December 31, 1945prev home next
Our Lord wants me to add this page to the finished notebook, saying it is appropriate to complete yesterday morning’s episode with the continuation, which is still lasting. And I obey.
First of all, yesterday, after Our Lord... put Satan to flight, I saw nothing more for several hours. Then that woman came... and what had been said in the morning’s dictation was thus fulfilled. Out of either curiosity or need - I don’t think it was iniquity - that woman came.
Later, when she had left - and there was conflict in me over her coming and the decision not to see her any more - I saw Satan’s face again, as in the morning. But no longer either ironic or triumphant. Rather, downcast, as if frightened. He was looking at me, looking really like someone who was bewildered and had lost all insolence. He seemed to be wondering, “But how is it possible? And who is she...?” He goes off.... I was calm, though, for I still felt defended by the power of Jesus. And this sense of security grew more and more as the hours passed.
The Raffaellis came. I talked about this and that, but kept thinking about the visit by the unknown woman, constantly uneasy as well, because I was deceived, and I thought of Satan’s mortified face. They all left, and I lay down, exhausted, listening to a classical music concert on the radio.
I then saw, in a boundless distance, as boundless as when I see Paradise - it is only that here it is an abyss, a lowland, whereas Paradise is a height - a place which I could not even call horrendous, which is limitlessly sad. Very little light, and leaden, a kind of misty, dark air between the steep rock walls at the sides of a sort of polar ice formation, not white with snow and ice, though, but, rather, as black as pitch, with scattered craggy platforms of dark rock. On one of these, lying on his belly against the rock, was Satan, with his face resting on a hand and an elbow leaning on the rock. I tried to make a sketch, but was unable to. He was not looking at me or others. Almost on a level with the concentrated, dark water, he was thinking and seemed afflicted, if that can be said and thought of Satan. He was definitely quite downcast. What was he thinking, so alone and absorbed...? Had he remained really stupified by Jesus’ violence or was he intent on conceiving other misdeeds to make up for the morning’s humiliating defeat? And why was he laughing so much this morning? And what did Jesus neutralize with his violent intervention? Questions without answers.
This morning Our Lord had me understand that the woman who came yesterday deserves sympathy because she has many afflictions and is upright in thought, and charity should thus be shown towards her.
Alright. But who will give me the strength? Here I am, finding it hard to breathe. I am exhausted? I would just like to lie outstretched, in silence, in the dark, to scrape together my remaining energy. And I never have the chance to do so! And no one understands that I cannot endure any more! And I am not calm. Satan is working. Working. I feel he is concocting his schemes to damage the work and the instrument.
Jesus, have mercy on me...!