Jesus’ approved revelations on the Divine Will  (the life mission of Saint Hannibal di Francia) to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta – herself the subject of a recent strongly positive Vatican-published, Cardinal-endorsed biography – are unquestionably authentic and are entirely in accordance with Catholic Orthodoxy. The Church’s competent ecclesial authorities, whose mandate alone it is to render such judgments, have repeatedly affirmed this assessment (cf. Part 4). 

Unfortunately, however, a few followers (and promoters!) of these revelations say things opposed to Catholic Orthodoxy due to their own flawed interpretations of Luisa’s revelations (interpretations which are not only unorthodox, but also stand in contrast to the actual text of what Jesus told Luisa.) 

So today, I feel I must again address these errors, as I’ve done before (here, and here), since I am seeing them crop up here and there anew.

This post, however, is much longer. As usual with my longer posts, I’ve added each section’s heading in extra large font and set up the coloring/bolding/etc. to facilitate easy skimming and scrolling to the parts each reader might find most relevant, even if he isn’t interested in reading this in its entirety. 

(Previous posts on this topic)

First, understand that God’s timing is always perfect. Although followers of Luisa are known to understandably lament that her sublime revelations spent decades basically unknown, sitting in the Vatican archives, the fact is that God had a good reason for allowing this delay, even though it pained Him greatly.  

Nothing is mere coincidence in the Divine Will’s Providential ordering of all things; least of all in the most important developments in Sacred Tradition. I traced out this dynamic in detail in Parts one through three of Thy Will Be Done. The Holy Spirit’s 2,000-year-long preparation for the Gift of Living in the Divine Will saw its Final Preparation in the spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux (see page 53), and God inspired the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta’s Church-appointed Spiritual Directors to command her, under holy obedience, to write down her own revelations mere months after Therese’s Story of a Soul was first published.

God wastes no time!

Nor did His providential orchestration of events related to the dissemination of the Divine Will revelations end there. Many books could be written on this, but for now I just wish to focus on one convergence that was anything but mere coincidence: The Catechism of the Catholic Church’s time of publication. As is often noted, it was the first universal Catechism in half a millennium (since the Catechism of the Council of Trent). But this fails to capture the spiritual — and, I daresay, eschatological — magnitude of the Catechism’s arrival.

First of all, Trent’s Catechism (The “Roman Catechism”) was the first ever “universal” Catechism, but the current Catechism of the Catholic Church far outshines even that in the audacity of its aspirations (directed, as it is, to all — not merely primarily to clergy) and in the breadth and depth of its teachings (both of which far surpass the scope of Trent’s Catechism.) The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the product of two thousand years of Spirit-lead Development of Doctrine compressed into the pages of a single volume. It is nothing short of a truly unprecedented Gift from God through His one, holy, Catholic, apostolic Church — His one and only true Church.

We can now say, with even more boldness than ever before,

“Happy are we, O Israel, for we know what is pleasing to God.” (Baruch 4:4)

(Note: lest anyone accuse me of overestimating the glory of the Catechism, rest assured that I am aware of the technical caveats. Whoever is interested in those details can see the Addendum at the bottom of this article.)

The primary reason for this timing? I’d say it is clear to anyone who perceives the Signs of the Times: the Catechism was bestowed when it was as ultimate bulwark against the onslaught of Modernism, which, upon the Dawn of the Third Millennium, was about to reach its peak through the Great Apostasy which we are now, right before our eyes, witnessing the apocalyptic havoc of spreading throughout the Church and the world.

But I believe that a secondary reason for the timing was that God knew that He was also about to cause knowledge of the Divine Will to explode throughout the Church, and that this unprecedented, extraordinary Gift would be liable to misinterpretations by overzealous and imprudent souls, and that, accordingly, the faithful needed a one-stop resource to definitively address any question they might have as to the orthodox understanding of the Faith in the context of today’s world.

The Catechism was promulgated October, 1992; just 2 years before the Vatican’s approval of Luisa’s cause and just 4 years before access was widely gained to Luisa’s revelations upon Cardinal Ratzinger’s decision to allow the copying of all her volumes that had, since 1938, resided in the CDF’s archives.  In those four years, the Catechism spread like wildfire throughout the Church and facilitated the ability of all Catholics of good will, who sincerely desired to abide in the orthodox teachings of the Catholic Faith, to know with clarity and comprehensiveness just what the Church teaches on the most important questions … even as all the heresies of modernism continued their rampage throughout the ranks of the Church. 

In 1994, the future Pope Benedict XVI wrote (in his too often neglected and almost never quoted work, “Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church”):

 “the eagerness with which [the Catechism] has been purchased is almost a sort of [referendum] of the People of God against those interests which portray the Catechism as inimical to progress, as an authoritarian Roman disciplinary act, and so on. It is often the case that certain circles [i.e., modernist theologians among the clergy. Here in a footnote, Ratzinger singles out the destructive influence of Hans Kung] employ such slogans merely to defend their own monopoly on opinion-making in the Church and in the world, an arrangement which they do not wish to see upset by a qualified laity.” (Cardinal Ratzinger. Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Chapter 2.) 

In the following chapter of the same work, he pronounced that 

“…[the Catechism] transmits what the Church teaches, whoever rejects it as a whole separates himself beyond question from the faith…”

Remaining completely grounded in the Catechism, therefore, is absolutely essential for all Catholics (and being Catholic is absolutely essential to heeding Jesus’ revelations to Luisa!)

I submit to you that all of this timing was planned by God:

The Church as a whole was not ready for all of Luisa’s revelations until the Catechism was promulgated and sufficiently disseminated throughout the Church.

For it is the latter – the Catechism of the Catholic Church – which gives us the lens through which Luisa’s revelations are to be understood. NOT VICE VERSA.

Whoever has not already absolutely committed, with face set like flint and heart unwavering, to believe and obey 100% of the Church’s Teachings, and to regard these teachings and these teachings alone as the filter through which he approaches EVERYTHING else – including any and all private revelations (which, yes, means all of Jesus’ words to Luisa!) ….

…whoever has not already done that is not prepared to read Luisa’s revelations: such a person should set them aside if already reading them, and only come back to them once he has made this firm commitment. 

Don’t get me wrong, I hope you don’t have to do that: nothing would make me happier than every soul on the planet diving into Luisa’s revelations! They are utterly life changing and world changing, and I solemnly assure you that if you approach them with humility and in God’s grace, you will find within them an inexhaustible and unmatched treasury of grace for the salvation and sanctification of your soul.

So if you’ve already read the Catechism, then this commitment need only take a moment of time – but it must be absolute, permanent, and complete. (And if you haven’t read the Catechism, then please, I beg you, put all private revelations – and, indeed, all other books other than the Bible/Missal/Breviary! – aside right now and do so!) 

