Sister Katrei: a soul's dialogue with her confessor

Blessed and praised be the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us an image of the truth, himself, in whom there is no possibility of error!

We read in the gospel that our Lord fed the crowd with five loaves and two roasted fish. We take the first loaf to mean the knowledge of what we have always been in God and what we are in God now. The second loaf is the examination of our life in time, seeing how our time has been spent. For this we need the help of a trustworthy confessor. We judge a confessor in this way: if he has what is true, we can safely confide in him. There are three signs of this. First, he is a true priest. Second, he is confirmed in the perfect life. Third, he has the authority that marks the true priest. Seek him wherever you can find him. It is well worth the trouble. Go to him and kneel before him solemnly, as Mary Magdalene knelt at the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, and earnestly beg him for God's sake to hear you. Then open your heart to him as you will appear in the eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ on the day of judgment, when all things are revealed in truth. Set shame aside, knowing that God has seen and heard all your sins, and so have those who are reflected into God from the face of the mirror of truth; they know your failings better than you know them yourself. Do not be ashamed before your confessor; be ashamed before God and the friends of God, gaining godly fear by realizing that God's divine gaze has seen your every will, word and act. Open your heart and pour out your sins until, the whole account told, you pray to him fervently: 'Sir, spiritual father, I beg you by the love that bound Christ to the cross, show me the nearest way to my eternal happiness.'

At this, your confessor may point out three ways that you need to know well. In setting your penance, he directs you to repair wrongs done; he tells you to restore goods that are not your own; he instructs you to make amends for anything you have done to another that you would not want done to you. Word, will and act: whatever was willed without effect must now be willed with real purpose, your will being such that you would rather die a thousand deaths than plan harm to a fellow Christian. As for your wicked will, which is bent toward evil deeds, try to correct it. Where you were once proud, now walk humbly, so that the whole world can see you repent of your pride. I single out pride because I know it to be a temporal fault most fatal to our eternal happiness. False pride robs spiritual people no less than worldly ones of their eternal joy. Do you know what pride is? Flattering yourself or others is the false pride that cheats you of eternal happiness.

Next, examine yourself for laziness in God's service. Not doing your best is laziness in God's service. To address this, set to work and do good, showing by your effort your sorrow for this serious failure, yet remaining detached all the while and caring for nothing but God and the friends of God.

After that, you must check your third sin. Where you were greedy, now be generous, and let your generosity show your whole-hearted hatred of greed. Do you know what greed is? Wanting anything that is not God is evil greed.

The fourth sin is envy and hatred: holding malice and hatred toward anyone, with the intent to do to him what you would not want done to you. If you have harmed someone by an act of yours, repair the harm whatever it costs. If you have damaged his good name by a word of yours, your words must repair it again: humble yourself before him, beg him humbly for God's sake to forgive you, and repeat your sorrowful plea until he gives you his free pardon. Draw attention to this, speaking so well of the man that you win back for him as much honor as you took from him. Know truly, before you can find favor with God you must pay in full for wrongs done to your fellow Christians. Disparaging others does real harm. We can replace worldly goods, but stolen honor can only be restored by paying with our own. So weigh your words well, friend.

The fifth sin is anger. Count up the words and deeds done in anger and cancel them out with kindness. Perhaps you have spoken words in anger which, if held to, would doom you to eternal death. A word said here may reach Rome, and from Rome overseas: how then can you call it back? In this way: a person pays such debts through God. Saying, 'Shall I not tell the truth?' people go over the failings of their fellow Christians and forget their own. I say, even if you see and hear the faults of your fellow Christians, do not expose them. If you cannot keep from mentioning them, then go and see the person privately, just the two of you together; point out his faults to him in a friendly way and encourage him, by your own good example and teaching, to give up his bad habits. If he will not give them up, tell the proper authorities and leave it at that, letting nothing of it pass your lips however much he provokes you. For know this: to rebuke him for sin while you are angry is itself to commit mortal sin. In lifting him out of sin you fall into it yourself. Today's sinner is tomorrow's saint. So, instead of dwelling on the sins and failings of our fellow Christians, let us look to our own faults, forgetting, as surely as God has forgotten, the sins that have been truly repented. What God has forgotten is no business of ours to remember.

The sixth sin is excess in eating and drinking: eating, perhaps, two full meals or three, while your fellow Christian goes hungry and thirsty, who is nearer to God than you are, and more like him besides, for he is poor while you are rich in worldly things. Christ said, 'Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' These weaknesses you must correct so thoroughly that God is bound to forgive them.

The seventh sin is unchastity. On this a pagan master says: 'All excess, anything unnecessary in word or deed, is unchastity.' The wine seller sets his hoop at a mark when he goes to sell wine. Once the wine is sold, he takes the hoop off. Let those who want to cure the sin of unchastity do the same: let them avoid excess in word and deed, and walk humbly and soberly before the world, so that everyone will say that anything that could be called excess is offensive to them.

Your next task, daughter, is to consider whether you have kept the ten commandments all your life. Take the one that Christ mentions: 'You shall love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.' It can be shown that you have broken this often. And in breaking this commandment you break them all. You must tell your confessor how often you have broken it since childhood. It would take too long to go through all ten commandments here and say what you must tell your confessor. You will see that for yourself better than we can tell you.

Then there are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: how often you have resisted them, and failed to practice the seven works of mercy, for which God will sternly reproach you on the day of judgment. Make a fresh start, my daughter, mending your ways so completely that God is bound to forget your failings.

This is the first counsel of the good confessor, and the first way. To the question, 'Sir, is this the best way?' he will answer, 'No, but what I am telling you is necessary.' She says, 'Then, sir, tell me the best way.' He answers, 'Wait until you have made this counsel I have given you your own; wait until you have cast off your sins; and in the meantime come to see me often.'

Obedient to her respected confessor, the daughter does this. She often comes back to him and says, 'Sir, I will obey you to the death if you will help me to live in such a way that I am not afraid to die.' 'Have you cast off your sins?' he asked. 'Yes,' she replied, 'as far as I ever will here in time, and I will keep doing so until I die.' 'Then I will set you on a new path and give you fresh instructions. Keep a truthful tongue, a pure body and a loving soul.' This teaching can be understood as follows: a truthful tongue means that the lips speak only what the heart intends. In this way you will speak the truth, daughter. God is truth, so all your conversation will be of God; not praying to God or thinking of God, you will nonetheless be speaking of God, and always receiving from God.

