus and the importance of the event that is preparing; they will raise their heads and turn their eyes to the place where they must come, showing the strongest interest in the thing …. A very striking position, no doubt, my Father, a very interesting expectation, and a spectacle capable of imposing on all the human race, on all the posterity of Adam! What man can remain indifferent at the end of such a scene, if he thinks carefully that it is inevitable for him to be there!

    What an awful spectacle, Father, is to frighten my eyes and to disturb the joy of my heart! What horrible monsters! They are the bodies of the reprobate whose earth is covered …… .. objects unbearable to the sight; I see them at first without movement, as were those of the saints; but here at the signal given, hell vomits their impure souls, with the demons dragging them to reunite them. I say that hell vomits them, to mark the violence done to them by divine justice, by forcing them to appear at its judgment, without leaving any one that is not presented with his body ….

    These unfortunate souls will therefore be compelled to return to these hideous and dreadful carrion, which, at the moment, will feel as they do all the torments of hell ……; or if you prefer, these unfortunate souls will be, on the occasion of their material bodies, attacked, and as invested, penetrated even by all kinds of infections, diseases, infirmities, unbearable pains in all parts of the world. these unfortunate bodies … .. Add to this all that will add pain, the activity of a fire as unbearable as it is incomprehensible ……. So I see these hideous corpses, those stinking carcasses lying on the ground; but their infection and their corruption are so concentrated that the earth, which carries them with regret, is in no way soiled. I see their stinking and poisonous intestines boiling, like a boiler on a fiery furnace … Finally, I see the executors of divine justice to place them all on the left side to await the final judgment that must forever fix their fate, and the authentic sentence that will soon justify forever the just severity that condemns them … ..

§. IV.

J.C. descends with majesty to judge the World. Manifestation of consciences.

    You remember, no doubt, that I spoke to you of the last day of the world, of the death of the just and of the sinners. Well!My Father, all that I have told you since that time, happened in the morning of the same day … .. I see in Our Lord, that when the King of glory will appear and come down to exercise his judgment, he will open the door of great eternity; and this door will open towards the south of the same day, which will be the last of the world … There will end the succession of times, the revolution of the centuries and years … We will not count any more days, nor nights, nor months, nor weeks No seasons, no minutes, no moments … All this will enter the heart of the vast ocean; everything will be named eternity! … .. eternity! … .. eternity! … ..

    God, who in one word has drawn the world from nothingness, yet spent six days disposing and perfecting his work, to prove to us that he is free in his omnipotence, and that nothing can force his free will . In the same way, my Father, I see that, although God can finish the world and judge him in a flash, he will still use his freedom to fully justify his providence and the decrees of his justice.

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Therefore, I see that he will give this important discussion a certain length, which will however be limited to a very limited time …

    Here, then, my Father, the hour of this great and terrible judgment! … .. I see in the air the luminous sign of our redemption, the instrument of our salvation, the cross of the Savior coming forward …… brilliant triumph! Enemies of this cross, what will become of you? How can I bear the sight of it? … I see the King of glory approaching in all the glory of his supreme majesty, in the terrible apparatus of his omnipotence … I see him seated on a throne of justice, whose unshakable base rests on a dazzling globe, in the form of a luminous cloud that throws lightning and lightning on all sides … But as the judge approaches, I see these thunderbolts and flashes lining up on his left so knock only on the side of the f returned. I see the heavenly court and all the triumphant Church surrounding the throne of the King of Kings, singing the most sublime tunes to his glory … I see the majesty of the Lord descend gently from heaven, much as he ascended on the day of his ascent. He is seated on a brilliant cloud, or rather on a luminous globe formed expressly; for the purified and renewed earth, as we have said, will no longer send vapors capable of forming clouds …

    I see the troop of angels and righteous who are on the earth, shudder with joy and gladness, and already rise from themselves to meet him, uniting with the concerts of the blessed and sounding the tunes of those cries of joy and triumph that I have heard, and which God wants me to repeat to you. Glory to God in the highest heaven! Hosanna to the son of David! … Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! … Glory, praise, virtue, power to our God and to the lamb who sits on the throne … What a happy arrival! ……

    I see the throne of the sovereign judge stop twenty or thirty feet from the earth, always surrounded by that globe of light which will ceaselessly throw sweet and agreeable rays on one side, and on the other vengeful flames, until the time when the reprobates have been thrown into the abyss … ..

    In the center of the heavenly court and of the Church which surrounds his King, arrayed in fine order and without any confusion, I see a number of thrones rise around that of J.-C. They are destined for his ministers, whom I see as to sit there by his order, starting from the first apostles to the last of the good priests. They will remain there as their master and will be the only ones to enjoy this privilege, if we except the Mother of the Redeemer, that in this quality all the elect will recognize for the Queen and the sovereign of the universe …. The innumerable troop of the other saints will not be seated during the judgment; they will all stand up out of respect for the adorable person of the one who is going to judge them, and for the authority he gives to those whom he is willing to associate with this great judgment.

    I see then a huge volume that angels present before the judge. It is sealed in all directions by invincible plates of gold … .. Here, says the judge, the secret of the consciences, which I kept hidden so long … The men will see and know what they do not had never seen, mysteries of iniquity which they would not have even suspected; because it is a question of justifying my providence and of proving to the whole universe the fairness of my judgments … Let the whole world read, judge, and decide between my creature and me … I will go so far as to take the sinner himself as arbitrator of the dispute that divides us: I will make him judge in his own cause, and I will summon him to tell me if I am unjust in condemning him …

    At these words the judge puts his hand on the fatal volume in which is recorded the abominable history of all the crimes of the world, which have not been expiated by true penance. He shatters them with mysterious seals, and before me the volume is open to the eyes of all creatures, to the face of heaven and earth; so that everyone will see everything that has ever happened in the heart of the reprobate, repeated as in a mirror or in a faithful painting. We will see all the abominations, all the most secret crimes, of which they will be guilty … proud thoughts, unbridled desires for revenge, dishonest motions, shameless actions, blatant injustices, indecent glances, hateful works, infamous solicitations; impious and blasphemous taunts, cowardly slanders, atrocious slanders, black betrayals …; enormous sacrileges, horrible profanations … All will be seen, counted, examined, weighed, so that there will not be a single creature in heaven or on earth, who does not have complete knowledge of it, and who does not see all the ugliness, the darkness, the enormity of each in particular, with a sovereign horror for the criminal ….

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    This will be the manifestation of consciences. What then will become of the sad resources of hypocrisy, the gloomy detours of injustice, the deceptive appearances of bad faith, and the insolent triumphs of impiety? What a vengeance, Lord, you will draw from this great day!

    The sins of which the saints are guilty will also appear, or at least we shall be aware of them; but as they will be covered and effaced by the blood of J.-C. that they will be applied by a true penance, they will appear only for their glory and to erect a trophy to the divine mercy which will have forgiven them … All their purity of intention all their mortifications and alms, all their most secret good works, all their struggles against themselves, their fidelity to grace, their daily sacrifices, their frequent victories, even the smallest in appearance against the Demon, the world, the flesh …… all this will be seen, known, manifested to the eyes of the whole world; and it is, as God will do justice to his saints, that he will take against the world and the ungodly the cause of his friends whom the world had so much persecuted.

    I see him turn towards this triumphant army placed on his right, and throwing him a tender and amorous look which ignites all hearts, he addresses to them these words so sweet and so consoling: It is now, my friends and my dear children that I must acknowledge all that you have done, and suffered for me; you have, through a penitential and crucified life, shared the sorrows, sufferings and labors of my mortal life: it is right that you share the joys and rewards of my glorious life, which I have deserved you by my death. You have helped me to carry my cross, it is right that you collect the merits; you have walked in my footsteps by the imitation of the virtues of which I had given you the example, it is right that you follow me in the kingdom which was to be the term of this fidelity, and that you had there that which was the model which you desired so much to be like … You have practiced in my name the Christian charity towards your brothers, you have relieved my suffering members in the person of the poor, whom you have lodged, covered and satiated, whom you have visited in their diseases, in hospitals and prisons; you have forgiven insults for my sake; you loved your enemies … Now it is up to me to prove to you that I am faithful in my promises and beautiful to those who have served me … Nothing you have done for me will be lost, and I will take into account the obole and the glass of cold water; good will will be worth you as much as good deed, and nothing will remain without reward. During the course of your life you have been faithful in a few things, and for this little thing you will receive an immense happiness that will never end.

