Living Temples

Solomon's Temple

⁸ The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.  Matthew 8:8




The church recognizes the deeper meaning behind these words every time at mass we recite them saying:  "Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed."   We were created to be a residence, a home for our Lord and not just a home but a temple.

After this, I remember that a few days passed and I received Communion.  I lost consciousness, and I saw, present before me, the Most Holy Trinity whom I had seen in Heaven.  I immediately prostrated myself at Their presence, I adored Them, I confessed my nothingness.  I remember that I felt so plunged within myself that I did not dare to utter a single word, when a voice came from Their midst and said:  “Do not fear, pluck up courage, We have come to confirm you as Our own, and to take possession of your heart.”  While this voice was saying this, I saw that the Most Holy Trinity descended into my heart and took possession of it – and there They formed Their dwelling.  Who can tell the change that occurred in me?  I felt divinized; it was no longer I who lived, but They were living in me.  It seemed to me that my body was like a residence, and that the living God was residing in it, because I could feel, sensibly, Their real presence in my interior.  I could hear Their voice clearly, coming from within my interior and resounding at the ears of my body.  It happened precisely as when there are people speaking inside a room, and their voices can be heard, clearly and distinctly, also outside.
From that moment on, I no longer had the need to go in search of Him somewhere else in order to find Him, but I could find Him there - inside my heart.  And when sometimes He would hide and I would go in search of Jesus, wandering around heaven and earth, searching for my highest and only Good, while I would be in the heat of my tears, in the intensity of my yearnings, amid unutterable pains for having lost Him, Jesus would come out from within my interior and say to me:  “I am here with you, do not look for me elsewhere.”

Vol. 1, The indwelling of the Divine Persons in the soul, of which they take possession and to which they give themselves.  It was then that they gave Luisa the gift of the Divine Will.


And again in Volume 2 he calls her his, "beloved dwelling", his "living temple."  And how much He loves us!  We are unable to comprehend it.

“How beautiful you are!  You are my simple dove, my beloved dwelling, my living temple, in which I am pleased to delight united with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Your continuous languishing for Me relieves Me and refreshes Me from the continuous offenses that creatures give Me.  Know that the love I have for you is so great that I am forced to hide it in part, so that you may not go mad, but may live.  In fact, if I showed it to you, you would not only go mad, but would not be able to continue to live; your weak nature would be consumed by the flames of my love.” 

Vol. 2, Sept. 9, 1899




Sin robs us of  this indwelling and totally deforms us from that which we were designed to be and makes us a dwelling of the devil full of impurities.

“Oh, man, how you have disfigured, deformed, disennobled yourself!  Oh, man, I made you so that you might be my living temple, but you have made of yourself the dwelling of the devil.  Look, even the plants, by being covered with leaves, flowers and fruits, teach you honesty and the modesty you must have with your body; but you, having lost any modesty and even the natural reserve you should have, have become worse than the animals, so much so, that I have nothing else to which to compare you.  You were my image, but now I no longer recognize you; even more, I am so horrified at your impurities, that the mere sight of you nauseates Me, and you yourself force Me to flee from you.”

Vol. 2, Aug. 1, 1899




The human will is the only thing that has to ability to stop God from saving us.  A God for whom just to want is to do, but he will not go against the free will which he has given to man.  To do so would be to go against himself.  So if the creature does not give him full freedom to do and act in her as he wants than his plans will always remain frustrated and incomplete for that indivdual.

“You should know that when I elect a soul, I form there my residence, and I want to be free in my house to do that which I want, and to remain as pleases me, nor do I want restrictions from the part of the creature; I want absolute liberty, otherwise I would become unhappy and impeded in my way of acting.  It would be the greatest misfortune, even to the poorest (person), to not enjoy liberty in his little hovel, and I would incur the misfortune of a poor individual, that having formed a residence with so much love, when he has equipped it and put it in order he enters in order to live there, but with his sorrow there becomes made impositions and restrictions for him; it is said to him:  ‘In this room you can not sleep, in this one you can not receive, in this other one you are not able to pass.’  In short he can not remain as he wants nor do that which he wants, so that the poor little one feels unhappy, because he has lost his liberty, and he has repented of the sacrifices that he has made (in order) to build this residence.  Such am I; how many labors, how many sacrifices, how many graces have I not poured out in order to adapt one creature for my residence, and when I take the possession of her, more than everything I love and want liberty in my house, and when I find now the repugnancies, now the restrictions, instead of the residence adapting itself to me, I must adapt myself to her, hence I can’t develop either my life or my divine ways, nor is it given to me to complete the purpose for which with so much love I selected this residence.  Therefore I want liberty, and if you want to make me happy leave free to do that which I want.”