A pure body means that, pierced through with godly fear, you allow nothing but God to dwell in you.

A loving soul is one that loves what is like her, namely God. Unite yourself with him until you feel your heart is ready to burst with too much love.' At this the daughter cried out, 'And I am an utter stranger to it! Sir,' she said, 'will I ever come to know it?' He said, 'Yes. Do as I tell you: cast off the things that are darkening your soul, and let the light of truth in. Then your soul can find its way back along the road she came.'

By the third loaf we understand God's mercy. Consider, daughter, the abundant compassion that God has shown you. When, having given you free will, you used that free will to bring eternal death upon yourself, he ransomed you with himself, and washing you in his own blood, cleansed you from original sin. Notice further God's mercy in being ready to forgive your sins as often as you seek grace in time. To list all of God's mercies would take longer than if we lived until doomsday. People speak of God's providence. Know that what God has provided for us is his eternal happiness, and as a sign of this he has given us free will to do good and avoid evil.

At this point we need to decide whether we truly repent of our sins. Do you want to know the mark of true repentance? It must be so strong in you that you would rather die a thousand deaths than commit one sin. There are many who say, 'I truly repent of my sins,' who still remain in sin. Speaking falsely, they add to their sin. You virtuous soul, who want to enjoy God's mercy and be baptized in the Holy Spirit, repent in three ways. First, for the sins you have committed against the Lord your God, in word and deed. Next repent of sins against your fellow Christians. If you want to taste God's mercy and have him forgive your sins and fill you with his Holy Spirit in grace, then show the same mercy to all people, made as they are in Christ's image, whether or not they have sinned against you. This is necessary if you are ever to find grace. The third repentance is heartfelt pity for yourself, drawn from considering the good days that God has granted you to find your eternal happiness, he having made all creatures as signposts toward your highest good. As Saint Augustine says: 'All creatures point me toward my good. Lord, I deeply regret that if I ever reach you, it will be by your mercy. The time you have given me goes by, and you are still unknown to me and unloved by me: this is my regret. And yet I fear, Lord, that I have never felt the true sorrow that I ought to feel.'

By the fourth loaf we understand God's justice. By nature he is as just as he is merciful. But know that if I were to tell you of God's justice, it would be too hard for you to bear, and very few would still look for grace. So we stress God's mercy, who casts souls into purgatory so that they may find grace at the judgment, if not before. Know that in itself God's justice is stern enough to make everyone tremble. Knowing this well, Christ said to his disciples, 'When you have done all that is possible for you, say, we are unprofitable servants.' We learn the same from Saint John, who, though he did nothing to separate himself from God, still compared himself to the beasts of the forest. He surely knew God's truth. I say further that God's justice is so severe that even if a person did all the good works ever done by the whole company of the saints now in eternal life, yet were found in any mortal sin (the first is pride, the second is laziness in God's service, the third is hatred, the fourth is anger, the fifth is greed, the sixth is overeating and drinking, the seventh is unchastity, these being the seven deadly sins), if found, I say, in any one of these, he would be lost forever. I hold that it would do him no good for all the saints in heaven to plead for him. I say further that even if Christ were to plead with his Father, and Mary with her son, it would not save his soul. On this I say further that I would rather have the person who sins a thousand mortal sins and knows it, than the one who sins only once in ignorance: that person is lost. I hold that he might have practiced every virtue known in all of Christendom, and it would not help him. He is damned with the lost, while the one with a thousand conscious sins is saved, provided that, renouncing them wholeheartedly in true repentance, never to commit them again, he mends his ways and remains steadfast in love until death. That person ranks with the saints. Ah, daughter, think of those souls who, free from mortal sin all their days, can say with the young man, 'I have kept your commandments all my life.' I wish to God I knew one person who could even say, 'All my days I have kept the first of Christ's commandments, you shall love your God with all the powers of your soul,' and who has been kept, all the while, free from spiritual pride.

The fifth loaf signifies true faith. It means absolute trust in God. He who believes in God trusts God and knows God and therefore loves God. Observe, woman, having true faith means believing in God's omnipotence. The masters say: whoever

has true faith as much as a grain of mustard seed can remove mountains. Therefore it is fitting for us to work hard to free ourselves from corruptible things, which dim the light in which we see the true faith, which is God. To be able to say, 'I am a true Christian,' a person must exist in Christ in the sense that Christ is their model, to whom they are conformed in word and deed. Know that whatever Christ did, he did to build us up in eternal truth, for he is the truth itself; he can initiate you into the true faith. What I say is that to reach the Father we must go to him through Christ; to know the Father we must know him in Christ. And so Christ taught. When Philip asked him, 'Show us the Father,' Christ answered, 'He who sees me sees the Father, and where the Father is, there I am.' Clearly then, we must follow the lead of the Beloved if we want to be saved. People say, 'How can I do as Christ did?' Christ tells us how. He said, 'Take up your cross and follow me.' Do not understand this to mean he commands you to die the death he died on the cross. His words were, 'Follow me,' meaning we are to imitate his perfect life. Our failure in time to imitate his life in word and deed is our failure in eternity. Concerning this he said, 'In my Father's house are many mansions.' For you must know that many who go to heaven enjoy the light of God's face no more than sunshine in forest gloom. No, friend, note what Christ said to the kinswoman who pleaded with him for her son. He said, 'He who drinks of the cup I know of shall be joint heir with me in my Father's kingdom.' Which, interpreted, means: by our measure here it will be measured back to us by our heavenly Father in his eternal kingdom. As St Augustine says: 'So far as we know and love here, we profit eternally.'

Theologians speak of hell. I will tell you what hell is. It is simply a state. Your state here is your eternal state. This is hell. Take an illustration. A thief who has earned the penalty of death on being caught: picture his state of mind seeing others happy! So do we feel, and worse. And so with those in hell who see God and his friends: the height of torment, so the masters say.

