Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Our Nothingness and Knowledge of Self


Our Nothingness and Knowledge of Self



“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Prov. 1:7



Our Lord to St. Catherine of Siena:  “Do you know, my daughter, who you are and who I am?  If you have this two-fold knowledge you will be happy.  You are she who is not, I am He who is.  If you keep this truth in your heart, never will the enemy be able to deceive you.  You will escape his snares.  Never will you consent to commit an act which is against My Commandments, and you will readily acquire all grace, all truth, all clarity.”



Ven. Conchita de Armida (Diary, August 8, 1896):  “…I can but lower myself into the bottomless abyss of my nothingness.  I close my eyes, I believe, and I adore...!  I believe there is no better lesson of humility than this.  How can anyone believe, before God and in the presence of such grandeur, that he is something of grandeur, miserable atom that he is?  How can he think he is something good in comparison with this goodness without limits?  How can he declare himself perfect in the presence of such a light on these infinite perfections.  How can he esteem himself pure, in the face of this eternal Truth?  Oh what fools we are, we others, poor beings of this world, when we believe we are something or consider ourselves capable of the least thing!  In truth, after I touched God and had an imperfect notion of His Being, I wanted to prostrate myself, my forehead and my heart in the dust and never get up again!”



Excerpts from the Book of Heaven:



Volume 1

        I begin, oh Jesus, in You, with You, and for You.  I have no trust in myself, but I have faith in You.  Without You I can do nothing.  May this writing, from beginning to end, be done for your greater glory, for the growth and increase of my love toward You, and for my great confusion.



Volume 1

        You must be like an infant in swaddling bands who, unable to move by himself, even to walk or move a hand, must rely on its mother for everything.  In that way, I want you to remain near Me—like an infant—to always ask for my help and assistance, acknowledging your nothingness and expecting everything from Me.”

        With this type of talk I became little, and I annihilated myself to the point that I sometimes felt my whole being dissolved and dismembered—incapable of taking a step or a breath without the sustenance and assistance of Jesus.  I therefore tried my utmost to satisfy Him in everything by becoming humble and obedient.



Volume 1

        He gave me other new insights regarding self—annihilation saying, "You are not, and should not consider yourself more than a shadow that quickly passes by and eludes you as you try to catch it.  If, therefore, you want to see something in yourself that is worthy of Me, consider yourself nothing; and I, pleased with your true debasement, will pour my All into you." Saying this, my good Jesus impressed on my mind and heart a self—annihilation of such magnitude, that I wanted to hide myself in the deepest abyss.  Knowing how impossible it was for me to hide my shame from Him as I continued the destruction of my self-esteem, He would say, "Get closer to Me, lean on my arm.  I will support you and give you strength to always work for Me and do all for Me."



Volume 1

        Luisa: Have You forgotten that I am wicked and that without You I can do no good?

        And Jesus sweetly and calmly answered; “I do this so you will understand what you are without Me.  Do not despair.  I am doing this to you for your greater good, to prepare your heart to receive the new graces I shall bestow upon you.  Until this time I have helped you visibly; but now, invisibly, I will make you feel your nothingness with your own hand.  I will cause you to sink into the most profound humility; and I will endow you with my graces—the best ones—to prepare you for the high levels to which I want to raise you.  So instead of despairing, be joyful with Me and thank Me, because the quicker you traverse this stormy sea, the quicker you will reach the harbor of salvation.  The severer the tests I will subject you to, the greater the graces I will bestow upon you.  Have courage, therefore, for soon I shall come to console you in your sorrow.”



Volume 2, May 26, 1899

“Contempt of yourself is praiseworthy when it is well invested by the spirit of Faith; but when it is not invested by the spirit of Faith, instead of doing you good, it can harm you. In fact, in seeing yourself as you are, unable to do anything good, you will be discouraged, disheartened, without daring to take one step on the path of good. But by leaning on Me – that is, by investing yourself with the spirit of Faith – you will come to know and despise yourself, and at the same time, to know Me, confident of being able to do anything with my help. And here is how, by acting in this way, you will walk according to the truth.”

Luisa: “How much good these words of Jesus did to my soul! I comprehended that I must enter into my nothingness and know who I am, but I must not stop there. Rather, immediately after I have known myself, I must fly into the immense sea of God, and stay there, to draw all the graces that my soul needs; otherwise, my nature remains weakened and the devil will look for means in order to cast it into discouragement.”



