We love because he loved us first. Part 2

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

¹³ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. ¹⁶ So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. ¹⁷ Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:7-19



God is love.  Here he also expands on the last idea from the previous post.  In that each "I love you" in the Divine Will forms a Divine Life.  He alone as God possesses the power to bilocate himself and he clearly states that all of those "I love you"s in the Divine Will are His.  He states that "he is fecundity and generates continually" so that if a work is his than it is Divine and Eternal and alive. 

“My blessed daughter, you should know that our Divine Being is none other than a substance all of love, so that as a consequence everything, inside and outside of us, everything is love, hence our breath is love and the air that we breathe is love, our heartbeat is love, and while we palpate love it forms the circulation of pure love in our Divine Being, with a course that is not ever stopped, and this circulation while it conserves our life, in the pure and perfect equilibrium of love, it gives love to everyone, and would like love from everyone, and all that which is not love, it doesn’t enter into us, nor can it enter, nor will it find the post where to put itself, the fullness of our love would burn all that which might not be pure and holy love.  But who directs this life of ours all of love? the light, the sanctity, the power, the omniclairvoyance, the immensity of our Will that fills Heaven and earth with our Supreme Being, in a way that there is no point where he doesn’t find himself, that he doesn’t know how to do other than love and to give love, but he is not a sterile love and Will, no, no, he is fecundity and generates continually, he is working and inside of one single breath of love, he forms the most beautiful and marvelous work, the unheard of prodigies, so much so that all the human sciences feel ignorant before our littlest work, and confused they are struck dumb.  Now listen to me my good daughter, the great prodigy of our life in the creature, that no one else for love and power that has (existed) can give the boast of saying:  ‘I can bilocate myself, and while I remain that which I am, I can form another life of mine inside of a person that I love;’ it would be madness and absurd to say it, neither Angel, nor saint hold this power, only your God, your Jesus, holds this power, because our Being is fullness, he is totality, he is everything and fills everything, and in the immensity in which he finds himself, that involves everything, he breathes, and with a simple breath we form our Divine life in the creature, and our Will dominates her, feeds her, makes her grow, and forms the great prodigy of enclosing our Divine life in the little circle of the soul of the creature.  Behold therefore your continuous ‘I love you’ is ours, it is the breath of our life, it is our heartbeat that doesn’t know how to palpate other than ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’, this serves to the maintenance of our life, that doesn’t know how to do other than love, to give love and to want love, hence while this ‘I love you’ is ours, it is our breath and also yours, that while we give you love, you give us love, and fused together ours is woven with your ‘I love you’, it meets itself, unites itself and feels itself one single ‘I love you’, while they are two, that enrapturing each other they form one alone.  But who feels this divine and palpating life in her?  One who lives in our Will, she feels ours, and we feel hers, and we have life together, all the other creatures hold him suffocated and they live as if they might not have him, and my love gives and doesn’t receive, and I live in them with a sorrowful and delirious love, without (them) even knowing that I am in them, therefore be attentive and your ‘I love you’ be continuous, because it is none other than the outlet of mine.” 

After this I was making my round in the Creation and in virtue of his Divine immensity, I felt his palpating life in created things, that with indescribable love he awaits the heartbeat of the ‘I love you’ of my littleness.  Whence I thought to myself:  what will be the difference that passes between the way in which God is in the Creation, and the way with which he is in the soul of the creature?  And my always amiable Jesus all goodness added: 

“My daughter, there is great difference in the one and the other, in created things our Divinity is in (the) creative and conservative act, nor does he add on nor take away anything of that which he has done, because every single created thing possesses the fullness of the good that it encloses, the Sun possesses the fullness of the light, the Sky, the totality of the extension of its azure mantle, the sea the fullness of the waters, and so on, they can say:  we have no need of anything, such is the abundance that we possess that we can give without exhausting ourselves, and therefore we give perfect glory to our Creator.  Instead in the human creature our divine act is creative, conservative, operative and growing, our love didn’t say enough for her, no, but always wants to give and work new things, and if she corresponds to us, our working virtue is always in motion, now we give her new love, now new light, now new science, new sanctity, new beauty, our operative virtue never ceases, we always want to give, and with giving we work.  With creating the creature we open the commerce between Heaven and earth and we put in traffic our working way, we to give and she to receive, and that which is more, we want her together to work, we don’t want to do it alone, if we might be capable of sorrow, it would embitter our happiness if we might not hold her together with us, and from our love and working act, our always growing act rises.  So that the creature, is under the rain of our love and creative, conservative, working and growing act.”

