The Dialogue

How among these wicked ministers reigns the sin of lustfulness.

" I HAVE given thee, dearest daughter, a slight idea of the life of those who live in holy religion, I have shown thee how miserably they live in their order, clothed like sheep, but being in reality rapacious wolves. I now return to the clerics and ministers of the holy Church, to lament with thee over their sins, over and above what I have narrated to thee, founded on three columns of vice, Impurity, inflated Pride, and Cupidity, through which cupidity they sell the grace of the Holy Spirit. As I have already told thee, concerning these three vices, one depends on the other, and the foundation of these three columns is self-love. As long as these three columns stand erect and do not fall to the earth, by force of the love of virtue they are sufficient to keep the mind firm and obstinate in every other vice, for as I have told thee, all the vices grow out of self-love, because from self-love is born the principal vice of pride, and a proud man is deprived of charity. And from pride he goes on to impurity and avarice, and so enchains himself with the Devil's fetters. Now observe, dearest daughter, with what pride and filthiness they defile their minds and bodies of

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which I have already told thee somewhat. But there is another thing that I would tell thee, in order that thou mayest know better the fountain of My mercy, and have greater compassion on these wretches when thou meetest them. Some of them are such devils that they not only do not reverence the sacrament, or hold dear the excellent state in which I have placed them by My goodness, but as if out of their minds with guilty love for some creature, being unable to obtain what they desire, will use devilish incantations, and will make enchantments with the very sacrament that is given you for the food of life, in order to fulfil their wretched and dishonourable thoughts, and make their will take effect. And those lambs whose souls and bodies they should feed so carefully they torment in such ways as these and many others, which I will pass over in order not to give thee more pain ; for as thou knowest they cause them to lose their senses, their will being forced to do that which they do not wish, through the spell which this incarnate devil has cast over them ; sometimes also their bodies suffer very gravely through the resistance which they make to themselves. What is the cause of this, and many other miserable evils, of which as they knowest them I need not tell thee ? Their dishonourable and wretched life. It is the flesh, dearest daughter, that flesh which is exalted above all the choirs of the angels in My divine Nature united to your humanity, which these men give up to such misery. Oh, abominable and wretched men, no man, but a brute beast, that thou givest thy flesh, anointed and consecrated to Me, to harlots and worse. From thy flesh as from that of the whole human race was taken away the wound which Adam had made by his sin, on the \vood of the most holy Cross, by the wounded body of My only begotten Son ! Oh, wretched man, He has done thee honour, and thou puttest Him to shame. He has healed thy wounds with His blood, and has further made thee His minister, and thou persecutest Him with lascivious and dishonourable sins. The Good Shepherd has washed His lambs in His blood, and thou defilest those who are pure, and doest all thou canst to cast them on to the dung-

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hill. It is thy duty to be a mirror of honour, and thou art a mirror of shame. Thou hast directed all the members of thy body to work wickedness, and doest the contrary of that which My truth did for thee. I endured that His eyes should be veiled, for thy better illumination, and with thy lascivious eyes thou aimest poisoned arrows at thy own soul, and the heart of those on whom thou gazest with such miserable passion.

"I endured that My Son should drink gall and vinegar, and thou, like a disordered animal, delightest thyself in delicate viands, making of thy belly thy god ; the foolish language of dishonour dwells on thy tongue, with which thou art bound to counsel thy neighbour, to announce My word, and heartily recite the divine office. Yet I perceive nothing but the stench of thy profanity, of thy constant blasphemy, for thou swearest and perjurest thyself like an auctioneer. I endured that My Son's hands should be bound, in order to set thee and the whole race of man free from the bonds of sin, and thy hands which have been anointed and consecrated, and administer the most holy sacrament, are hideously occupied in loathsome touches.

"All thy actions, of which thy hands are a true type, are directed to the service of the Devil. Oh, wretched man, and I have placed thee in such dignity to serve Me only and every rational creature ! I was willing that My Son's feet, should be fastened to the cross, so as to make for thee a staircase of His body, and that His side should be opened that thou mightest see the secret of His heart, which I gave you as a hostelry always open that you might see and taste the ineffable love which I had for you, finding My divine nature there united to your humanity. See then that the blood of which thou art the minister has become a bath to cleanse your iniquities, and thou of thy heart hast made a devils' temple, and thy love, signified by thy feet, offers to Me nothing but the stench of thy wickedness and thy insults, for the feet of thy affection conduct thy soul nowhere but into devils' houses. Thus with the whole of thy body thou persecutest the body of My Son, doing the contrary of what He did, and of what thou and all My creatures are

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bound to do. The instruments of thy body give out a false harmony, for the three powers of thy soul are assembled in the name of the Devil, while it is thy duty to assemble them in My name. Thy memory, which should be full of the benefits which thou hast received from Me, is filled with dishonour and many other evils. The eye of thy intellect, which thou shouldest fix with the light of faith on the object of Christ crucified, My only begotten Son, whose minister thou art, is rather fixed on the vain and miserable delights, dignities, and riches of the world. Thy affection, which should love Me alone without any medium, thou hast miserably placed in the love of creatures, and of thy own body, and even thy very cattle thou lovest more than Me. What proves this to Me ? Thy impatience towards Me, when I take from thee something thou lovest much, and thy displeasure toward thy neighbour, for when thou thinkest to have received some temporal loss from him, hating him and cursing him, thou leavest My love and his. Oh, unhappy man that thou art ! Thou art the minister of the fire of My divine love, and for the sake of thy disordinate delights, and the trifling loss which may be caused thee by thy neighbour, thou losest it. This, dearest daughter, is one of those three miserable columns of which I spoke to thee."