This page has three parts: Independent Biblical Identification, Cross-Entry Synthesis, and Observation Notes.
24-1928-07-29 Biblical Resonance Analysis
Volume 24 — July 29, 1928 “Meaning of the blessing and of the sign of the Cross.”
Stage One — Independent Biblical Identification
Movement 1: Luisa’s Abandonment — Calling Creation to Intercede
“The hours are centuries, the days never end; and while I do my usual rounds in the Creation, I want and invite everyone to cry for the One who, flying away from me, leaves me alone and abandoned in my hard martyrdom of living as if I had no life… I call the Sun to cry tears of light to move Jesus to compassion… I call the wind to make tears of moans and of screams… I call the sea to my help, so that it would convert all of its waters into tears.”
Psalm 22:1 — “For the Chief Musician; set to “The Doe of the Morning.” A Psalm by David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?” The experience of abandonment — “flies away from me, leaves me alone and abandoned” — corresponds to the opening of the great passion psalm; Luisa’s longing speaks from the same register of anguished absence that the psalm names, and that Jesus himself took upon his lips from the Cross. Affective/meditative
Psalm 42:1–3 — “For the Chief Musician. A contemplation by the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” The intensity of Luisa’s longing — calling the sun to cry tears of light, the sea to convert all its waters into tears — corresponds to the psalmist’s thirsting soul and perpetual tears; longing for God expressed as cosmic lament. Affective/meditative
Song of Songs 3:1–2 — “By night on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. I will get up now, and go about the city; in the streets and in the squares I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him.” The mystical search for the Beloved through all of Creation corresponds to Luisa’s mobilization of sun, wind, and sea as messengers; the Song’s seeking-without-finding describes the same privation Luisa names as martyrdom. Affective/meditative
Hebrews 5:7 — “He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear,” The precedent of anguished petitions, cries, and tears directed to God in the experience of desolation governs what Luisa describes; her “nonsense” of calling Creation to weep is the creaturely form of what the Incarnate Word himself did in the days of his flesh. Affective/meditative
Movement 2: The Meaning of Blessing and the Sign of the Cross
“My blessing confirms in you what the Divinity did in the creation of man – that is, Our likeness… during the course of my mortal life, in everything I did, I always blessed. It was the first act of Creation that I called back over the creatures, and in order to confirm it, in blessing I invoked the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit… my blessing calls also the life of my Divine Will, that It may return as in the beginning of Creation to reign in souls, because my Will alone has the virtue of painting in them, vividly, the likeness of the One who created them.”
Genesis 1:26–28 — “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him… And God blessed them.” The entry’s entire theology of blessing rests on this foundation: the original blessing and the original conferral of divine likeness are a single act; every subsequent blessing recalls and confirms this inaugural divine action. Direct doctrinal parallel
Colossians 3:10 — “and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,” The restoration and renewal of the divine image through blessing and the DW corresponds to the new self being continually renewed after the Creator’s image; blessing is the sacramental form of the renewal Paul names. Direct doctrinal parallel
2 Corinthians 3:18 — “But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.” The DW “painting in them, vividly, the likeness of the One who created them, of making it known and of preserving it with its divine live colors” is the most exact gloss on Paul’s transformation-into-image: the DW is the agent, the divine colors are the medium, and the vivid preservation of the likeness is the result. Direct doctrinal parallel
Romans 8:29 — “For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” The confirmation of likeness through blessing activates the predestination to image-conformity Paul names; every blessing pronounces over the creature what God’s decree already intends, calling the DW to accomplish it. Direct doctrinal parallel
Ephesians 1:3 — “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,” The blessing that confirms God’s likeness in the creature is the creaturely participation in the blessing with which God has already blessed in Christ; both the divine blessing and the creature’s reception of it proceed in the Trinitarian form. Direct doctrinal parallel
Numbers 6:24–26 — “‘The LORD bless you, and keep you. The LORD make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you. The LORD lift up his face toward you, and give you peace.’” The Aaronic blessing is the Old Covenant form of the blessing the entry unpacks: an invocation of the divine face shining upon the creature — the face that communicates the likeness — governed by the same intent to restore and confirm. Typological
