What God is by Nature

What God is by Nature, Mary is by Grace

The Greatness of the Blessed Virgin in the Revelations to Luisa Piccarreta

Pre-publication draft

Chapter One

Original Sin and the Immaculate Conception

The Immaculate Conception of this Celestial Creature, the Blessed Virgin Mary, was done by the Most Holy Trinity with highest wisdom, with unreachable power and inexhaustible love, and with the decorum that befits the works of God. [V34; 12/08/1936.] In order to form and bring about the great work of the Redemption, the Word of God needed a Virgin Mother, who was to be conceived without the shadow of original sin. Since Jesus was to take on human flesh, it was appropriate that His most holy Humanity would not be taken from infected blood. [V19; 06/06/1926.] Further, it was decorous that no seed of guilt would exist in the one who was to be His Mother. She was to be noblest and most holy of all creatures, in such a divine way as to make her similar to her creator, in order to be able to conceive the Eternal Word, the Holy of Holies. In this way she would have the grace and capacity to impetrate the longed for Redeemer. [V19; 03/19/1926.]

She was endowed with all gifts, in a way that was not conceded to anyone, so that all the goods of the Redemption could be deposited in her. In order to keep her safe, from the moment of her conception until the moment of the Lord's Incarnation within her womb, she was protected within the light of the Most Holy Trinity, which, as her custodian, directed her in everything, even to the least heartbeat. She was the holiest and most beautiful of all women. [V15; 07/11/1923.] Since the Lord was to receive her blood in order to make possible His own conception in her womb, it was appropriate and just that her soul and body be most clear, and that she be enriched with the greatest graces, privileges and prerogatives imaginable, that God can give and that the creature can receive. [V19; 03/19/1926.]

Although the acts of the ancients in praying for a Redeemer for four thousand years were good and holy, they were faced by the barrier of original sin, which maintained a division between them and God. But the holy and sinless Virgin, enriched with all graces, was able to cover all the good acts of those of the Old Testament period with her own innocence, sanctity and purity. She made those acts as though her own, such that the Divinity saw them through the acts of the holy and innocent Mary. She not only embraced all acts of the ancients, but surpassed them. She impressed her sanctity and innocence on their acts, and presented those acts as well as her own all together to the Most High. Thus she completed all the acts that were required in order to make the Eternal Word descend upon earth. [V18; 11/12/1925.]

It was by virtue of the foreseen merits of the Redeemer that she was exempted from original sin. The Divinity is one single act. If to man it seems that God does something now and something else later, it is actually God making known what is present in that single act, since the creature – man – is incapable of knowing it all at once. Therefore, even before this holy woman was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, everything that the Redeemer was to do upon earth already existed in the foreknowledge of God. In the act of her conception, all of the merits of Jesus, His pains and His blood, were as if present, since there is no past or future in the Divine Will. All of her acts and words received life and were conceived first in the acts and steps of the Eternal Word. It can be said that she was conceived in the Redeemer Himself, since from Him came her life, and everything He did and suffered poured itself constantly over her. Mary was conceived in the endless abysses of His merits, His Blood, and in the immense seas of His pains. His excelling merits barred the way to the enemy, who could not harm her in any way. [V16; 12/08/1923, V34; 12/08/1936.]

It was right and just that the one who was herself to conceive the Son of God, be first conceived in the works of this God. So that first, Mary was conceived in Jesus, and then Jesus was conceived in her. When she was conceived, the Redemption was as though already done in the Eternal Mind. Therefore she received the complete fruit of the Redemption, and having been conceived in it, she loved, esteemed and kept as her own all that Her Son did upon earth. She was a prodigy of grace and a portent of the Divinity, as Its Daughter, Its decorum, joy, honor and glory! [V16; 12/08/1923.]

The Humanity of the Word was the refuge, hiding place, and embodiment of this Celestial Creature. Her love enclosed everything and everyone, since it was incarnated and conceived in the Lord's love. She had His same follies of love towards all creatures and to the Divinity, such that by loving once she loves always without ever ceasing. Her prayer was conceived in the prayer of her Son, and therefore had an immense power and value over the Supreme Being. Who can deny her anything? The Divine Fiat has molded her and blown its breath upon her, making her conceived in the Divine works. Her pains, sorrows, and martyrdoms which she felt within herself were first conceived in the Humanity of Jesus. Everything He did and suffered lined up around her, to court her and be poured constantly over her.

