May 31, 1945prev home
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Corpus Christi
Jesus says for Sister G.:47
“For Gabriella of my Mother, peace and blessing. Make your heart expand more and more, as regards not just the cross of illness, but its complete openness to Me. The invasion of Love is painful because Love is not just sweetness; it is what it was when it was Flesh: Pain. I died from thirty-three years of painful sweetness in doing the will of God. Love is a cauterization that burns to heal humanity’s spirit, which, like a proliferating disease, always seek to rise up again and establish itself in other places to bring harm. I destroy in order to create. But when all the bonds of humanity are destroyed, the soul, beginning on earth, enjoys the superior, blessed freedom of the angels.”
And then... grabbed by the ear exactly like a negligent school-girl, I am forced to write the following for Mrs. A.P,48 who had never asked me for anything directly.
Jesus says:
“Because of your prudence you deserve the word you desire and do not ask for. Let it be given to you, and, with it, peace and blessing. For the comfort of your last years, be certain of this: among all of those you have been close to, in relationships of kinship, affection, friendship, and love for your neighbor, there is not one who can reproach you for having harmed his or her soul. Few can hear this said. Persevere until being born in Me. You will re-encounter those you loved in union with God. Peace and blessing, and be cheerful because of my love.”
Jesus had been saying, “Write” to me for four days. But it is so... little in keeping with my sentiments to become the purveyor of these matters that, though rejoicing over my woman friend, I did not write. I said, “And when did I write? It remains there, for I certainly won’t give it to her. So it’s all the same not to write.”
This morning I received a sound reproach in which I was told:
“When I advised you to make an exception for this soul and call her to you, it was because I see hearts and needs. I remind you of the Gospel. It says, ‘Woe to those who are alone.’49 You are still too alone. You have priestly protection, and that is a great deal. It serves to place a seal of security upon your mission. But around you there are many who are not saints. And you need friends, as I had. As I chose my own, I choose yours so that you will have them. Now, if I want to give a reward to this person, who knows everything exactly and is able to remain silent - a very rare virtue - and did not harbor resentment - she could have, but did not - and did not make it weigh upon you and came as soon as you said, ‘Come,’ and who has a great desire in her heart and would like to satisfy it to go more serenely, in her solitude, to face the ‘big step,’ why do you refuse? I told you many months ago50 that you were being punished for having paid more attention to others than to your Director, who was speaking in my name. Do you want to go back to the beginning? Isn’t the punishment enough for you? Don’t you know that among ‘the others’ who say the opposite of what I say there is also your self? It can be there and is there every time you get obstinate. Write, then, and afterwards speak to Father Migliorini. Obey Me first and then him. And be supernaturally charitable to this friend whom I have brought back to you for your good.”51
47 See the entry for November 15, 1945.
48 Angelina Panigadi, a friend of the writer from childhood on who died in 1960.
49 Ecclesiastes 4:10. The reference to the Gospel is thus a mistake attributable to the passage of time.
50 See the entry for June 29, in The Notebooks. 1944.
51 We pass over twelve handwritten pages, dated June 1-2, 1945, containing the last episode on “The Sermon on the Mount” and “The Healed Servant of the Centurion,” found in The Second Year of the Public Life.