Volume 2, June 2, 1899

        This morning my sweetest Jesus wanted to make me touch my nothingness with my own hands.  In the act of showing Himself, the first words that He directed to me were, "Who am I and who are you?"  In these words I saw two immense lights.  One contained God, and in the other I saw my misery, my nothingness.  I saw myself to be nothing but a shadow as that shadow projected by whatever object illuminated by the sun, shadow that ceases to exist when the sun passes to other points.

        Thus my shadow, thus my being, depends upon the mystical sun, God, Who in a mere instant can dissolve this shadow that the Lord has given me, it not even being mine.  It causes horror to think of it.  Smelly, putrid and all wormy, yet in this so horrid state I was constrained to be together with a God so Holy.  Oh, how I would have been content if it were given to me to hide myself in the darkest abysses!

        After this, Jesus said to me, "The greatest favor that I can do for a soul is to make it know itself.  The knowledge of self and the knowledge of God go hand in hand.  For as much as you shall know yourself, this much shall you know God.  The soul that has known itself, seeing that by itself it can work nothing of good, transforms the shadow of its being into God and it happens that in God it does all its operations.  Then it happens that the soul is in God and walks with Him, without looking, without investigation, without speaking.  In a word, it is as if it were dead, for, knowing in depth its nothingness, it does not dare to do anything by itself but it blindly follows the influences of the operations of the Word.  It seems to me that to the soul that knows itself, it happens as to those persons who go by train.  Who, while they pass from one point to another, without taking one step by themselves, make long trips, but all in virtue of the train that transports them.  Thus the soul, placing itself in God, as the persons on the train, makes sublime flights in the way of perfection, knowing fully that it is not of itself but in virtue of that blessed God Who carries it in Himself.  Oh, how the Lord favors, enriches and concedes the greatest graces to that soul that attributes all, not to itself, but to God!"



Volume 2, June 12, 1899

…Jesus seemed to clothe my soul with the garment of Faith, of Hope and of Charity, and in the very act of clothing me, Jesus whispered to me the way I was to exercise myself in these three virtues. Now, while I was doing this, unleashing another ray of light, Jesus made me understand my nothingness. Ah! I seemed to be like a grain of sand in the middle of a most extensive sea, which is God; and this little grain went to disperse itself inside that immense sea – but it was lost in God. Then He transported me outside of myself, carrying me in His arms, and kept whispering to me various acts of contrition for my sins. I only remember that I have been an abyss of iniquities. Lord, oh, how many awful ingratitudes I have had toward You!



Volume 3, January 31, 1900

    Jesus:  “What is the passport to enter into the kingdom of grace? It is humility. Through humility, by always looking at her nothingness and seeing that she is nothing but dust or wind, the soul will place all her trust in grace, so much so, as to make of it her master. And grace, taking dominion over all of the soul, leads her along the path of all virtues, and makes her reach the summit of perfection.”   

Luisa:  What would a soul without grace be like? It seemed to me that she would be like the body without the soul, which becomes stinking and spews worms and rot from all parts, so much so, as to become an object of horror to the human sight itself. In the same way, without grace, the soul becomes so abominable as to be horrifying to the sight – not of men, but of God Trice Holy. Ah, Lord, free me from such misfortune, and from the abominable monster of sin!

      

Volume 3, February 5, 1900

      “My daughter, sometimes the soul feels an encounter in some virtue, and plucking up her strength, the soul overcomes that encounter; and then, that virtue becomes more resplendent and rooted in the soul. However, the soul must be very attentive in order to avoid that she herself might provide the little rope to let herself be bound by lack of confidence; and she will do this by always restricting herself within the circle of truth, without ever leaving it, which is the knowledge of her nothingness.”



Volume 3, May 20, 1900

     “My daughter, all things have their origin from nothing. If this very machine of the universe which you are admiring with its great order had been full of other things before I created it, I could not have put my creative hand to make it with such great mastery and to render it so splendid and adorned. At the most, I could have undone everything that might have been there, to then redo it according to my liking. But we always come to this: all of my works have their origin from nothing, and when there is a mixing with other things, it is not decorous for my majesty to descend and operate in the soul. But when the soul reduces herself to nothing and rises to Me, and takes her being within Mine, then I operate as the God that I am, and the soul finds true rest. And here is how all virtues, from humility to the annihilation of oneself, begin.”