Vol. 29, May 4, 1931




When Jesus drove the money lenders out of the temple he was spiritually driving out the human will so that the Divine Will might reorder the human temple and restore it to what it was meant to be.

...when I took the ropes to drive the profaners out of the temple, it was the human will that I was driving out, so that Mine might enter, reigning and dominating, and they might be truly rich in their souls and no longer subject to natural poverty. 

Vol. 20, Oct. 26, 1926




The one time in which Jesus demonstrated an anger, a righteous anger was in cleansing the temple.  Those who profane and lead others astray rob Jesus of souls.  The profaning of Jesus' temples both the church and the soul is the catalyst which leads to other sins.  This is an act which can not be ignored by Divine Justice and brings about chastisements.

           I cried and prayed, saying to the Lord:  ‘Do not permit that they arrive at this – profaning your sacred temples – because who knows how many terrible chastisements You would unload upon your creatures because of these horrendous sins.’ 

           While I was saying this, He told me:  “My daughter, the cause of all these enormous crimes – because one sin is the cause and chastisement of making others fall into more sins – have been the sins of priests.  They have been the first to profane my holy temple hiddenly with sacrilegious masses, and by mixing impure acts in the administration of the Sacraments.  And under the appearance of holy things, they have reached the point of profaning not only my temples of stone, but of profaning and using violence on my living temples, which are the souls, and of profaning my very Body.  The secular have somehow perceived all this, and not seeing in them the light necessary for their journey – or rather, they have found nothing but darkness – they have been left so clouded as to lose the beautiful light of faith; and without light, it is no wonder that they reach such grave excesses.
Vol. 7, Oct. 20, 1906

Perhaps another sign of our times in the suspension of our being able to be present at Mass these days.  Jesus speaks in the above passage about how the priests have led to the lose of faith but Jesus also states that it is the human will that is the first profaner of his temple.  It requires sufferings to cleanse the temple from the effects of the human will.  Luisa was no exception to this.  She was cleansed even of her human will wanting the physical presence of Jesus to be with her over the Will of God.  So even in what appears holy to us we must bow before Gods Will even in the denial of receiving Sacrament Communion these days.

...your hard martyrdom is nothing other than the consummation of what does not belong to It. Don’t you know that the human will is the profaner of the creature? When it has its little ways, the slightest holes through which to enter into her, it profanes the holiest things, the most innocent ones. And my Will, which made of man Its sacred and living temple, in which to place Its throne, Its dwelling, Its regime, Its glory, feels that if the creature gives the little entries to the human volition, It feels Its temple, Its throne, Its dwelling, Its regime and Its very glory being profaned. Therefore, my Will wants to touch everything about you – even my very presence, to see whether Its dominion is absolute over you and you content yourself that It alone dominate you and have primacy in you. Everything in you must be Divine Will, so that It may be able to say: ‘I am sure, she has denied Me nothing – not even the sacrifice of the presence of her Jesus, whom she loved more than herself. Therefore, my Kingdom is safe.”

Vol. 23, Jan. 22, 1928

Each epoch; law, grace, and now the Kingdom of the Divine Will, has brought us closer and closer to Gods original plan for us.  Although some Christians might claim that now we are no longer bound by the law of Moses the law of grace is actually more exacting.  But even under grace there is still room for us to exercise our own wills.  The law of living in his Will brings us to the point where we are even more bound.  Now all must be under the dominion of God's Will and his law must be truly written on our hearts so that that which he wants we want too.

¹⁴ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 6:14

⁶ But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

Romans 7:6

³ and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

⁴ Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. ⁵ Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, ⁶ who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

⁷ Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, ⁸ how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? ⁹ For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! ¹⁰ Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; ¹¹ for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!

¹² Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, ¹³ not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. ¹⁴ But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. ¹⁵ Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; ¹⁶ but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

2Corinthians 3:3-18





Living in the Divine Will frees God to act completely and wholly as he Wills.  There is no hindrance from priests who might mislead his people or circumstances which inhibit his generosity and his love.  God unveils himself to the creature so that the creature might be transformed into his image from one degree to the next.