Having learned this, the daughter mentioned above goes to her honored confessor. She says, 'Sir, tell me the best way to my eternal happiness.' He said, 'Daughter, let it be.' 'I shall never let it be,' she said, 'so long as my eternal happiness is not assured.' He said, 'You are sure of eternal life, daughter.' 'But, sir,' she persisted, 'have you told me the nearest way to it?' 'Any creature will tell you that,' he said. 'With one voice they all exclaim: pass on, we are not God. That is direction enough, daughter.' 'Not for me, sir,' she said. He said, 'If you will not believe me, at least you will believe the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said: Take up your cross and follow me, meaning that each person must carry their own cross. What he meant was: be content to do your best, knowing that with this God too is satisfied.' 'Would that I had done my best,' she cried. 'What would you do?' he asked. She answered, 'I would leave honor and possessions and friends and kindred and the outward comfort I get from creatures.' 'Would you leave me too?' asked her confessor. She answered, 'Yes, sir; leaving all things, I must leave you also.' 'Do not try it,' he said, 'that is not fitting for a woman.' She said, 'I know well that no woman can enter heaven until she loves like a man. That means she must do a man's work and have the strength of mind to withstand him and all imperfection.' 'You think yourself very strong! I wonder how you would like to bear more than you already have.' She said, 'I can bear all, sir, that Christ has borne for me.' He said, 'These are just words!' She said, 'It is true.' 'Can you prove it?' said he. 'With ease,' said she. 'I have heard it said that in none of Christ's sufferings did his Godhead come to the help of his manhood.' He said, 'That is true. The Godhead cannot suffer; it never has suffered and never can suffer, since nothing affects it.' She said, 'What Christ bore, I can bear.' He said, 'Tell me how.' 'I will,' she replied. 'I know well that Christ was the noblest man ever born: he was descended from sixty-two kings, and moreover, he was the finest heart's blood of Mary. See now my proof that I am fit to bear all he bore for me. Taking the test of breeding, the best bred are the most tender. It follows that I can bear more than Christ can.' He said, 'Were I to tell you all I know of the perfection of his life in time, in his willing poverty, it would break my heart. Think hard about this!' She said, 'I have thought about it. This very day I mean to follow the dictates of the Holy Ghost.' 'What does the Holy Ghost tell you?' he asked. She answered, 'He counsels me to leave myself in the mighty hands of God and to cut my ties with creatures.' 'You are wrong,' he said. 'How so?' said she. He said, 'In not taking advice. Obedience is a virtue, as you know.' 'I am obedient unto death,' she said.

'To whom?' he asked. 'To Christ and his heavenly Father, whom John obeyed in the wilderness, and Mary Magdalene and Mary of Egypt and Mary Salome.' He said, 'It seems you will no longer listen to me.' 'You are right,' she cried; 'I am heartily sorry I listened so long to the counsel of men and was deaf to the counsel of the Holy Ghost.' 'Now listen to me, my daughter. What do you think I have done to you?' 'You have kept me from eternal bliss,' she said. 'How so?' he asked. She answered,

'By not telling me outright the quickest way to it.' 'It is obedience to the Holy Ghost,' he said. 'I should never counsel you otherwise than I have counselled you.' 'If you had not discouraged me,' she said, 'and other spiritual people besides, I would have spent my time more virtuously. I truly believed it was the gospel that priests taught.' 'The gospel is begotten in the Holy Ghost from the perfect life of our Lord Jesus Christ and according to his noble teaching. We read and preach the gospel openly: let whoever would follow it follow it to the utmost.' 'God forgive me for not doing so all my days,' said she. He said, 'I am sorry that you should accuse me of preventing you.' 'Yes,' she replied, 'I accuse you and all creatures.' 'You are mistaken,' he said. 'No one can hinder you but your own self. Know that whom God moves, none can resist: not all the saints in heaven nor all the preaching friars and barefoot monks on earth can stand against one person moved by the truth. He is moved by that same word which Christ spoke, answering the young man who sought the perfect life. Christ said: keep the ten commandments. The young man replied, all these I have kept from my youth up. Then Christ said, if you would be perfect, sell all you have and give to the poor and follow me. Christ made known this same truth to us through Peter and the other disciples whom he called to live with him in willing poverty. You know, daughter, that what Christ said and did is true, for he is truth itself; and know further that to reach the Father we must walk in Christ's footsteps all the way.' She said, 'Well then, good father, why be so discouraging?' 'It is such a flawless life,' he said, 'that anyone leading it, God must come and help.' 'God does not come and go,' she said; 'that I know well. I know very well that when we give ourselves to him he does not fail to help us at need.' He said, 'What if all creatures despise you?' She said, 'I want to be the least of creatures in our Lord Jesus Christ, the lowest of his creatures; then I can say with Paul, rejoice, all creatures are my cross and I am the cross of creatures.' He said, 'Daughter, you are too young.' 'Mary was younger than I,' she said, 'when she went out into the desert and exile, driven by robbery and murder.' 'God was with her,' said he. 'And I know well God is with me,' said she. 'He was present in her,' he replied. 'He is always present in my soul,' she said. He said, 'But Mary had a solemn pledge of his presence, which you do not have, my daughter.' She said, 'Since I give up outward comforts, I am without his outward presence. I wish that he were forever being born within my soul.' 'Think twice,' he said, 'before taking that on.' 'Be quiet and let me speak!' she cried, 'it is by your too much warning that you have held me back.' He said, 'Know that if the truth moved you, you would not have done or held back because of me. I am only a creature, as you know. As long as any creature has power to give and take from you, you are not living for the truth. Truth has strength enough to raise a person to the summit without help from creatures. You dare not put the blame on me, for know that whom the truth moves has the Holy Ghost as master, who teaches his pupils in the highest school of all. There we learn more in the blink of an eye than all the teachers can put into words.' 'You speak the truth,' she said.

The second article of faith is trust in God. He can say he trusts God who does not keep overnight so much as a penny's worth of possessions. I say more: he keeps nothing at all; but whoever withholds even a penny's worth of worldly goods from his fellow Christian, knowing him to be in need of it, is a robber in the sight of God. I warn you, by Christ who suffered so for love of us, allow no one to go in want, since each is made in the likeness of Christ, for whose sake God created all things; and do not worsen anyone's condition by withholding from them their Father's goods, which it is their duty to return to God.