So fear nothing, my beloved, your fate is assured forever; the result of my judgment no longer concerns you: reassure you, and do not trouble yourself with its threatening device.

    Then, my Father, unable to resist the transports of their gratitude, nor the ardor of their love, I see all these blessed prostrate themselves together before the throne of their judge and their father, putting all at once their crowns at his feet…. Sovereign Judge of heaven and earth, they say, King of glory and of our hearts, tender Father of all your creatures, you have crowned in us your gifts and your graces, and you have rewarded your precious blood; suffer, we beseech you, that we pay you homage of these crowns, which we hold only of your infinite kindnesses, by chanting for ever your eternal mercies.

    My beloved ones, answers them J.-C., you have satisfied my heart and fulfilled all my wishes. I am very happy to have suffered death, since it has given you so much property; so it was only for that reason that I had suffered it. Your eternal happiness, which is the fruit of it, compensates me well for the blood I shed for you, and for so many others who have not benefited from it …. It is to recognize your fidelity to my graces, that I will pour upon you forever torrents of delights that will spring from my divinity … You are the blessed of my Father, and you will be eternally. My friends, You have worked hard, much suffered; lastly, the time of rewards has arrived for you, and the time of vengeance for your enemies; an eternal joy will succeed to a transient sadness; the tears of a moment will be dried by a lasting satisfaction, and the time of a short sorrow will be followed by an eternity of happiness. Eternally you will share with me my glory, my happiness, and, so to speak, my very divinity … Come, then, I will finally reduce under your feet your enemies and mine … .. Approach, my

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holy ministers, you who have worked so much and prayed so much for them, now be judges of their fate after having been victims of their hatred; I associate you with the judgment that I am going to bring … Well ! my friends, what is your opinion of these unfortunate offenders, and what do you want me to do? Speak without concealment, and follow only the rules of justice and equity.

    At this invitation of their Sovereign Master, I see all the judges rising together from their thrones; I hear them cry out in a unanimous voice: Lord our God, we ask justice and revenge against those unfortunates who have outraged you so much. Then all the righteous applauded this sentence: shouting, Amen. And the whole of nature repeated these terrible words: Justice and vengeance …; that the wicked are eternally confused … ..

    The cross of the Savior, of which I have already spoken, and which had been planted in the center of the heavenly court to serve as assurance and consolation to the just, is brought by the angels before the throne of J.-C.; then Saint Michael arrives, carrying large scales to weigh everything under the weight of the sanctuary … He stands before the Judge next to the cross. Come, « said J.-C. again to his ministers, » it is now a matter of rummaging through all the folds of consciences, and examining Jerusalem with the lantern in one hand … My Father, ah! on what frightful picture are my eyes now worn! This is the left side of the Sovereign Judge; I shudder … Let’s stop, I pray you, and let’s put the painting back to it another time …

§. V.

Judgment of the reprobate; fate of the dead children without baptism.

    « In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, etc. « 

    My Father, at the head of the unfortunate on the left of the Sovereign Judge, I see all those who, by their power or their enlightenment, have done the most harm in the Church, and have been more guilty of the abuse. the graces they will have received; the Judas, the Antichrists, all the authors of schisms and heresies, all the enemies of the truth, all the bad priests, and especially the bad pastors; all that the Church contains and has ever contained apostates, sacrileges, intruders, simoniacs, wolves clothed in lambskin, hypocrites of all kinds who have abused authority and of the sanctity of their ministry, as of the ignorance and credulity of the people, to alter the principles of their faith and lead them into error; join the tyrants and persecutors of the faithful. Here are those who will form the elite of the children of perdition, and those also on whom will fall the first and most terrible outbursts of the wrath of the Lord …

    I see in the second rank the false scholars, the so-called strong minds, the unbelievers of the disbelievers, who may be called atheists without much risk; the followers of a libertine philosophy, beginning with those who have made a cruel abuse of their credit and their enlightenment to seduce simple souls; in general all scandalous in fact of manners or belief …. The third class of the reprobates is composed of all those who may be called vulgar and ordinary sinners: proud, shameless, drunkards, vindictive, thieves, little impious or subaltern philosophers, etc. As only one of these sins to be damned, we can be sure that this last class will be incomparably the most numerous of all …. All adult idolaters will also be placed to the left, but in a place separate from the Christian criminals; these will be distinguished by a note of apostasy which will accompany everywhere the character of their baptism, from which will be born a formal opposition and most overwhelming, which will be for them an unbearable weight and make them worthy of a very different torture … . I also see an innumerable troupe of stillbirths: although the defect of the baptismal character also places them on the left, yet they do not seem to me destined to suffer the same fate.

    Suddenly, Father, casting a terrible and thundering glance on the party of the reprobate, J.-C. takes a voice of thunder which resounds from one pole to the other and shakes the sky and the earth and hell …. This lamb gently for some, becomes for others a roaring lion that thrills the same angels …. If the righteous were not supported and reassured by the testimony of their conscience and the marks of kindness which he has just given them, they could not sustain the brilliancy of that terrible voice, nor the threatening air of this irritated judge. … what will it be sinners! ….

    After taking heaven and earth to witness the fairness of his conduct and judgment, I hear his thundering voice reproach his enemies and his blessings and their ingratitude. He reproaches them in detail for the abuse of his reported graces he had acquired at

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price of his blood. He reproaches them for his work, his torment, his death … He reproaches them for all he had done for them, the excess of his tenderest love …. He reproaches them for their crimes, their scandals, their blindness, their hardness, their sacrileges … He asks them for the blood of his children whom they persecuted and put to death. You dare to accuse me of injustice towards you, blasphemers that you are! Well!tell me what I could do more for your salvation? …. Ah! my shed blood, which I ask for again, will eternally justify my outraged love. He will fall back on you to overwhelm you with his weight …. But answer, I will allow you again; justify, if you can, and your monstrous ingratitude and your continual infidelities, and the blackness of your revolts, and all the enormity of your conduct towards me … .. « 

    You are righteous, Lord, will cry in the bitterness of their souls all, these unfortunate reprobates … Your judgments are equitable and your conduct is justice itself … We recognize it in the face of heaven …. Yes, we condemn today our injustice, and we are forced to confess that it is our fault that we are lost, because it was up to us to take advantage of your invitations, your threats and of your graces … Ah! must we recognize it so late! … The idolaters will confess that they have abused the lights of their reason not to recognize the only author of the universe, and committed evil against their conscience .. The blind Jews will recognize their messiah, and will accuse him of giving him death by pure malice …

    « Thus, » continued the supreme judge, « your sentence was advanced in advance by this domestic judge, of which I will only show the sentence; I mean those principles of righteousness and natural equity which I had engraved in the depths of your heart. even to be the first rule of your conduct, which you should never have set aside … For you, unhappy apostates, will he say to the reprobate Christians, rebellious children of my Church, besides this first law that you have forgotten, you In all respects, you have contradicted the holiest law of my gospel, and a thousand times you have violated the commitments of your baptism: doubly guilty, you will be doubly condemned and doubly punished. I will judge you on the rules of your faith and on those of your conscience, and you will know that I must not recognize for mine those who have blushed to belong to me. It is too little: I must give up before my Father all those who have given me up before men. This is your fate; and as you have done evil against your conscience and your commitments, you will be judged by your rules and condemned by your own mouth ….

    To what punishments, my friends, will you condemn these different culprits? Will he ask the troop of his assessors? Lord our God, will they answer all together, their crimes must be weighed on the scales of the sanctuary, and they be appreciated on the value of your blood, on the offense that you have received, on the malice of the spirit and the perversity of the heart that committed them … They must be weighed, counted and divided, and their good works removed from all that is not worthy of consideration … . Then, Lord, you will be avenged when your justice has applied to each of them a punishment proportionate to the enormity of each of their crimes considered in these different ways …. Everything is running. The discussion is at the same time for all without exception; and the time that this examination of all will last, will be, for each one in particular, as if it had been judged only him, and that the divine justice had applied itself only to examine it and to condemn it all alone …… Everyone in particular will feel the weight of heavenly wrath, depending on whether their crimes have earned them. This is the finished discussion; but, while waiting for the sentence to be final, let us look, Father, at the sight of the troop of little children of which we have already spoken.

