July 2, 1945prev home
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Midday
And I know what You have done to me, Lord, by taking me with You on your trip to Jerusalem and Bethany, so sweet in its melancholy and its peace.... I know. The truth suddenly dawned upon me after the vision of Gethsemane on Saturday.... And I received a shock... but did not linger over it because I seconded You in your loving intention. You were taking me high up. You occupied me for entire days, later plunging me into the mists of my sopor, so that I would not consider what these days amounted to for me. Throughout June, a month of anguish for your poor Maria, You really swept me into your whirlwind so that the whirlwind of my memories would not carry me off....
Thank You, my God! You see. Out of fear of destroying your work of mercy, I did not even write then, when I understood the reason for such exhilarating hours of vision.... The Mother.... The child.... Your loving and speaking of the Child Mother, or to the child gathered in by your love.... For I had understood that writing meant turning my gaze upon the torment which your love was swathing in sweetness so that I would not see or hear it.... And I remained silent.
You are good. With a complete goodness. Infinitely good because You are God, and perfectly good as the God-Man. You understand that memories hurt and certain things bring disturbance, and You do not want deaths and agitation to disturb your spokesman, who is already so exhausted, so exhausted.... And You therefore absorbed me into Yourself, into your past as Jesus of Nazareth, as a pilgrim and teacher on earth, so that I would not consider... not consider all the gloomy dates the month of June is full of for me. The torment was nevertheless present..., but it was attenuated. The sobs were there of poor Maria, who in this month of June has seen the worst storms in her destiny, those which have stripped me of the deepest affections so that I would flourish again in You alone.... There were sobs, ready to swell up..., but You hid them under your song..., and they were observed only if Maria-soul looked at her humanity for an instant.
Thank You, my God! At this hour, ten years ago, my house was really abandoned completely by my father....54 And You have carried me this far in recent days, clasping me to your heart. As You have always done in the worst hours since I became your spokesman.... At Mother’s death,55 in the fiercest days of the war... and now. Only last year did You let me drink all the bitterness, in April and June, in keeping with a design of yours which I believe could be called “reparation for and relief of acts of despair.” Yes, You led me to the point of madness to save others from despair. Who can those saved in this way be? Where are my poor despairing brothers and sisters now?
This morning I was near death.... From seven to twelve noon, this moment, with a heart crisis.... But since yesterday I had been in the grip of angina pectoris.... Unable to do anything else, I loved You and offered your Blood and my pain for my father and for my despairing brothers and sisters.56
54 Giuseppe Valtorta died on June 30, 1935.
55 Iside Fioravanzi, who was born in Cremona in 1861 and died in Viareggio on October 4, 1943.
56 We pass over sixty-two handwritten pages, dated July 3-7, 1945, and containing five episodes from The Second Year of the Public Life.