The Word was able to be conceived in her because she was conceived in Him first, with all the prerogatives, virtues and beauties which He was to possess. In her He found His heaven, the sanctity of His life, and His Precious Blood which had generated her and watered her many times. In her He found His own Divine Will, which communicated to her its divine fecundity in order to form the life of the Son of God. The Divine Fiat called into action all of the foreseen merits of Jesus, the whole of His life, and poured it constantly into her beautiful soul. The Divine Volition kept her invested under its continuous empire that possesses all acts as if they were one act alone, so as to give her everything. [V34, 12/08/1936.]

The seed in which this Celestial Queen was conceived came from the human stock. She had her human life as all the other creatures, and as Jesus Himself had. However, before her beautiful soul came to be, the Divine Will of God, the Fiat, with its omnipotence, purified that seed completely. The divine omnipotence concentrated its light and heat, annihilating the evil in her human seed. After the seed was rendered pure, holy and exempt from original sin, the Immaculate Baby was conceived in it. The Divine Fiat did not destroy the seed, or make a new seed, but It purified it, removing all the humors which it had contracted from the sin of Adam.

In giving her such surprising graces, God through her looked at the whole human family, as if it were one alone. Thus, as she was conceived without stain by the work of the Divine Will, the Kingdom of the Divine Will was also conceived again within humanity, that kingdom that was lost with the sin of Adam. Through the Immaculate Virgin, the right to possess the Kingdom of the Fiat was restored to mankind. When Jesus came upon earth to assume human flesh, He made use of the seed of the Celestial Virgin, and it can be said that they worked together to form again the Kingdom of the Divine Will in the human generations. [V24; 09/16/1928.]

Being conceived in the womb of St. Anne, who was not exempt from original sin, did no harm to the Blessed Virgin. It is the will that is the locus of evil. When man rebelled against the Divine Will in Eden, his rebellious will overwhelmed his human nature, debilitating it and rendering it a slave to the vilest passions. But his basic nature remained in its place, just as it was created. The container of the body did not change - what did change was the will that it contained. But the soul of Immaculate Mary was immune to any sin, since there was no division between her will and that of God. The Divinity found no obstacle or opposition in pouring a rain of new graces upon her every instant. With her will and soul that were all holy, all pure, and all beautiful, the physical container of the body which she received from St. Anne remained exempt from the natural maladies of the human nature, and was continuously divinized, made fragrant, and ordered.

By remaining constantly in the Will of God, she received the seed of the Fiat Voluntas Tua – thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The Divine Will ennobled her and restored her to the origin of man as he was originally created by God. In fact she surpassed that origin. She was embellished through the continuous action of the Fiat, which has the virtue of reproducing images similar to that of the Creator. The Divine Will can do everything and reach anywhere, when the soul gives it the freedom to act, and does not interrupt its work with her own will. By virtue of this Divine Will, which the Virgin gave free rein to act within her, it can be said that what God is by nature, she is by grace [si può dire che ciò che Dio è per natura, lei è per grazia.] [V16; 12/08/1923.]

Even from her conception the grace of God gave her soul full use of its faculties [V15; 12/08/1922]. The Lord narrated to her the story of how ungrateful man broke off his will from God's, preventing the Divine Will from communicating to him its goods and the purpose for which he was created. Being unable to give fully Its Will and love, was like a mourning for the Supreme Will. To give is to make the Divinity happy, as well as the one who receives. In giving, the Trinity goes out of Itself to give what It possesses, to enrich without being impoverished. This divine giving is to give what God is by nature, forming it in the creature by grace.

Thus the Divine Volition took the attitude of sorrow in seeing fallen man operate, speak, and walk, without the connection to the Divine Fiat, since the currents of graces, light and sanctity had been broken by him. His acts were empty of divine value, dissimilar from Divine acts since they were without beauty and sanctity. The Celestial Virgin understood this sorrow and the great evil of man in withdrawing from the Divine Volition. Fearful, she did not want to concede even one act to her own will, and she remained a little one since her will had no life in her. But what she could not do as a little one, the Divine Volition did for her. It raised her all beautiful, holy and divine, enriching her so much as to make her the greatest of all. She was a prodigy of grace, beauty and sanctity, but she always remained little She would never descend from the arms of the Divinity, and undertaking Its defense, she repaid for all the sorrow by making all the acts of creatures her own. She absorbed into herself all of the Divine Will that was rejected by them. By loving It and repairing It, and keeping It as though deposited in her Heart, she prepared the food of the Divine Will for all. [V16; 11/24/1923.]

