The Dialogue

How, without enduring tribulations with patience, it is impossible to please God ; and how God comforts her and her spiritual father to endure with true patience.

THEN God, replying to her third petition (namely, the prayer of her hunger for the salvation of the spiritual father of her soul), said :

" Daughter, this is what I wish him to seek, namely, to please Me, the Truth, in the hunger which he has for the salvation of souls with all solicitude. But this he could not have, neither he, nor thou, nor any one else, without many troubles, as I said to thee above, according to the

A TREATISE OF DISCRETION 59

measure in which I give them you. Wherefore, if thou desire to see My honour, in the Holy Church, thou oughtest so to love as to wish to endure with true patience ; and, by this, I shall see that he and thou and My other servants seek My honour in truth. Then he will become My dearest son, and will repose himself and others upon the breast of My only-begotten Son, whom I have made the Bridge by which you may all arrive at your end, and receive the fruit of all your labours which you have endured for the love of Me. Bear yourselves then man fully."

How the road to Heaven being broken through the disobedience ot Adam, God made of his Son a Bridge by which man could pass.

''WHEREFORE I have told thee that I have made a Bridge of My Word, of My only-begotten Son, and this is the truth. I wish that you, My children, should know that the road was broken by the sin and disobedience of Adam, in such a way, that no one could arrive at Eternal Life. Wherefore men did not render Me glory in the way in which they ought to have, as they did not participate in that Good for which I had created them, and My truth was not fulfilled. This truth is that I have created man to My own image and similitude, in order that he might have Eternal Life, and might partake of Me, and taste My supreme and eternal sweetness and goodness. But, after sin had closed Heaven and bolted the doors of mercy, the soul of man produced thorns and prickly brambles, and My creature found in himself rebellion against himself.

" And the flesh immediately began to war against the Spirit, and, losing the state of innocency, became a foul animal, and all created things rebelled against man, whereas they would have been obedient to him, had he remained in the state in which I had placed him. He, not remaining therein, transgressed My obedience, and merited eternal

6o THE DIALOGUE OF ST. CATHERINE

death in soul and body. And, as soon as he had sinned, a tempestuous flood arose, which ever buffets him with its waves, bringing him weariness and trouble from himself, the devil, and the world. Every one was drowned in the flood, because no one, with his own justice alone, could arrive at Eternal Life. And so, wishing to remedy your great evils, I have given you the Bridge of My Son, in order that, passing across the flood, you may not be drowned, which flood is the tempestuous sea of this dark life. See, therefore, under what obligations the creature is to Me, and how ignorant he is, not to take the remedy which I have offered, but to be willing to drown."