Vol. 32, April 2, 1933

 

One of the more famous passages from the New Testament..."we love because he first loved us",  1John 4:19(see above.)   Jesus confirms, upholds and expands on this in the Volumes.  Love comes from God for the purpose of loving God and thereby all.  And here we also find the parable of the talents.  The talents are the love that God has given to each creature and he awaits his exchange of love and the multiplicity of his love.  Because as is stated above it is only in the creature where his divine act is "creative, conservative, operative and growing..."

¹⁵ to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. ¹⁶ The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. ¹⁷ In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. ¹⁸ But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. ¹⁹ After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. ²⁰ Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ ²¹ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ ²² And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ ²³ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ ²⁴ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; ²⁵ so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ ²⁶ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? ²⁷ Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. ²⁸ So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. ²⁹ For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. ³⁰ As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Matthew 25:15-30

Whence I continued my round in the Divine Volition according to my usual way; I animated all created things with my little “I love You”, and I wanted to leave it impressed in all things so that it might voice and ask for the kingdom of the Divine Will upon the earth.  And blessed Jesus, surprising me again, added:

“My little daughter of my Volition, you should know that so much is the yearning, the delirium that I want to love, and to be loved by creatures that hidden without making me noticed, I put in the depth of their souls a dose of my love.  According to their dispositions, thus I augment the dose, and they feel in themselves my love, they say with the heart ‘I love You, I love You’.  I, in feeling myself loved, triumph in the love of the creature.  So that in her every ‘I love You’ it is a triumph that I make, and although I have put it as hidden, I don’t mind that it has been one artifice of mine in order to make me loved, rather I mind that it has passed from the channel of them that is from her will, from her voice, and feeling myself wounded, I look at it as love that comes to me from the creature.  Whence your every ‘I love You’ is one triumph more that you make your Jesus, and since you seek to cover Heaven and earth, animate and inanimate things with your ‘I love You’, I see everything dusted by the beauty of the love of the creature and remaining enraptured I say with all the emphasis of my love:  ‘Ah yes! How content I am already I am loved’, and while I triumph in her love, she triumphs in my love.” 

He said this, (and) became silent, and so much was the vent of his love that he swooned (and) sought rest in my arms.  And afterwards as reassured, he repeated with a stronger emphasis: 

“My dearest daughter, you should know that which I want, and that more interests me is that I want to make known that I love the creature.  I want to say to the ear of every heart, ‘child I love you‘, and I would be content if I might hear answered with my same little refrain:  ‘Jesus I love You’.  I feel the irresistible need to love and to be loved.  Oh! how many times I remain suffocated in my love, because while I love, not feeling that they love me, my love doesn’t find its vent, and I remain drowned in my own love.  Behold therefore I love so much your ‘I love You’.  As you say it, it takes the form of a refreshing tongue of flame, which coming into the great fire of my love, it brings me refreshment.  And scattering it as beneficent dew on the flames that burn me, it carries the quiet to my love, to my deliriums, to my loving yearnings, because if I have been loved, I can give mine and being able to give mine, my love is vented.  My daughter, Heavens and earth are full and swollen with my love, there is no point where my love doesn’t feel the need to overflow, in order to go down and to race, and race in search of hearts in order to tell them his little word:  ‘My daughter I love you, I love you so much, and do you tell me that you love me?’  And he is all ears in order to hear if the creature says to him that she loves him, if this becomes affirmed he feels his love reassured in her, and he takes his sweet rest.  Instead if he does not become affirmed, he races, tours Heaven and earth nor does he stop, if he doesn’t find one who says that she loves him.  Now, every ‘I love you’ of the creature is an outlet to my love, which entering into mine, incorporates itself in my same love, and it holds the virtue to defend it while it remains all entire that which it is, and forming as the cracks, it forms the ways in order to let my love vent.  But this love then is pure, when it is animated by my Will.  Do you see therefore what is your long sing-song of your ‘I love You’?  They are so many vents that you give to your Jesus, and they call me to rest in your soul.  Therefore I want that you always tell me your ‘I love You’, I want to see it in all the things that I have done for you, I love to hear it always, always and when you don’t say it to me, I longing for it say:  ‘alas!  Not even the little daughter of my Volition gives me the continuous outlet in order to be able to vent in her little love’, and I remain all afflicted and I wait for your dear little refrain ‘I love You, I love You’.  Love my daughter, love me, have pity on my wounded heart that is racked with spasms.  Restless, delirious and lover I ask love of you, and eagerly I embrace you, I clasp you strongly, strongly to my heart in order to make you feel how I burn with love, so that feeling my flames, it moves you to pity me and you love me.  Oh!  Make me content, love me, when I am not loved, I feel unfortunate in my love, and therefore I arrive to deliriums, and when a compassionate heart is moved to pity me, and she loves me, I feel the misfortune change into happiness.  And then your every ‘I love You’ is none other than a little piece of wood that cast in the immense ocean of my love, converts itself into a tongue of flame, increasing love one degree more for your lover Jesus.”

