the Blood of Christ. The pruning of the vine has to be done according
to certain rules which were made known to me. This pruning is, in a
spiritual sense, the cutting off whatever is useless, penance and
mortification, that so the true Vine may grow in us, and bring forth
fruit, in the place of corrupt nature, which only bears wood and
leaves. The pruning is done according to fixed rules, for it is only
required that certain useless shoots should be cut off in man, and to
lop off more would be to mutilate in a guilty manner. No pruning should
ever be done upon the stock which has been planted in humankind through
the Blessed Virgin, and is to remain in it for ever. The true Vine
unites heaven to earth, the Divinity to humanity; and it is the human
part that is to be pruned, that so the divine alone may grow. I saw so
many other things relating to the vine that a book as large as the
Bible could not contain them. One day, when I was suffering acute pain
in my chest, I besought our Lord with groans not to give me a burthen
above my strength to bear; and then my Heavenly Spouse appeared, and
said to me, ... "I have laid thee on my nuptial couch, which is a couch of
suffering; I have given thee suffering and expiation for thy bridal
garments and jewels. Thou must suffer, but I will not forsake thee;
thou art fastened to the Vine, and thou wilt not be lost." Then I was
consoled for all my sufferings. It was likewise explained to me why in
my visions relating to the feasts of the family of Jesus, such, for
instance, as those of St. Anne, St. Joachim, St. Joseph, etc., I always
saw the Church of the festival under the figure of a shoot of the vine.
The same was the case on the festivals of St. Francis of Assisi, St.
Catherine of Sienna, and of all the saints who have had the stigmas.

'The signification of my sufferings in all my limbs was explained to
me in the following vision: I saw a gigantic human body in a horrible
state of mutilation, and raised upwards towards the sky. There were no