God's residence

⁵⁷ As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” ⁵⁸ And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  Luke 9:57-58

This is one of the lines I've always wondered about that line when I was younger.  Of course Jesus had a home, he was raised in Nazareth and he always had someone who would take him in or where he would stay and that's hardly a proper response to someone who has just pledged themselves to him.  Something else is obviously going on here.  It was only with reading the Volumes that I've come to understand this better. 

“You must know that unique purpose why we created creation it was just this:  creation should serve as residence to man, and man should serve for our residence.

Vol. 35, Sept. 6, 1937



So with original sin God was cast out of his own residence, that is man,  and since that point has not had a place to "rest his head."  And then in the order of Creation it isn't until the creation of man that God is able to take his rest.



² And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.
Genesis 2:2



Man was created with the intention of always living in unison with God.  God would keep man beautiful, preserving him always new.  And man would be the joy of God giving him always someone to give to, to share his immense goods and to reciprocate his love. 

...the creature was made that she should be our residence, and not her alone, but all created things, skies, sun, earth, everything, being works gone forth from our Supreme Heights, we hold the right to live (in) her, and with living (in) her we conserve her with beautiful decorum and always new, as in the act in which we brought her forth to the light.  Now the creature with not doing our Will puts us outside of our residence, and it happens to us as would happen to a rich Lord, that wanting to build a great and beautiful palace, when he has finished; he goes in order to live in it and they close the doors in (his) face, they throw stones at him, in a way that he is constrained to not put a foot inside, and to not be able to live in the same residence built by him, wouldn’t it merit that it be destroyed by he who has formed it?  But he doesn’t do it because he loves his work, but waits and re-awaits, who knows [that] he can conquer in love, and by herself she opens the doors to him in order to let him enter with giving him the liberty to let him live (there).  In such conditions the creature puts us with not letting our Will reign in her soul:  she closes the doors in our face and throws the stones of her faults against us.  And we with unconquered and divine patience wait, and she not wanting our Will in herself as life, with Paternal goodness we give her the effects of Him, that is the laws, the Sacraments, the Gospel, the helps of my examples and prayers to her, but for all this great good, not one can equal the great good that my Will can do as perennial life of the creature, because He is all (the) laws, Sacraments, Gospel, life together, he signifies all:  able to give everything, possesses everything, this is enough in order to be able to understand the great difference that there is between my Will as continuous life in the creature, and between his effects that he can not produce in a perennial way, but by circumstances, in time, in the Sacraments themselves.  And although the effects can do great goods, but they can never arrive to produce all the goods that the life of my Divine Will reigning and dominant in the creature can produce.  Therefore be attentive my daughter, and give him the holy liberty to do that which he wants in your soul.”

Vol. 30, May 30, 1932




Since man sinned and not only cast God out of his residence but got himself cast out of Eden as well God has been working with all his divine strategy to reclaim his creature.  And if he can not get man to accept his Will directly he uses indirect effects of his Will to reach man.

Hence all the acts and sufferings, prayers, breaths, heartbeats of mine that I did, my human will undergoing the life of the Divine Will it formed so many knots in order to retie human wills to mine; and since these human wills were as residences, some collapsed, others damaged and others reduced in rubble, my Divine Will, working in my Humanity with my acts prepared the helps in order to sustain the collapsed ones, in order to cement the damaged ones and in order to raise again over the same rubble the destroyed residences.  I did nothing for myself, I didn’t have any need; I did everything in order to redo, to rehabilitate human wills.  My only need was love and that I wanted to be loved in return.

Vol. 30, Nov. 4, 1931

In the Volumes Jesus teaches Luisa what is necessary for God's Will to once again take up residence in man and what the first step is to achieve this.

“My daughter, the main thing so that I may enter into a soul and form my dwelling is total detachment from everything.  Without this, not only can I not dwell in her, but not even any of the virtues can form its residence in the soul.

Vol. 2, Oct. 29, 1899



So we must not only be resigned to God's Will but it we must be detached from anything else which might take his place.  Sounds familiar doesn't it: 

² I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ³ you shall have no other gods before me.
⁴ You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God,...
Exodus 20:2-5




In the very first commandment God is teaching us that which is most important so that he might resume his relationship with man.  But more is needed for man to receive the perennial indwelling of God and his Will within him.  Obedience to the law allows man to actively receive the effects of God's Will but man must also correspond to graces received in order to strengthen this growing relationship.

Be careful, you, o my daughter, to correspond to Me in the so many graces I am pouring into you, because correspondence is the open door to let Me enter into the heart and form my residence in it.  Correspondence is like that good welcome, that esteem, which is used with people when they come to visit us, in such a way that, drawn by that respect, by those affable manners used with them, they are forced to come again, and reach the point of not being able to detach themselves.  Everything is in corresponding to Me, and according to how souls correspond to Me and treat Me on earth, so will I behave with them in Heaven.  Making them find the doors open, I will invite the whole celestial court to welcome them, and I will place them on the most sublime throne; but it will be all the opposite for those who do not correspond to Me.”
Vol. 2, Aug. 2, 1899

But this relationship remains precarious as long as man holds on to  his own will and it only takes one act on the part of man to undo everything.

“My daughter, many times I delight in choosing souls, surrounding them with divine fortitude in such a way that no enemy may enter into them.  I establish in them my perpetual dwelling, and in this residence of mine I lower Myself, one could say, to the most minute services; I clean her up, I pull out all thorns from her, I destroy all the evil that the human nature has produced in her, and I plant in her all the beautiful and good things that can be found in Me, to the extent of forming the most beautiful garden of my delights, to be used at my pleasure and according to the circumstances of my glory and of the good of others; so much so, that it can be said that she no longer has anything of her own, but serves only as my dwelling.  Now, do you know what it takes to destroy all this?  One act contrary to my Will; and if you oppose my Will you will do all this.”

Vol. 4,  Dec. 30, 1902




But God tells us that this Kingdom will come despite anything that man can do to undo it.  To want something, on God's part, is the same as to do it.  And God has repeatedly promised us that he does want to restore this Kingdom and not only restore man to his place in his Divine Will but he will make him even better than he was in the beginning.

Whoever thinks that the Kingdom of our Will can not come, puts in doubt the Supreme Power itself.  We can do all, the volition can be lacking to us, but when we want it, our power is so much that that which we want we do, there is no thing that can resist before our Power.  Hence we have the power to rehabilitate him/(man), to make him more beautiful than before, and to strengthen and to cement his collapsed residence in a way as to make it stronger than it was, and with the puff of our power to enclose the thieves and his enemies in the dark abysses.

Vol. 30, April 2, 1932