Genesis 12:2–3 — “I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” The universal blessing through Abraham — the blessing that calls forth the likeness and extends to all families — is the Old Covenant trajectory of what the sign of the Cross universalizes: every invocation of the Trinitarian name repeats the original impulse of the Abrahamic blessing. Typological
Luke 24:50–51 — “He led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he blessed them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.” The final act of Jesus’ earthly life is a blessing, confirming the pattern the entry identifies: “during the course of my mortal life, in everything I did, I always blessed.” The Ascension-blessing is the culmination of the pattern Luisa pauses on in her round. Typological
Matthew 19:13–15 — “Then little children were brought to him that he should lay his hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, “Allow the little children, and don’t forbid them to come to me; for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to ones like these.” He laid his hands on them, and departed from there.” Jesus blessing the children — the specific act Luisa pauses on in her round — exemplifies the Incarnate Word calling back the first act of Creation over each creature. Typological
Matthew 28:19 — “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” The Trinitarian formula of baptism corresponds directly to the blessing’s invocation — “Father, Word and Holy Spirit” — as the form through which the divine likeness is conferred and confirmed; the entry identifies the sign of the Cross as the creature’s personal form of the same invocation. Direct doctrinal parallel
Isaiah 44:3 — “For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring;” The blessing as the outpouring of the Spirit corresponds to the entry’s claim that blessing “calls the life of my Divine Will, that It may return as in the beginning of Creation to reign in souls”; the Spirit and the DW are what the blessing pours out. Direct doctrinal parallel
“The sign of the Cross that the Church teaches to the faithful is nothing other than impetrating Our likeness on the part of creatures; and so, echoing Our blessing, they repeat: ‘In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Therefore, without knowing it, the Church and all the faithful harmonize with the eternal Creator, and all want the same thing: God, by blessing and pronouncing the words, ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’, wants to give His likeness; the creatures impetrate it by making the sign of the Cross, pronouncing the same words.”
Galatians 3:13–14 — “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” The universal extension of blessing through Christ — undoing the curse and restoring the Spirit — is the Christological ground for the sign of the Cross as the creature’s impetration of the divine likeness; the Cross at the center of the sign is the instrument through which the Abrahamic blessing reaches all. Direct doctrinal parallel
Revelation 22:4 — “They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” The confirmation of the divine likeness through blessing — God’s name and image restored in the creature — corresponds to the eschatological condition where God’s name is written on the forehead; the sign of the Cross is the sacramental anticipation of this eschatological mark. Typological
Hebrews 13:20–21 — “Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” The structure of the Hebrews blessing — invoking God to work his will in the creature — corresponds precisely to the entry’s theology of blessing: every blessing calls back the DW to reign in the creature as in the beginning, working in the creature what is pleasing in God’s sight. Direct doctrinal parallel
1 Corinthians 12:3 — “Therefore I make known to you that no man speaking by God’s Spirit says, “Jesus is accursed.” No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” but by the Holy Spirit.” The harmonization between God’s blessing and the creature’s sign of the Cross — both pronouncing the same Trinitarian words, both wanting the same thing — corresponds to the Spirit-enabled confession; the creature’s sign of the Cross is made possible by the same Spirit whose life the blessing calls into the soul. Affective/meditative
Stage Two — Comparison with Hogan’s Commentary
CORRESPONDENCES
- Genesis 1:26–27 — Both identify this as the governing anchor: the divine likeness established at Creation is what blessing restores and confirms.
- Matthew 28:19 — Hogan alludes to the Trinitarian formula without formal citation; Stage One confirms it as the baptismal-blessing correspondence.
DEVIATIONS
No significant deviations. Hogan’s commentary is pastorally focused on the practical significance of the sign of the Cross for the ordinary faithful and introduces no independent Scripture citations.