This is why I want to make the sanctity of living in my Will; in them, I will have no need of priests for Me to be consecrated, nor churches, tabernacles or hosts; but they will be everything together:  priests, churches, tabernacles and hosts.  My love will be more free; anytime I want to consecrate Myself, I will be able to do it - in every moment, day and night, in whatever place they might be.  Oh! how my love will have its complete outpouring.
Vol. 12, Nov. 27, 1917

Living in the Divine Will is not a completion unto itself it allows us to grow more perfectly in the image of God.  This step process continues with each act the soul does in the Divine Will and she goes becoming the repeater of the life of Jesus.  And although we give the Divine Will dominance in ourselves Jesus tells us that by doing so we also become the dominator of God.

And since the creature is incapable of giving us everything in one act, that which by Us is formed in one act alone, her littleness goes spacing in our Will, and she now takes one work of ours, and now another, and with the dominion that our Will gives her, she descends in the Incarnation of the Word, and oh how beautiful it is to see her invested with his love, pearled with his tears, adorned with his wounds, possessor of his prayers, all the works of the Word surround her inside and outside, and that which is more, it converts for her, into joys, into beatitude, into fortitude with the inseparability of her Jesus as in (a) sacred temple held in her heart in order to make her the repeater of his Life.  And oh, what moving scenes she does before God, with her Jesus in (her) heart, she prays, suffers, loves together with Jesus, and in her infantile littleness she says: I possess Jesus, He dominates me and I Him, indeed I give him that which He doesn’t hold, my sufferings in order to form his complete life in me.  He is poor of sufferings because glorious, he can not have any, and I supply him in that which he doesn’t hold, and He supplies me in that which I lack.  So that in our Will the creature is the true queen, everything is hers, and she makes us such surprises with our works, that it enraptures us, and forms our happiness, that the creature can give to us in our Most Holy Will.”

Vol. 33, Feb. 10, 1934

This growth in the Divine Will is defined by how much the creature is capable and wants from it.  The goal is always to both love the creature more and to make the creature capable of loving his God more and more.  And the most beautiful and precious gifts that God can give to the creature are knowledges.  It is only with a new or clearer truth that the creature is able to want that which comes from God and thereby ask for it allowing God to act.  This expands the field of action of the creature and grows and expands Gods residence in the creature.

“My daughter, the Creation of man was the center where our Divinity centralized all the goods that should rise in the creature, we put in her Divine Life and Divine Will, human life and human will; human life should serve us as residence, and the two Wills fused together should make life in common with highest accord, indeed the human will should take from ours in order to form her acts, and ours should remain in the continuous act to give of his, in order to make that the human will might remain modeled and all informed in the Divine Will.  Now, there is no life, as much human, spiritual and divine, that doesn’t have need of food in order to grow, in order to become stronger, to embellish and to felicitate himself.  More so that we put our Divine life in man, [and] because he was incapable of receiving the whole fullness of our Divine Being, we put in him how much he could contain of our life, giving him the liberty to let him grow how much more he could and wanted.  Hence our life in man for growth had need of food, behold the necessity to put in him a Divine Will; our Divine life would not have adapted himself to foods of the human will.  Behold therefore all the acts of the creature done in virtue of and in our Divine Will, would serve to feed and to make our Divine Life grow in her, in a way that as soon as she went doing her acts in our Fiat, now she took our love and fed us, now she took our fortitude, now our infinite sweetness, now our Divine joys in order to feed us.  What order, what harmony put between him and us in creating man between him and us, even to ask of him our own foods through his means, not because we had need, no, but in order to maintain the enthusiasm of love, the correspondence, the inseparable union between him and us.  And while he occupied himself with us, we occupied ourselves with feeding him and with conserving our dear residence, not only, but making him other more beautiful gifts in order to render him more happy, to love him more and make ourselves more loved.  But do you want to know what are our most beautiful gifts that we make the creature?  To manifest to her a knowledge of our Supreme Being, a truth that pertains to us, one secret of ours is the most beautiful gift that we make her; each of these gifts is one more bond that we put between Her and us, our every truth is a property that we put in her soul.  Behold therefore that in the soul where our Will reigns we find our Divine foods, our property for how much it is possible for a creature, our residence, hence we find ourselves in our house, in our center, in the midst of our properties. 

