July 27, 1947prev home
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11:30 a.m.
Listening to the Mass Broadcast from Holy Mary of the Angels, Rome
As soon as the Mass began, Jesus said:
“A lesson, a great lesson, my Maria.
“Here it is! Look....” (The summit of Calvary appeared to me, yellow and bleak, the cross raised on high with the Victim, Blessed Mary and John at either side. Down below, Jerusalem in the sun. On Calvary the cursing crowd....) “Most beloved soul of mine, consider that I never tire of teaching because I want you to know me completely and in all respects, insofar as is granted to a creature still on earth. I want you to come to Me instructed about Me. Because I want you to be in the knowledge of God before death takes you into the Kingdom of Intelligence and Knowledge.
“Consider, soul of mine. Who was the Priest on Calvary? They say, ‘Jesus was the Priest and Victim.’ It is true. I alone was able to be the Priest of Myself, with my desire for offering, to do the Will of my Father. No human force could have sacrificed Me as God if I as God had not wanted the sacrifice.
“But beyond this spiritual Priest (in reality invisible to the world, for there I had the appearance of a blameworthy prisoner, not of a free Priest), beyond this mystical, incorporeal quality as the Priest of Myself, which only my Mother and a few other spirits understood, there was the real personality of the priests sacrificing the Lamb.
“And who were they? John, perhaps? Perhaps one of the faithful disciples? Perhaps one of the few just people in Israel? No, they were the ones immolating Me - that is, priests of the perpetual rite that was beginning, the holy rite which is latreutic, Eucharistic, propitiatory, and supplicatory - the sinful Jews, the false priests, the greedy Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians filled with hatred and the threefold concupiscence, rebels against God, Love, and love for their neighbor. The Romans were my immolators, from the Head to the Legionaries - that is, the sinners from my People and the Gentiles were offering the Divine Innocent One.
“And why? Wasn’t this inappropriate? It was not. Was the event unsymbolic? No, it had its symbol.
“I had come for the seriously infirm, for those who were obtuse, blind, deaf, and spiritual lepers. And who goes to the fount of health, seeks it out, opens its current, and bathes therein? The healthy, perhaps? No, the sick.
“I had come for the Jews and the Gentiles, both of them sick. And they, the sick, the symbol of my Universal People, which would receive Life and Health by being ingrafted into Me, by drinking the water of Eternal Life issuing forth from Me, and by feeding on Me, the Bread of Eternal Life - they, with the obtuse obedience of the Roman subject to the laws of Rome and the enraged obstinacy of the Temple and the Synagogue, were carrying out the rite. They were serving God in thinking they were serving their own interests or those of the Emperor. And since the soldier’s obedience to Rome’s orders - that is, altruism for the good of the Country - was more pleasing to God than the Israelites obedience to their selfishness, the light thus penetrated underneath the double armor of their hauberks and pagan religion and, dissolving the granite of their pagan hearts, made them God’s terrain, whereas it did not penetrate beneath the light robes of the priests and pharisees, for underneath the robes was the impenetrable armor of hatred and selfishness. But the priests were Jews and Gentiles.
“And so it is now.... And they must be prayed for. The current Gentiles. The current priests. That today’s Gentiles may share the happy lot of the Gentiles at that time. And that today’s priests may not share the lot of the priests then. And let both certainly offer Me - but with fruit for their spirit. Just as my love wills.
“Soul of mine, in saying ‘priests,’ I am not speaking only about those who have received the priestly character, but about all Catholics. The Catholics in whom the Priesthood is the select portion, at least in name and because of the character received with the Sacrament of Holy Orders, and the faithful - the soldiers at the orders of the leaders of my People, who are precisely the Priests, from my Vicar to the last priest in an out-of-the-way mission land - unknown, poor, alone, and persecuted. Above all, unknown, forgotten by the world, but not by Me, who bend over to fill his solitude with Myself, restore his strength, and dress him already in the robe of the servant-kings of the Love King.
“The Holy Mass is over, Maria. Go on looking at Me on my Cross and look at Mary, my Mother and yours, and John, your brother. We love you. And we want you, like a burning candle, on this true altar, which is Golgotha.
“But, burning candle consuming yourself, do not remain there alone, where you are, burning at the foot of the Cross; come, ascend, to be even more inflamed and at the same time to refresh yourself and bring relief to the flames of the hatred of the world - which does not understand and does not love you, just as it did not understand or love Me - here at my open chest. Come, burn, drink. Love Me, above all, more and more. You and I. We alone. I am entirely for you. I alone am entirely for you. Come....”
Jesus was speaking from the summit of the Cross. But it was a luminous Face of Christ already transfigured into glory towards the end of these words which relieved my initial pain from the vision of his tortured Visage and the pain of Mary and John. And when I was rejoicing in his embrace, He concluded:
“You shall add this. This lesson teaches once more that the Power of God, for his good purposes, is able to use even less meritorious persons and things and that the Wisdom of God can make base persons and things - sometimes even worse than base - his instruments to attain a goal of grace, whether there is a tendency towards Good in them, as in the Apostles, or a spirit hostile to true Good, as in Saul of Tarsus; but it is enough, in the latter case, for docility in heart to respond to the touch of Grace. And once more my warning rises up: Never ask God ‘why’ in regard to certain acts of his (like making sinners and Gentiles priests of the sacrifice of the Son of God) and do not judge God’s instruments according to appearances, for the smallest among men can be raised up to the status of ‘the greatest’ among God’s servants if I so will and he adheres to my will with humility”