Any Catholic should already know that the approach above is necessary. That said, it is worth nothing that this is exactly the approach that Luisa herself insists upon, even with respect to her own revelations from Jesus! As she wrote, immediately after specific editions of 3 of her works were placed on the Index (where they were soon joined by St. Faustina’s revelations , see page 145 here):

“With humility, I spontaneously and promptly fulfill my duty as a Christian soul, of offering my unconditional, unhesitating, full and absolute submission to the judgment of the Holy Roman Church. And so, without any restrictions, I disapprove and condemn everything that the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office disapproves and condemns in the said books [her — Luisa’s — writings; which recorded Jesus’ revelations to her], in the same sense and with the same intention as the Sacred Congregation.” – Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta’s personal, written, unconditional submission to the Church’s judgment on her writings (A Guide to the Book of Heaven. Stephen Patton. 2013. Imprimatur.)

This written affirmation, however, was just a reiteration of Luisa’s entire, lifelong approach. She repeatedly insisted that anything and everything she wrote down – both her own thoughts AND her recording of Jesus’ own words — be entirely subject to the Church’s teaching, and, if necessary, freely modified accordingly. (St. Hannibal di Francia, whom Jesus chose as the first and primary apostle of the Divine Will, took the exact same approach; though he too was 100% convicted of the authenticity of the revelations).

That leaves us with a consideration: how dare we — mere readers of these revelations, (who are nothing compared to Luisa) insist upon treating these revelations in a way that Luisa herself rejected? Who would any of us be to say something so absurd to Luisa as “Well, you – the very recipient of these revelations, the very one who heard them directly from Jesus – don’t actually understand how important they are. You just don’t understand, like I do, that your own writings are actually what I should filter Church teaching through and not the other way around.”

That would, of course, be utter madness. And it would offend no one more than Luisa. 

Now, it so happens that nothing in Luisa’s revelations needed to be discarded in order to maintain Catholic orthodoxy. (Though some interpretations of her revelations do indeed need to be rejected.) But the point is that Luisa was prepared to do even this, because she modeled the approach to Jesus’ revelations to her that we must all take, namely: Catholic First, Catholic Always: Until the End of Time.

Once you’ve made this commitment to always and everywhere regard the Bible and the Catechism as your foundation, then, yes, please pick up Luisa’s revelations again! And you will then be well guarded against the bad followers of Luisa who promote bogus interpretations of Jesus’ revelations to her, which are both at odds with Catholic orthodoxy and unfaithful to Jesus’ actual words to Luisa.

So if you’ve committed to always and everywhere regard the Bible and the Catechism as your foundation — and to filter everything else through their teachings — then you’re basically all set. But, in the list of 17 points below, I’d still like to draw attention to some specifics. Jesus’ revelations to Luisa do not contradict a single one of the points that follow (nor, recall, do they contradict any Catholic Teachings). But some people might nevertheless fail to understand these revelations correctly if they: 

• Fail to approach these revelations through the lens of the Catholic Teaching (especially the Catechism)
• Erroneously regard these revelations as a new Public Revelation (Jesus makes it clear to Luisa that they aren’t)
• Take individual teachings from Jesus to Luisa in isolation or out of context 
• Take the liberty to interpret these teachings in accordance with their own speculations 
• Fail to remember that each existing translation is quite imperfect and contains translation errors 
• Haven’t read all of Luisa’s revelations and thus have insufficient knowledge of the various counterbalancing themes therein, or 
• Don’t understand how certain repeated terms are meant within the volumes (not only is each available translation quite imperfect; there is also the fact that the original Italian was written in the early 1900s, in a particular dialect, by a particular person – the same word in Luisa’s revelations might not mean the exact same thing generally intended today)
• Forget Jesus’ own words to Luisa in which He indicates that He often speaks to her in similes and metaphors (e.g., ” the similes that regard my Will are of divine manners, and therefore there is so much material to talk about that they become inexhaustible.” (Jesus to Luisa, August 30, 1928)), and accordingly approach the revelations with the disposition of assuming everything said therein is literal, when in fact much is analogy.

The same is true with any mystical text written throughout Church History; each – including those of canonized saints and Doctors of the Church! –  is full of statements which, if looked at in isolation and promoted without the proper interpretation and Catechesis, would lead to problems. 

I’ve of course read all of Luisa’s revelations (many times), and I believe all of them! These reminders are only needed because the proper understanding of these revelations is not always obvious. No child of the Divine Will should consider himself free to simply take any passage he likes from Luisa’s revelations and blast it out there to the world, in isolation and without the proper understanding conveyed, and suppose that he’s automatically done a good thing merely because the revelation is, in and of itself, authentic. Even fully authentic revelations can generate errors in the minds of their readers if not approached properly. This is even true with Public Revelation (Scripture), therefore it is doubly true with all private revelations, including Luisa’s. 

1) Heaven alone is our ultimate destiny. There alone is found our definitive perfection and the definitive perfection of the Church as a whole.

CCC676,677:

I’ve already demonstrated that these paragraphs in the Catechism do not at all contradict the fact that the Era of Peace is coming: also known as the fulfillment of the Our Father, the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Eucharistic Reign, the Reign of the Divine Will, the more complete coming  of the Kingdom of God on earth. See, for example, this video, or Chapter 28 (esp. pages 279-387) of The Crown of Sanctity (free eBook here), or Part 5 and the appendices of Thy Will Be Done.

So instead of repeating all that here, I instead want to focus on just how important it is to heed the clear sense of what these paragraphs of the Catechism teach. (Note: Some important points on this are found in the Addendum, at the bottom of this article).

Nowhere else but Heaven will we find our ultimate destiny. Not now, not with the Gift of Living in the Divine Will, and not during the Era. Yes, God’s Will shall be done on earth as in Heaven! That theme must define our lives and that theme will eventually define the penultimate culmination of history – once enough of us do our part! Nothing is more imperative than recognizing this. But God has even more in store for the Church’s perfection and our own beatitude than accomplishing His Will: He also has in store for us, to definitively complete our perfection, the enjoyment of His Unveiled Presence (the Beatific Vision); that is for Heaven alone; for all eternity.

Consider that even during the Era, we will continue to pray the Our Father! For, until we arrive at Heaven, we will always pray for the Kingdom to arrive more fully – even once the Reign of God’s Will has begun on earth. Living in the Divine Will is the beginning — not the end — of our adventure of sanctity and union with God.  That is true both individually and on a worldwide scale.

Consider as well a theme I often repeat — during the Era, we will long for Heaven even more ardently than we do now! Heaven is the entire purpose of the Era. I tried to Illustrate this in the opening parts of the Crown of History, and I hope I succeeded.

