It’s almost Christmas! Let us prepare ourselves for the Great Feast of Holy Christmas by meditating on the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, attentively and continuously, during the Season of Advent, with the Christmas Novena (the Nine Excesses of Love) which Luisa did for the first time at the age of seventeen, and which she never abandoned during the course of her life.
From a letter of Saint Annibale Maria di Francia to Luisa: J.M.J.A. Messina, February 14, 1927
Most esteemed one in the Lord, …I also tell you that in reading the nine Exercises of Christmas, of which we have already prepared the proofs, one remains astounded at the immense Love and the immense suffering of Our blessed Lord Jesus Christ for love of us, and for the salvation of souls. I have never read in any other book on this topic a Revelation so touching and penetrating!
From the Writings of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, the Little Daughter of the Divine Will:
December 16, 1928 Volume 25
The nine excesses of Jesus in the Incarnation. Contentments of Jesus. His word is creation. Jesus sees the scenes of His love being repeated. Preludes of His Kingdom. I was doing my meditation, and since today it was the beginning of the Novena of Baby Jesus, I was thinking about the nine excesses of His Incarnation, which Jesus had narrated to me with so much tenderness, and which are written in the first Volume. I felt great reluctance at reminding the confessor about this, because, in reading them, he had told me that he wanted to read them in public in our chapel. Now, while I was thinking of this, my little Baby Jesus made Himself seen in my arms, so very little, caressing me with His tiny little hands, and saying to me:
“How beautiful is my little daughter (Luisa)! How beautiful! How I must thank you for having listened to Me.”
And I: “My Love, what are You saying? It is I who must thank You for speaking to me, and for giving me, with so much love, as my own teacher, so many lessons which I did not deserve.”
And Jesus: “Ah, My daughter(Luisa)! To how many do I want to speak, and they do not listen to Me, reducing Me to silence, and suffocating My flames. So, we must thank each other – you thank Me, and I thank you. And then, why do you want to oppose the reading of the nine excesses? Ah! You do not know how much life, how much love and grace they contain. You must know that My word is creation, and in narrating to you the nine excesses of My love in the Incarnation, I not only renewed the love I had in incarnating Myself, but I created new love in order to invest the creatures and conquer them, so that they would give themselves to Me. With these nine excesses of My love, manifested with so much love of tenderness and simplicity, I formed the prelude of the many lessons I was to give you about My Divine Fiat, in order to form Its Kingdom. And now, as you read them, My love is renewed and redoubled. Don’t you want, then, that My love, being redoubled, overflow outside and invest other hearts, so that, as a prelude, they may dispose themselves for the lessons of My Will, to make It known and reign?” (…) Afterwards, the confessor was reading in the chapel the first excess of the love of Jesus in the Incarnation; and my sweet Jesus, from my interior, pricked up His ears in order to listen. And drawing me to Himself, He said to me:
“My daughter (Luisa), how happy I feel in listening to them. But My happiness increases in keeping you in this house of My Will, as both of us are listeners: I, of what I have told you, and you, of what you have heard from Me. My love swells, boils and overflows. Listen, listen – how beautiful it is! The word contains the breath, and in being spoken, the word carries the breath which, like air, goes around from mouth to mouth, and communicates the strength of My creative word. And so the new creation which My word contains descends into the hearts. Listen, My daughter: in Redemption I had the cortege of My Apostles, and I was in their midst, all love, in order to instruct them. I spared no toil in order to form the foundation of My Church. Now, in this house, I feel the cortege of the first children of My Will, and I feel My loving scenes being repeated, in seeing you in their midst, all love, wanting to impart the lessons about My Divine Fiat, in order to form the foundations of the Kingdom of My Will. If you knew how happy I feel in seeing you speak about My Divine Will! I anxiously await the moment when you begin to speak, in order to listen to you, and to feel the happiness that My Divine Will brings Me”.
December 21, 1928 Volume 25
I continue the Novena of Holy Christmas; and continuing to hear the nine excesses of the Incarnation, my beloved Jesus drew me to Himself, and showed me how each excess of His love was a sea with no boundaries. And from this sea rose gigantic waves, in which one could see all souls devoured by those flames. Just as the fish swim in the waters of the sea, and the waters of the sea form the life of the fish, the guide, the defense, the food, the bed and the amusement of these fish, so much so, that if they get out of the sea, they can say, “our life is ended, because we have left our inheritance – the fatherland given to us by our Creator”; in the same way, these immense waves of flames which rose from those seas of fire, by devouring the creatures, wanted to be the life, the guide, the defense, the food, the bed, the fatherland of the creatures. But as these go out of this sea of love, all at once, they find death. “If the sea does not cry,” – Jesus says – “how can I not cry, in seeing that while My love has devoured all creatures, ungrateful, they do not want to live in My sea of love, but wriggling free from My flames, they go into exile, away from My fatherland, losing the guidance, the defense, the food, the bed, and even the life? They came from Me – they were created by Me, and were devoured by My flames of love, which I had in incarnating Myself for love of all creatures. “As I hear the narration of the nine excesses, the sea of My love swells-it boils; and forming immense waves, it roars so much as to want to deafen everyone, that they may hear nothing but My moans of love, My cries of sorrow, My repeated sobs, saying: ‘Don’t make Me cry any more; let us exchange the kiss of peace. Let us love each other, and we will all be happy – the Creator and the creature.’”