Further I say, whoever sets aside a penny for himself to save for a rainy day, thinking, 'I may need that tomorrow,' is a murderer before God. And I will prove it. For if he trusted God he would leave himself in God's hands; if God gives him tomorrow, he will also give him what he needs for it. Therefore I say there are few who have faith enough to trust God blindly. Know that the one who values worldly goods more than his own power to know and love God is rightly called a murderer. I call Christ to witness this, who said, 'When I am lifted up I will draw all things after me.' In the same way the virtuous person carries all things up to God, their first source. The masters teach that creatures were made for the sake of man. They prove it from the fact that creatures all need each other: cattle need grass, fish need water, birds need air, and wild animals need the forest. In the same way all creatures are useful to the good and are carried, one creature through another, by the good soul up to God. If there lived a person who trusted God, God would do more for him than he could ever do for himself.

Take the third article of faith, which is the knowledge of God. I say, no one knows God who does not first know himself. Notice how you are to know yourselves. To know himself, a person must constantly watch over himself, holding his outer faculties and training them firmly to obey the higher powers of his soul. This discipline must continue until he reaches a state of awareness so pure that nothing less than God can take shape in it. Then you come to know yourself and

The fourth property of faith is love. To be able to say, 'I love you, Lord,' a person must suffer without why what Christ suffered without why, and suffer it gladly without suffering. Even if God were to tell him face to face, 'You will be lost forever with the damned,' he only loves God the more, and says, 'Lord, if you will that I be damned, damned I will be, forever.' In this way he makes his will one with what God wills, willing the same thing on earth and in heaven. Of this he considers himself unworthy. That person can say, 'I love you.'

We have now explained what faith means. Carrying out in practice these articles of faith listed from the start entitles us to say, 'I believe in God.'

By the two roasted fish (one fish is the will, the other its fulfillment) we understand complete subjection, the outright death of your whole nature, down to the marrow of your bones, the blood in your veins, and all that belongs to natural vigor, so that even though you still have the will to sin, you no longer have the power to. Theologians debate whether a person can reach the point where he is incapable of sinning in his body. The best authorities say yes, speaking of souls so perfectly disciplined, outwardly and inwardly, that they have no inclination to sin left in them.

The second fish we take to mean the achievement of the virtues: virtue brought to such a pitch that it becomes instinctive, where virtue is our very being, where our knowledge and love go beyond virtue itself. A person at this stage gives off pure light.

Theologians describe four kinds of light. The first is natural light, the light of the natural man, skilled in worldly affairs, which is less a help than a hindrance. The second is the light of grace. Whoever is enlightened by this has his natural light put out. It lights his way toward salvation, keeping him in grace as long as he follows it closely. The third light enlightens the angels and man in his original innocence. Know this: the person who, like the angels, receives everything from God is empty of worldly things and of creatureliness, and as bare as he was when he came out of God. A person can do what angels cannot: in this light he can go beyond the angels and receive everything straight from the source of divine truth. Then he is given divine light, the fourth light, and about this I say nothing. I keep that to myself.

Here the daughter comes to her respected confessor and says, 'Sir, I fear I will never manage it.' 'Why not?' he said. She said, 'I still have all the virtues to build up. I don't think I have ever brought a single virtue to the level required.' He said, 'Be content to do your best.' 'I have never done my best,' she said, 'though I know well that I owe God a threefold debt. My first debt is to repair my faults.' 'No one can repair a fault unless God forgives it in love,' he said. 'I know that,' she said, 'but I must do my part and live in hope of grace until I die.' He said, 'What is your second charge against yourself?' She answered, 'That, though I long to share in the joy of our Lord, I have not lived in a way that matches it, though I know well that to enter there one must live the perfect life in our Lord Jesus Christ.' 'That is true,' he said. 'Tell me, what is your third debt?' She said, 'Even if there were neither hell nor heaven, to follow him out of true love all the same, since he came first to me, to follow him to the end without a why. I know my duty but do not mend my ways as I should.' 'What more would you do?' he asked. 'You have given up honor and possessions, and family, and every comfort you once had from creatures.' 'True, sir, in the letter of it,' she said, 'but giving up everything God ever created, to leave it for God's sake, is giving up nothing, since it was never mine to give. It belongs to God. Anything that looks like possession is God's. So I believe there is still something more for me to leave.' 'What must you leave?' he asked. 'Myself,' she answered. 'If I leave myself wherever I find myself, then I can say I have truly left myself.' 'You are right,' he said, 'but I wonder, being as sensitive as you are, how you can bear the insults heaped on you.' She said, 'God knows, I feel none of it.' He said, 'Does it not touch you that your friends, both in religious life and in the world, are so troubled on your account, thinking you badly mistaken in how you behave?' 'What is that to me?' she said. 'I am sure that Christ knew, when he sat in the temple, that Joseph and his mother were searching for him in sorrow. The teachers told Christ, "Your father and your mother are looking for you." Christ answered, "Whoever is kind to me, the same is my father and mother and sister and brother."' 'True,' he said. 'Still, I ask you to accept life's necessities when they are offered to you in God's name.' 'Tell me,' she asked, 'what counts as necessary?' 'Do you want me to name the bare necessities of life?' he asked. 'Yes,' she replied. 'Bread, water, and a cloak,' he said, 'these are the bare necessities of the body.' She said, 'Now tell me what is truly necessary.' And he answered, 'To dwell in utter lowliness in Christ, who alone truly lives.' 'Now God reward you,' she exclaimed. 'Pray God on my behalf to give every creature leave to condemn me and persecute me as much as they can.' He said, 'You will get plenty of that in your calling. A holy man once said that if God knew of anyone willing to bear the full sum of human suffering, he would give it to him to carry, so that his worth might be all the greater in eternity. God does this out of pure love for anyone he calls to himself.' She said, 'A master says that only the one who truly longs for suffering deserves it.' 'True, daughter,' he said. 'I ask you, if you are willing, to stay in these parts and work among us.' 'That I will not,' she answered, 'I must be about my own business. I mean to live as an exile, wherever I am persecuted. For you should know that I have found more of God in the smallest contempt than ever I did in the sweetness of creatures.' 'I will not argue with that, for it is true,' he said. 'Christ proves it with these words to his disciples, "Go into all the places where they will persecute you."' She said, 'God bless you for that, you who stand between me and God.' 'Come to me wherever you find me,' he said. 'That I will gladly do.'