Jesus’ revelations to Luisa are about the most Heaven-centered writings I have ever come across. (Indeed, their very title is “The Book of Heaven”!) No one should ever succumb, on their account, to letting his focus be distracted one iota from Heaven. Nothing would be further from what these revelations admonish. Our zeal in hastening the Reign of the Divine Will on earth must be motivated by the same goals that motivate Our Lord Himself in this same conquest– the salvation and sanctification of souls. Turning the earth into a saint-making factory for Heaven. Not the lamentable and diabolical liberation-theology-esque, modernist desire to “immanentize the eschaton.”

2) Upon the death of the Apostle John, Public Revelation is complete. This Deposit of Faith is, and always will be, our Foundation: not Jesus’ revelations to Luisa. Since St. John, there has not been, and there will not ever be, any new Public Revelation until the end of time. 

CCC 66/67:

Every private revelation that will ever be given – including Jesus’ to Luisa – must always be considered subordinate to Public Revelation’s Deposit of Faith and to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, which alone (not one’s favorite Divine Will promoter!) authoritatively interprets it.

No private revelation — including Luisa’s — is now, or ever will be, a universal objective necessity for salvation. (Though we must be careful not to draw fallacious inferences from this fact — see Part Three of Thy Will Be Done). Private revelation, moreover, is not the proper object of Supernatural (Divine) Faith, except perhaps for the recipient himself/herself.

(Though, it must be acknowledged, one can still have a moral certainty in a private revelation — moral certainty is not reserved for the Deposit of Faith! Nor is overwhelming zeal and absolute conviction reserved to the Deposit of Faith. Here I will speak for myself: I am certain in the authenticity of Luisa’s revelations. And I am certain that God’s Will shall reign on earth as in Heaven, in fulfillment of the Our Father prayer. I would happily, at the drop of a hat, shed every drop of my blood for Jesus’ revelations to Luisa. They are, and will continue to be, my mission. But I still don’t regard them as a new Public Revelation. I still consider them entirely subservient to that.). 

Nowhere within her thousands of pages of revelations does Jesus tell Luisa that His words to her are to be regarded as a new Public Revelation. Indeed, Jesus (for example) says to Luisa that “one can call [these writings] the Gospel of the Kingdom of the Divine Will,” (January 18th, 1928) but the language (“one can call“) makes it clear that this is not literally a Fifth Gospel, but rather is merely an expression; intended in the same way, for example, that Pope St. John Paul II spoke of “The Gospel of the Dignity of the Person.” (Evangelium Vitae §2) “Gospel” simply means “Good News,” and Luisa’s writings are indeed the primary way we have been given the wonderful news about Living in the Divine Will. But they are not a new Bible, nor are they an addition to the Bible.

So settle your minds on this matter. There will never be a new Public Revelation. We already have the “eternal Gospel” (Revelation 14:6); we were given it in the person of Jesus Christ, and knowledge of it through the Apostles, and it has been complete for almost 2,000 years.

I leave you with the following table from page 317 of Thy Will Be Done:

3) Jesus will never within history reign visibly on earth.

CCC 681/682:

Yes, Christ will Reign on earth. This is prophesied by more Scriptural passages, approved revelations, and documents of papal Magisterium than I can count (see Part Five of Thy Will Be Done). But He will reign by virtue of His Divine Will — and do so invisibly, Eucharistically — He will never reign visibly until He comes again at the very end of time to commence the General Resurrection and Last Judgment. Millenarianism and “modified Millenarianism” (see the CCC quotes from point 1 above), both of which the Church has defined as the teaching that Christ will reign visibly on earth (Cf. 7/21/1944 Holy Office Declaration, AAS Vol XI P. 212), are errors. Though many Evangelicals succumb to this error, no Catholic may be a Millenarian.

Jesus’ sensible reign — along with any and all benefits which flow solely from it (e.g. ontological confirmation of grace, eradication of any need for faith/hope, impossibility of death/suffering, the Beatific Vision, etc.) — will only be enjoyed in Heaven. Not now, not with the Gift, not during the Era. Accordingly, Jesus will never come again in the flesh until the end of time. When we pray “Come, Lord Jesus!” we pray for His coming in grace – especially His coming through the ministry of priests, above all in His Eucharistic Reign.

4) There are 7 and only 7 Sacraments, and there always will be 7 and only 7 sacraments until the end of time.

CCC 774:

And as the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches:

The Catechism goes on to insist “there are neither more nor less [than 7 Sacraments]…”

Nor will the fundamental nature of any of the Sacraments (that is, their matter/form) ever change. Nor will we ever be without need for them; they will be our support until the end of time. Accordingly, we know that:

The Gift of Living in the Divine Will is not a Sacrament.

To in any way — implicitly or explicitly — claim any more or fewer than Seven Sacraments is a serious heresy. Do not ever succumb to it. And to be frank, I recommend being extremely cautious with any Divine Will promoter who has succumbed to this error. There is no excuse for any Catholic above the age of seven to not have known better.

Indeed, at times Jesus speaks allegorically of the Divine Will as “sacrament,” (never as “a sacrament;” the absence of the “a” indicating that He is not intending to add an “eight sacrament”). This is only analogical — just like the Catechism itself, above, analogically speaks of the Church itself as sacrament. In the following paragraph, the Catechism explicitly says “As sacrament, the Church is…” There, too, the Catechism, just like Jesus’ words to Luisa, does not say “the Church is a Sacrament.”

Jesus also refers to the Cross as “sacrament” in the same, non literal sense, to Luisa (see the April 21st, 1900 passage).

Jesus extolls the Sacraments to Luisa with more exaltation than one is likely to find anywhere else. Whenever He does so, He lists seven and only seven sacraments. See, for example, the amazing passage of November 5th, 1925, wherein Jesus goes through each one of the seven Sacraments, extolling the amazing power of each while also lamenting how many sacrileges are committed against each one.

5) Jesus had a human will, not only the Divine Will.

CCC 470/471, 475, and 482:

This is absolutely settled dogma, and contradicting it is called the Heresy of Monothelitism. Unfortunately, a few followers of Luisa seem to have succumbed to it, even though it is a heresy and Jesus explicitly rejects it in His own words to Luisa!

“My daughter, and what about Me – do you want to put Me aside? Don’t you know that I had a human will…?” – Jesus to Luisa. July 19th, 1928.

Granted, Jesus always kept His human will absolutely perfectly sacrificed to the Divine Will. Thus He models for us all — especially in the Garden of Gethsemane — how we are to keep our wills under the dominion of the Divine Will. But the fact remains that He had a human will, and this is supremely important.

6) The Catholic Church – in her entire essential nature; Doctrines, Hierarchy, 7 Sacraments, etc. – will exist until the end of time.

