September 14, 1945prev home next
After the tremendous suffering taking me to the verge of death, after three days of agony, after Confession and Communion this morning, and still feeling very bad - and the flesh would like only rest and silence, while the soul tends towards the Word - with an atrocious headache, in the sleepy heaviness of an exhausted body, I see the hours of this day of the Holy Cross passing by.
I consider that in the tremendous Compito95 period I clung to the Cross precisely as an ultimate support so as not to be engulfed. I consider that I would have liked to have gone into St. Martin’s Church on the return trip to say “Thank You” to my Savior. I consider that on the morning of the 10th, as I lay in agony, the summit of Calvary was depicted once again for me, with the three crosses - one stripped of its martyr, another bending towards the ground with its weight of martyrdom, and the other still upright. Just as I saw them when Antonietta Dal Bo96 was dying. I consider so many things. In addition, that Jesus helped me the other morning, acting as my nurse, more than everyone else, without taking away my pain - and only He knows that it is great, inconceivably great - but giving me peace. I consider that he surely suffered on having me suffer, but had to do so because there is some soul that must be rescued or helped with this great pain. And while Jesus helped me, Satan tried to disturb me... and is trying. I consider and consider....
I would immediately be left in peace, perhaps materially aided, if I agreed not to write what Jesus wants any more. But I cannot do this. If those who criticize or negate or deride bore in mind that I receive neither financial gain nor any other gain, but only fatigue and suffering of every kind from my work as a “spokesman,” and, above all, if they experienced everything that I experience and suffer, they would at once understand that I must do what I do because God so wills, and without receiving any material or moral good therefrom.
95 See The Notebooks. 1944, especially note 312.
96 See The Notebooks. 1944, notes 425.