    I see them gathered from all the countries of the world and from all possible nations; for God has made known to me that there are in this respect the children of idolaters, who died before the use of reason, as of those of Christians who died before baptism, provided that they did not resist in something in the light that would have shown them and the existence of the true God and the vanity of their idols; for I see, moreover, that the least abuse of graces, in this kind, would become mortal fault in their regard, although they could without any sin lend themselves to idolatry, provided that it is without knowledge and without reflection. How many children of Christians have never been regenerated! I see them all, like innocent little victims, who look at each other without saying a word, thinking neither to accuse themselves nor to apologize; standing upright, like sheep in a small flock, waiting

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their fate, without expecting anything or fearing anything …

    « Do you see these little creatures, » asks J.-C. to the ministers of his church? They have not been regenerated, but it is without any fault on their part; never was their own will in any way opposed to mine; never have they committed personal faults; they have never offended their author. Is not their condition worthy of compassion? I suffer, I admit, not being able to associate them, at least in something, with the happiness of my chosen ones; for the original task which I see in them is opposed to the effects of my goodness, and justice leaves them no place for mercy, since the sentence which excludes them from the eternal bliss of the saints is irrevocable …….

    I can not open to them the sky, which has been closed to them since the fault of their first father, because the rigorous laws of my justice prevent me from applying to them anything of the merits of my blood and my mediation … They can never never to enjoy my presence in glory. But, my friends, what will we do? what will they condemn to us? … and what fate do you think they must experience during this eternity which must never end? Could not we do anything for them, because I feel inclined to favor them as much as possible … « 

    You are the master, Lord, will exclaim all the saints and especially the ministers; you are the master, and you will do as you please; but, since you demand it, we will tell you that it does not seem right to condemn them to eternal punishment for Adam’s fault. It is already a great deal to deprive them eternally of your presence, and that is, in our opinion, all that is worthy of the task of which they have not been washed.

    « You have relieved my heart and satisfy my love with what you have just pronounced, » said J.-C. to them; Listen, my friends, to the party I propose for them, and tell me again what you think of it: if there was a sure way of removing at least these poor little creatures from the tyranny of Satan, who considers it a prey which belongs to it, and intends to seize it by right; Would you not be pleased to take advantage of it? It is your creatures, Lord, answer all the saints; as absolute master, you have an imprescriptible right over them that the devil can not dispute, and we wholeheartedly consent to all that your wisdom will do to deceive in their favor the cruel expectation of this enemy of the human race …

    « Here, then, » says J.-C., « is the admirable secret which Satan himself does not expect: the purified terrestrial globe, as you see, will be the dwelling where, without having the happiness of knowing me or loving me, without to participate in nothing in the fate of my elect, they will enjoy eternally a certain natural bliss, which will consist mainly in the exemption of all kinds of pains …… Soon, by the force of my almighty arm I will link up until deep in the abyss the fury of Satan and his accomplices; I will seal with them their infernal darkness; I will so clog all the issues of their unfortunate stay, that no spirit will ever be able to come out to come to disturb them in their terrestrial dwelling. Thus, he adds, it is by such a stratagem that a helping hand sometimes knows how to subtract a foreign flock, to which it is interested by kindness, in the murderous tooth of a ferocious beast, either in bridling her rage, either by shutting her up herself so that the flock may enjoy freedom. Since I can not be their savior by my passion, I will at least make them a favorable judge, protecting them as much as I can as their creator. Then, Father, he addresses them by looking at them with an eye of compassion: « I deliver you, » said he, « from the darkness and captivity into which you have been plunged under the powers of Satan. You will no longer groan in irons; instead of these obscure and underground prisons, this terrestrial globe, purified and embellished by my power, will be the place where you will live eternally, being unable to do anything more for creatures guilty to my eyes: it is partly for you that I have renewed it, so that you may be as happy as you can be, as children of Adam, heirs of his revolt and deprived by their state of the happiness of my enjoyment, and of the happiness that operate my knowledge and my love. « 

    Charmed with the goodness of their sovereign judge towards them, I see this band of innocent little ones fall on their knees, before him, and prostrate their faces to the ground, saying: O sovereign judge of the living and the dead, we adore you we bless you as our creator and our God infinitely good. We give you eternal thanksgiving for the blessings that you shower on us, without any merit on our part, and for the infinite mercy with which you

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use to us: be present, Lord, eternally blessed and glorified by all your saints … .. All the heavenly court sounds applause; the whole of nature shudders with joy, and the Church sings canticles of joy to the glory of the Creator … The innumerable troop of innocent little ones gets up; and happy in some way in their misfortune, they come into possession of a fate that must not end and a renewed earth that must be their share for all eternity …

    As God will have to punish neither their spirit, their will, nor their senses, since there will never have been revolts or disorders, and none of their faculties will have been the subjects nor the instruments of crime, he will let them enjoy a perfectly natural happiness that man had tasted in the state of pure nature, if he had preserved himself there. On their side, they will be so docile to the divine will, that, far from experiencing any opposition, they will have only the desire to conform to it in everything … Without having the clarity, nor the other qualities of those of the blessed, their bodies will enjoy all the natural faculties and necessary for the maintenance of their life, in vigorous youth and in the most perfect state. They will be free from the passions and uncomfortable needs of human nature; their stay, embellished, as we have said, will naturally give them a frugal life with all the innocent pleasures that accompany it; it will be the true terrestrial paradise, if we wish to use this expression, whose inhabitants will have no other occupation than to praise in their own way the God who by goodness will take away from them the knowledge of a loss that would make them unfortunate and prevent them from enjoying the kind of happiness that is destined for them …

    On the contrary, they will see how advantageous their fate is: God will show kindness to the children of idolaters, that if they had lived, they would have infallibly followed the errors and crimes that will have damned their fathers. He will make known to those of the Christians that if death had not taken them away sooner, they would probably have committed the same infidelities and the same faults which will have sentenced so many of the children of the true Church. What will be of those whom schism retains in error? They will know that they have deserved Hell like them, following their disordered passions and abusing the same graces; in a word, that if they had received baptism, it would perhaps have been only for their eternal condemnation.

    After this detail of the fate of children deprived of the grace of baptism, the Sister asked me what I thought of it before God; if I saw something contrary to the principles of faith; for, « added she, » you are not ignorant of my feelings on this subject. I thought I saw all that I have just told you, in the sense of the light that illuminates me; I still believe it; but you know that I do not want to admit anything that is directly contrary to the doctrine or belief of the Church, that I recognize for the true touchstone inspirations Tell me, therefore, what you think, and if that would not be contrary to some rule of faith …

    It needed an answer to the Sister; I remembered rather well the substance of that which I had read quite recently in a good author, which refutes those of modern philosophers who, echoing the schismatics and the impious, reproach the Roman Church for an unheard-of cruelty. barbarism without example, which goes so far as to condemn, they say, to the eternal flames, creatures who are guilty only of the sin of Adam. The Catholic doctor insists on this, and asserts himself against this calumnious imputation, by demonstrating to them where they have taken the doctrine of the Roman Church. Here is what, according to him, I replied in substance:

    My Sister, the dogma of original sin, condemns us to the deprivation of sight and possession of God forever, but not to eternal flames, which are probably due only to our own and personal sins; at least, « I added, after him the Sacred Scripture said nothing; the Church has not decided it; the Saints-Fathers have not dared to assure it, and if some of them have advanced, their authority, like that of some Scholastic writers, would never form but a particular opinion, which can not make any rule. of faith. So, my Sister, I do not see on what basis we could reject as contrary to the faith or the belief of the Church, what you just told me about this interesting point, especially since it seems the more in conformity with the goodness of God for his creature … The Sister did not reply; but her silence seemed to announce that she foresaw some disputes on this point. We resumed the following at the next meeting ….

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(416-420)

§. VI.