CCC 77:

CCC 820, 860:

Contrary to the errors of Joachim of Fiore, and a number of Protestant Dispensationalist circles, (and a few misguided Divine Will followers!), neither the Catholic Church nor anything essential to her Divine Constitution will ever pass away for the sake of a new dispensation, nor will it ever be replaced by an “Age of the Spirit.”

Yes, the Era of Peace can validly be considered an age of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit – but not one that will replace the Age of the Church; rather, it will be the opposite: the triumph of the Church! Jesus describes to Luisa the Reign of the Divine Will as the time in which the Church acquires her full vigor (9/2/1901), with Catholic priests as the Divine Will’s primary protagonists (1/13/1929), and the Sacraments flourishing more than ever before (11/2/1926) — certainly not passing away!

7) St. Joseph is the greatest saint after the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I do not know of the Catechism teaching this, but it is nevertheless Magisterial, and all Catholics must submit.

Pope Leo XIII taught, in Quamquam Pluries:

“In truth, the dignity of the Mother of God is so lofty that naught created can rank above it. But as Joseph has been united to the Blessed Virgin by the ties of marriage, it may not be doubted that he approached nearer than any to the eminent dignity by which the Mother of God surpasses so nobly all created natures.” (§3)

Whether or not Joseph himself had the Gift of Living in the Divine Will is as irrelevant to ascertaining his greatness as is the fact that he never received the Eucharist, yet he still towers above all us post – 33 A.D. Christians (except the Blessed Virgin) who have received the Eucharist (a greater gift than Joseph ever received).

No Catholic, and certainly no child of the Divine Will, should ever be caught dead replacing the final “J” in “JMJ” with anything other than Joseph. Luisa herself certainly did not! Rather, she invoked Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, in every Volume. And remember that Jesus tells Luisa that Joseph is the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Divine Will — a sovereign dignity not even given to Luisa. (July 7, 1928).

8) The Blessed Virgin Mary is the greatest saint. She is vastly above Luisa.

CCC 492:

As we can see from the Catechism, Our Lady’s holiness is “entirely unique.” Jesus repeatedly reaffirms this to Luisa, exalting the Blessed Virgin as by far the greatest creature who ever has lived or ever will live. Although the Gift of Living in the Divine Will brings us into her same realms, the Virgin herself nevertheless remains absolutely and unquestionably supreme (among created persons) within this realm. Luisa is no exception to this. She was a sinner just like any of us.

Indeed, the Blessed Virgin was the primary creature through whom Redemption (the “Second Fiat”) was accomplished, and Luisa is the Secretary of the Divine Will, with which Jesus will accomplish the “Third Fiat” — Sanctification (the Gift and its Reign.) Naturally, therefore, comparisons would be drawn between Mary and Luisa; and are indeed drawn in the Volumes. We must always and only consider these comparisons ever cognizant of the enormous difference between Mary and Luisa. Some followers and promoters of the Divine Will have a very unhealthy degree of fixation upon/obsession with the person of Luisa (instead of the mission that Jesus was accomplishing with her) to an extent that would surely scandalize her, and indeed understandably scandalizes other Catholics. 

Upon reading the volumes, one stumbles upon frequent references to Luisa being wrong on things, and doing/saying/thinking things that Jesus needed to lovingly scold her for. You will find nothing of the sort in the relationship between Jesus and Mary, either in Scripture or in any authentic private revelation that gives details on their lives. Their union is and was always absolutely perfect and supreme. Luisa, on the other hand, is like us. That, in fact, is one reason why Jesus needed to use someone so very far beneath the Blessed Virgin to bestow these revelations upon the world: if Jesus created yet another Immaculate Conception (He never has and never will) to receive the Divine Will revelations, then we who read the revelations would feel discouraged and wrongly suppose that the Gift is not for us lowly sinners. (See the diary entry from November 11th, 1922).

Elsewhere in His very revelations to Luisa, Jesus dismisses as nonsense the notion that she is comparable to His own Mother, and He laments that some critics slanderously accused Luisa of this claim to equality with the Virgin:

“I was placing you near the Sovereign Queen, so that, She having lived in the Kingdom of my Divine Fiat, you might imitate Her, wanting to make of you a copy that resembles Her; and I placed you in Her hands, that She might guide you, assist you, protect you, so that you might imitate Her in everything – this seemed so absurd to them; and sinisterly misinterpreting the sense, they spoke as if I had told you that you were as though another Queen. How much nonsense – I did not say that you are like the Celestial Queen, but that I want you similar to Her, just as I have said to many other souls dear to Me that I wanted them similar to Me; but with this they would not become God like Me. And then, since the Celestial Lady is the true Queen of the Kingdom of my Will, it is Her task to help and teach the fortunate creatures who want to enter, to live in It.” (Jesus to Luisa, May 19, 1931)

The Blessed Virgin Mary is your mother and Jesus’ mother. She is your co-Redemptrix. She is your Advocate. She mediates all graces to you from her Divine Son. “What God is by nature, Mary has been given by grace,” (Jesus tells Luisa.) Luisa does none of these things and is none of these things.

9) In and of itself (that is, on the part of the substance of the object considered), absolutely nothing is greater or possibly could be greater than the Eucharist itself.

CCC 1324,1325:

This matter is a rather straightforward one. The Eucharist is, literally, God. It is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, of Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ is fully God. Therefore, the substance of the Eucharist itself is, simply, God. Nothing can possibly be greater than God, therefore nothing can possibly be greater than the Eucharist itself.

Various other things, however, can be “greater” than the Eucharist subjectively (i.e., in consideration of the benefit we incur); for example, A) the “transforming union” or “mystical marriage” which is itself the pinnacle of the 3rd stage (the “Unitive Way”) of the spiritual life, B) The Sacrament of Penance for someone who is in mortal sin (absolution would restore him to God’s friendship, whereas receiving the Eucharist in such a state would only increase his guilt), C) The Gift of Living in the Divine Will, D) Heaven. 

What I have written in the paragraph immediately above should be just as obvious as the one written two paragraphs above, and there should not be so many tempests in teapots now raging over this question about the Eucharist and the Gift of Living in the Divine Will!

Suppose you’re spending some time in a Church in Spain in the 16th century and in walks St. John of the Cross. He enjoys the highest holiness that one could (at that time) possibly attain: mystical marriage. Whom do you give more reverence to: that particular holy priest, or the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle in front of you both? Obviously, the latter. No matter how holy St. John was, he wasn’t God. The Blessed Sacrament is. On the other hand, which would be an even greater blessing for you: to arrive at the same holiness this amazing priest did, or to receive Communion at the Mass he celebrates? Equally obviously, the former. Attaining to that extraordinary degree of holiness is (usually) the result of (among many other things), thousands of receptions of Holy Communion. And if you happen to be in a state of mortal sin, the answer is even more obvious: receiving the Blessed Sacrament would be very, very bad for you. It would be sacrilege.

