The Dialogue

How God considers persecutions directed against the holy Church or her ministers as directed against Himself ; and how this sin is graver than any other.

" IF thou shouldst ask Me how it is that the sin of persecu tion of the holy Church is graver than any other, and why it is that the sins of clerks should not diminish the reverence paid to them, I should reply, ' Because all reverence which is paid to them is not paid to them, but to Me, in virtue of the Blood Which I have given them to administer.' For if it were not so, you would owe them no more reverence than to other men of the world ; but, on account of their ministry, you are obliged to do them reverence, and come to them, not for their own sakes, but on account of the power which I have given them, if you wish to receive the Sacraments of the holy Church ; for, should you neglect receiving them when you could you would die in a state ot damnation. So the reverence paid to them is paid to Me and to the glorious Blood, It being one thing with Me, by the union of the Divine nature with the human. And, as the reverence so is the irreverence, as to which I have said to thee that reverence should not be paid to them for their own sakes, but on account of the authority which I have given them ; wherefore, no man should offend them, because in offending them he offends Me and not them, for I have forbidden it, and have said that I do not wish My Christs to be touched by their hands. And on this account no one can excuse himself, saying : ' I do not rebel against the holy Church, but only against the sins of evil pastors.' Such a man, lifting his mind against his leader and blinded by self-love, does not see the truth, though indeed he really sees it well enough, but pretends not to, in order to deaden the sting of conscience. For he sees that, in truth, he is persecuting the Blood, and not Its servants. The insult is done to Me, just as the reverence was My due. Wherefore every damage, insult, rudeness, contempt, and blame done

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to them is directed against Me ; that is to say, that I consider as done to Me whatever is done to them, for I have said and repeat that I do not wish My Christs to be touched by them, it being My business to punish them, and not theirs. Such wicked men only prove their irreverence towards the Blood, and that they do not hold dear the Treasure Which I have given them for the salvation and life of their souls. More I could not give them than the whole of God and the whole of Man for their Food, as I have said. But, inasmuch as they did not reverence Me and My servants, they have diminished their dignity, and persecuted them, seeing in them many sins and defects, as in another place I will narrate to thee. If they had, in truth, reverenced Me in them, they would not have risen against them for any personal defect, for no such defect can diminish the virtue of this Sacrament. Wherefore they should not diminish their reverence, and doing so they offend Me. This sin is graver than all others for many reasons, of which I will tell thee the three principal ones. One is that what they do to My servants they do to Me ; another is because in this way they disobey My Commandment, since I have forbidden My servants to be touched, so they despise the virtue of the Blood Which they received in holy baptism, disobediently doing that which I have forbidden them, and become rebels against the Blood, having lost their reverence for It, and rising against It with terrible persecutions. They are like putrid members cut off from the mystical body of the holy Church ; wherefore, if they remain obstinate in this rebellion and irreverence, dying in the same, they receive eternal damnation. It is true that, when they are at their last extremity, if they humble themselves and recognise their fault, and wish to reconcile themselves to their leader, even if they cannot actually do so, they receive mercy. They should not, however, put off the time of conversion, because they are not sure of having it. The third reason why their sin is graver than all others is because it is committed with deliberate malice, and because they know that they cannot act in such a way with a good conscience, and must offend Me if they do so. Wherefore, their offence is a perverse

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pride without any corporal pleasure, though, on account of it, the body as well as the soul is consumed. The soul is consumed by the privation of grace, and gnawed by the worm of conscience ; the temporal substance is consumed in the service of the Devil, and their bodies die like those of the animals. So that this sin is committed directly against Me, without any colour of their own pleasure or profit, but solely through malice and the smoke of pride, which pride is born of sensual self-love and of that perverse fear which Pilate had, when, for fear of losing his post, he slew Christ, My only-begotten Son. These men do the same. All other sins are committed through simplicity, or ignorance, or malice, in that the sinner knows the evil which he does, but on account of the disordinate delight, or some pleasure or profit which he finds in the sin, commits it, and, committing it, offends his own soul, and Me, and his neighbour. Me he offends, because he does not pay glory and praise to My Name ; his neighbour, because he does not give him the light of love ; but he does not personally attack Me, but offends himself, which offence displeases Me, on account of the loss which he incurs. But this sin is aimed directly at Me without any medium. Other sins are committed with some sort of colour or excuse, and by means of some one else ; for, as I have told thee, both sins and virtues are exercised by means of the neighbour ; and, since sin deprives the sinner of Me, and of his neighbour — for his neighbour is offended by the lack of love involved in the sin — they offend Me by these indirect means. But, in this case, they offend Me directly, for among all My rational creatures I have chosen these My ministers, who are My anointed ones, as I have said to thee, ministers of the Body and Blood of My only-begotten Son, who, standing at the altar in the person of Christ, My Son, consecrate your human flesh with My Divine nature.

" Their offence is therefore done to the Word, and being done to Him is done to Me, for He and I are one and the same. These poor wretches persecute the Blood and deprive themselves of Its fruit. This is why grave sin is committed against Me, and not against My ministers, for I

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do not attribute to them either the honour or the persecu tion which they receive for My sake, for they are both directed to Me, that is to say, to the glorious Blood of My Son, Who is one and the same with Me. Wherefore I say to thee, that, if all the other sins of these men were in one scale of the balance, and this one sin in the other, the scale containing their irreverence would outweigh the other, in the manner that has been said. I have manifested this to thee, so that thou mightest have greater matter of grief at the offence done to Me and the damnation of these poor wretches, so that, through your grief and sorrow, and that of My other servants, the darkness that has come on these putrid members, cut off from the mystical body of the holy Church, should be dissolved by My goodness. But I find hardly any who grieve over the persecution directed against this glorious and precious Blood ; though I find many who shoot at Me continually with the arrows of disordinate love and servile fear, and, blinded by their self-esteem, consider that to be an honour which is a disgrace ; and that to be a disgrace which is in truth, an honour ; that is to say, to humble themselves to their leader. On account of these sins they have risen against the Blood to persecute It."