Curse of J.-C. against the reprobate; his last sentence against them, and their burial in the underworld.

    « In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, etc. »

    My Father, the fate of little children has not offered us anything frightening or painful to nature; but what a frightful scene is preparing for their opportunity! I see Satan raising his proud head and claiming that they belong to him by right, and that God can not remove them without injustice. All the reprobates and demons imitate audacity and support the pretensions of their leader; I see an infinity of infernal monsters ranged from the same party …. I see the bodies of the reprobate of whom I have spoken elsewhere, these hideous bodies, and a thousand times more frightful since they are revived, I see them lying down with their faces against the ground, which they beat with their heads, striving to different occasions to rise against God, whom they accuse of injustice towards them … They reproach him for an excess of rigor for them and an excess of goodness for his own. Their relentless rage throws them into horrible convulsions, and makes them vomit blasphemies and atrocious curses.

    They make vain efforts to rise up against God, whose hand overwhelms them with his weight to confound them more and better to take revenge for their daring … J.-C. then exempts his Church from the inviolable secret of their consciences and the ministers of the sacred tribunal reveal to the face of heaven the crimes they did not want to expiate through penitence. They reproach them with their hypocrisy, their crimes, their sacrileges, their secret abominations, their disordered and shameful habits, the abuse they have made of their opinions, their glaring injustices, their pride of demon, their diabolical dispositions. Rigorous justice, Lord, they all exclaim at once, vengeance prompt and whole against those wretches who still dare to blaspheme you.

    Then the sovereign judge imposing on them all silence, will give several times different curses which will be as many farewells that the reprobate will be obliged to hear until the last, by which he will order them to go out forever from his presence and to go away forever from him …… Who could tell you, Father, all that this order has of overwhelming! Good heaven! who will not shudder! … I hear the sound of his dreadful voice, which first addresses Lucifer, the head of the reprobate, and tells him in a tone capable of annihilating it, if it could be: How, horrible beast, how, monster of iniquity, dare you to think again to revolt after the dreadful fall that has precipitated you from the heavens to the bottom of the abyss where my all-powerful hand will not stop to punish you of your insolent pride? Not guilty, but crushed by the lightning of the Most High, how do you still think you are afraid? Go, cursed of my Father, I curse you a thousand times, and the terrible effects of this curse that I give you will remain on your guilty head for an eternity ……

    At this stroke of lightning all nature trembles; the poles of the world are shaken. The heavenly court is seized with fears; the angels are troubled; the saints shudder; it is necessary to reassure them that J.-C. addresses them once more the word: For you, my friends, he said to them with a sweet and loving air, do not fear. It is not on you that the blows of my anger must fall … .. You are blessed by my Father, and my blessing will accompany you forever. Come with me who am your King, your Father and your leader. Come, my dear children, come and possess the kingdom that I promised you and prepared from the beginning of the world … ..

    All respond immediately to this amorous invitation, and each shows the vivacity of his desires and the contentment of his heart by his eagerness and his air of jubilation. I see the angels raising the cross of the Savior to the middle region of the air, to precede the triumphant march of all the blessed. The book and the scales disappear. The victorious army of the people of God ranks in good order under the eyes of their King … The angels rise up to the firmament. The priests of J.-C. surround him as the guards of his adorable and sacred person. The others fill the different spaces around this King of glory, finally the winner of all his enemies.

    Pompous and magnificent device, which will make the eternal torment of the reprobate; doubly unfortunate, they will still be witnesses. But, o disastrous moment! sad and fatal denouement of all the scenes of the world! Here is the last revolution of nature, the sad farewell, the eternal separation of the just and the sinner, the creature and his God! Ah!my father, what a disaster! and that it is terrible for the party of the unfortunate

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(421-425)

on the left! … I see that at the moment of departure J.C. turns to them for the last time; never, from now on, will they see his adorable face …… Come on, accursed, « he said to them in a terrible voice and fury in his eyes; Go, I chase you from my presence, I deliver you to the executors of my righteousness to precipitate you in a flood of evils which, from the creation of the world, was prepared for the devil and all those of his party: frightful torments that you have deserved by your fault as well as all the accomplices of your iniquities …. Withdraw, go to eternal fire … Yes, hell and fire, this is your division and the fate that awaits you to avenge me forever for your outrages! O last and fearful convulsion, of nature!

    At the same moment, and scarcely has he spoken, than the earth opens, and the abyss expands his vast breast to receive there the almost infinite number of guilty … I see them falling confusedly in this deluge of evils, in this abyss without bottom and without shore whose only idea makes one shudder. They fall there more quickly than the lightning strokes that cross the air, tearing the bosom of the cloud that formed them. By this violent fall they sink to the depths of hell, whose doors are closed and are immediately sealed and secured by bolts of an invincible force to any created power. From now on they will never be opened, and the hand of the Almighty affixes the seal: Eternity …. Thus all will be punished by God, all will be punished without consideration, all will be punished without compassion, all will be punished without resources and without any hope of return or any change for the future … My Father, here tells me the Sister, when . J.-C. put before me this terrible spectacle, I was so frightened, that I thought I was dying of weakness; I wanted at least to be able to tell the guilty men beforehand the motives of my fear, which God was good enough to moderate later on, so that they could find a condom against the most terrible of all the disasters, the last and the most to be feared. of all the misfortunes … The place where the judgment took place before my eyes was shown to me as on the inclination of a vast mountain, separated from another still higher, by a very deep valley which held the left side of the judge; The top of the mountain was on his right ….

    He remained on the scene only the troupe of unbaptized children …. I saw the cloud that supported the throne of the judge rise to the firmament by a path lined with flowers, and the harmony of the most melodious concerts by which all this heavenly army celebrated the dazzling victory that the King of glory came from to win over all his enemies. He conquered, he cried, he conquered death, sin and hell … He finally avenged his cause and that of all his people by the complete defeat of all his enemies and ours … Qu to him be glory, honor and praise in all eternity!

    « Considering the happiness of the just with an eye of envy, » continued the Sister, « no doubt all shudder, Father, the fate of the unfortunate reprobate. You would be, I am sure, tempted to pity them, and, so to speak, to accuse the justice of God of a severity too severe and inflexible towards them. Listen, please, what J.-C. told me last night on this occasion.

Goodness of God. His hatred for sin.

    « When I made you see, my daughter, that I had judged and appreciated the value of the price of my blood and the offense that God has received, do not believe that I have pushed towards them the the rigor of my justice as far as it could go, nor that I punished these unfortunate people as much as they could and should be according to this rule. The merits of my blood have been weighed, it is true, with the enormity of their crimes; but my mercy has still supported one side of the scales, so as not to overwhelm them with its weight. In spite of the inexorable justice which demanded an entire reparation, I could not help but grant them something, favoring them as much as I could, although you have not seen all this. only a very small sample of the rigor of my judgments. « 

    Then, Father, taking the air and the tone of the hatred which he carries to the crime, he added: « And the ungrateful ones will never know me good for what I did for them … They will not stop, with the on the contrary, to reproach me, blaspheming, with an excess of rigor, and will curse me as if I were an unjust and unbearable tyrant. However, he continued, I will draw my glory from this excess of condescension which the blessed will not cease to bless me for eternity … No, I am not a tyrant; but I hate infinitely the monster that offends me … It is this mortal and implacable hatred of sin, which forces my justice to sue and punish a bitter enemy of creatures that I sincerely loved, men I wanted to return happy. They did not want to destroy sin, my enemy; and this enemy that they favored and who raised them against me, will be

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their executioner in eternity. It is to destroy him, or at least to punish him without end, that I will not cease to strike them themselves, and that they will be tormented without rest. But, whatever they say, the unfortunate ones, I will still use mercy to them, and my kindness will take place even in the underworld …

    « Consider a little, my daughter, what you saw me do about souls who were guilty only of the original fault: did I behave like a tyrant? Can they accuse me of hating them and of wanting their loss and eternal misfortune? Do they not, instead, bless me again as a Father who has made them as happy as it was possible for his justice? … I did not bless them and I deprived them forever of my sight, it is true ; I will never bless them, they will never see my presence; but also, out of kindness for them, I have deprived them of the knowledge of the property of which they are deprived. Ah! what a misfortune for them, if they knew the greatness of their loss, if they knew that they had never been blessed by their creator! Yet the poor children worshiped me, blessed me, adored me, and blessed me continually in their own way; and this eternal occupation will make all the happiness of their stay … ..