St Paul says of the holy martyrs and friends of our Lord, 'They are dead.' From this we conclude that we too must be dead. I hold that anyone who is not truly dead has no real grasp of the sacred things God reveals to those he loves. As long as you still know who your father and mother were in time, you are not dead with the true death. Further I hold: as long as it troubles you that no one will hear your confession or give you the body of God or shelter you from the world's scorn, as long as you can still be moved by such things, know that you are a stranger to the true death. When you are aware of nothing within yourself, when, having escaped from earthly forms and forgotten your own standing and all that happens in time, you have entered an oblivion so deep that nothing takes shape in you and you are aware of nothing except the sheer rising of your soul, then you can say that you are truly dead. Whoever is dead in this way stays always the same, nothing touches him. Of this St John says, 'Blessed are the dead who die in God.' See then, friends, how good it is to die in God. We can die gladly if God will live and work in us while we stand idle. We do die, it is true, but it is a gentle death. People tell us about the holy life, how much they have suffered. To tell the whole story of what our Lord's friends have suffered, time would be far too short. I say this: they did not suffer. The least trace of God-awareness and their sufferings would be entirely forgotten. This can well happen while the soul is still in the body. I say more: while still in the body, a soul can reach such forgetfulness of its own hardship that it never remembers it again. Further I hold: for the one who does not suffer out of love, suffering is suffering and hard to bear. But the one who suffers for love does not suffer at all, and that suffering bears fruit in God's sight. It follows, friends, that by managing to die gladly in God, we escape suffering altogether. To practice this is to be truly dead. So, to die in God, help us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Here the daughter mentioned above comes to her confessor, pleading with him, 'Sir, hear me, for God's sake.' 'Where do you come from?' he said. 'From foreign parts,' she said. He asked, 'What country are you from?' She answered, 'Sir, do you not know me?' 'No, God knows, I do not,' he said. She said, 'By the same token, you have never known yourself.' 'True,' he replied, 'for I believe that if I knew myself as well as I ought, I would have perfect knowledge of all creatures.' 'You are right,' she said, 'but enough of this talk, sir. Hear me, in God's name.' 'Gladly,' he said. 'Go on.'

The daughter made her confession to her respected confessor, as it was now given to her to make it, in a way that filled his heart with joy. He said, 'Come back soon, daughter.' 'Gladly, God willing,' she said.

Going off to his brothers he announces, 'I have just heard the confession of someone, whether woman or angel I am not sure, no, I do not know. If a woman, her soul's powers live with the angels in heaven and her soul has taken on an angelic nature. She knows and loves beyond anyone I have ever met.' 'Glory be to God,' the brothers cry.

Looking for his daughter where he knows she will be, in the chapel, the confessor earnestly asks to speak with her. 'Do you still not know me?' she asks. He answers, 'No, God knows.' 'Then I will tell you out of love. I am the poor soul you led to God.' And she reveals who she is. 'Alas, wretch that I am,' he cries. 'Shame on me before God, that having had spiritual light for so long, I am still so unfamiliar with the things of God. Please, my daughter, for the love of God, tell me of your life and what has happened to you since I last saw you.' She said, 'That would take a long time to tell.' 'Not longer than I am willing to hear,' he said. 'Know that I have already been amazed by what you have told me.'

Before beginning her story, the daughter says to her confessor, 'You must never betray me while I live.' 'I give you my word,' he answered, 'not to reveal your confession during your lifetime.' With that she begins such a wonderful story that he marvels that any human being could go through so much. She said, 'Sir, still I fall short. I find I have overcome all my heart's desires, except that my faith is never shaken.' 'God be praised for making you,' he cried. 'Now be content.' 'Never,' she said, 'while my soul has no lasting place in eternity.' He said, 'I would be well content to have my soul rise as yours does.' She said, 'My soul rises freely, but it never stays. Wanting it is not enough for me. If only I could know what to do to be permanently established in eternity.' He asked, 'Is the desire that strong?' She answered, 'Yes.' 'Let go of it,' he said, 'if you want to be confirmed in it.' Saying, 'That is gladly done,' she sinks into destitution. And as God draws her into his divine light, she comes to believe she is one with God. While this lasts she keeps turning back into herself with an overwhelming sense of the divine, repeating, 'I am sure there is no escape for me.'

The confessor visits his daughter often, asking, 'Tell me, how is it with you now?' 'Badly,' she replies, 'heaven and earth are too small for me.' He begs her to tell him something. She says, 'I have nothing at all to tell.' 'Just one word, for God's sake,' he pleads, and manages to get it from her. She goes on to reveal such deep and wonderful things about the pure perception of divine truth that he exclaims, 'You know this is not common knowledge, and if I were not among the priests who have studied it in theology, I would not have known it either.' 'Much good it does you,' she said. 'I wish you had a living sense of it.' He said, 'I am that much alive to it, I feel as sure of it as I do of having said Mass today. All the same, the lack of direct experience troubles me.'

With the words, 'Pray for me,' the daughter withdraws again into her solitude to enjoy God's company. Before long she appears at the door again, asking for her confessor, to whom she says, 'Sir, rejoice with me, I am God.' 'Glory be to God,' he cries. 'Go back again into your solitude, may all joy be yours as long as you remain God.'

Obedient to her confessor, she goes into the chapel, into a secluded corner. There forgetfulness came over her, and she forgot everything that had a name and was so far drawn out of herself and out of everything created that she had to be carried from the church and lay there until the third day, taken for dead by all. 'I am afraid she is dead,' said her confessor. Understand, if there had been no confessor they would have buried her. They tried every means, but they could not tell whether her soul was still in her body. They said, 'She must surely be dead.' 'She is surely not,' said her confessor. On the third day the daughter came back. 'Oh, how wretched I am, to be back!' she cried. Her confessor, who was already there, spoke to her, saying, 'Let me taste something of divine truth from what you have experienced.' She said, 'God knows, I cannot tell you. What I experienced cannot be put into words.' 'Have you now got all you wanted?' he asked. She answered, 'Yes. I am confirmed.'

