Now, while I was seeing the confessor, I remembered that he had told me that I should write about faith, the way Jesus had spoken to me about this virtue. While I was thinking about this, in an instant the Lord drew me to Himself in such a way that I felt outside myself in Heaven, together with Jesus, and He said to me these precise words: "Faith is God.
(8) But these two words contained such an immense light that it is impossible to explain them, but I will say it as best I can: In the word "faith" I understood that faith is God Himself. Just as material food gives life to the body so that it does not die, so faith gives life to the soul; without faith the soul is dead.
Faith vivifies, faith sanctifies, faith spiritualizes man and makes him keep his eyes fixed on a Supreme Being, so that he learns nothing of things here below, and if he learns them, he learns them in God. Oh! The happiness of a soul that lives by faith, its flight is always towards Heaven, in everything that happens to it, it always looks at God and here is how in tribulation faith elevates it in God and does not grieve, not even a lament, knowing that it must not form its contentment here, but in Heaven.
So if joy, wealth, pleasures, surround her, faith lifts her up in God and says among herself, "Oh, how much more content and richer I shall be in Heaven!" So of these earthly goods she takes vexation, despises them, and puts them under her feet.
(9) Now let us turn again to the idea of food: The body, taking food, not only sustains itself, but partakes of the substance of the food which is transformed into the body itself. Now so the soul that lives by faith; since faith is God Himself, the soul comes to live of God Himself, and by feeding on God Himself it comes to participate in the substance of God, and by participating it comes to resemble Him and to transform itself with God Himself, therefore it happens to the soul that lives by faith that God is holy, the soul is holy; God is powerful, the soul is powerful; God is wise, strong, just; the soul is wise, strong, just, and so on, and so on, and so on, of all the other attributes of God. In short, the soul becomes a little god. Oh, the beatitude of this soul on earth, to be even more blessed in Heaven!
Book of Heaven. Volume ll