ADDITIONS — MINE
- Psalm 22:1 — abandonment psalm; Luisa’s martyrdom of privation
- Psalm 42:1–3 — soul thirsting for God; tears as cosmic lament
- Song of Songs 3:1–2 — seeking Beloved through the city; Luisa seeking through Creation
- Hebrews 5:7 — Christ’s loud cries and tears; precedent for anguished petition in desolation
- Colossians 3:10 — new self renewed after the image of the Creator; corresponds to DW painting likeness
- 2 Corinthians 3:18 — transformation into the same image; DW painting vivid likeness
- Romans 8:29 — predestined to be conformed to image of Son; blessing activates the decree
- Ephesians 1:3 — blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ; creaturely participation in divine blessing
- Numbers 6:24–26 — Aaronic blessing; Old Covenant form of the likeness-restoring blessing
- Genesis 12:2–3 — Abrahamic blessing reaching all families; universal trajectory of the sign of the Cross
- Luke 24:50–51 — Jesus blessing at the Ascension; culmination of mortal life’s pattern
- Matthew 19:13–15 — Jesus blessing children; the specific act Luisa pauses on
- Isaiah 44:3 — Spirit poured out in blessing; DW called back through blessing
- Galatians 3:13–14 — Christ undoing curse, Abrahamic blessing to Gentiles through the Cross
- Revelation 22:4 — name on forehead; sign of Cross as sacramental anticipation
- Hebrews 13:20–21 — blessing invoking God to work his will in the creature
- 1 Corinthians 12:3 — Spirit enabling the confession; creature’s sign of Cross made possible by the Spirit
ADDITIONS — HERS
Hogan introduces no passages beyond those identified in Stage One. Her commentary on the theology of the sign of the Cross is expansive but unsupported by explicit Scripture citation.
VIP / SPECIAL DESIGNATIONS
No VIP designation by Hogan for this entry.
STAGE TWO SYNTHESIS
Stage Two confirms two load-bearing correspondences: Genesis 1:26–28 (divine likeness established and blessed at Creation) as the foundational anchor, and Matthew 28:19 (Trinitarian baptismal formula) as the New Covenant correspondence to the sign of the Cross’s invocation. Stage One carries the full theological weight of both movements. The dominant traditions are: (1) Old and New Testament blessing theology (Genesis 1/12, Numbers 6, Ephesians 1, Galatians 3) establishing the trajectory from Creation’s original blessing through Abraham to the sign of the Cross; (2) image-restoration theology (Colossians 3:10, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Romans 8:29) governing the DW’s painting of the divine likeness; and (3) the mystical-privation tradition (Psalm 22, Psalm 42, Song of Songs 3) for the opening movement.
Cross-Entry Synthesis
Volume 24 — July 29, 1928 “Meaning of the blessing and of the sign of the Cross.”
Luisa’s Abandonment — Calling Creation to Intercede
“I call the Sun to cry tears of light to move Jesus to compassion… I call the wind to make tears of moans and of screams… I call the sea to my help, so that it would convert all of its waters into tears… But who can say all of my nonsense?”
The opening movement requires reading against the current of Luisa’s self-deprecation. What she dismisses as “nonsense” — mobilizing the entire created order to weep and cry on her behalf — is the corpus’s most extended expression of mystical longing as cosmic intercession. Stage One identifies Psalm 22:1 (the abandonment cry), Psalm 42:1–3 (the thirsting soul whose tears become food), and Song of Songs 3:1–2 (the seeking of the Beloved through all the city’s streets) as the converging scriptural registers. These three traditions together map the experience Luisa is in: the anguished desolation of divine absence, the bodily intensity of longing expressed in tears and searching, and the mystical night in which the soul seeks without yet finding.
Hebrews 5:7 provides the Christological anchor: in the days of his flesh, Jesus himself offered prayers with loud cries and tears. Luisa’s calling of the cosmos to weep is the creaturely amplification of what the Incarnate Word enacted; the “loud cries” of Hebrews 5 become, in the DW-soul, a summons to every created voice to cry in her place. That Hogan notes the music this must have been in God’s ears confirms the theological instinct: extreme longing in a DW-soul is not an embarrassment but an act of love that reverberates through the whole economy of the DW’s desire to be sought.