    It is therefore only the hatred that I bear to sin, which, in spite of my heart, pushes away my creatures from me, who tears them from my goodness to immolate them to my justice, and which forces me myself to exercise the function of a severe judge, where I would like to exercise only that of father and friend. So design how much I must hate and hate such a monster, whose rage, whose malice destroys and overthrows all my designs …. Let’s say: O unfortunate sin! Enemy of my God, assassin of souls, bloody murderer of J.-C., what can I not conceive for you all the horror you deserve?

    Let us not be surprised, Father, to have heard all the saints of the Church solicit God’s wrath by seeking justice and vengeance against the sinners mentioned in his judgment. What! will you say, creatures so favored and to whom God has done so much mercy, to ask the eternal loss of those with whom they had lived and with whom they had been so united on earth; to whom they were indebted for a thousand services, perhaps even life! … Is this understandable in holy souls, which the purest charity of God and of the neighbor must animate? …

    Ah! Father, let us not judge of these rules, which are only for the present order of things. Charity then will only happen between the members of J.-C. and his Church! and the unfortunate reprobates are no more. This is their greatest misfortune; there is no longer any compassion, charity, or mercy to wait for them; nothing in common with the saints and the elect; for them the bonds of blood and friendship no longer exist; nature has lost all its rights ugly situation, overwhelming position! Oh, the most despairing fate! All absorbed in God, the blessed ones only consider his interests, and see nothing more than in relation to him. They have no more fathers, mothers, brothers or sisters. of husbands and friends only among the children and friends of God. They love only those who love him; and marrying his invincible aversion for sin, they hate like him all those in whom sin is found; so that, by a very different disposition, it is by a pure effect of charity that they pursue to death all the enemies of their God. Let us return to the troop of the blessed, and leave these wrenching reflections; because, my father … « 

§. VII.

Triumph of the elect; their entry into Heaven and their inexpressible happiness.

Writing done in Saint Malo.

    At the spectacle of terror presented by the judgment with its consequences, God wants me to make the most sublime spectacle in all respects, the most majestic and the most consoling, possible, that it is possible for the mind to imagine: arrival of the troop of the blessed in the stay which they must babbit eternally. I have witnessed it, as with many other things of this nature, only to give you an account of it; but, Father, how can you tell what has happened to me? How can you speak of a thing which has no expression of its own, and which is above all comparison and even comprehension; to express what the apostle can not render, and what really surpasses the language of angels and men? Let us try again, Father, to follow the thread of my ideas and the sense of light that leads me. I will not say anything about myself; but all my efforts to make myself understood will serve only to show my helplessness in this respect.

    This army which we saw rising to the firmament after the final sentence of the judge, God made me follow with eyes to the top of Heaven, and pointed out to me all the circumstances of his arrival. What

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(431-437)

beautiful pageantry! what a contrast with the reprobates! … I saw the king of glory surrounded by this innumerable troop, enter glorious and triumphant in his eternal kingdom …. What show! and how can a mortal eye support him? how is he not dazzled and overwhelmed by so much light? Ah! Father, if what I have seen is but a dream, it is the most beautiful dream one can have, and without doubt one of the most agreeable of my life; may we all see and experience one day the reality! …

    Jesus Christ, on entering, advanced toward the throne of his Father; and sitting on his right hand spoke to him these words, which I distinctly heard: « At last, my Father, all is consummated, all is accomplished; peace is perfect and henceforth eternal. Death is vanquished, sin is destroyed, and never in the future will your adorable majesty be offended … Our enemies are confounded; After having triumphed over it by your omnipotence, I have just locked them up forever in our eternal prisons to avenge our despised love.

    « Now, holy and adorable Father, here are the chosen ones whom you have entrusted to me, and of whom he has not lost himself one; here is my whole Church which I present to you: it is the fruit of my labors, it is the price of my blood that I put in your hands; they are finally your creatures, recognize in them your children and mine. They have obeyed your voice, deign, O my Father! to receive them according to your promises and to admit them to the happiness of praising and possessing you eternally. It is, O Holy Father, what they have the right to expect from your mercy, your justice and your love …

    All the heavenly court standing around the Divine Majesty, the adorable and incomprehensible Trinity, to answer the all-powerful supplication of his adorable Son, the heavenly Father turned to all his chosen ones, and told them with a look pleased and satisfied: Come all, my dear children, I have more marked you with love, by sending you my Son, than I had marked you by creating you; Now, what can I refuse to pray to such a mediator when he speaks to me in favor of creatures who are so dear to me? and what do I owe to the merits of the blood he shed for you?

    Come, then, my beloved, for in him I have blessed you all from the beginning, and through him and for his sake I bless you all still, and my blessing will be upon you throughout all eternity … Not content with believing in me on his word, you have conformed to the sanctity of his morality; you clung to him; you have taken it for the model of your conduct; and whatever it cost you, you tried to become like him by the imitation of the sublime virtues of which he had given you the touching example in his person … It is also for this reason that I recognize you for my children, and that I love you with that love of which I love Himself, and that by participation, you will be, as a fate! and how can a creature be sufficient for an eternity?

    If we expose a burning mirror opposite the rays of a southern sun, we will see, by the reflection of its rays, the sun itself being painted in the mirror, so that we will see two suns instead of a weak comparison of what I see, in relation to this communication that God makes of himself to his chosen ones. I see all the blessed lovingly staring at the adorable person of their amiable Redeemer. What joy ! what happiness for them to contemplate in all its amabilities! … to feed at leisure of its infinite perfections, and not being able for a single instant to be separated or distracted from such an amiable object, from this inexhaustible source of their eternal congratulations!

    For his part, I see J.-C. looking at them all lovingly, and by this look that makes them happy he paints his living and adorable image in the depths of their soul, already purer and brighter than the crystal! …. God ! what glory! what splendor! what a brilliance! what millions of suns! how many gods gathered! My Father, forgive my expressions; I do not find any suitable to the subject; I do not know how to give you my ideas; I do not see any comparison approaching it, and if I want to look for those who raise them, in spite of myself I am lost in the Divinity: I return as necessarily, because everything else is below it, and that she is alone above the objects of which I have to speak to you.

    I see then, Father, the immensity of the divine attributes repeated in each blessed, and all together, I repeat, do as an assembly of gods, an assembly of paradise, an assembly of blessed eternities … Each of them will enjoy so to speak, of the infinity of the attributes of God; he will see in God, think in God, act in God, and possess the bliss of God himself … Far from envying the fate of the companions of his happiness, he will rejoice in their happiness

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contributing to it in his own way, loving the neighbor only in God and God; he will make his happiness of the happiness of others, and his paradise of their paradise …. Finally, what will I say to you? In this happy holiday, public felicity will make a particular happiness, because, freed and forever freed from all the defects of human nature, retaining nothing of those odious distinctions which put here so many obstacles to union of hearts, or of those unfortunate passions which corrupt virtue itself, these blessed souls will know only the most perfect love of God and neighbor, and this for a period that will begin again, never cease and never end … Ah! my Father, I have heard them, these souls forever blessed, these dear creatures of their God, and all kindled with the fire of his divine love; I have heard them intoning the eternal Hallelujah in honor of this three times holy God; I have heard the sublime canticles, the delightful concerts with which they make the sacred vaults of the heavenly Jerusalem sound. O my Father! what divine harmony results from their assembly! that our terrestrial concerts are puny, and that all human music is little in comparison! First, they sing together a hymn, and celebrate its triumph over all the powers of the world and hell.

    Will you believe me, Father, if I tell you that I recognized certain stanzas of the Te Deum, by which, among others, I understood perfectly that they gave glory to God by J.-C. of the invaluable benefit of the creation, the redemption, of the sanctification of men … They gave glory to the Redeemer for having triumphed over sin itself, to the point of using it, if we may say so, to procure the greatest glory of his Father, and the greatest happiness of men by an overabundance of graces. that he has poured out where sin has abounded: so that all the elect may cry out, speaking of the disobedience of the first man: O happy sin! who has procured us so much wealth, in deserving us such a Redeemer! What glory then, what a subject of honor and praise for the adorable person of J. C!

