From Hell to Heaven · Volume 2 · Chapter 243

The Lord’s grace and mercy

1. I say, “O woman! O daughter! Great is your faith, and much love dwells in your heart! May it be done to you according to your faith and the power of your love. My dear daughter, you now stand before Me hungry, thirsty and naked. For what you used to feed your soul on earth was poor and meagre fare. Had your spirit not been nourished beforehand in the early days of your life on earth, and had your soul passed with a wholly mute spirit into the sewer life of the most loathsome vermin, you would surely have been lost. It would then have become almost impossible ever to save you. For just as a fish cannot be kept alive in the open air, so souls that have reduced themselves by their way of life to the vermin of a puddle cannot be kept alive in the luminous ether of the heavens. For where the dragon lives a life of death, its vermin live unto death as well.

2. But because your spirit was nourished beforehand, the sewer fare that came afterwards could not wholly corrupt your soul. The nourishment first given to your spirit seasoned, as far as possible, the wretched worldly fare of your soul and took away its deadly poison. You will, I hope, see that your soul could not put on any fat on such fare. Now, because of your faith and love, I will give you food from the heavens and a better garment. This will give you a better bearing and appearance. Robert, bring bread and wine and a new garment!”

3. As I speak, Robert sees behind him a kind of provision stall with bread and wine and a bundle containing the garment I asked for. He brings the bread and wine, and his wife Helena brings the bundle with the garment. I bless the bread and wine and have them served to Mathilde and the officer. As she partakes of the bread and wine with the officer in inexpressible gratitude, she immediately grows fuller and takes on a beautiful, youthful appearance. She is so grateful that she scarcely knows what to do. She now also receives a beautiful azure-blue dress trimmed with crimson, which becomes her wonderfully.

4. Now that Mathilde stands there so well provided for, she begins to weep aloud for gratitude, love and bliss. Already as beautiful as a flower of heaven, she falls to her knees before Me and says through her sobs, “O most holy Father! My heart can only feel what I now feel for You. My feeble tongue can never express it! Your love and Your grace are endlessly great. As far as I can feel this life newly given to me and reawakened through Your grace, I feel You as holy, eternal and purest love! O dear Father! May Your most holy name, Jesus, be hallowed for ever and ever and ever!” At these words her love for Me overcomes her so powerfully that she sinks with her face to the ground.

5. The officer, too, is so moved by love that he begins to weep. But I admonish him, “Friend, take courage! She who has been made blessed will soon need your strength. You brought her this far and will therefore continue to be her guide. Honour her spirit!”

6. The officer says, “Yes, my dearest Father, Lord and God, may Your word forever be the life at the centre of my heart! So much love and grace have come down upon us from You, O holy Father, that we are still far too weak at heart to bear such fullness of bliss. But the holy time of Your kingdom will make us more familiar with Your exceedingly great love and favour. May my whole being give eternal thanks for such love and grace from You to us poor sinners. Great wisdom will not be our province, for You, holy Father, have created angels for Yourself from the flame of Your light to sing and praise the infinite majesty of Your works. But we will praise You above all else in the humility of our hearts, for You alone are all our love and all our life!” Then he turns to Mathilde and says, “Dearest sister Mathilde, rise and see how good and loving and gentle our true, holy Father is!”

7. Mathilde then raises herself, looks about her, enraptured, and now recognises her teacher Peter in the officer. Still on her knees, she cries, “O God, O Father! Truly, You are so good and loving! You have made me, the most unworthy of sinners, unspeakably blessed by the abundance of Your grace, love and mercy. And here before Your most holy countenance I am also allowed to meet the teacher who already showed me on earth the ways that lead to You. You now entrust me to this teacher to be instructed further. What glorious and sublime things I will learn from him, growing ever purer so that I may be worthier to behold Your divinely beautiful countenance! I am still here in the city where I became wretched in body and soul. But it is Your visible and most holy presence that makes heaven for me, wherever I may be. Where You are, O Lord, there is the highest heaven! May my heart and my whole being be consecrated to You alone, O Father! Hallowed be Your most holy name, Jesus!”

8. Archbishop Migatzi comes forward from the background and says to Me, “Lord and Father, this being, now as lovely as one of the fairest stars of Your heavens, truly puts us all to shame! Such holy purity in her speech, such boundless love and gratitude! In short, there is a truly enchanting dignity in all her gestures, and we are all completely carried away. She teaches us all to know You fully and rightly at last! O Lord, You eternal and purest love! What great thanks we all owe You for this transfiguration!”

9. I say to Migatzi, “My friend and brother, love alone gives this. Wisdom cannot give it. Therefore hold fast to love, all of you, if you wish to be with Me in the heavens! In each of the three principal heavens you will be with Me and walk before My countenance. There as here, that is possible through love alone. Mathilde has the right measure of love and will therefore be with Me in the heavens, where we will soon arrive. Go and proclaim this to everyone here!”

10. Migatzi thanks Me fervently for this teaching, goes at once to the great crowd and proclaims it to everyone.

11. But the officer says to Me in his great love, “Lord, look, we are now as blessed as we can possibly be. But my soldiers are still standing over there in rank and file! What is to become of them?” I say, “Have them lay down their rifles, for from now on they will have no use for those weapons. In My kingdom the only weapons used in battle are the weapons of love!”