Volume 3, June 20, 1900

      “As for the rest, I do not want you to think about it, because the most perfect, the most sublime humility is that of losing every reason and of not discoursing on ‘why’ and ‘how’, but of undoing oneself in one’s own nothingness. And while the soul does this, without realizing it, she finds herself dissolved in God, and this produces in the soul the union most intimate, the love most perfect toward her highest Good. This, however, to the greatest advantage of the soul, because in losing her own reason, she acquires divine reason, and in losing every discoursing about herself – whether she is cold or warm, whether the things that happen to her are favorable or adverse – she will be interested in and will acquire a language fully celestial and divine. In addition to this, humility produces a garment of safety in the soul, in such a way that, wrapped in this garment of safety, the soul remains in the most profound calm, embellishing all of herself in order to be pleasing to her dearest and beloved Jesus.”



Volume 3, June 27, 1900

      “My daughter, what I want from you is that you no longer recognize yourself in yourself, but that you recognize yourself only in Me. So you will no longer remember yourself, nor will you ever again have recognition of yourself, but you will remember Me, and un-recognizing yourself, you will acquire the recognition of Me alone. According to how much you will forget and destroy yourself, so will you advance in the knowledge of Me and will recognize yourself only in Me. Once you have done all this, you will no longer think with your mind, but with mine; you will not look with your eyes, you will no longer speak with your mouth, nor will you palpitate with your heart, work with your hands, or walk with your feet, but will do everything with mine. In fact, in order to recognize herself only in God, the soul needs to go to her origin and to return to her beginning – God, from whom she came - and to conform all of herself to her Creator. And anything which she keeps of herself and which is not conformed to her beginning, she must undo and reduce to nothing. Only in this way, naked, undone, can she return to her origin, recognize herself only in God, and operate according to the purpose for which she was created. This is why in order to conform to Me completely, the soul must render herself indivisible with Me.”



Volume 3, August 3, 1900

      “My daughter, why do you look for Me outside of yourself, while you could find Me more easily within yourself? When you want to find Me, enter into yourself, go deep into your ‘nothing’, and there, without yourself, in the most tiny circle of your ‘nothing’, you will see the foundations that the Divine Being laid within you, as well as the factories It raised in you. Look and see.”

      I looked again and I saw solid foundations and very high walls that reached up to the heavens; but that which stupefied me was to see that the Lord had done this beautiful work upon my nothing, and the walls were all walled up, with no openings. One could see only one opening in the vault, which corresponded only to Heaven, and in this opening dwelled Our Lord, upon a stable column that rose out of the foundations, formed over nothing. Now, while I was looking, all stupefied, blessed Jesus added: “The foundations formed over nothing mean that the Divine Hand operates there where there is nothing, and It never mixes Its works with material works. The walls without openings around mean that the soul must have no correspondence with earthly things, in such a way that there may be no danger that even a little bit of dust may enter, because everything is walled up well. The only correspondence that these walls allow is with Heaven – that is, from nothing to Heaven, from Heaven to nothing; and this is the meaning of the opening made in the vault. The stability of the column means that the soul is so stable in good that there is no contrary wind that can move her. And my dwelling upon it is the sure sign that the work done is fully divine.”

Volume 4, November 11, 1900

       “Ah, my daughter, do not go out of my Will, because by going out of my Will, you come to lose the knowledge of Me, and not knowing Me, you come to lose the knowledge of yourself. In fact, only in the reflections of the light can one distinguish with clarity whether there is gold or mud; if everything is darkness objects can easily be confused. Now, the light is my Will, which gives you the knowledge of Me, and in the reflections of this light you come to know who you are; and in seeing your weakness, your pure nothingness, you cling to my arms and, united with my Will, you live with Me in Heaven. But if you want to go out of my Will, first you would come to lose true humility, and then you would come to live on the earth and would be forced to feel the earthly weight, to moan and sigh like all the other unfortunate who live outside of my Will.”



