Jesus says:
“My blessing for my crucified one on the anniversary of her crucifixion.219 And an act of obedience to Me to be performed at once. You shall write to Father immediately. And you shall add what I tell you to news about yourself.”
And here is what He tells me. Jesus says:
“On March 19 you wrote in the ‘Directions’ and presented an oral entreaty and wrote and told the Fathers ‘to provide for your having a priest nearby who, by virtue of spiritual and chronological age, will be better prepared and capable of generating confidence about his fitness to act with holiness and seriousness and correctness than Father Mariano.’220 If you had not already been scourged in those days by excessive lashes of pain, I would have scourged you for that sentence. But I had mercy. You had by then squeezed out all the justice you were filled with and did not have a crumb left to recall an aspect of my justice. The dictation on December 25, 1945. Recalling other painful experiences of yours as well, I showed you compassion. But now that - nourished by the union with your Lord permitted by the calm following upon the disturbance resulting from so many distressing events taking place in a short period - your justice is once again strong within you, in order to make you understand my justice, now that your fears of having to deal with another Father Pietro P.221 have been allayed, now I will speak. To tell you that you have distrusted your Lord, his love for you, and his thought - to the point where you requested a priest other than Mariano.
“But what did I say on December 25? I said, ‘To whom should Little John be entrusted when Father Migliorini is no longer in ? To the person among the Servants of Mary in Viareggio who bears the name of my Mother.’222 Little John must have Mariano as a father; and Mariano must have Little John as a son. And if age is reversed in the two beings, the elements will remain intact - one who protects and one who is protected - and with the same result: the mutual elevation of the two whom I join, through the intercession of my Mother. And you ought not to have even remotely considered that I could make a mistake, be imprudent, or not be solicitous towards my Maria. You were wrong to push your judgment forward to cover over mine with it. And you were wrong to judge without knowing, to judge Mariano by the memory of , to believe that all are the same as one who was not good. Never do so again. Trust your Lord. He wants nothing which is not a good for you. Remain united, then. And be at once a mother and a daughter to him.
“My young priests! But it is precisely they who should be nourished with the supernatural, to overcome and neutralize the poisons of the rationalistic world, which ruins them! Do you know what my Mother calls young priests? She calls them ‘my children.’ And she loves them measurelessly, and if she sees one of them who does not drag along his mission, but bears it with joy and flies over the ways of perfection, she rejoices as if it were a resurrection. And if she sees one of them who is at fault and, instead of turning from a priest into a saint, turns from a priest into a man, or even less, she suffers as if it were another sword thrust into her heart. Mary, my Mother, has prayed to Me for Mariano. And that ought to make him very dear to you.
“Will this union last? Will it not last? Do not be concerned. It will last just long enough to give Mariano a perfecting which will be of use to him in his ministry. Let the Wisdom that is entirely Love act. And abide by the measures which I have prescribed for you.
“You shall tell Romualdo not to keep these words greedily for himself, but to submit them immediately to his Superiors so that they will make provision according to my will. And you shall tell Romualdo that what was done in Viareggio must not be repeated in Rome - that is, strewing my words on all sides. Enough acts of imprudence and disobedience!
“In the dictation for Romualdo on March 20 I promised him that my angel and I would take his place in the complete direction of Maria. And that is being done. Like a child guided by her mother, Maria is guided by Me and the angel in all things, not only spiritual, but also concerning everyday life. And she has already observed this guidance. Let Romualdo thus be at peace, considering that the angel and I cannot fail to guide properly and that Maria gives grounds for serenity because she is an obedient spirit and lets herself be led without resistance, even though her will, if left to itself, would be totally contrary to mine. Let him be at peace, then, and obey as ‘our’ Maria obeys.
“My peace be with you.”
And I feel the need to close this notebook after having carried out a reflection in this regard which I had waited to conduct until today, in expectation of a reaction by my poor self, after the effort I made from March 17th to the 21st - and even before - to remain... balanced during the storm which for you began on February 27, but for me had begun - and violently - in December and reached its peak between the 17th and the 21st of March. I know myself... and know that I push on and on, as long as there’s a need to push on, to stick it out, in order to support, guide, comfort, and so forth. But afterwards... I take revenge - that is, my nature does. And there is desolation, discouragement, and... nervousness.... But - not for the sake of boasting, since for me there is nothing to boast about, though there is reason to give praise to Jesus, who really changed me miraculously - I must say that, after you left on the evening of the 21st, rather than the occurrence of what I anticipated, I experienced not only an absence of nervousness and discouragement, but even of the painful stupor which sometimes takes hold of me when an event which is very unpleasant for me has transpired. And instead of these things, which did not appear, there came upon me a great, boundless peace, much deeper than the peace I had previously enjoyed - truly a heavenly peace.... I have waited three days to say this because I could not convince myself I would remain in that state. I am now convinced. I have even gone through hours of physical agony in which my desire for you was generally strongest. But even in those hours peace was inalterable and perfect. I believe this assertion ought to make you happy so that the truth of God’s working in me will shine increasingly, in poor Maria, who on her own has all defects and who has been freed from them, one by one, by her Jesus. And let us bless Him for this.
Even today’s dictation - and it is a reproach for me - does not disturb me.... I admit I was at fault. I thank the Master for having corrected me. I promise to avoid falling into such a failing again. And I remain at peace, as if, instead of reproaching me, Jesus had praised me. I well know that on my own I am not worth two obsolete coins! My only desire is to make Jesus happy. That alone. No one is more convinced of my indigence than I am.... But this does not demoralize me. On the contrary! It makes me sing more forcefully than ever the Magnificat of praise to Him, to Him who does all things in me....
(Personal note. The heart crisis today is probably a result of the hour of such intense mutual love on Saturday, March 3, which Azariah refers to.223 I thought I would die during that hour from excessive love.... My physical heart was altered all day yesterday and gave way this morning. But Holy Week is approaching....)
219 She remained bedridden from April 1, 1934 on.
220 See note 178.
221 Father Pennoni. See note 127. He is referred to on different occasions in The Notebooks. 1944, beginning with the entry for August 29, 1944.
222 “Who should little John be entrusted to? ‘John, here is Mary, your Mother’; ‘Mary, here is your son, John.’ The names indicate who to give you to. But how I would have preferred not to have Mary looked after by anyone else but Romualdo! And yet it is good for you to get used to other voices, if only in order to lose other painful memories...” (December 25, 1945).
223 In his commentary on March 31, 1946