Vol. 31, Dec. 16, 1932



And where else have we seen the image of the tongues of flame but again in the Gospels.


2 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ² And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³ Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Acts 2:1-4

 

But this is a whole another post which I will try to come back to later on, with all the others on my list that is.

The "I love you." Part 1

I didn't feel capable at this time to take on a long difficult topic.  Then it occurred to me that I'd like to explore the "little" topic of the "I love you."  Funny Jesus and his "little" jokes.  I have yet to finish looking through all the Volumes and already have much more than one day's post can hold and my head is swimming in the enormity of it all.  So here is the topic of the "I love you."  I leave it to Jesus in order to organize it all and make sense of it.



Jesus talks about what it means to love.  That of wanting to possess that which one loves and to create a permanent bond depending on how intense one loves.  When one loves God in all things and in all moments it becomes the love of a child toward her Father and gives her the right of child of God.  But this also gives God the right of Father and the duty to act thusly as well.

“My daughter, to love means to possess and to want to make one’s own the person or object that one loves.  To love means bond, now of friendship, now of relative, now of progeny, according to more or less the intensity of love.  So that if between the creature and God there is not one void of divine love, if all her acts race toward God in order to love him, if they have beginning from love and they finish in love, if she looks at all the things that belong to the Supreme Being as hers, this says love of child toward her Father, because in this way she doesn’t go out neither from the divine proprieties nor from the residence of the celestial Father.  Because true love constitutes a right in the creature:  right of progeny, right of shared goods, right of being loved.  Her every act of love is a vibrating note that palpates in the divine heart and with its sound says ‘I love you’, and ‘love me’, and the sound doesn’t end if it doesn’t feel the note of her Creator, who making echo to the sound of the soul he responds ‘I love you, O child.’  Oh, how we await the ‘I love you’ of the creature to make her take the post in our love, in order to have the sweet gusto in order to be able to say to her ‘I love you, O child’, and thus to be able to give greater right to be able to love us and to make her belong to our family.  A broken love doesn’t make our things hers, nor does she defend them, it can not be called love of child; at the most it can be love of friendship, love of circumstance, love of interest, love of necessity, that doesn’t constitute a right, because only the children have the right to possess the goods of the Father, and the Father holds the sacrosanct duty, also with divine and human rights, to make (his) goods possessed by his children.  Therefore love always, so that he finds in all your acts the love, the meeting, your kiss to your Creator.”

Vol. 30, Nov. 16, 1931



With this exchange of love between Creator and creature there is formed the contest to love each other more and more, and the one inflames the other to greater love.  Love is so important to the creature that Jesus compares it to blood.  Where his Will is life it is Love which circulates and renews and sustains this life.  Without love she is anemic and sickly.  Being weak and unable to act, all the virtues become weak and inoperative changing even into defects.  It is this lack of love in the world which so afflicts mankind leading them to ruin.

And so much is our satisfaction that our look is always fixed in looking at her, our ears always intent to listen to her, the power of our Volition calls our continuous attention.  And as she says to us ‘I love you’, thus we repeat to her:  ‘We love you, O daughter.’ As she repairs to us, thus we press her to (our) heart; as she thanks us, praises and blesses us, thus we go repeating to her:  ‘We thank you because you thank us, we praise you because you praise us, we bless you because you bless us.’  We can say that we put ourselves in competition with her.  Heavens and earth are stupefied because the Creator puts himself in competition with his beloved creature.  Therefore always in my Will I want you, because in Him you give us to do and to say and form our outlet of love.”