Volume 4, December 24, 1902

        “My daughter, one who believes himself to be something before Me and before men, is worth nothing.  One who believes himself to be nothing is worth everything – first, before Me, because if he does something, he does not think he does it because he can do it, having the strength and the capacity, but rather, because he receives from God the grace, the helps and the lights; therefore it can be said that he does it by virtue of divine power, and one who has divine power with him is already worth everything. Second, before men, because this acting by virtue of divine power makes him operate in a completely different way, and he does nothing but send forth the light of the divine power he contains within himself, in such a way that the most perverted ones, without wanting it, feel the strength of this light and submit to his volition; and here is how he is worth everything also before men. On the contrary, one who believes himself to be something, in addition to being worth nothing, is abominable to my presence, and because of his ostentatious and particular manners - for he believes he is something and makes fun of others - men keep him pointed out as an object of derision and of persecution.”



Volume 8, November 18, 1907

       Luisa:  ‘My sweet life, how bad I have become – I feel I am reduced to nothing. I no longer feel anything in me, everything is empty; I just feel an enchantment in my interior, and in this enchantment I wait for You, so that You may fill me. But in vain do I wait for this filling; on the contrary, I feel I always return to nothing.’ And Jesus: “Ah, my daughter! And you afflict yourself for you feel reduced to nothing? Rather, I say to you: the more the creature is reduced to nothing, the more she is filled with the All. And if she left even one shadow of herself, that shadow would prevent Me from giving all of Myself, completely, to the soul. Your constant returning to nothing means that you are dissolving your human being to reacquire the Divine.”



 Volume 9, December 22, 1909

I felt my very nature being consumed and melted into nothingness. Those seeds of strength, of light, of knowledge which I seemed to feel – everything turned into nothing. I felt I was dying; yet, I live. In the meantime He came back, and taking me in his arms, He seemed to sustain this nothingness of mine, telling me: “Do you see, my daughter, how, as the little seed of your strength, the little lamp of your light, the little knowledge of Me that you have, and all of your other little qualities dissolve, my strength, my light, my wisdom, my beauty and all of my other qualities take over and fill this nothingness of yours? Aren’t you happy?”



Volume 11, Good morning to Jesus

       Jesus, Jesus, may our will be one; one our love, one our contentment. Never leave me alone, for I am a nothing, and the nothing cannot be without the All.



Volume 11, 4th July, 1912

       “My daughter, what is the matter? Do you want to waste time? Do you want to go out of your nothingness? Stay in your place - in your nothingness - so that the All may keep Its place in you. Know, however, that you must die completely in my Will: to suffering, to virtues - to everything. My Will must be the tomb of the soul; and just as in the tomb one’s nature is consumed to the point of disappearing completely, and through that very consummation it will rise again to new and more beautiful life - in the same way, the soul, buried in my Will as though inside a tomb, will die to suffering, to her virtues, to her spiritual goods, and will rise again in everything to Divine Life.”



Volume 12, June 14, 1917

“My daughter, the more the soul strips herself of herself, the more I clothe her with Myself. The more she believes she can do nothing, the more I act in her, and I do everything. I feel all my love, my prayers, my reparations, etc. being placed in act by the creature; and to give honor to Myself, I listen to what she wants to do. Love? I go to her and love together with her. Does she want to pray? I pray together with her. In sum, her stripping and her love, which is mine, bind Me and force Me to do with her whatever she wants to do. And I give to the soul the merit of my love, of my prayers and reparations; and to my highest contentment, I feel my Life being repeated, and I make the effects of my operating descend for the good of all, because it is not of the creature, who is hidden in Me - but it is mine.”



Volume 12, December 6, 1917

“So, how could other things, outside of my Will, ever please Me, as beautiful as they might be? They are always low, human and finite acts. Instead, the acts in my Will are noble, divine, without end, infinite - as it is my Volition. They are similar to mine, and I give them the same value, love and power of my own acts; I multiply them in everyone; I extend them to all generations, to all times. What do I care if they are small? They are always my acts being repeated, and that’s enough. And then, the soul places herself in her true nothingness - not in humility, in which she always feels something of herself. And, as a nothing, she enters into the All, and she operates with Me, in Me and like Me - completely stripped of herself, not caring about merit or self-interest, but all intent only on making Me content, giving Me absolute lordship over her acts, without even wanting to know what I do with them. Only one thought occupies her: to live in my Will, praying Me to give her the honor. This is why I love her so much, and all my predilections, my love, are for this soul who lives in my Will. And if I love others, it is by virtue of the love which I have for this soul, and which descends from her - just as the Father loves the creatures by virtue of the love He has for Me.”



