Flower of Devotion

According to the revelations of the venerable Mary of Jesus.
The predecessor of the Divine Savior, Saint John the Baptist, went into the desert after the death of his mother, where he stayed until the time previously determined by God’s wisdom. In the desert Saint John lived a life more angelic than human; he lived more like a seraphim than an earthly pilgrim. He also communed only with God and His angels. This was his main occupation; Besides, he never indulged in idleness. He constantly exercised himself in love and in those heroic virtues which had been instilled in his soul already in his mother’s womb. Divine grace was never idle in him, but was constantly active, and his works never lacked the highest perfection that he could give them with all his strength. His senses were never an obstacle to perfection, although they are usually the windows in men, through which death, clothed in the deceptive beauty of creatures, it enters their souls (Jer. 9. 21). The senses of Saint John the Baptist were turned away from earthly things. And since this great saint had the good fortune of seeing the Light of God before the light of the natural sun, he consigned to oblivion everything that the natural sun presented to his senses, by the grace of God, so that his spiritual eyes remained fixed and constantly focused on the most noble object, that can exist, that is, to the Essence of God and His infinite perfections. The extraordinary graces that he received from God while staying in the desert are beyond all human understanding; only when we come to see the Deity will we recognize his holiness and his great merits from the reward he received from the saints.
When the time came for the world to hear the voice of “one crying in the desert” according to God’s decree, Saint John left the desert as a preacher. He was dressed in a robe of camel hair and tied with a leather belt. He walked barefoot. His face was thin; her expression was serious and wonderful, full of incomparable decency and deep humility. He had invincibly great courage; his heart burned with love for God and his neighbors. His words were full of power, life, seriousness and fire, like a spark of lightning thrown by the hand of God. Saint John was gentle to the gentle, full of love to the humble, terrible to the proud and hardened sinners, a wonderful phenomenon to angels and men, terrifying to devils. He was an instrument of the incarnate Word and a preacher needed by the harsh, ungrateful and stubborn Jewish people of that time. This nation that had a pagan government and had stingy and arrogant priests; this nation without light, without prophets, without piety, which, despite the numerous punishments it had incurred because of its sins, lived without the fear of God.
Saint John was to open the eyes and hearts of this people, in such a deplorable living condition, to know and accept their Redeemer and Master in Jesus Christ, who would soon appear publicly.