Vol. 30, April 23, 1932

“Little daughter of my Volition, you should know that I love your ‘I love you‘ and I always remain in the act of awaiting it.  I always love you, nor do I ever cease loving you, and if you make standstills in loving me, I feel that I give you my continuous love and you do not give it to me, and my love feels as stolen by you.  Instead when my ‘I love you’ races, and yours makes itself found ready in order to give to me and to receive my ‘I love you’, mine feels repaid, and it happens that your ‘I love you’ does not give time to mine, and mine does not give time to yours, a race happens, a competition of love between Creator and creature.  More so when I see that you are about to tell me ‘I love you’, my Will invests your ‘I love you’ in order to make it from little (to) great, and I find my love in yours, as mine, should I love it and want it?  Daughter, they are my usual stratagems, my industries, because I give in order to receive, this is my commerce:  I love, I give love in order to receive love, and when I am not loved my commerce remains failed, and since my passion is love, I don’t get tired, nor do I (draw) back:  I commence afresh, I repeat, I repeat the industries, I abound with stratagems and with tenderness in order to re-do my failed love in the creature.  Oh! if you might know how my Heart remains wounded and sorrowful when I say ‘I love you’ and she doesn’t feel the call that mine makes her in order to have hers.

“Beyond this, you should know that love is the blood of the soul.  As my Will is the life, and as in the natural order life can not function without blood, and blood can not circulate if it doesn’t have a life, and according to the abundance of the Blood, thus one enjoys health, thus in the supernatural order, the soul, my Divine Will can not function without the blood of love, how much more love so much more will one feel strong, robust, active in working.  Otherwise she will suffer from anemia and could finish in consumption, so that when there is not the sufficient blood of the love of my Will himself for how much (there) is life, she becomes sick in the soul, and inoperative, because she lacks the blood of love in order to function.  All the virtues are made anemic, and instead of patience, of fortitude, of sanctity, all these virtues will be seen to fade, changing into defects.  Therefore there is much anemia in the world, because there lacks the pure blood of my love, and accordingly they go toward a terrible consumption, that brings them to ruin in the soul and in the body.  Behold therefore I so very love your ‘I love you‘ and I want it in all my acts, in all created things, in every act of (the) creature, in order to be able to form much blood as antidote and remedy to the anemia that exists, and this will be (the) preparation to the kingdom of my Will.  Therefore I feel the need of your love, it is true that it is little, but I don’t look at whether it is little or great, rather I look at whether it has been done in the power of my Will, that the littlest acts are done for me it makes them great and it invests her with such beauty as to feel myself enraptured.  Hence it is enough for you to know that I want it, it pleases me, it makes me content in order to do it, whether I see it is little or great, and this ‘I love you’ of yours I want it in the heartbeat of your heart, in the air that you breath, in the Sky, in the sun, in short in everything.  Oh! how I would like to see that your ‘I love you’ invests Heaven and earth, creatures and Creator.”

Vol. 31, Aug. 21, 1932



Love is not only the blood which nourishes the life of the Divine Will but love in the Divine Will forms Divine life as well.  Every "I love you" in the Divine Will forms a Divine Life.  And being Divine that life goes out to the good of all.

“My daughter, love is life, and when this love goes forth from the soul that lives in my Will, it holds the virtue to form in God himself the life of love; and since the substance of Divine Life is love, hence the creature with her love forms in God another Divine life, and we feel in ourselves our life formed by the creature.  This life that [the creature has formed] with her love united to our Will, because it is He that administers the power (so) that the creature can arrive to form the same divine life all of love in God, this life is God’s triumph and the triumph of the creature; and in the act of triumph we take this divine life that the creature has formed in ourselves and we give him to (the) good of all creatures, as precious gift that the little daughter of our Volition makes to everyone, and with anxiety we await that with her love she comes to form other divine lives in our Supreme Being.  My daughter, our love is not sterile, rather it holds the germ/seed to generate continuous life.  So that as you said:  ‘I love you’ in my heartbeat, in my breath, thus I generated another heartbeat, another breath, and so on with all the rest, in a way that I felt in myself the new generation of your ‘I love you’ that formed the new life of my love, and oh, how happy I felt thinking that my daughter was forming inside of me my own life in me, all of love!  If you might know how moving this act of the creature is that she gives God to God with her love!  Oh, how it enraptures us!  And feeling ourselves enraptured we give other love in order to have the contentment to have her repeat our new lives of love.  Therefore love, love a great deal and you will make your sweet Jesus more happy.”

Vol. 29, Feb. 15, 1931