However, even her conception without original sin, her sanctity, the seas of grace which she possessed, and all her other prerogatives, were not sufficient to draw the Word of God into her womb. What made it possible was that she did the Will of God as God did it. Without possessing the Divine Will, she would have lacked the seed of divine fecundity. Of herself she did not have the immensity and all-seeingness to be able to able to contain an infinite God Who sees all things. But by possessing the Supreme Will as her own life, and living in It, she partook of all that belonged to the divine immensity and Being, such that the Lord could be conceived in her, since He found nothing lacking for Him. The many other prerogatives of Holy Mary were the decorum which befitted her; but the highest, most substantial and most necessary requirement for obtaining the longed-for Redeemer was her doing the Will of God as God does it. [V19, 03/31/1926.]

All of the Creation celebrated her Immaculate Conception. Up until then, man's will had been the disorder of Creation. No one had shown the courage to offer to God the gift of his own will in order to accept the Divine Will alone as life. But when the Holy Virgin offered to God her own will in exchange for His Will, all Creation felt the happiness of the order which had been restored to it. The heavens, the sun, the sea, and all nature competed among themselves to honor the one who, by possessing the Divine Fiat, gave the kiss of order to created things. The Supreme Will placed the scepter of Divine Queen into her hand, surrounding her forehead with the crown of command, and constituted her Empress of the whole universe. [V25; 12/08/1928.]

Holy Mary, from the very first moments of her conception, had set aside her own will before the throne of God, vowing never to act upon it, and in exchange received the Divine Will. [V17; 12/08/1924.] She gave over to God what man had denied Him, which was his human will. Although of human stock, she began her life in the Divine Fiat – thus with the Fiat she acquired a divine life, while still possessing her earthly origin. In this way she united the divine with the human, binding God and man. She gave humanity the right to be able to ascend to the embraces of its Creator. All of Creation – heaven, earth, and even hell – felt in Mary's Immaculate Conception, the strength of the order that she was placing in it. In the Divine Will, she associated herself with all, embraced all, and loved everything and everyone. All Creation longed for her and loved her, feeling honored to adore the Divine Will in which she lived. [V25; 12/08/1928.]

The feast of the Immaculate Conception is a grand feast for the Church, since it marks the first kiss, the first divine embrace that the creature gave to her Creator by virtue of the Divine Fiat, which she possessed. At the time of Holy Mary's conception, seas of love, beauty, power, and happiness flowed over that celestial creature from the bounty of the Divinity. What God does once, He remains in the continuous act of doing always, without ever ceasing. For God, to give is His nature, with an act that never ends. Therefore the seas bestowed upon Mary are still overflowing, and that which prevents creatures from entering into them is their human will. The Queen Mother is awaiting her daughters [and sons] in order to let them live in these great seas as many little queens. However, only one who lives of Divine Will can have access to them. When the creature does not partake of these seas of goods, which came forth from the Most High, she suffocates the happiness that the Lord wants her to have.

The Most High took great delight in seeing this beautiful, celestial, tiny person right from the time of her Immaculate Conception. Inside the little earth of her humanity, He would see the bright Sun of the Eternal Volition, which overflowed outside of her and extended to fill heaven and earth, since she was unable to contain it. She was a prodigy of the Divine Omnipotence. Everything she did, whether thoughts, words or works, were converted into rays of light. Everything was light that came out of her, because her little humanity was smaller that the immense light and Sun of the Divine Will which she enclosed, and her acts would get lost within the light. Since the earth of her humanity was animated, vivified and preserved continually by the Divine Fiat, it always appeared flowery, with beautiful blossoms which turned into sweet fruits, and drew the Divine Gazes and enraptured the Most High. So great was the beauty and happiness that God experienced that the Blessed Trinity could not do without looking at her. The Immaculate Little Virgin was all beautiful, enchanting and enrapturing. That she was a prodigy of the Divine Will says everything – if creatures knew what it means to live of the Will of God, they would lay down their lives to know and live in It. [V25; 12/08/1928.]