The transition to the round — “I would continue my round in His adorable Will, and following all the acts He did when He was on this earth” — marks a significant shift in the RPT-1 register. The round has in prior entries moved through Creation; here it moves through the acts of Redemption, pausing at Jesus’ blessings of children, his Mother, and the crowds. This is the first explicit entry in Volume 24 of the RPT-1 formula applied not to the Creation-round but to the following of Jesus’ mortal acts. The round transitions from Creation to Redemption and Luisa arrives at blessing — the precise act that becomes the entry’s doctrinal focus.
The Meaning of Blessing and the Sign of the Cross
“My blessing confirms in you what the Divinity did in the creation of man – that is, Our likeness… It was the first act of Creation that I called back over the creatures… my blessing calls also the life of my Divine Will, that It may return as in the beginning of Creation to reign in souls, because my Will alone has the virtue of painting in them, vividly, the likeness of the One who created them.”
The theology of blessing the entry develops is architecturally precise. Its foundations are three: Creation (the original likeness), the Incarnation (the pattern of Jesus always blessing), and the DW (the agent that paints the likeness with living colors). The scriptural base is Genesis 1:26–28, confirmed by both Stage One and Hogan: God made man in his image and blessed him; every subsequent blessing recalls this originary double-act. The divine likeness and the divine blessing are not separate events but a single creative intention: to make the creature in the Creator’s image and then seal that image with the divine word of confirmation.
Stage One’s image-restoration cluster identifies the scriptural register for how the DW paints and preserves the likeness. Second Corinthians 3:18 (transformed into the same image from glory to glory) names the dynamic process; Colossians 3:10 (new self renewed after the image of the Creator) names its ongoing character; Romans 8:29 (predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son) names its pre-eternal ground. The entry’s phrase “painting in them, vividly, the likeness of the One who created them, of making it known and of preserving it with its divine live colors” is the most formally complete statement of this process yet in the corpus: the DW is both the painter and the preservative, both the original artist and the restorer who keeps the image vivid against the fading that the human will produces.
The blessing-as-calling-back-the-DW claim is the entry’s most theologically original contribution. Every blessing throughout Jesus’ mortal life was an act of calling back “the first act of Creation” over the creature — restoring the original condition through the same Trinitarian invocation (Father, Word, Holy Spirit) that constituted it. Isaiah 44:3 (my blessing on your offspring; Spirit poured out) confirms the connection between blessing and the Spirit’s outpouring; the DW is what the blessing pours back into the creature, just as the Spirit was poured out at the first blessing. This is a new and formally developed TGF-1 register: the DW returning to its original reign through the mechanism of blessing, not only through the eschatological advent but through every priestly and personal blessing already given.
The entry’s most theologically striking claim is the harmonization passage: “without knowing it, the Church and all the faithful harmonize with the eternal Creator, and all want the same thing.” God’s blessing (wanting to give the likeness) and the creature’s sign of the Cross (impetrating the likeness) are two aspects of the same divine-creaturely exchange, both invoking the same Trinitarian name and both directed toward the same end. Stage One’s Galatians 3:13–14 provides the Christological ground: Christ redeemed from the curse so that the Abrahamic blessing — the original blessing reaching all the earth’s families — might reach the Gentiles through the Cross. The sign of the Cross thus enacts precisely what the Cross achieved: the universal extension of the blessing that restores the divine likeness. Revelation 22:4 (the name on the forehead at the eschaton) places this act within its final frame: the sign of the Cross is the sacramental anticipation of the eschatological condition in which God’s name is permanently on every forehead.
The implicit ecclesiology is significant: the Church teaches the sign of the Cross without knowing its full depth, yet in doing so she teaches exactly what God intends. The harmonization between God’s intention and the Church’s practice is not accidental — it is the DW’s own design, working through the Church’s sacramental tradition to call back the divine likeness through every invocation of the Trinitarian name.
Synthesis Conclusion
Dominant biblical imagination: Mystical-privation and psalmic lament (Psalm 22, 42; Song of Songs 3) for the abandonment movement; Old-New Testament blessing trajectory (Genesis 1/12, Numbers 6, Ephesians 1, Galatians 3, Hebrews 13, Revelation 22) for the blessing-and-sign movement; Pauline image-restoration (2 Corinthians 3:18, Colossians 3:10, Romans 8:29) for the DW-as-likeness-painter.
