Flower of Devotion

To the angel who prayed for the bride of his Lord, the Lord said:

“You are like a fighter of the Lord, who never takes off the helmet of suffering, and who never turns his eyes away from the battle because of the fear of the Lord. You are strong as a mountain, burning as a flame. You are so clean that there is no stain on you. Do you desire mercy for My bride? Although you know and see everything in Me, yet tell me, so that the bride may hear what mercy you ask for her? For mercy is threefold.
One thing is that by virtue of which the body is punished and the soul is spared. This was the case with My friend Job, whose body was subject to all kinds of sufferings, while his soul was free from them.
The second kind of mercy is that when the soul and body are free from suffering, as we see in the case of that king, who gave himself up to all pleasures, and as long as he lived in the world suffered no pain either in soul or body.
The third kind of mercy is when the soul and body are punished, so that a person has sorrow in the body and suffering in the heart, as was the case with Peter and Paul and the other saints.
There are also three kinds of people in the world. The first is those who fall into sin and rise again—these I sometimes allow to feel sorrow in the flesh in order to save them.
The second kind is made up of those who would rather live forever so that they can sin forever, who have turned all their will into the world, and if they sometimes do something for Me, it is in order to take away the temporal benefit and benefit of it—such do not suffer either corporal punishment or great sorrow of heart in life on earth. only they are left to their own strength and their own will. This is because for all the good they have done for Me, they are rewarded here on earth, so that they can suffer forever afterwards; for because their wills were continually turned to sin, their punishment will also be continual.
The third type includes those who are far more afraid of sinning against Me and violating My will than of any punishment. They would rather suffer unbearably for eternity than deliberately provoke Me to anger – to these I send sorrow of body and soul, as I did to Peter and Paul and the other saints, so that what they have sinned in this world they may also correct in this world, or they may be purified for a time for My greater glory and for the example of others.