The Divinity called to life the tiny little Virgin, creating her all pure, all holy, and all love, and made the Divine Will be conceived in her, so that between her and God there would be free access, with perennial and inseparable union. With her love she wounded the Trinity, and God's overflowing love hid in her. The Divinity looked at all creatures through her beauty and love, and loved all with the love hidden in this Celestial Queen. God's love poured itself out, and by loving all in her and through her beauty, fallen mankind no longer seemed so ugly. The Divine Love, diffused in the heart of a creature so holy, was no longer restricted within the Trinity. By communicating to her the Divine Paternity and loving everyone within her, she acquired the Divine Maternity, enabling her to love all as her children, generated by her Celestial Father. She was aware that God loved all creatures in her, and she felt that His love formed the new generation of all humanity within her maternal Heart.

It was a great stratagem of love by the Most High that, in order to love creatures, including those who had most offended Him, He chose someone from that same human stock, and formed her as beautiful as possible. His love would no longer find hindrances to be able to love everyone in her, and to make her loved by all. In this Celestial Queen all can find God's love hidden in her. The Trinity with its sweet empire dominated her, so that she would be the most affectionate Mother of all. And since she possessed the Divine Will, she dominated God, to make Him love all.

God could not have given a greater gift to all generations, in giving them this incomparable creature as the Mother of everyone, and as the bearer of His love hidden in her – in order for her to dispense it to all her children. God's true love cannot be without loving, and uses all stratagems and arts, from the littlest to the greatest things, whether in hiding or manifest, directly or indirectly – to make known that He loves with an incessant love she whom He delivered from the depth of His love. This Sovereign Lady, in heaven, still possesses God's hidden love toward each creature, and her greatest contentment is to feel her Creator loving everyone from within her maternal Heart. She is the Coverer, who knows how to cover and excuse her children before the throne of the Most High. As a true mother, she hides them inside her love to make them loved; inside her sorrows for them to be forgiven; inside her prayers to obtain for them the greatest graces. Let yourself be covered by your Celestial Mother, who will take care of all your needs. [V33; 02/04/1934.]

When the Holy Church speaks of the Celestial Queen, it can only tell the first letters of the alphabet of her sanctity, greatness, and the gifts with which she was enriched. Her Son Jesus receives great joy and contentment in speaking of Mary, whom He loves so much, and who has so much loved Him. [V34; 12/08/1936.] And, with what He has revealed as of this day, it can be said that His Sovereign Mother now receives divine honors, as the Church honors in her, as the first act of her life, the life of the Divine Will. These are the greatest of honors – that the human will never had life in her, but the Divine Volition always did. This was the entire secret of her sanctity, of her heights, power, beauty and greatness – that the heat of the Divine Fiat extinguished the stain of original sin and conceived her Immaculate and pure. The Church, instead of honoring the Divine Will, the primary cause and act, has honored the effects of it, proclaiming her Immaculate and conceived without sin. It can be said that the Church has given her human honors, not the divine honors which she justly deserves, because the Divine Will had continuous life in her. This was a sorrow for her and her Son because the Church did not bestow the honors of His Will dwelling in the Queen of Heaven, nor did she receive the honors due her for giving a place with herself in which to form the life of the Supreme Fiat. All of her other prerogatives and privileges were of the secondary order, and a consequence of that Divine Volition that dominated her. But now, on this day, by making known that everything in her was the prodigy of His Will, it is with divine glory, decorum, and magnificence that the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated – a Feast which more truly can be called The Conception of the Divine Will in the Sovereign Queen of Heaven. This conception was the consequence of everything the Fiat said and did, and of the great prodigies of this Celestial Little Girl. [V25; 12/08/1928]

The Immaculate Conception was so prodigious and marvelous that heaven and earth were stupefied and made feast. The Divinity administered the substance of this conception, with all three Divine Persons competing among Themselves. The Son poured out an immense sea of Wisdom, the Father poured out a great sea of Power, and the Holy Ghost gave forth an immense sea of Love. These three seas merged and formed one single sea, and in its midst the conception of the Virgin was formed, who became the elect among the elect. This sea remained around her as the center of life of this admirable and singular being. It not only kept her defended from anything that might be a shadow for her, but in each instant it gave her new beauties, graces, power, love, wisdom, and other privileges. Her little nature formed and grew under the influence of the divine waves of this sea in the center of which she was conceived.

As soon as this noble creature was formed, the Divinity did not want to wait as was usual with other creatures. It immediately wanted her embraces and kisses, her innocent smiles, and the requital of her love. Therefore, as soon as she was conceived, the Lord gave her the use of reason, and she was endowed with all sciences. He made known to her His joys and sorrows in all of Creation.