Blessed and praised be the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who showed us the way to win by grace what he is by nature. It takes a person open to God to tread self and all creatures under foot. He has five deaths to die. The first is death to natural things. Once he is dead to nature, spirit reigns. Even so he can still fall into eternal death, as Lucifer shows. Lucifer, pure spirit in himself, fell from himself, and falls forever. We must die in spirit, our spirit being breathed into the spirit of truth. Then we begin to live the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, strictly following his teaching and his example. So we die in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the truth which is himself, just as he died in his human nature. And we rise in our Lord Jesus Christ to live again in

the full flow of life. We enter the Father in the Son. Our humanity is given its final blow, pierced to the heart by divine light. In this the person comes to know himself. All of God's gifts known to him are forgotten. Thought, word, will, and deed lie scattered before him in the reflection of the divine light received from the Father. In this divine light the soul sees herself as less than any creature. She finds nowhere to settle. She judges herself the worst thing God ever made. Lucifer seems to her to have more merit than she does, so that she ranks herself below him. That is why the masters say, 'Christ's soul and Lucifer's soul were made in the same light.' From this comes the soul's grief and self-condemnation. Christ's soul was the wisest soul there ever was. She turned around in the creature and looked toward the creator. For this the Father clothed her in the divine garment, in the very nature that is his own. But Lucifer looked away toward what was lacking, and by this he fell, and falls forever. So fall all who turn away from God toward perishable things. The soul now finds herself in this condition and is consumed within herself, thinking she must stay there forever, since it is she who is at fault.

The best authorities say that out of the very lowest angel of all those in heaven, one drop fell upon the highest heaven. This set the heavens turning, each heaven following the course that nature laid down for carrying that drop around. From it every creature gets its life, every creature that has life in time. In it every creature makes its way back to its first source. In it the soul comes to see that, since God has become so small a thing in time, our works must be done above time, in eternity. Christ taught us this. All his works are done in eternity. If God did one act outside himself, he would not be God. God's works are done in such a way that they remain within him. And our works, when they are done in the same way, last in eternity. Understand, what we call virtue is what is in me, what nobody can take from me. Here the soul is moved to cry out, 'Alas, that I have done so many works outside myself!'

On the subject of nature, the masters say this: nature and the natural state are not the same thing. The natural state is taken on in time; nature in itself is eternal. This touches the soul closely. Philosophers will tell you that thunder is simply the result of opposites meeting. Clouds cannot bear to be charged with opposites, which crash together, and so you get lightning and thunder. It is the same with wind; it blows until the foreign matter, namely the rain, is driven out. Creatures in general work to purify themselves of what does not belong to them.

Here the soul sees that she has often carried things in her that did not belong together. She says, 'All creatures pointed me toward my eternal happiness. They did not point Lucifer that way. He fell away from God forever because of the unlikeness he took on. God kept me within himself. I had no mind to see it, so I can never hope for grace.' And there she stops, unable to rise above herself.

Now theologians say that God is bound by his own nature to draw what is like him out of its separateness into himself, just as the sun draws up moisture. Then the soul, lost in the naked Godhead, is no more to be found than a drop of wine in the middle of the ocean. That soul can no more sin than God can. Such a person is said to be made one with God. God is the source of his activity. He has true perception. Things exist in him without images, for he is one with God, in whom all things are. So it is true to say that in this man all things exist without form. The masters say, 'To measure the soul rightly we must measure her by God, for the ground of God and the ground of the soul are one and the same nature.' The part of the soul that gives life to the body is its least part. The one who grasps this has a fresh joy that never runs out. Though he walks in time, he lives in his eternal nature. He makes his home in the truth. Such a person can be known by five signs. First, he never complains. Second, he never makes excuses. When he is accused, he lets the facts speak for him. Third, there is nothing he wants in earth or heaven except what God himself wills. Fourth, he is not moved by time. Fifth, he is never made glad, because he is gladness itself.

Here the faithful confessor comes looking for his spiritual daughter in a land he does not know, earnestly asking her to talk with him. She says, 'I can speak with you about outward things.' 'That will do,' he says. 'Tell me, what do you think made you most ready for the eternal truth?' She answered, 'Leaving myself behind wherever I found myself. Second, never excusing myself from accusations that concerned only me. Third, however much pain I had, wanting still more and forcing myself to bear it calmly. Fourth, being willing to accept insignificance, poverty, and the lack of anything to comfort me as a creature. Fifth, never seeing souls sin without speaking against it, and never hearing anything against the gospel or the life of Christ without fighting it to the death. But understand, I made it my habit to correct only those whose sins I saw were doing them real harm. I never did it except purely out of love for God, moved by pity for them. Many have thrown insults at me for it. Sixth, never avoiding a chance to be insulted. I ran from honor but stayed to accept shame. Seventh, never looking back once I knew the way to my eternal happiness, and taking no one's advice, but pressing straight on. Eighth, never being satisfied with the light or the sight I had in the present moment, since these were nothing compared to my certainty. Ninth, never resisting whatever use God chose to make of me. Tenth, strict discipline, inward and outward.'

'God be praised,' he said. 'You have told me your outward rule. Now tell me your inward one.' She said, 'God knows, I am afraid this is beyond you.' 'Just give me a hint, do not refuse me,' he urged. And she answered, 'At the moment of my confirmation, all the works God ever did existed in me as a small thing beneath heaven. My home was heaven. I lived there among the persons of the Trinity, as familiar to me as his own house is to a man who lives in it, and I saw the boundary between all creatures and the whole of God's creation. It was as clear to me as the five fingers on my hand.' He said, 'Explain this more fully.' She replied, 'I will. I had gathered all the powers of my soul together. When I looked into myself I saw God in me, and everything God ever made in earth and heaven. Let me put it better. As you well know, anyone who faces God in the mirror of truth sees everything pictured in that mirror, all things, that is to say. That was my inward state before my confirmation. Do you follow me?' 'It must be so, of course,' he said. 'Is that not your rule now?' She answered, 'No, I have nothing to do with saints or angels or creatures or anything that was made. It is all one and the same to me. Nothing that is created, and nothing that can be put into words, concerns me now.' 'Explain,' he said. She said, 'I will. I am confirmed in the naked Godhead, where there is neither form nor image.' 'Is this for good?' he asked. She answered, 'Yes.' He said, 'Daughter, go on, this talk pleases me.' And she continued, 'As I am now, no creature can be, as a creature.' 'Explain,' he said. She said, 'I am as I was before I was created, nothing but God and God. No saint, no angel, no choir, no heaven. People often speak of eight heavens and nine choirs of angels. Where I am there is nothing of that. You must understand that such ways of speaking, which call up pictures in the mind, only serve to draw people toward God. In God there is nothing but God. No soul comes to God until she is God as she was before she was made.'

