Fr. Gennaro De Gennaro

Luisa’s confessor for twenty-four years (1898-1922)

His words in ardent poetry. 
References from the Writings.

Daughter of the Divine Will, little secretary[1] of the Will of God,

Prop[2] of agonizing Jesus in Gethsemani,

Most luminous and most speedy little boat[3] in the tempestuous sea of the world,

I hail you in the wills of Jesus and of Mary.

All is astonishment!  Those who will live shall see.

And I, shall I have and see nothing, after twenty-four years[4] of modest work,

Which I have tried to do as best I could in my great misery?

Pray for me – what I suffer only the Divine Will knows.

I would like to flee from this bed, and would like to get up,

But everything in the Will of God!

Pray, pray for me, a tribulated one.

I have kept your book[5] on my breast and under my pillow like a Sacrament;

I have ardently asked for spiritual graces;

As for the temporal, I have commended myself to His Divine Will.

Is it OK like this?

A poor tribulated and abandoned one

“My heart is on fire!”

*  *  *

O secretary of the Divine Will,

Whose many arcana the Highest Good reveals,

Remind Him of my afflictions and of my pains,

And tell Him to have pity on me.

O prop of the Divine Redeemer,

Agonizing in the Garden of Olives,

Be the prop of a suffering priest

And pray to the Redeemer cleaving.

O luminous little boat sailing in the sea of the Will of the Lord,

Receive a sinful priest, that he may not one day be shipwrecked.

*  *  *

March 13, 1922  Volume 14
The great good that hearing the truths brings.

As I was in my usual state, I found myself in the midst of a flowery valley in which I found my late confessor, who died on the tenth of the current month[6].  According to his habit when he lived down here, he told me:  “Tell me, what did Jesus say to you?”  And I:  ‘He spoke to me in my interior, He did not tell me anything with words; and you know that I don’t take into account the things which I hear in my interior.’  And he:  “I want to hear also what He told you in your interior.”  And I, as though forced:  ‘He told me:  “My daughter, I carry you in my arms.  My arms will serve you as a little boat to let you sail in the interminable sea of my Will.  Then, as you do your acts in my Volition, you will form the sails, the mast, the anchor, which will serve not only as ornament to the little boat, but to make it move faster.  The love I have for one who lives in my Will is so great that I carry her in my arms without ever leaving her.”  And while He was saying this, I saw the arms of Jesus in a shape of a little boat, and myself in the middle of it.’

On hearing this, the confessor told me:  “You must know that when Jesus speaks to you and manifests His truths to you, it is rays of light that drop upon you.  Back then, when you manifested them to me, not having His virtue, you manifested them drop by drop, and yet my soul remained all filled with those drops of light.  That light gave me greater spur, more desire to hear more truths, to be able to receive more light, because the truths bring celestial fragrance and divine sensation - and this, by just hearing them.  What will it be for those who practice them?  This is why I loved - I desired so much to hear what Jesus told you, and I wanted to tell others:  it was light and fragrance that I felt, and I wanted others to share in them.  If you knew the great good that my soul has received in hearing the truths which Jesus was saying to you!  How it still drips with light, and emanates celestial fragrance, which not only gives me refreshment, but serves as light to me and to those who are near me.  And as you do your acts in the Divine Volition, I take special part in them, because I feel the seed of His Most Holy Will which you were sowing in me.”  And I:  ‘Let me see your soul - how does it drip with light?’  He opened himself on the side of the heart, and I saw his soul all dripping with light.  Those drops were merging and separating, one flowing over the other - it was beautiful to look at.  And he:  “Have you seen?  How beautiful it is to hear the truths!  Those who do not hear them drip with such darkness as to strike terror.”

June 15, 1923  Volume 15
What perfect charity is.

Continuing in my usual state, I was praying that my always lovable Jesus would deign to come and visit my poor soul; and He, all goodness, came and made Himself seen, and with His holy hand He touched me all over, and as He did so, He left a light as a mark on each spot where He touched me.  After this, Jesus disappeared, and my first late confessor[7] came and told me:  “I too want to touch those points where Our Lord touched you.”

Almost not wanting, but not having the strength to oppose myself, I let him do; and as he was doing so, that light which Jesus had left in touching me, was communicated to him, and he was as though invested with so much light for as many times as he touched me, on those same spots where Jesus had touched me.  I remained surprised, and the confessor told me:  “The Lord sent me to give me the reward of the merit I acquired when I used to come to you out of charity, and acted upon you.  Now this has turned for me into light of eternal glory.”