Jesus’ revelations to Luisa affirm this dynamic which is at once fully in accord with Catholic orthodoxy and also entirely forthright about the unsurpassable glory of the holiness that is the Gift of Living in the Divine Will.

A passage prone to misinterpretation would be, for example, the one from March 23, 1910, wherein Jesus speaks of His Divine Will as surpassing the Sacraments in some senses. As He explains, each Sacrament (including Communion), is subject to many difficulties and circumstances that often hinder their full subjective effects being appropriated by the recipient. His Divine Will, on the other hand, is always available, can overcome any obstacle, and living in it is always just one heartfelt “Fiat” away!

Not once in that passage (or anywhere else in the thousands of pages of Luisa’s Volumes), however, does Jesus say that the Gift of His Will is greater than the Eucharist itself, but only that His Will can surpass the act of receiving Communion itself. When we refer to “Communion,” we are usually referring not directly to the substance of the Eucharist, but rather to the act of our receiving the Eucharist, and accordingly we are — with this word “Communion” — emphasizing the graces we subjectively appropriate from such reception. Re-read paragraph 1325 of the Catechism (above). It refers to the “Eucharist” as the “cause” of the “communion.” Indeed, the different words are often used interchangeably, but they are not always merely repetitive: we employ both of them because each can have a slightly different connotation.

Jesus tells Luisa that in “the Sacrament of the Eucharist … my love overabounded in all possible and imaginable ways.” (June 12, 1928) In and of itself, therefore – since love itself is supreme in God, and since, in accordance with Jesus’ own words to Luisa, the love on display in the Eucharist cannot be surpassed – it is also thereby clear that in and of itself, the Eucharist is the greatest possible reality.  The only question that remains is what is the ultimate way of appropriating this reality within our own souls? Receiving Communion, yes. But there are many different levels of appropriation of grace from receiving Communion. The ultimate answer to that question, therefore, is: to Live in His Will. That is, to become a “Living Host.”

More theological considerations on this question are included in Part Three of Thy Will Be Done.

10) Baptism is needed and will always be needed to wash away original sin.

CCC 249, 537, 782:

Jesus tells Luisa that His Will is like “cement on the woodworm of original sin” (March 19th, 1926); that is, it prevents original sin from doing additional damage, through its effects, on the soul. But He never says it can replace Baptism by removing original sin itself — that is, the guilt of original sin. Only Baptism can do that.

Moreover, Our Lady is the only creature who ever has been or ever will be conceived without original sin. (Adam and Eve obviously were created without sin, but they were not conceived. Jesus, of course, had no sin, but as a Divine Person He was not created – though His human nature was.)

11) The human will is not a bad thing. It is a very good thing – it is, even more, the greatest thing God made! We are never called to Quietistically seek to annihilate/extinguish its operations.

Jesus says this explicitly to Luisa:

“My daughter, the human will on its own is nauseating, but united with Mine is the most beautiful thing I created.” (January 31st, 1928)

Any and all descriptions of the “evil” of the human will, no matter how frequently one finds these within Luisa’s Volumes, are only in reference to the human will’s operation opposed to/apart from the Divine Will.

Our task in striving to Live in the Divine Will is never to quietistically seek to annihilate the human will as if it were a disease, but only to hand it over entirely to God, which in fact renders the will more active, not less so.

“Jesus wants our will alive, so that it may feel all the good, as His operating Will lays Its acts in it. The human will becomes the residence of the Divine, and gives It all the freedom to dominate and to do whatever It wants.” (Luisa’s Letter to Mrs. Antonietta Savorani.)

In fact, it is precisely because our rational free will is our greatest possession that our greatest dignity lies in handing it over, completely, to God. “The best thing that one can do with the best of things is to sacrifice it.” – Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange

As I wrote on page 341 of Thy Will Be Done:

12) The supreme height of the grace that is the Gift of Living in the Divine Will does not ever detract from the importance of the traditional graces of Christian, Catholic life. Sacraments, moral virtues, theological virtues, gifts of the holy Spirit, fruits of the Holy Spirit, almsgiving, works of mercy, examinations of conscience, other private revelations, mortification, prayers, repentance, intentions, devotions, pious practices, etc., etc., etc., all remain just as important for a child of the Divine Will as for any Catholic.

No follower of the Divine Will should ever be caught dead in any way minimizing the extreme importance of any of these things. 

Did the Psalms become unimportant merely because the Gospel is greater still? Certainly not; only the opposite. Did the 10 Commandments become unimportant merely because the Beatitudes perfected them? Far from it. Did the Sacred Heart devotion become unimportant upon the promulgation of St. Faustina’s Divine Mercy revelations? No! (And this list could be extended for many pages)

This point # 12 was the main thrust of my earlier post.

Luisa’s revelations contain the greatest exaltations of the virtues, the Sacraments, traditional Catholic teachings, etc., I have ever read. And not only in the earlier volumes; but all the way to the very end of Volume 36. Whoever would minimize these things, on account of the fact that Living in the Divine Will is the greatest grace, does grave injustice to Jesus’ revelations to Luisa, and scandalizes the faithful.

The “pre-Gift” prayers, devotions, traditions, sacraments and sacramentals, exhortations, saint’s examples, pious practices, etc., presented to us by the Church remain every bit as important now as they ever were. I would advise staying far away from any Divine Will promoter who appears to treat this glorious Catholic heritage of ours with a diminished perspective of its proper exaltation. For this means he likely erroneously treats Luisa’s revelations in a way she never did – that is, as some sort of a new dispensation; a new Public Revelation that replaces what came before.

For just one example, consider that Luisa herself admonished us to never neglect the Rosary, (Letter to Vincenzo Messina), and her revelations describe “the beads of [Our Lady’s] Rosary” bringing about the Era of Peace. (October 7, 1928)

A few more things must be called out by name here; this time in the strongest of terms that will offend some, but must be used. Only an utterly deluded and false “child of the Divine Will,” likely treading the path to perdition, could dare attempt to justify laziness, or gluttony, or neglect of mortification/examination of conscience/works of mercy, or sensuality, or worldliness, or intemperance, or indulgent and luxurious living, etc., under the notion “but I live in the Divine Will! Everything I do is participating in the one Eternal Fiat! I’m embracing The All! It doesn’t matter what I’m doing or not doing; all that matters is my Fiat!” Such nonsense is as contrary as possible to the exhortations in Luisa’s volumes. Indeed, when it is God’s Will for us, taking rest/reasonable, moral, and moderate enjoyment/etc.,  can be very holy, and can be undertaken as an Act in the Divine Will. But these things are not always God’s Will for us! Usually, in fact, they are not. Most of our waking time is spent  — and will continue to be spent, even if we receive the Gift! — working, praying the traditional prayers of the Church (Mass, Rosary, Scripture Reading, Divine Office, etc.), undertaking the less-than-pleasurable duties of our state in life, etc. So be sure to likewise stay far away from any Divine Will follower or promoter who tries to leverage these revelations into the very opposite of what they are by twisting them into a justification to remain in a lifestyle mired in self-will and slothfully avoid the rigor of the traditional Catholic understanding of the moral, spiritual, and religious life. They are the Joel Osteen’s of the Divine Will movement. Honestly, I cannot at the moment think of a single Divine Will promoter who has succumbed to this mindset, but I can think of a few followers who seem to have done so.