Most load-bearing scriptural traditions: (1) Genesis 1:26–28 — the simultaneous conferral of divine likeness and divine blessing at Creation is the single most foundational anchor of the entry’s entire doctrinal structure; (2) The Pauline image-restoration cluster (2 Corinthians 3:18, Colossians 3:10, Romans 8:29) together — these three supply the progressive, renewed, and pre-eternally grounded dimensions of the likeness-painting the DW accomplishes; (3) Galatians 3:13–14 and Revelation 22:4 together — these frame the sign of the Cross as both the historical means of blessing’s universalization (Galatians) and the eschatological marker it anticipates (Revelation), bracketing the entry’s ecclesiological claim within the full arc of salvation history.
Three findings of highest theological significance: First, the entry offers the corpus’s most fully developed theology of blessing as a doctrinal category: blessing is not merely a liturgical form but the Trinitarian invocation that calls back the DW to its original reign in souls, painting the divine likeness with living colors through the same creative act that constituted it. Second, the harmonization of God’s blessing and the creature’s sign of the Cross establishes an implicit ecclesiology of unconscious consonance: the Church’s practice of the sign of the Cross is already doing exactly what God intends, even when its depth is not understood, because the DW works through the Church’s sacramental tradition without requiring comprehension. Third, the identification of Jesus’ pattern of always blessing throughout his mortal life as the systematic calling-back of Creation’s first act over the creatures constitutes a significant Christological contribution: the Incarnate Word’s blessing ministry is not incidental but structurally necessary — each blessing is an act of Redemption in its own right, recalling and restoring what the Fall displaced.
Observation Notes
See this note in volume context →
24-1928-07-29
RPT-1 #134 confirmed: “I would continue my round in His adorable Will, and following all the acts He did when He was on this earth, I stopped when Jesus was blessing the children, blessing His Celestial Mama, blessing the crowds and other things.” Significant variant: the round here moves explicitly through Jesus’ mortal acts (Redemption-round) rather than Creation. First Volume 24 appearance of the RPT-1 formula in its Redemption-acts variant. Register: one-hundred-and-thirty-fourth / following-all-acts-Jesus-did-on-earth / Redemption-round-variant / pausing-at-blessings.
BSC-1 (Blessing-Sign-of-Cross Doctrine) — new candidate, first appearance: Jesus formally discloses the theology of blessing and the sign of the Cross: (a) every blessing confirms the divine likeness established at Creation, calling back “the first act of Creation” over the creature; (b) in blessing Jesus invokes Father, Word, and Holy Spirit — the same formula as Baptism; (c) blessing calls the DW to return to its original reign in souls; (d) the sign of the Cross is the creature’s echo of God’s blessing, both pronouncing the same Trinitarian words and both wanting the same thing — God to give the likeness, the creature to impetrate it; (e) “without knowing it, the Church and all the faithful harmonize with the eternal Creator.” First appearance: July 29, 1928. Governing anchors: Genesis 1:26–28; Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Galatians 3:13–14; Revelation 22:4.
IDR-1 new register: “My Will alone has the virtue of painting in them, vividly, the likeness of the One who created them, of making it known and of preserving it with its divine live colors.” The DW as painter and preservative of the divine likeness — using the language of vivid colors and active restoration — extends IDR-1 with its most formally artistic and dynamic register yet. Register: DW-painting-divine-likeness-with-live-colors / making-it-known-and-preserving-it / most-formally-artistic (July 29, 1928).
TGF-1 new register: “My blessing calls also the life of my Divine Will, that It may return as in the beginning of Creation to reign in souls.” Every blessing — throughout Jesus’ mortal life and in the Church’s practice of the sign of the Cross — calls the DW back to its original reign. This extends TGF-1 into an unexpected domain: the DW Kingdom returns not only through eschatological advent but through every priestly and personal blessing already given. Register: blessing-calls-DW-to-return-as-in-beginning / every-blessing-a-TGF-advance / sign-of-Cross-as-TGF-impetration (July 29, 1928).