Afterwards, my second confessor came[8], who also passed away, and told me:  “Tell me what Jesus said to you; I want to hear it, so that the light of the divine truths may unite to the many lights of the truths which the Lord told you, with which I, in hearing them from you when I was alive, remained almost soaked.  Now the Lord has sent me to confirm to me the reward of the merit I acquired by wanting to hear the truth.  If you knew what it means to hear the divine truths!  What charm of light they contain!  The sun would remain eclipsed by the good they bring to those who say them and to those who listen to them.  You would compete to say them to those who feel the duty to listen to them.  Therefore, hurry, tell me, what did He say to you?”

And I, remembering that Jesus had told me what “charity” means, said that to him.  My words turned into light and invested him; then, all content, he disappeared. 

Now I will say what Jesus told me about charity:  “My daughter, with its power, charity can convert all things into love.  Look at the fire:  all varieties of wood and any other thing, it converts them all into fire; and if it did not have the power to turn everything into fire, it could not be given the name of true fire.  The same for the soul:  if she does not convert all things into love – both supernatural and natural things, joys and bitternesses, and all that surrounds her – she cannot be said to possess true charity.”

Now, as He was saying this, He let many flames unleash from His Most Holy Heart, which filled Heaven and earth, and then, uniting together, formed one single flame.  And He added:  “Continuous flames of love come from my Heart, and to some they bring love, to some suffering, to some light, to others strength, etc.  And since they come from the center of the furnace of my Love, even though they do different offices, since one is the purpose – to send love to the creature – they are all flames which, uniting together, form one single flame.  The same with the creature:  even if she does different things, the purpose must be love, in order to form many little flames from her actions, which, uniting together, will form the great flame which will burn everything and will transform her completely into Me.  Otherwise, she will not possess true charity.”

June 1, 1924  Volume 16
The great good produced by remembering everything that Jesus did, suffered and said in His life. 

This morning I found myself outside of myself, and I saw my last late confessor[9], surrounded by many people who were all attentive and as though enraptured in listening to him; and he spoke and spoke, and became so inflamed as to inflame the others.  I drew near to hear what he was saying, and to my surprise I heard that he was saying all that my blessed Jesus had told me – His finesses of love, the many condescensions of Jesus toward me.  And when he spoke of the stratagems of love of Jesus toward me, he radiated light, to the point of remaining transfused within that light; and not only himself, but also those who were listening to him.  I remained surprised, and I said to myself:  ‘The confessor has done this not only in life – telling the things of my soul to others – but he is doing it also after his death, in the next life.’  And I was waiting for him to finish speaking, so as to be able to approach him and tell him of some difficulty of mine; but he would not finish, and I found myself inside myself.

Then, according to my usual way, I followed my beloved Jesus in His Passion, compassionating Him, repairing Him, and making His pains my own.  And Jesus, moving in my interior, told me:  ‘My daughter, how much great good does the memory of Me and of everything I did, suffered and said in my Life, procure for the soul.  By compassionating Me and making my intentions her own, and by remembering, one by one, my pains, my works, my words, she calls them into herself and places them in neat order within her soul, in such a way as to come to take the fruits of what I did, suffered and said.  This produces a sort of divine humidness within the soul, over which the sun of my grace delights in rising and in forming celestial dew, by virtue of that humidity.  And not only does this dew embellish the soul in a marvelous way, but it has the virtue of mitigating the rays of the burning sun of my divine justice when, finding souls burned by the fire of sin, it is about to strike them, burn them and wither them more.  Tempering its rays, this divine dew uses them to form beneficial dew so that creatures may not be struck, and it constitutes itself vital humidity so as not to let them wither.  Oh! how this symbolizes nature when, after a day of scorching sun, the plants are about to wither:  a humid night is enough and, rising again over that humidity, the sun forms its dew, and instead of making them perish, its heat serves to fecundate them and to bring to completion the maturation of their fruits. 

The same happens, in a more marvelous way, in the supernatural order.  The memory is the beginning of a good.  The memory forms many sips for the soul in order to give her life.  When some good - when things are forgotten, they lose the vital virtue for the soul, they lose their attractiveness, the gratitude, the correspondence, the esteem, the love, the value.  And not only does this memory produce the origin of every good in life, but after one’s death also it produces the origin of glory.  Have you not heard your late confessor – how he delighted in speaking about the graces I have given you?  This is because during his life he cared about hearing them, he remembered them, and his interior remained filled with them to the point of overflowing outside.  And now, how much good did this not procure for him in the next life?  It is for him like a fount of good which overflows for the good of others.  So, the more the soul remembers what belongs to Me, my graces, the lessons I have given her, the more the fount of my goods grows within her, to the point that, unable to contain them, they overflow for the good of others.”