13) Receiving the Gift of Living in the Divine Will entails an “accidental,” not ontological, change in the human person.

CCC 2005:

The Gift of Living in the Divine Will is a grace.

It is the grace of graces, yes! Jesus repeatedly tells Luisa, concerning the Gift, “Greater Grace I could not give.” But even this, of course, indicates that the Gift is still a grace. All graces, however, are by nature “accidents.” That is, they are qualities that inhere in a substance (in this case, the human soul). Each human person will only ever undergo three ontological changes: conception (and the simultaneous miraculous, supernatural infusion of a spiritual soul into the embryonic matter), death, and the re-uniting of soul and body at the General Resurrection. Even if you somehow knew that you had the Gift, you would still be just as much yourself as you were before receiving it.  You still mean the same thing by the word, “I,” and you should keep using the word, “I”!

The Eucharistic Host does indeed undergo an ontological change upon the Transubstantiation. It is no longer bread, but God. That is why we worship it, but would never worship a person with the Gift of Living in the Divine Will, even if we somehow knew he or she enjoyed the Gift. That is also precisely why we can never refer to the “Transubstantiation of the Soul” with the Gift (what St. Maximilian Kolbe called the “Transubstantiation of the Self into the Immaculata” see Page 107 of Thy Will Be Done) in the same way we refer to the Transubstantiation of the Eucharist. This is why I prefer to use St. Faustina’s terms: the “Transconsecration of the self into a Living Host.” 

Moreover, while Jesus gives many indications within the volumes of what the soul can expect to “see” in itself as it receives the Gift, we should not ever speak (in relation to ourselves or other living people) of enjoying the Gift with the type of certainty we can have in — for example — the validity of the Sacraments properly administered. The Gift of Living in the Divine Will — as one bare minimum prerequisite — requires that one be in a State of Grace. Even that, however (see the Catechism quote above), is not something we can be certain of in our own souls. Obviously, therefore, if we cannot be certain of a prerequisite for the Gift, we must never strut about with a fabricated pseudo-certainty that we have the Gift! Like Joan of Arc, you should respond — if anyone is silly enough to ask you if you Live in the Divine Will — “Please pray that I may do so!”

In a word: Please don’t ever assume you have the Gift, and even more importantly, please don’t ever present yourself to others as someone who “Lives in the Divine Will”! It is extremely important that all children of the Divine Will be utterly steeped in profound, self-forgetting humility.

14) In some senses, “ordinary” Christian Holiness, even aside from the Gift of Living in the Divine Will, is already superior to Original Holiness.

CCC 349, 374:

This is a delicate and nuanced theological matter. It is dealt with on page 286 of Thy Will Be Done. There is Magisterium that testifies to the superiority of Original Holiness (e.g., the Preface of Virgins in the Roman Missal, “you call human nature back to its original holiness,” whereas all “calls” imply seeking what is above, whereas this particular call is issued to those who already have Christian holiness), and there is Magisterium that testifies to the superiority of Christian Holiness (e.g., the Catechism quote above). We are, therefore, dealing with one of the multitude of questions in our Faith wherein “it depends” is the only fair answer to the question, “which is better, A or B?” St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa, likewise teaches on the subtle distinctions at work here:

“Nevertheless he [Adam] knew God with a more perfect knowledge than we do now. Thus in a sense his knowledge was midway between our knowledge in the present state, and the knowledge we shall have in heaven … In the state of innocence [Original Holiness] man’s works were more meritorious than after sin was committed, if we consider the degree of merit on the part of grace, which would have been more copious as meeting with no obstacle in human nature: and in like manner, if we consider the absolute degree of the work done; because, as man would have had greater virtue, he would have performed greater works. But if we consider the proportionate degree, a greater reason for merit exists after sin, on account of man’s weakness; because a small deed is more beyond the capacity of one who works with difficulty than a great deed is beyond one who performs it easily.” (Summa Theologica. I. Q95. A4.)

Some Fathers of the Church also clearly teach that Adam’s holiness exceeded Christian Holiness, as they insist that the Holy Spirit was the veritable “vital principle” if his soul (which — though these Fathers of course did not realize at the time!– is a precisely identical way of saying that Adam Lived in the Divine Will). As Fr. John Hardon teaches, “The Fathers explicitly teach that the first man possessed [deification]… which Adam lost by the fall … some of the Greek Fathers, like Basil and Cyril of Alexandria, believed that the supernatural sanctification of Adam is indicated in Genesis 2:7 … the grace of the Holy Spirit as [Adam’s] supernatural vital principle… the Fathers’ common belief that Adam received both natural and supernatural life is a witness to Christian tradition.”

Nevertheless, it is important for all followers of the Divine Will to understand that it is not licit for a Christian to regard his task of sanctification as entirely consisting in a mere return to the holiness enjoyed by Adam and Eve before the Fall. As we have seen, there are ways in which his holiness was superior to ours, and there are ways in which the holiness available even upon the very birth of Christianity is and was superior to his. What God offers us in the Gift of Living in the Divine Will is the value of both of these types of holiness together. 

This matter relates to one of the more unfortunate bad translation issues with Luisa’s volumes. Some unofficial manuscript translations of Luisa’s volumes rendered their very subtitle as “the call of the creature to return to the … order for which it was created by God...”, which could be wrongly taken as implying that Adam already had everything that God ultimately willed for man and that it could only possibly be downhill from there, thus rendering our mission nothing other than an extreme “Society of Saint Adam” form of ultra-ultra-ultra radical traditionalism! That is, of course, absurd. For although the Dénouement resembles the Exposition, it also exceeds it (see Chapter 23 of Thy Will Be Done or the opening chapters of The Crown of History).

The Italian, however, reads “Il richiamo della creatura nell’ordine…”, that is, “the call of the creature to the order…” The difference is that the proper translation does not include the English word “return.” Indeed, God never merely turns back the clock, and the inclusion of that word in the poor translations can be interpreted in a way contrary to Catholic orthodoxy and contrary to Jesus’ revelations to Luisa.  