He said, 'You speak the truth, daughter. Now for God's sake give me whatever counsel you can as to how I may come to possess this good.' 'I will give you a sure guide,' she said. 'As you well know, creatures were made out of nothing and must return to nothing before they reach their source.' 'True,' he agreed. She said, 'That is enough. Now tell me, what is nothing?' He replied, 'I know what nothing is, and I know what is less than nothing. As I see it, imperfections are nothing to God. So anyone who is ruled by imperfections is less than nothing.' 'How so?' 'He is the servant of imperfection. Nothing is nothing. The servant of imperfection is less than nothing.' She said, 'Exactly. So the way to reach the good you want is to put yourself, and all creatures, below yourself, until you can find nothing more to do, and let God work in you.' 'You are right,' he cried. 'One master says, whoever loves God as his God, and prays to God as his God, and is satisfied with that, is to me no better than an unbeliever.' 'Blessed be the master who said that,' she said. 'He knew the truth. You must understand that anyone who is satisfied with what can be put into words, God is a word, heaven is a word, whose soul's powers, love and knowledge, ask for nothing more than what can be said, rightly deserves to be called an unbeliever. It is the lower senses or powers of the soul that take hold of things that can be spoken. The higher powers are not satisfied with that. They keep pressing on until they reach the source the soul flowed from. The powers of the soul cannot enter that source. All nine powers of the soul serve the person at the level of the soul. They draw him out of lower things and send him on toward his source. When the soul stands before her cause, raised above things in her highest power, her lower powers stay outside. Understand, it is the naked soul, stripped of everything that has a name, one and the same, that moves forward into the naked Godhead, the way oil soaks slowly into cloth. So the soul moves forward, flowing on and on for as long as God ordains that she give life to the body in time. Understand, while the good person lives on earth, his soul is already moving forward in eternity. That is why good people love to live.' 'True, daughter,' he said. 'One master says, suppose two men equally pleasing to God lay dying together, and both died, the one a little before the other, just long enough for the other to breathe one sigh for God, or give one thought to the least martyr God ever brought through suffering, or to the smallest word God ever spoke. This would give him precedence over the one who died first, since God remains eternal.' 'That is so,' she said. 'Understand also, as the good rise, so the wicked who remain in sin fall.'

'Now please, daughter, tell me. We speak of heaven and hell and purgatory and we read a great deal about them. We also read that God is in everything and everything is in God.' 'And so it is,' she said. 'Then for God's sake,' he said, 'tell me the right way to understand it.' 'Gladly, as far as I can put it into words,' she said. 'Hell is nothing but a state of being. Our being here is our eternal being. We are, as it were, grounded in it. Many people like to imagine that here they have a creaturely being and over there, later, a divine being, but this is a common misunderstanding. Purgatory is something we take for granted, like penance, and it comes to an end. Look at it this way. Some souls so honor God and the friends of God that God is moved to show them mercy, even if it is only at the very end that true repentance comes to them in love and knowledge, and they rise above themselves and above everything created. Then true love is their whole being, and if they went on living they would sin no more, but would suffer for the sake of true love everything our Lord Jesus Christ suffered, and his beloved suffered with him. These souls rise in grace. But people who

Those who leave this life still in their state of creaturehood remain in that state eternally, and this is called hell. Likewise, the state stays fixed for those who allow nothing but God to be in them: God is their being and remains their being eternally.

Again, on the subject of the last day, people say that God will judge. So he will, but not in the way they think. Each person is his own judge in this sense: whatever state he is in at that moment, he remains in eternally. People often say that the body will rise with the soul. So it will, but not in the way they think. The being of the body and the being of the soul come together to form one being. Those souls who have spent all their days in God, until God has become their being, will have God as their being, body and soul, forever. Not so the wicked, who have wasted their time on creatures. Whatever state they are in continues to be their state, and this eternal cutting off from God and from his friends is called hell. Yet keep in mind that these same people still get their being from God, or they would not exist at all. So they are in God and God is in them. You see, they have the being of God. Think of it this way. They are in God the way a man might be who has forfeited his life to a righteous lord whose honor he has stolen, whose friends he has wronged, and against whose life he has plotted again and again. Now this lord, who showed him nothing but kindness in hopes that he would reform, is grieved to find that he refuses to change. Holding him in the grip of justice, the lord stops short of killing him. Instead he punishes the outrage done to himself. First, bound hand and foot, the man is thrown into the lowest dungeon, among toads and reptiles and the foul water that tends to lie in the deepest dungeon keeps. Brought up from there, he is disgraced before the world, so that people can see his open shame and he can see their joy at it. His torment is all the greater for it. They heap insult after insult on him, shame beyond thinking, and he is thrown back into his dungeon again and again, always in dread of execution. Even so, it is fair to say that the man is at the court, for the dungeon is as much part of the royal court as the hall where the king stays with his friends. But the conditions, you see, are very different, though not with that heavenly company we spoke of. Know that this grief lasts forever. I am amazed that anyone who hears these words would still dare to sin. Purgatory is so terrible in itself that anyone who rightly understood it would not stay in sin for a moment. You must understand that purgatory is temporal and a matter of the mind. A soul that leaves the body, as I said, in faith and love, willing to do everything for God's sake and to avoid sin for God's sake, is in dire distress, unable to do anything but wait until God chooses to have compassion on her. And even if this does not happen until doomsday, her hope is her life. Once doomsday has passed, this is over. But souls in the divine condition are not affected this way: when such a soul leaves the body, she remains in a condition of divinity fixed by her knowledge and love of God, and after the day of judgment the being of the body and the being of the soul become one being in the divine actuality. According to the most reliable authorities, their statements about creatures should not be taken to mean that John went to heaven body and soul, and the same is true of the other friends of our Lord of whom it is said that they are body and soul in God, beyond time in eternity. It is not possible. In God there can be nothing but God, not mouth nor nose nor hand nor foot, nor anything created that belongs to the body. So they cannot be said to have arrived there in the body. We may reasonably suppose that when John's time came to go, God brought about in him what was due to happen on the day of judgment. He did this for the sake of true love, because John was so pure. The being of his soul, taking with it, with God's help, the being of his body, was drawn up into God. We may take it that his body, which was destined to decay late, as bodies do on earth, was broken down in the air, so that only the being of the body entered into God, the being that would have joined the soul at the last day in any case. This is what happened with Mary, and with everyone else of whom it is told that they reached God in the body.