    Here, my Father, continued the Sister, that I have given you an account in substance of what God has shown me to be put on the subject of the Church from its beginning to its end by which we let’s finish talking about it. I made you write many things that were first; but also you have written many things that had not yet been, and which have been shown to me since: I had the confusing idea, I even saw them in God, if you will; but my pride was so great and so great that I had to abandon them; whereas, when it came to detailing them, God allowed them to be presented with more order to my mind.

    Imagine, Father, the pure crystal of clear water, you can clearly see everything in it;but if the water comes to be disturbed, everything is troubled, one perceives nothing more than confused. This is the state of my consciousness and of my spirit in relation to all that God has shown me to give you knowledge of it. In certain moments of trouble and temptation that the demon arouses me, I see nothing more than confused: all I have left is the depths of ideas, until obedience and submission to grace have brought them back. order and calm. Then, Father, all the following things are presented to my mind as God makes me see them; and I will tell you that despite the efforts of the Demon, I have often been very surprised at what has happened to me in this regard, since it has been a question of starting to write again the things I had lost until memory. They have represented themselves as of themselves in my memory, and have placed themselves naturally in the place they ought to occupy.

    And yet, my Father, I feel how far I am from my goal, and how much my expressions are below my ideas; try to make up for it, and, above all, strive with the grace of always keeping ourselves in a position to know more about all this; for neither you, nor I, nor whomever, we will ever fully understand what I meant on the fate of the Holy Church, nor on the happiness of the Saints, that when we are united to their glorious troupe, and that we will see without a cloud all these truths in their very source, which we will possess like them throughout all eternity. Heaven gives us grace! So be it …

§. VIII.

END OF THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD.

Various visions of Hell; horrible torments of the damned, especially after the last judgment and the end of the world.

    So far, Father, I have told you almost nothing of hell; a reluctance

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almost invincible disposition has always made me differ in declaring to you what God has made known to me; especially in two different meetings. But finally, it is necessary to yield on this point as on the rest; the voice of God and of my conscience, even more imperative than your orders, makes it an obligation to speak to you of this matter and to describe to you the horrible stay of the reprobate, whom I have not been able to introduce into the matter of the Church, because these wretches are excluded forever; which is the most cruel of their torments and the cause of all their ills. It will be necessary for you to speak about it, that we considered the hell according to the two circumstances where it was shown to me ….

    First, my Father, it was more than thirty years ago that I found myself carried in spirit by a light of the Divinity, and here is what this light pointed out to me: first, a frightful gulf lit by the fury of the divine omnipotence, which penetrated from one end to the most intimate and most sensitive parts of the reprobated soul. The damned are all fire inside and over … In the expanse of this burning chasm I saw a flood of evils. Heaven! who can tell the horrors! Imagine, Father, a torrent that broke its dykes and rushes with all its might and with a terrible noise on the unfortunate victims it must swallow, submerge and devour … I have been more than fifteen years without to know all the meaning of this torrent, or all that he is capable of terrifying. God has instructed me on different occasions …

    In the expanse of this immense gulf God pointed out to me an infinite multitude of caverns or deep and horrible precipices, separated from each other, and filled with a very ardent fire. In each of these precipices are confined and tormented those of the damned who during their life have become accomplices of the same disorders, and have reciprocally attracted in the same abyss, where they mutually serve as executioners to each other. Guilty of the same crimes, they must be punished in the same manner, according to the degree of malice of each of them; and as they have been united by iniquity, they will be eternally with sorrow; they will share the same punishments, as they shared the same criminal pleasures. It is to this purpose that God has placed them together in a sort of separate hell of which they themselves are the demons, if we may say so, for they are the executioners of each other, and appear to be to torment each other, making the different passions of which they have been slaves during their lives serve as instruments to their torment. The place of the body, or the faculty of the soul, which has served as an immediate subject or instrument for every sin, will also receive and feel its punishment; but all this, I repeat, in proportion to the degree of malice of the guilty, and the degree of enormity of each sin; for, as I have already said elsewhere, God is no less just in his punishments than in his rewards; and in hell as in heaven, everything is done, everything is distributed with weight and measure, and according to the rules of the most exact exactitude. Reason itself does not allow us to form another idea of ​​the justice of God …

    I live, then, my father, these fierce monsters on each other, tearing each other apart, eating each other like mad dogs; … I heard their imprecations, their atrocious blasphemies, and the only memory still freezes me from terror … In the second place, the demons add their fury to torment these unfortunate souls, in proportion to what they have given to their passions; and to better execute the divine vengeance, apply to seek the various punishments that every satisfied passion requires, and every crime committed in particular … Just heaven! … I shiver! … I saw millions of hell in one hell, of which it is impossible to represent the horrors ….

    Those who, on earth, have given in all excesses and in all vices without denying anything to their despairing desires; Well, Father, it is for them as many hells as they fed vices and cared for passions; as many hell as they have committed forfeits … The demons apply with a malice and inconceivable cruelty to spoil these poor souls, tearing them and put them in a thousand and a thousand pieces, if we can say it, without they can die once, nor hope for any term nor any relief from their ills. It is a deluge which falls incessantly on their guilty heads to overwhelm them with its weight.

    They feel in the depths of their consciousness a rodent worm that torments them relentlessly and says to each of them: Where is your God? … You lost him by your fault and for an unfortunate pleasure of a moment, for a vile interest … Renouncing freely to the happiness of his enjoyment, you have rushed yourself into this pit of evils from which you will never go out …

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(448-452)

    Succumbing to the excess of their pain, these unfortunate creatures attack heaven and earth to accuse them of the evils they endure. Yes, my Father, the damned are incessantly indulging in horrible curses and blasphemies against God himself, to whom they reproach themselves for having given them being only to make them the victims of his vengeance, his cruelties, his his tyrannies … The unfortunate wish to be able to tear him from his throne to annihilate him forever. In despair of succeeding, they arm themselves furiously against themselves to destroy at least their own existence; but needlessly they make their last efforts, God keeps them in spite of having them … They cry to the mountains to help them by crushing them under their ruins, and the mountains do not hear their voices … Overwhelming reproaches from God, stinging remorse from their consciences, infernal fury, frightful despair, eternal torment, like so many vengeful thunderbolts from the hand of the Almighty, you come together to torment an unfortunate reprobate … .

New description of hell.

    Yes, Eternity with its frightful abyss, hell with its devouring fire …. henceforth his share; There is nothing else to hope for him … Here is the painful bed where he must lie when God is God. Was it necessary to be born for so great a misfortune? Ah! what was left in nothingness? or rather, that he deserves no other fate! Useless desires, superfluous regrets, and which serve only to torment him … Unfortunate, he will see endlessly the crown of glory which he has lost through his fault, and will feel without end the torments he has deserved … An irresistible movement will carry him continually towards the God he has lost; but an inflexible rigor will repulse him pitilessly. Thus, by desire, a damned will incessantly carry his hell to the top of heaven; but, with overwhelming vengeance, he will be forced to bring back the desire of heaven to the bottom of hell ….