Volume 12, December 10, 1918

I was saying to my sweet Jesus: ‘See, I don’t know how to do anything, nor do I have anything to give You, but I want to give You also my trifles. I unite these trifles of mine to the All, as You are, and I ask You for souls. Therefore, as I breathe, my breaths ask You for souls; the beating of my heart, with an incessant cry, asks You for souls; the motion of my arms, the blood that circulates in me, the batting of my eyelids, the moving of my lips - are souls that I ask of You. And this I ask united with You, with your love and in your Will, so that all may hear my incessant cry that, in You, always asks for souls.’



Volume 12, December 26, 1919

“…And besides, what do the Sacraments do if not unite the soul with God? What is to do my Will? Isn’t it perhaps to unite the will of the creature with her Creator? To dissolve oneself in the Eternal Volition - the ‘nothing’ ascending to the ‘All’, and the ‘All’ descending into the ‘nothing’. It is the noblest, the most divine, the purest, the most beautiful, the most heroic act that the creature can do.



Volume 14, March 3, 1922

“My daughter, now it is appropriate that I set to work again, to work the soil of your soul, so as to be able to sow the seed of my word in order to nourish you. I act like a farmer when he wants to sow in his field: he forms little trenches, makes some furrows, and then sows in them the seeds, and again he covers with earth the little trenches and the furrows in which he has sown the seeds, so as to keep them sheltered and give them the time to germinate, to then harvest them increased a hundredfold, to make of them his food. But he is careful not to put too much earth over them, otherwise he would suffocate his seeds and would make them die under the earth, and he would run the risk of remaining on an empty stomach. Now, so I do: I prepare the little trenches, I form the furrows, I enlarge the capacity of her intelligence to be able to sow my divine word, and therefore form the food for Me and for her; then I cover the little trenches and the furrows with earth - which is humility, nothingness, the annihilation of the soul, some little weakness or misery of hers. This is earth, and it is necessary that I take it from her because I lack this earth; and so I cover everything and I wait with joy for my harvest. Now, do you want to know when too much earth is placed over my seed? When the soul feels her miseries, her weaknesses, her nothingness, and she afflicts herself. She thinks about it so much as to waste time; and the enemy uses this in order to cast her into disturbance, discouragement and despondency. This is all earth in excess over my seed. Oh! how my seed feels itself dying – how it struggles to germinate under this earth. Many times these souls tire the Celestial Farmer, and He withdraws. Oh! how many are the souls such as these.”



Volume 16, November 10, 1923

“My dear little one, I have chosen you little, because the little ones let one do with them whatever he wants. They do not walk by themselves, but let themselves be guided; even more, they are afraid to place one foot on their own. If they receive gifts, feeling incapable of keeping them, they place them on the lap of their mama. The little ones are stripped of everything, nor do they care about whether they are rich or poor; they are concerned with nothing. Oh! how beautiful the tender age is - full of grace, of beauty and of freshness. Therefore, the greater is the work I want to do in a soul, the littler I choose her. I like childlike freshness and beauty very much; I like it so much that I preserve these souls in the littleness of the nothingness from which they came. I let nothing of their own enter into them, so as not to let them lose their littleness, and therefore preserve the divine freshness and beauty from which they came.”



Volume 19, April 16, 1926

“My daughter, everything you experienced – your full abandonment in the arms of our Celestial Father, no longer feeling your own life – is the image of the living in my Will.  In fact, in order to live in It, the creature must live more of God than of herself; even more, ‘the nothing’ must give life to ‘the All’, to be able to do everything, and to have her act at the top of all the other acts of each creature. Such was the life of my Divine Mama. She was the true image of the living in my Will. Her living in It was so perfect, that She did nothing but receive from God, continuously, all that She was to do in order to live in the Supreme Volition. So, She received the act of supreme adoration, to be able to place Herself at the top of every adoration which all creatures were obliged to do for their Creator. In fact, true adoration has life within the Three Divine Persons. Our perfect concord, Our reciprocal love, Our one Will, form the most profound and perfect adoration within the Sacrosanct Trinity. Therefore, if the creature adores Me, but her will is not in accord with Me, it is vain word – not adoration.”