For in truth, God always increases His graces and favors. What He offers us now is even greater than what Adam enjoyed before the Fall. This is triply true with the Gift of Living in the Divine Will within the context of Christian, Catholic sanctification, but it was even true before the era of the Gift, in the “ordinary” context of Catholic tradition, for Jesus tells Luisa:

“My daughter, I created the creature beautiful, noble, with eternal and divine origin, full of happiness and worthy of Me. Sin ruined him from top to bottom, it made him decay from his nobility, it deformed him, and rendered him the most unhappy creature, unable to grow, because sin stopped his growth and covered him with wounds, such as to be repugnant to the mere sight.
Now, my Redemption ransomed the creature from sin, and my Humanity acted just like a tender mother with her newborn…With my wounds I covered their deformities, rendering them more beautiful than before. And if, in creating them, I made them like clearest and noble heavens, in Redemption I adorned them, studding them with the most refulgent stars of my wounds so as to cover their ugliness and make them more beautiful. To their wounds and deformities I attached the diamonds, the pearls, the jewels of my pains in order to hide all their evils and clothe them with such magnificence as to surpass their state of origin. Therefore, it is with reason that the Church says, ‘Happy fault’, because with sin came Redemption; and my Humanity not only nourished them with Its Blood, but clothed them with Its own Person, and adorned them with Its own beauty. ( Jesus to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta. February 26, 1922)

Before concluding this point I must note that properly, accurately, and completely describing the relation between Original Holiness and Christian Holiness has long escaped and perplexed the Church’s greatest minds. Here (and in many other passages), we see the matter dealt with perfectly in the writings of a lowly, uneducated, bedridden Italian lay woman born in 1865. This is just one of countless proofs of the supernatural origin of these revelations (see Part 4 of Thy Will Be Done).

15) Man’s Divinization will never be literal and complete.

CCC 300:

“I have said to many other souls dear to Me that I wanted them similar to Me; but with this they would not become God like Me.” – Jesus to Luisa. May 19, 1931.

Not with the Gift of Living in the Divine Will, not in the Era, and not even in Heaven, will the difference between Creator and creature be eliminated; rather, it is only that the distance will be closed.

We will always be intrinsically finite and the finite can never completely contain the infinite. Moreover, the difference between the creature and the Creator will always be infinite. All eternity will not succeed in exhausting what God is; each “day” there will be entirely new for us!

While it is true that, with the Gift, we are given the greatest graces even possible, that last word (“possible”), which qualifies what we receive, is extremely important!

Jesus constantly reiterates this theme to Luisa; He frequently tells her that the Gift actualizes certain graces in the soul only:

“…as much as is possible for the creature...”

(-for example, July 24th, 1932, August 6th, 1933, September 4th, 1905, October 6th, 1922, etc. etc.)

With these and many other similar qualifications (extremely important, though sometimes brief enough that the careless reader will miss them), Jesus is reminding us that His revelations to Luisa, like all mysticism, is not intended as a theology textbook; and that, accordingly, we are to consult orthodox Catholic theology for the proper understanding of these themes.

While Jesus often does provide the necessary distinctions for the proper orthodox Catholic understanding of His revelations to Luisa within the revelations themselves, He does not always do this. Instead, He simply entrusts these revelations to the sole authority and competence of the Catholic Church and submits them entirely to the domain of her Magisterium — which, recall, He also is in control of!

16) Non-human created things (plants, animals, earth, stars, planets, water, minerals, etc.) are NOT Divine, do NOT have reason, are NOT God, and are NOT “incarnations” of God. They do NOT enjoy infinite/intrinsic dignity (as man does).

CCC 356:

Of all physical creation, man alone is intrinsically valuable; there are no other exceptions. Absolutely nothing else bears the Image of God as man does.

 A few Divine Will followers, hoping to encourage people to do The Rounds (see Chapter 16 of Thy Will Be Done)  have said very foolish things like “everything you see is God.” This is Pantheism, contrary to Catholic dogma, and also starkly contrary to what Jesus tells Luisa. For example, He tells her, on August 9th, 1925: 

“My daughter, all created things were nothing other than an act of Our Will that issued them; nor can they move, or change the effects, the position or the office which each of them received by its Creator.  They are nothing other than mirrors in which man was to admire the reflections of the qualities of his Creator… Yet, what the created things cannot do, because they are without a free will, and because they were created to serve man, man can do, because he was to serve God.  So, all Our love was centralized in man, and this is why We placed all Creation at his disposal, all ordered around him – that man might make use of Our works like as many stairs and ways in order to come to Us, to know Us, and to love Us.

There is no hint of Pantheism, monism, or new-age-ism anywhere in Luisa’s revelations. Quite the contrary, these revelations powerfully refute each of these errors. Tragically, however, each of these errors is utterly rampant in modern society; therefore those who, from secular influences, were already inclined to these errors may be disposed to badly interpret some passages in Jesus’ words to Luisa. Please do not succumb to this! Open up Luisa’s volumes and read, and you will constantly be exposed to passages that utterly repudiate any notion that creation itself is Divine, or anything of the sort.

Jesus even tells Luisa that “the purpose of Creation was man” (November 20th, 1929), and that man was to be the “king of all created things.” (July 29th, 1926.) He moreover says that physical creation was merely made to house Man, but the soul of man was made to house God.

17) After the Gift’s first reception by Luisa (in 1889), any other person is and was perfectly capable of receiving and speaking of the Gift, even without explicit knowledge of Luisa’s revelations.

This last item on the list is perhaps not directly a matter of  Catholic Orthodoxy one way or the other, but the few followers of Luisa who take an unorthodox approach to her revelations also tend to err on this matter, so I do want to address it here as well. It is, moreover, at least indirectly a matter of Catholic Orthodoxy, as the singularity these followers wrongly place on the person of Luisa might testify to a certain attitude of elitism and Gnosticism that is quite un-Catholic, or even an attitude that erroneously regards Luisa as the sole evangelist of a new Public Revelation. 

“… With you I opened the doors of my Will,”

Jesus said (in the past tense) to Luisa on January 25th, 1922. Clarifying the implications of such an opening of the doors, Jesus tells Luisa on January 24th, 1923,

“… since I have opened the doors, others may enter, provided that they dispose themselves to such a great good.”

Now, when one reads Volume 1, wherein Luisa describes her spiritual experiences before recording Jesus’ messages in 1899, it is clear that she received the Gift of Living in the Divine Will a decade earlier.

And as we see above, Jesus Himself insists that all that was needed was His opening up of the doors to the Gift with Luisa first, and that the only pre-requisite for receiving the Gift after that point is the proper disposition, not necessarily explicit knowledge of Luisa’s revelations! (Though that is extremely, extremely helpful! Hence the enormous, unparalleled importance of proclaiming the Divine Will.)