Even while still in the womb of her mother St. Anne, she would come to heaven to the foot of the throne of the Most Holy Trinity. She would give Them her embraces, the requital of her love, and her tender kisses. She smiled at Them with such delight of gratitude and thanksgiving as to draw Their smiles in return. How beautiful it was for Them to see this innocent and privileged creature, enriched with all the divine qualities, come into their midst without fear, filled with love and trust. In fact, it is sin alone which distances the creature from the Creator, since it breaks love, disperses trust, and strikes fear.

She would come into the midst of the Trinity as Queen, and with the love which had been given to her, she dominated and enraptured Them, putting them in feast, and drawing still more love from Them. Freely permitting her visits, and delighting in the love that she beguiled from Them, They constituted her Queen of Heaven and Earth.

Having their Queen after so many centuries, both heaven and earth exulted and celebrated together with their Creator. The sun smiled in delight, considering itself fortunate that it would serve its Empress by giving her its light. The heavens, the stars, and the entire universe celebrated and smiled with joy because they were to gladden her by showing her the harmony and beauty of the spheres. The plants of the earth smiled, since they were to provide nourishment for their Queen. And the earth too smiled and felt ennobled since it would provide her dwelling, and let itself be trodden by the steps of its Queen. It was only hell that cried, since it felt itself losing strength because of the dominion of this Sovereign Lady.

Do you know the first act that this Celestial Creature performed upon finding herself before the throne of the Most High for the first time? Recognizing that all the evil of man originated from the separation of his own will from that of his Creator, she trembled. Without delaying, she bound her will to the foot of the throne of the Divinity, without ever wanting to know it. In return, God bound the Divine Will to her, constituting It the center of her life. As a consequence, all of the communications, currents, and relations between the Holy Virgin and God were opened, such that there was no secret that was not entrusted to her. To lay down her own will at the feet of the Divinity was the most beautiful, greatest, and heroic act that she did. As though enraptured, God constituted her Queen of all.

Her second act was to offer herself to make any sacrifice for the love of her Creator. Her third act was to render God all the honor and glory of the whole Creation, which man had taken away from Him by doing his own will. While still in her mother's womb, she cried for love of God in seeing Him offended, and she cried with sorrow over guilty man. These innocent tears moved the Divinity and hastened the coming of the Redeemer. Dominating and binding the Most High, she snatched infinite graces from Him. The Divinity inclined so much toward mankind that It could not resist, nor did It know how to resist, her repeated petitions.

But whence came so much power and ascendancy over the very Trinity? It was the power of the Divine Will acting in her, which, while It dominated her, It also rendered her the dominator of God Himself. He could not resist such an innocent creature who possessed in herself the power and sanctity of His Own Will – It would mean that God would be resisting Himself. The Blessed Trinity could see the divine qualities in her. Reverberations of the divine sanctity, manners, love, and power poured out upon her. The Divine Volition, acting as her center, drew forth these reverberations of the divine qualities, and made Itself crown and defense of the Divinity dwelling within her. If the Immaculate Queen had not had the Divine Will as center of her life, all the other prerogatives and privileges with which she was so enriched by God, would have been, in comparison, as nothing. The Fiat was the confirmation and preservation of her so many privileges, and even more, it multiplied new ones at each instant.

When the Most High operates a work, it is done with reason, wisdom and justice. The reason why Mary was constituted Queen over all was because she never gave life to her human will, keeping the Divine Will always intact in her. How could the Divinity say to some other creature that she was the Queen of the heavens, the stars, the earth and so forth, if instead of giving the Divine Will dominion, she operated according to her own human will? All of the heavens, the seas and the elements would have withdrawn from the regime and dominion of such a creature. They would have cried out in their mute language that they do not want her, that they are superior to her, because they have never withdrawn from the Eternal Volition – as they were created, so they are. So would the sun have exclaimed with its light, the stars with their twinkling, and the sea with its waves.

However, as soon as they all felt the dominion of this excelling Virgin, who, as if she were their sister, never wanted to know her own will, but only God's Will, they celebrated and felt honored to have their Queen. They formed her cortege and paid obsequies to her: the moon placed itself as footstool at her feet, the stars as a crown, the sun as a jewelled headress, the angels as her servants, and men as though in waiting. All, everyone, paid her honor and rendered their respects to her. There is no honor and glory which cannot be given to the Divine Volition, whether acting within the Divinity as in Its own center, or dwelling in the creature. [V15; December 8, 1922]

If you wish to be notified when this book is available click here