Volume 20, May 8, 1930

“My daughter, one then feels the true life in herself, when she enters in my Divine Will, because in Him the creature sees with clarity her nothing(ness) and how this nothing feels the need of the All, that is of He who drew her from the nothing in order to live; and as she recognizes herself, the All fills her with himself. This nothing feels the true life, she finds in him the immediate contact of sanctity, of goodness, power, love and divine wisdom; she recognizes in herself the power of the creative work, his palpating life and the extreme need of this divine life, otherwise she feels as if in herself there might not be life. It is only my Will that makes her true nothing(ness) recognized by the creature and [my Will] goes continually blowing on this nothing in order to maintain the divine life always inflamed in her, in order to make her grow as a worthy work of our creative hands. Instead without our Will the creature feels as if she might be something and the All remains outside of the nothing.”



Volume 19, May 27, 1926

 “My daughter, feeling your nothingness more does not oppose the living in my Will; on the contrary, it is a duty of yours. All of my works are formed over nothing, and this is why the All can do what He wants. If the sun had reason, and someone asked it: ‘What good do you do? What are your effects? How much light and heat do you contain?’; it would answer: ‘I do nothing, I just know that the light given to me by God is invested with the Supreme Will, and I do whatever It wants. I extend wherever It wants, and I produce the effects It wants; and while I do so much, I remain always nothing and the Divine Will does everything in me.’ The same for all my other works - all their glory is to remain in their nothingness in order to give the whole field to my Will, to let It operate. Only man wanted to do without the Will of his Creator, he wanted to make his nothingness operate, believing himself to be good at something; and the All, feeling Himself placed after the nothing, went out of man, who reduced himself from superior to all, to inferior to all.

Therefore, let your nothingness be always at the mercy of my Will, if you want the unity of Its light to operate in you and call the purpose of Creation back to new life.”



Volume 19, June 15, 1926

…I felt full of defects and totally bad; therefore, as blessed Jesus came, I told Him: ‘Jesus, my life, have pity on me – look at how full of defects I am, and how much badness there is in me.’ And He, all goodness and tenderness, told me: “My daughter, do not fear, I am here, watching over you and keeping your soul in custody, so that not even the slightest sin may enter into your soul. And where you or others see defects and badness, I find none; rather, I see that your ‘nothing’ feels the weight of the ‘All’. In fact, the more I elevate you intimately to Me and I make known to you what the ‘All’ wants to do with your ‘nothing’, the more you feel your nothingness and, almost frightened and crushed under the All, you would want escape from manifesting and, even more, from writing on paper that which the ‘All’ wants to make of this ‘nothing’ of yours. More so since, as much reluctance as you feel, I always win and make you do what I want.

This happened also to my Celestial Mama, when She was told: ‘I hail You, Mary, full of grace; You will conceive the Son of God.’ On hearing this, She was frightened, She trembled, and said: ‘How can this happen?’ But She ended up saying: ‘Fiat Mihi secundum verbum tuum.’ She felt all the weight of the All over Her nothing and, naturally, She was frightened. So, when I manifest to you what I want to do with you, and your nothing is frightened, I see the fright of the Sovereign Queen being repeated; and compassionating you, I lift your nothing, I strengthen it, that it may endure sustaining the All. Therefore, do not be concerned about this, but rather, think of letting the All operate in you.”



Volume 20 January 25, 1927

“How beautiful is the Kingdom of my Will – the nothing dissolved in the All, and the All fused in the nothing; the lowliness of the creature rising into the Divine height, and the Divine height descending into the depth of the creature. They are two beings bound together, inseparable, transfused, identified, such that it can barely be recognized that they are two lives palpitating together. All the magnificence, the sanctity, the sublimeness, the prodigies of the Kingdom of my Will, will be exactly this: the faithful copy of the soul in God, and the copy of God, whole and beautiful, in the soul. Therefore, the children of the Kingdom of the Divine Fiat will be as many images of little Gods in my Kingdom.”





Lynne Bauer, JMJ 

Aug. 8, 2014

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