'That is well argued,' he said, 'but you should know that this question is hotly debated among the theologians.' She said, 'I will give you the key to its solution. Turn to our Lord Jesus Christ and consider what happened at his ascension. He was eating when he ascended. As you well know, the food was lost along the way, along with everything incidental that Christ had taken on, all of which stayed behind in time. He could only take with him into the Father what had come out of the Father. The being of Christ's soul took with it the being of our Lord Jesus Christ's noble humanity, in its divine actuality. The persons exist in the Father as one with the Father. In the same way, all those who gain by grace what Christ has by nature are in the Father, not that they take the life of the body with them when they depart. That waits until doomsday. The being of the body returns to the being of the soul only when all things have passed away, according to the common teaching. You surely know that whoever God chooses to favor, he treats as he treated Saint John.' He said, 'I know that well. If I did as Saint Dominic did, I would be as Saint Dominic. Saint Dominic sold his book and everything he owned and gave it to the poor for God's sake. We do not do this, daughter, nor do we practice many of Saint Dominic's other virtues. We are as we are, claiming a priesthood we do not truly have. Saint Francis was a simple soul, and for that reason God favored him greatly. He approached God in perfect simplicity of life, and so grew close to God. Now in that region there was a priest who deeply resented an ordinary man being so intimate with God. Going to visit him, he said, "What are we to make of this, brother? Scripture says we must rebuke people for their sins." "Certainly," said Saint Francis. "But," said the priest, "if I rebuked a man, he might pay me back twice over." "How could he do that?" said Saint Francis. "I can read you the scriptures better than that. We are to practice the true and perfect life, within and without, until we become a living rebuke to all mankind." "True, brother," said the priest, ashamed. Know this: to do as Saint Francis did is to become as Saint Francis was. Further, I hold that when we leave this life, grace leaves us. And again, to be less than Saint John is to be more than Saint John.' 'Thank God, you know it,' she said. He said, 'I have known it for a long time, and I believe it is true, though I do not live by it.' 'That I am sorry for,' she said.

She said, 'You have told me about the nine heavens. Now tell me what I am asking. Advise me what kind of life to lead, for you know my life better than anyone.' 'Indeed I will,' he said, 'and gladly. Eat when you are hungry, drink when you are thirsty, wear fine linen, sleep and take your ease. Satisfy your tastes in food and drink, and for a time, study yourself and live for yourself alone. If you should see the whole of God's creation swallowed up before your eyes, do not try to stop it, not even with an Ave Maria, but call on all creatures to do your bidding, at will, for the glory of God. Wear fine and beautiful clothing, and, staying in one place, carry all things up to God. If you choose to enjoy creatures, it is fitting to do so, since any creature you enjoy you give back to its cause. You will know very well that everything you enjoy is in God, for God's glory.' She said, 'I know very well that everything you say is true, but you must understand that I will never want anything except to be a beggar until I die.' 'You are mistaken,' he said. 'Then mistaken I will remain,' she said. 'I choose poverty and exile. That no one can take from me.' 'On my soul, you are being false to God,' he cried. 'How so?' she asked. 'Simply by pleasing yourself,' he answered. She said, 'God knows I am only keeping to the path that has led me toward eternal happiness. Whatever natural fault lies in that path, in time and in eternity, will be mine too, in eternity and in time. I will not turn aside from the rule of our Lord Jesus Christ.' He said, 'You should know that. God prosper you.' Then she said, 'Believe me, I do take more ease now. My discipline is not as strict as it once was. If only I could help good souls on their way, souls approaching their eternal happiness but still lacking certainty, I would gladly do it. I would gladly save the whole world from sin, for God's sake. Since our Lord Jesus Christ made use of all his faculties right up to his death, it is fitting that I should do the same. My outer faculties will occupy themselves with the exalted life and noble humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ and with his high teachings, during my life in time. The highest powers of my soul will, as you know, be at work in Christ's soul, in his heavenly Father, existing in one nature they never fall away from. The Holy Spirit flows from the Father through these powers into my soul, and back from my soul into God, each power doing its own work, here in the Holy Spirit, and in the Father, with his Son our Lord Jesus Christ. Think of it as an exchange. He knows all my days, from the time I first knew good from evil.'

'Tell me, daughter,' he said, 'the doctors of the church declare that a thousand angels can stand on the point of a needle in heaven. Now explain to me what this means.' She answered, 'The doctors are right. You can understand it this way. The soul that enters into God has no time, no space, nothing nameable that can be put into words. But it stands to reason, if you think about it, that the space any soul occupies is far greater than heaven and earth and the whole of God's creation. I will say more: God could make countless heavens and earths, and these, together with the multitude of creatures he has already made, would take up less room than the point of a needle, compared with the standing of a soul made one with God.' So the daughter went on, and as her talk turned to God she became most eloquent, with the father urging her on from time to time, saying, 'Say on, daughter.' She told him so much about the immensity of God, the power of God, and the providence of God, that he lost the use of his outer senses, and they had to carry him into a nearby cell, where he lay a long time before coming back to himself. When he came to, he asked that his daughter be brought to him. Let in to see him, his daughter asked, 'How is it with you now?' 'Very well indeed,' he answered. 'God be praised for sending you to a man. You showed me the way to my eternal happiness, and I have been deep in divine contemplation, where I was given the realization of everything I have heard from your lips. Daughter, I beg you, by your love for God, help me by word and deed to win a permanent home in the place where I now am.' She said, 'Impossible. You are not suited to it. When, in soul and faculties, you are as used to moving up and down as a courtier is used to going back and forth at court, when you recognize the different members of the heavenly company and everything God ever made, missing nothing, knowing them the way a good householder knows the members of his household, then you will tell the difference between God and Godhead. Then too you will see the difference between spirit and spirituality. Until then you are not ready to be confirmed in it. Do not run away. Wrestle with creatures a while longer, until you are free of them, and they, as such, are free of you. In that way you will train your faculties without losing your mind. Do this until the powers of your soul are roused to the awareness we have been speaking of.'

Blessed and praised be the sweet name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.