Vol. 29, Aug. 3, 1931





But now there is a wonderful reciprocity in all of this.   Even from the Old Testament in God's promise to David when he wanted to build a temple, a house for the covenant and thereby for God, we are not just the residence, the temple of God but God in fact becomes our residence, our temple.

¹¹ from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.  2 Samuel 7:11

As God rested in his creature at the end of the work of Creation so he has promised that we too will rest in him where he becomes our residence, our temple and we will be free from any danger and happy.

The soul gives Jesus a dwelling in time, and He gives it to the soul in eternity.

Continuing in my usual state, I was saying to blessed Jesus:  ‘Oh, how I wish to love You, to be loved more by You!’  And He, in my interior, told me:  “I love you so much that I never leave you, and I dwell in you continuously.”  And I:  ‘Thank You for your benignity in dwelling in me, but I am not so content; I would be more content and would feel safer if I could dwell in You.’  And He:  “Ah, my daughter, in time you give a dwelling to Me, and in eternity I will give it to you; and be well content and sure that the One who dwells in you has the power to maintain your dwelling fortified and free of any danger.”

Vol. 7, Nov. 12, 1906

Jesus tells us that as the soul lives in grace she transforms from a simple residence to a Temple of God.  But when a soul then takes that step to live in the Divine Will God then makes himself the Temple of the soul.  The first always remains in danger of collapse due to the weakness of the human will but the second is secure and can not be overthrown by the enemy.  And the creature is given the freedom, true freedom, to act in a divine way.  She is given the authority  to call into action the acts of her Jesus, or that of Creation, or of Sanctification all as she wills.  And God and the creature will never be separated again  but will always be free to love and enjoy each other's company in the security of this Living Temple.

           "Now you should know that the soul in grace is the Temple of God.  However when the soul lives in our Will, God makes himself Temple of the soul, and oh, the great difference between the creature Temple of God and between God Temple of the soul; the first one is a temple exposed to perils, to enemies, subject to passions, many times our Supreme Being, finds himself in these temples as in temples of stone, not cared for, not loved as is appropriate, and the little lamp of her continuous love, that she should hold as homage to her God that resides in her, without pure oil is extinguished, and if ever she were to fall into grave sin, our temple collapses and she becomes occupied by thieves, ours and her enemies, that profane her and they make her foolish.

           “The second Temple, that is God Temple of the soul, is not exposed to dangers, enemies can not draw near, the passions lose life, the soul in this Divine Temple of ours is like the little Host that holds consecrated in Herself her Jesus, which with the perennial love that she draws, she receives and is fed, forms the little living lamp, that always burns, without ever going out, this Temple of ours occupies its regal post, his complete Volition and she is our glory and our triumph.  And the little Host what does she do in this Temple of ours?  She prays, loves, lives of Divine Will, substitutes for my Humanity upon the earth, takes my post of sufferings, calls the whole army of our works to make cortege, the Creation, the Redemption, she holds it as hers, and does (as) the commander above, and now puts it as army around in act of prayer, of adoration, now as army in act of loving us and glorifying us, but she (is) always at (the) head, to do that which she wants that our works do, and she always finishes with her little refrain so very appreciated by Us:  your Volition be known, loved and reign and dominate in the entire world.  So that all the anxieties, the sighs, the interests, the solicitudes, the prayers of this little Host, that lives in our Divine Temple, that our Fiat embraces everyone, puts apart all the evils of creatures, and with his almighty puff he makes his the post in the hearts of everyone, in order to make himself life of every creature.

           “Can one ever do (a) more beautiful office, more holy, more important, more useful to Heaven and earth, (than) this little Host that lives in our Temple?  Beyond this our love, our power makes all the shows, all the industries, all the stratagems, with one who lives in our Will, he makes himself little and encloses himself in the soul, in order to form his life, and of this remains only the castoffs in order to remain covered, he makes himself immense that is, and he forms (of) himself (a) sumptuous Temple, in order to hold her secure within, and to enjoy her company.  For one who does our Will she is always occupied with Us, and We are always occupied with her, therefore watch well to make yourself found always in our Will.”

Vol. 33, March 11, 1934


So if you want to be secure in holding onto the not just passing Sacramental presence of Communion but the real living presence of our Lord and God, secure as in his own Living Temple then look to living in the Divine Will.  It's the only way to obtain this to have his living presence even when circumstances in this world might otherwise deny Him to us.