JOURNEY INTO THE DIVINE WILL

⁷ You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

⁸ ‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
⁹ in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’” (Matthew 15:7-9)

Volume 13-November 22, 1921

The acts done in the Divine Will are light. The pain that most pierced Jesus in His Passion was pretense.

Then, afterwards, He came back and added: “My daughter, the pain that most pierced Me in my Passion was the affectation of the Pharisees. They feigned justice, and they were the most unjust. They feigned sanctity, regularity, order, and they were the most perverted, outside of any rule, and in full disorder. And while they pretended to honor God, they were honoring themselves, their self-interest, their own comfort. Therefore, light could not enter into them, because their affected manners were closing the doors to it, and pretense was the key which, with double locks, closing them to death, obstinately blocked even a few glimmers of light. So much so, that Pilate, idolatrous, found more light than the very Pharisees, because everything he did and said started not from pretense, but, at most, from fear; and I feel more drawn toward the most perverted sinner, not false, than to those who are good but false. Oh! how disgusted I am by one who in appearance does good, pretends to be good, prays, but inside nurses evil, self-interest; and while the lips are praying, his heart is far away from Me; and in the very act of doing good he is thinking of how to satisfy his brutal passions. Moreover, a man who is false in the good which he apparently does and says, is incapable of giving light to others, since he has shut the doors to it. So they act like incarnate devils, who many times attract men under the appearance of good; and these, in seeing this good, let themselves be drawn in; but right in the middle of the way, they make them fall into graver sins. Oh! how much safer are the temptations under appearance of sin, than those under appearance of good. In the same way, it is safer to deal with perverted people than with good people, but false. How much poison do they not hide? How many souls do they not poison? If it wasn’t for pretenses, and if all let themselves be known for what they are, the root of evil would be removed from the face of the earth, and all would remain free of illusion.”