    However frightening my Father may be, this first painting of hell, God still wants me to add to it the new circumstances which he showed me during the prose of the dead, the day after All Saints last. After your speech, I was very busy praying for the souls of the dead, as you had urged us to do; I thought of their sufferings, and I had just communicated to deliver them, according to your advice. You had put us in purgatory, Father, and J.-C. wanted to put me in hell. So it appeared to me while the nuns were at their Dies irae, and, speaking to me with his ordinary tone and gentleness, he invited me to follow him and go down lower … I shudder inside myself, and I made a resistance; but the divine will made me feel his impression, it was necessary to obey. I found myself instantly locked in hell itself, but I had the consolation of seeing myself there with J.-C., who was talking to me to explain to me what I should have you write. And this, Father, is what struck me from the entrance of this horrible prison of fire:

    I noticed that it was closed and closed on all sides by walls of astonishing thickness, and whose incombustible doors were subjected in all directions by iron bars reddened by the fire of eternal fire, as well as by enormous invincible locks to any power created … The first time I went down there, hell had not seemed so closed to me, and I dared to ask my guide why this difference was made. « My daughter, » answered J.-C., « you first saw hell in the state in which it is for the duration of the world; here, you see it in the state where it must be after the judgment, that is to say in the immutable, fixed and permanent state where it must remain forever, without any demon or damned being able to ever go out, and no other creature can enter … « 

    After this answer we move forward; and the first object that presented itself to me in the interior of the infernal prison was the fiery torrent that had struck me so much in the first vision. I am still living the same torrent of divine wrath; but he appeared to me here in a still more dreadful manner: his course was swollen and his noise considerably increased. He rushed with much more fury on all the reprobate, of whom he knew how to distinguish the most guilty, those, among others, that we will soon designate My God! I exclaimed to J.-C., what does this torrent, overflowing with so much fury, mean? « It is, » replied he, « the fury of my justice, which I cast by my mighty arm, and which will last all eternity. You see, he continued, how much he has increased since the judgment; it is that the general judgment must terminate all the discussions, finish all the expectations. Until then it may be said, in a sense, that the reprobation had not been perfect, for several reasons: (1) the body entered it for nothing; he must now receive twice as much as the soul has suffered without his

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(453-457)

participation; 2 °. Time would have had to show how far the effects of scandals and the malice of sinners would have gone among men, in order to decide to what extent a damned would have been punishable; in order to fix his fate irrevocably on this foot, and that my graces and my death were fully avenged by his punishment, since they have not been by his penance. My justice has not been satisfied in time, it must be in eternity, and my anger awaits those who would have rejected the offers of my goodness … .. The general judgment alone could decide all these questions as a last resort and without appeal. That’s why, my daughter, this torrent seems so much increased since I first made you see it. « 

     This explanation given, J.-C. made me turn my eyes on the unfortunate victims of the heavenly vengeance, and I also observed, in the detail of their torment, differences which I had not been able to perceive at first, since the bodies did not were not united to souls; instead of here the bodies and the souls are also punished and tormented … I saw therefore the reprobates pressed and piled up in each cavern, like bricks in the oven that cooks them. I was seized with horror, seeing especially the chasms where God punishes the crimes he hates more, such as homicide, poisoning, apostasy, pacts with demons, abominations and crimes against nature, the the use of holy things for magic and magic, the pride of a certain species, the blatant injustices, hypocrisy, black betrayal, revenge, irreligion, drunkenness, and other such excesses, that he does not never sees that with indignation.

    Each species was crowded with wager and the most criminal were also the most horrible and cruelly tormented. These frightful monsters, strangely composed of grotesque and hideous figures of different animals, seemed to hold most of what they had most, in their dominant passions, imitated fury, malice or brutality. I saw many who, especially through the head, had something approaching the bull, an animal that, vindictive, furious, proud and lascivious, can be regarded as the emblem of pride and impurity.

    Their enormous mouths uttered such frightful cries and roars, that the confusion and confusion which reigns in this gloomy abode were greatly increased. My Father, ah! it is not without reason that they cry out and roar in this way. But I do not know where I am, nor what party to take. On one side, I feel that my mind is repugnant to the painting of their tortures; on the other hand, God wants me to obey: « Well, my Father, » if I go for an extravagant, I will say what I saw; and woe to him who draws only a greater subject of condemnation! That he trembles that what he will call the follies of an unordered imagination, is one day only too real for him … Imagine, Father, these different animals of which I spoke, slaughtered and knocked down to the ground around them harpsies and infernal monsters who study with malice and cruelty, really diabolical in inventing the most sensitive and unbearable ways to make them suffer, especially by the places where they have sinned, and proportionally to the kind and degree of their faults! My father …… ah! Father, I can not stand it anymore … Nature refuses, the heart suffers and faints … I seem to see them again; but forgive, I need a moment to give me a little of this fright … (1)

    At last, recalled a little to herself, the Sister, crying and sighing a great deal, continued her frightful description.

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    (1) During this moment the Sister was heard only by her sobs and groans; the heart was tight; everything about her announced pain and terror. Finally, after wiping her tears, she asked me, before continuing, if I knew what a vulture is . It is, answered I, a bird of prey very cruel and very voracious … Ah! yes, my Father, « she replied, » yes, he is cruel! I’ve seen this infernal monster, I think I see him still tear the entrails of his victims with a beak and nails terrible. I never thought there were such monsters among the birds; and since I did not know what name to give him, Jesus told me that he must be called a vulture.

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    Each of the demons has his office to torment them, and these infernal vultures strive to tear and devour their prey. As to the victims who have just been sacrificed, I saw that their belly was opened to them; they emptied their bodies like those of animals, after having skinned their throbbing limbs: the boiling bowels were pulled out of them, and they were torn and dragged on the place. After that, Father, I saw that a vulture more cruel. while the others entered the body of this unfortunate reprobate, that he took up his abode there, and that his occupation during all eternity was to gnaw, press and tear the heart of this unfortunate man who was left to him that he must ever diminish himself, or feel for a moment diminish his pain …… This is the rodent worm that will not die ……. Judge a little, my

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(458-462)

Father, if it is possible to imagine only such a horrible situation without being significantly affected! But if it is necessary that God support me to speak to you only, what would it be to feel it and to be myself the subject?

    Ah! … .. ah! Father, if all the sinners of the earth had been witnesses like me, would it be possible for them to find themselves so blind as to expose themselves to voluntarily or slight satisfaction? ! What strength do I have to make myself heard from one end of the world to the other? Blind as you are, I would cry to them, O all you who commit iniquity, who commit you to the insult of your God, what do you expose yourself to by committing evil? See and ponder what it cost, what it costs now, what it will cost eternally to the reprobates for having committed it, for the same conduct that you hold now! …. And you keep holding it? You can not bear for an hour the sight of their torments, and you consent to suffer every day for eternity! What blindness! What a fury against yourselves! The thought alone overwhelms you and reality does not surprise you! Understand, if you can, such a prodigy of hardening! …

    While this insatiable vulture fed on this reborn and immortal heart, I saw the other demons, in different forms, all more frightful than the others, trying to torment him in all the other parts of his body; some opened their mouths forcibly while the others brought in the burning entrails that the vultures had torn from him, after mixing up disgusting, bitter and corrosive matters, and that to make them stand out again and return without interruption …

    By tormenting especially those who have made pacts, spells, and profanations, the Demons make boos and overwhelming derisions, reminding them that they have obeyed them for life; that they have fulfilled all the conditions of the pacts; that they have been faithful to serve their passions, but that it is right that things change and that everyone has his turn to obey and command: that theirs has come, and that they must not expect to have no break … Father, add to this all the torments of the first hell, and tell me again if one can not be overwhelmed by the enormous weight of an eternity so desperate and so frightful! Can we only think about it without the heart failing? And yet that’s not all …

    Beside these unfortunates are also piled up those who, without making formal pacts with the demon, have not less faithfully served by hypocrisy and sacrilege which served only to cover the shame of an abominable conduct. and quite criminal, their envenomed hatreds, their black betrayals, their secret pride, their hidden impurities, their bad trades. Their tongues, their throats, their entrails, where the consecrated species have been received, will be eternally torn by the insatiable vultures; and their torments will have as much to do with those of the first as there were between their crimes.