It is impossible to fail to see the Gift of Living in the Divine Will clearly described in the revelations of Jesus to Saint Faustina, Blessed Conchita, and many others who died long before any access to Luisa’s revelations was possible (see Part Three of Thy Will Be Done). No follower of Luisa has any right to insist that explicit knowledge of Luisa’s volumes is absolutely required to Live in the Divine Will, or to claim that Living in the Divine Will was impossible before Luisa herself died. Such a person would be injecting into Luisa’s revelations something they neither contain nor imply.

Indeed, one will not find the deepest expositions of the Gift, and all that it entails, anywhere else. But the Gift itself is nevertheless certainly pervasive within 20th century mysticism. See for yourself.

Conclusion: A Simple Shortcut

The 17 points above do not exhaustively address of all the bad interpretations of Luisa’s revelations that are, unfortunately, out there. Even more, some readers may fear they will forget some of those 17 points. For both reasons, I present the following shortcut to keep newcomers to the Divine Will movement safe:

Are you a well catechized Catholic, who frequents the Sacraments, who tries his best to remain in a state of grace, who zealously avoids all heresy/modernism/unorthodoxy, who prays the Rosary, who listens to good teachers on the Faith, who reads other trustworthy private revelations (e.g. Faustina, Agreda, Emmerich), who reads Scripture regularly, etc.?

Then trust your gut.

If a given Divine Will promoter just feels off to you — if he or she regularly says things that just seem weird to you, or that you don’t feel entirely at peace with, or that come off as strange, or that seem at odds with good Catholic sensibilities, or that appear in tension with Sacred Tradition or solid piety, etc. — then steer clear of that person. There are tons of Divine Will promoters out there. Not one of them (least of all myself!) gets it all right. Not one of them is “the” representative of the Divine Will, or “the” theologian of the Divine Will. If you don’t feel entirely comfortable with any one of them, then you are always better off simply leaving them aside — no matter how many people have recommended him or her –instead of guilt-tripping yourself into feeling like you must continue heeding his or her expositions of the Divine Will. Instead, just dive into the Divine Will revelations directly yourself!  

***

Addendum on the Catechism

I am not claiming that every Catholic is duty bound to regard every single word of the Catechism as if it were an ex-Cathedra definition of papal Magisterium, much less as if it were Sacred Scripture. Obviously, that approach would also be flawed.

My point, rather, is to emphasize what follows from Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic constitution (a very weighty Magisterial document), Fidei Depositum:

…and also to emphasize the truth of Cardinal Ratzinger’s insistence that “…[the Catechism] transmits what the Church teaches, whoever rejects it as a whole separates himself beyond question from the faith…”

My point, therefore, is that if someone says to himself, “No, I’m not going to place the Catechism on a higher pedestal than Luisa’s revelations. I’m going to heed the Catechism when I want to, but I’m going to prefer my own favorite private revelation’s teachings over the Catechism’s”, then such a person has done exactly what Cardinal Ratzinger described above. Such a person isn’t even Catholic, therefore he surely is no child of the Divine Will; and even if he presents himself as a Divine Will Promoter – even if he is a theologian, a scholar, or a priest! – he should be ignored, and we should pray for his conversion. 

[Here I should note that those Catholics who would place any private revelation above the Catechism are extremely few — in the case of Luisa’s revelations, I have only noticed a miniscule fraction of them doing so. Today in the Church, the far greater problem is of course those who place the teachings of science, modern society, mainstream media, culture, dissenting theologians, politics, etc., above the Catechism. For this reason especially, we, dear remnant Faithful, must redouble our zeal in proclaiming fidelity to the Catechism as the remedy for the Great Apostasy now devastating the Church!!]

Now, unlike Sacred Scripture, the Catechism was not authored by the Holy Spirit. Rather, it was protected by the Holy Spirit.  (See page 385 in Crown of Sanctity for more on this point) Since the Holy Spirit is the primary author of every word of Sacred Scripture (no, the human men who wrote the pages themselves were not the primary authors), it would be blasphemy to fail to realize that it is a perfect book. The Catechism, on the other hand, – while it must be submitted to – needn’t be regarded as perfect. I, for one, wish it included more excerpts from the older (pre-Vatican II) Magisterial Documents, each and every one of which remains just as binding upon Catholics today as it ever was.

Moreover, while what the Catechism does expressly insist upon or expressly insist against must be submitted to, there is no reason to suppose that the Catechism is sufficient. Necessary? Yes, absolutely. Sufficient? No. The Catechism says nothing about many extremely important things for us Catholics to know about: Fatima, St. Faustina, Our Lady of Guadalupe, etc. It gives us no cautions against Transgenderism and a number of other postmodern evils. It does not encourage us to pray the Rosary every day or go to Confession at least once a month, etc. There are many mortal sins it does not address, and there are many duties it does not delineate. But that is not all.

In terms of Eschatology, the Catechism focuses almost exclusively on what will transpire at the very end of time and thereafter. There is all its focus on the Coming of the Kingdom of God, the Coming of Christ, etc. There is nothing wrong with that focus at all. Eschatologically speaking, those things are certainly the most important! But the fact that the Catechism focuses on these understandings does not in the least mean that heeding the Catechism, as I here admonish, should mean we must ignore the Coming of the Kingdom of God on earth, the Reign of the Divine Will, the Era of Peace, the Fulfillment of the Our Father (again, see Part Five of Thy Will Be Done!). God saved proclaiming these missions for Scripture, direct Papal Magisterium, and authentic Private Revelation. Expounding upon it simply isn’t the Catechism’s job. But the Catechism surely does not repudiate it!

Furthermore, if and when the Catechism emphasizes one understanding of a given Scriptural passage, this must not be understood as condemning other non-contradictory understandings of the same passage. As I wrote on page 237 of Thy Will Be Done:

Indeed, the Catechism’s presentation of several Scriptural passages in their eternally-oriented sense does not indicate that these passages cannot be said to have a temporally oriented sense as well.

Therefore, rest assured that this post’s utter insistence upon strict adherence to the Catechism — while absolutely called for — does not in the least imply that our mission must be restricted to advocating for only those things we can find specifically delineated within its pages. The Catechism is a great Gift from God and, I am convicted, is a work protected by the Holy Spirit and direly needed for our times. But it is not a substitution for the Holy Spirit! Heed His voice in prayer, and I am certain that He will inspire in your heart a sure and certain hope in the Coming of the Kingdom on earth, in fulfillment of the Our Father Prayer, and a corresponding overwhelming zeal to do your part in bring it about.

LONG LIVE CHRIST THE KING!!!