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The Holy Cross
Jesus says:
“Come, Sister Maria of the Cross. For a time you were just ‘Maria of the Cross.’ Do you remember that time? You loved Me. I loved you because you loved Me with all your strength then.
“You have always been absolute in your behavior. You have never measured pros and cons, how much and in what way, or ifs and buts when you hurled yourself into an enterprise or an affection. When you came to Me, you came entirely, with all your capacity for loving and suffering for Me. With even more than your capacity for suffering. And I gave you the strength you lacked because I liked your generous impulsiveness, your thoughtless, holy prodigality in sacrifice. Even if you had died then, you would have been justified, for you obeyed the command ‘To love God with all of one’s self, body, soul, mind, and heart.’694
“It seemed to you then that it was impossible to love more. And since you loved your Jesus, especially in his role as Redeemer, you wanted to call yourself Maria of the Cross. The Cross! Your love. It seemed to you then that it was impossible to love more. But, little spouse, you see that the love of God, in being one with God, shares unlimitedness with God. One can always love more and never reach the limit just the same. For the more love is completed and perfected, the more it grows.
“Something completed in the world, a work completed by men, is no longer subject to increase. It is finished and remains as such. To touch it up and add parts would mean ruining it. But Love is not something human. It is superhuman. You have the capacity to love God because you are of God. And Charity can then move from perfection to greater perfection as the spirit is perfected.
“Ecclesiasticus says, ‘The fear of God is the beginning of his love, and to it the beginning of faith must be joined.’695
“The fear of God is the first degree of love. Those who fear already respect, recognizing that the one towards whom their fear is directed is their superior, master, or at least a chief. Children who are not perfectly good fear their parent. Employees who are not perfectly good fear their supervisor. Animals that are not perfectly good fear their tamer.
“The believer who stops at the first turn on the mystical stairway rising to God fears God, whose face he sees flashing up above, very far off, which, when seen from such a distance, looks severe, for only the main outlines are grasped, but his smile and his voice escape notice. Many remain paralyzed by the majesty of God and forget God’s fatherhood. Such a good fatherhood that it went so far as to immolate his Firstborn Son to save his other children. These do not do evil because they fear God. They will thus be rewarded with eternal life.
“But they will not receive the reward which is already at work while the earthly day still lasts, in those who do not limit themselves to fearing God, but, overcoming fear, take the second turn on the mystical stairway and pass on to the desire to know God more closely, certain that, if they are able to know Him better, they will love Him.... And, indeed, the more they rise, the more they perceive what God is. Desire turns into affection. Affection, which God rewards with softly inviting caresses, turns into love. And love.... Oh, love! Love no longer goes up the stairway step by step. Love puts forth wings and flies....
“My beloved one, have you ever seen a little bird in his first flights? He begins them from a tile to the ridge of a roof, or from a low branch to a higher one. He then gets more daring. From the tile he conquers the summit of a nearby house, higher up, or the top of the nearest tree. And up there he chirps with joy. There is so much sunlight and warmth and azure, and the world, filled with snares, rogues, and cats, is now far away! But then the little bird says, ‘What can limit my freedom is still too close.’ And he looks. And he sees that on a tower or a steeple, or over there, at the top of a tall tree rising up on the summit of a knoll, there is even more sunlight, freedom, and blue sky. And he is off with a trill.... But the sun is even higher up, and the little bird, now sure of himself, launches out. Up, up, up.... How happy he is! He no longer feels weight. The air carries him, and the sunbeam seems to attract him. Strength grows in him at every instant. He goes and sings. He flies and rejoices, the master of the air.
“The spirit that has put forth wings of love also does this. The time comes in which it feels itself to be in its element only when it loves impetuously, plunging into heavenly oceans, carried off by whirlwinds of divine passion.... Poor men rack their brains with instruments - which they at first create for a scientific purpose and then, when the demonic asp bites them more atrociously, use for a criminal purpose - to go higher and higher into the stratosphere. But their ascent has and will always have a limit. Love’s does not. It has no limit. It rises and rises and rises... and God goes on increasing the strength of the one ascending, infusing Himself more and more into the creature, who is thus increasingly deified, and the more he rises, the more he loves, and the more he loves, the more he rises.... He completes his love and his ascent when, like a skylark fulminated with the rapture of flight, he dies to the world - that is, he falls, with a final throb of his soul, imprisoned in the flesh, upon the heart of God and conquers his Love and his eternal Freedom.
“You, once Maria of the Cross by your desire, are now Sister Maria of the Cross by my will. I have given you, as to a bride in marriage, my domain. You have deserved it with your constant ascent.
“Look, from the peak you are resting on; look and compare your fear as a believer (the fear of God is the love of believers) to your love as a bride. And look at the stages of your growth.... Can it still increase? Yes. The love of the saints is a vertigo of love. And I call everyone to such love. I call you, beloved one.
“I speak to you from my Cross. But I do not limit Myself to speaking to you in the midst of the purple of my Blood. I draw you to Myself to clothe you in it. Come. And, in the middle of a world which hates, let us be the ones to love each other. You, drying my wounds with your kisses, and I, drying your tears with my love. Come and rest on my peace.”
694 Deuteronomy 6:5.
695 Ecclesiasticus 25:16 (Vulgate).