    It will be so with respect to every sin in particular. Pride, for example, especially that superb species of which we have spoken, and which is like the distinctive character of the antichrist and all the impious; well! Father, this pride that attacks God will be horribly humiliated. The proud ones of this species are placed below the others, and one spreads on their superb heads the filthy refuse and the most stinking garbage, the most disgusting and the dirtiest ones, to punish the delicacies of their sensuality, at the same time as we humiliate the heights of their pride …

    Behold, my Father, a circumstance to which we must pay attention. I saw them silent and motionless like statues; I heard neither complaints nor sighs coming out of their mouths. I seemed surprised, and J.-C. explained to me the nature and motives of this intolerable torment for them. « It is due, » said he, « to the pride of that superb eloquence by which they formerly played upon my religion and my divinity itself, seducing the simple by sophisms and systems of irreligion and debauchery. They abused reason to attack the faith, under pretense of philosophy; and to punish them for the horrible blasphemies they have vomited, God has condemned their mouths to an eternal silence, which is to them the most insupportable torment … Divine justice keeps them so hushed and suffocated, as you see. They feel the severity of the penalties and reproaches that the demons and those whom they have dragged into the abyss do to them; but, like so many muzzled and padlocked bears, they rage in spite, without being able to utter a single word, make any gesture, or any noise to justify themselves or to complain; they are as suffocated under the weight of their impiety, which they feel, but too much

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late, all the audacity towards God, all the absurdity, all the extravagance, all the smallness, without ever having the freedom to testify it in any way whatsoever. They are especially called the victims of the justice of God; and J.-C. tells me that this was the place where the antichrist and his followers are expected …

    I live also the hell of those who are there only for one mortal sin. He is very different from others; and what must be remarked is, that the fire which burns them is endowed with a very sensible discernment between the most or the least of the clumsiness; which is general for all the culprits. There are unfortunate people whose faults have only been sufficient to ruin them. I can not properly tell you if they suffer anything but the pain of damnation; what is certain is that the demons do not pretend to notice it, and that the flames seem to touch them only slightly; which does not prevent their situation from being much to be pitied, since the mere loss of God, of which they comprehend the whole extent and of which they feel all the weight, is enough to make them infinitely unfortunate.

    Each sinner is therefore punished in proportion to the number and enormity of his faults: those who have committed two mortals are, equally equal in their side of the scythe, doubly punished in comparison with those who have committed only one. ; those who have committed ten or twelve are ten or twelve times more so; and in all this the divine justice executes with weight and measure in a rigorous and invariable exactitude, without considerations, without compassion, without any consideration … Those who have stiffened against God and His law to satisfy their passions, despite the remorse of their conscience, now recognize and confess how wrong they were to imagine that it did not cost more to be all-in-one. It is wicked, impious, and scoundrelly, only to be half of it, under the specious and false pretense that one is no more damned for a thousand sins than for one, and that consequently it is equally worth while satisfying all his passions only to satisfy them half-way. What a fatal illusion! It is true, however, that damnation properly so called is equal for all; but what a difference in the pain of sense! Ah! this difference of punishment makes them feel how false their judgment was, forcing them to agree on the fairness of God’s judgments …

    In the midst of so many horrors of which we were surrounded, amidst such frightful and terrible torments, I noticed the most profound peace, the most perfect calm, the greatest serenity on the face and in all the countenance of the Savior. I was so surprised that I could not dispense with asking the cause. How, oh my God! can you be so quiet in hell? I asked him, you who have a heart so good and so sensitive to the fate of those whom you had redeemed at such great expense? How, after so much love, can one show so much indifference? My love for them, J. C replied to me, was as keen and sincere as my indifference is now profound …… Besides that these unfortunate no longer belong to me, or at least they belong only to my justice It will be good to explain the reason of an incomprehensible conduct, which, like all the mysteries, must appear contradictory, although there is no contradiction.

    « Know then, my daughter, that in relation to my creature I can behave as man or God, according to what I am in myself, or according to what I have become for man; for I have external attributes, and interior attributes, which are inherent in my Divinity and are exercised only within myself … « 

    On this, my Father, he made me understand that when I see in him these transports of love or anger, it is nothing other than the sensible effect of his external attributes, by which he manifests himself to men and puts them within reach, to make them understand and follow his will. « For, » he added, « the interior of my Divinity is not subject to those variations or changes which are due to the instability of the creature and which seem to share its imperfections. immutability is my sharing, and all the operations of my inner substance are necessary like myself, immutable as myself, infinite as myself, eternal as myself; they are myself, since they are my essential attributes. That is why I will be eternally what I am, without ever experiencing any vicissitude, any change, any alteration … Eternally I will hate crime, eternally I will love virtue, I will always reward one, and I will always punish ‘other…

    So I will never have pity or compassion for the reprobate; on the contrary, I will always see them with the same feelings of indignation, because their state being fixed in evil and in sin, it is necessary that my heart be inflexible towards them; and if we can talk like that, I’d rather stop being God,

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to stop hating and punishing them, and even to feel no kind of compassion for them. « 

    Good heaven ! what a fate and how despairing it is! What an overwhelming prospect! What a frightful destiny! How can I bear the sole memory of it? I can not stand it any longer. My Father, let us finish, I pray you, these heartbreaking and murderous reflections! Let us leave the dark and unfortunate stay of the reprobates. let’s get out of hell; and please the God of mercy, who has only conducted me to preserve men; who only let me down there to prevent them from falling, that we took advantage of this frightful spectacle he gave me, never to return there! Let us therefore, Father, make every effort to do this and count on the grace that God does not deny to anyone for this purpose … What a rather expensive sacrifice, what a rather austere penance, what consideration can stop a soul struck by this terrible truth, when he It is for her to avoid the greatest and the last of misfortunes! Ah! if I knew a man so insensible, so abandoned, that he would not be touched by it, I would hold him for lost. But if he had not yet given up all feeling of his well-being, I would say to him: Unfortunate, listen to me; if you do not fear God, at least fear hell … If you believe that heaven is not worth the trouble of being deserved by fidelity to the law, think of the inevitable alternative, eternal torment and infinite who will follow the offense; because there is no middle ground between one and the other. Reflect on your eternal fate, while there is still time; stop for a moment on the edge of the precipice before falling for ever, and, by grace! do not complete the irrevocable step that must consume your reprobation.

    End of the first part of the Revelations of the Sister of your Nativity, and the first volume.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTAINED IN THE FIRST VOLUME.

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Preliminary Speech ……………………… Page ………….. 1

Abstract of the Life of the Sister of Nativity,
and the circumstances concerning her
Revelations ……………………………………………………….. 15

Next dispositions that God asks
to the Sister of the Nativity, to make write
what he makes known to her …………………………… .. 165

Article I. The essence of God, His attributes
and their manifestation ……………………………………. 170

Article II. Of the incarnation of the Word, and
its effects ………………………………………………………….. 216

Article III. From the church………………………………… 245

§. I. Beauty of the militant Church.
His divine characters ……………………………………..….. Ibid.

§. II. Latest persecutions of the Church.
Their causes and effects …………………………………….. 260

§. III.  J.-C. complaint about the calamities that
will desolate all the Catholic Kingdoms
France, in particular. Scandals
of bad priests………………………………………..………….. 269

Suburb Roger fire, reported here
by opportunity. A small house preserved half
of the flames …………………………………………………… 282

§. IV. Main causes of destruction
Religious Orders. Attachment to
world and to oneself. Violation of his
wishes…………………………………………………………….. 286

§. V. Other causes of the persecution of the
religion and the upheaval of the state in the
kind of apostasy of the children of the Church;
the spirit of faith is extinguished among them,
and God rekindles it in the hearts of unfaithful
peoples………………………………………………….………… 294

Article IV. Last times of the world …………………….. 310

§. I. Preludes and Announcements of the Last
Advent of J.-C. …………………………………………..……… 311

§. II. Reign of Antichrist ……………………………………. 318

§. III. Extraordinary consolations and help
that God intended for his Church in
his last fights………………………………………….…………… 330

§. IV. Last stay of the children of the Church:
their way of life; their consolation;
their sentences; their agony; their death ……………… 343

Article V. General judgment.-

§. I. Renewal of Heaven and Earth
purified by fire ………………………………………………….. 366

§. II. End of Purgatory. Increase in
sufferings of souls a few years
before their release …………………………………………….. 370

§. III. General resurrection of the good and the
wicked……………………………………………………………….. 375

§. IV.  J.-C. goes down with majesty to judge
the world. Manifestation of consciences………………….. 384

§. V. Judgment of the Forsaken; fate of
dead children without baptism ………………………………. 397

§. VI. Curse of J.-C. against the reprobate;
his last sentence against them, and their
burial in the underworld …………………………………….. 416

§. VII. Triumph of the elect; their entry into
Heaven and their inexpressible happiness ………………… 429

§. VIII. End of the Church and the whole world.
Various visions of Hell; Horror torments
of the damned, especially after the last
judgment and the end of the world ……………………….. 442

End of the Table of the first volume.

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