March 30, 1949prev home
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3:20 p.m.
Jesus anxiously called me three times while running to meet me as if coming from the Probatica towards the Tyropeon and then stopped near a tomb with its door open like a dark mouth. And He said, ‘Give me your hands. Place them in mine, my soul, so that I can transfuse my Strength into you.... For you don’t know what they are doing to you.... You don’t know how much strength you need to remain faithful.... For you want to remain faithful to Me alone, don’t you? To your
Jesus! That’s it - that’s why I am coming and helping you this way.” And I, extremely pale because of the contemplation, asked, “Why is there this kind of twilight, so that one can barely see? Is the night falling for me and the Work?” (For everything was so dim that I could scarcely see Jesus, dressed in white.)
And He said, “Twilight does not come only from nightfall. It can also mean the beginning of the dawn.” And He then remained there and became sparkling when Father Dati375 came to bless (the Easter blessing of the houses). He then went back to being as before - afflicted, weary, upright in the unluminous dimness of the greenish twilight, like a sentinel near the wide-open tomb....
(I later received an explanation for this vision in the “Parallel” on the two Passions.... But those are secret pages....)
Jesus says:
“I and you. I in you. You in Me. The Christ and the little christ. The great Victim and the little victim. The great Defamed, Betrayed, Offended, and Condemned One, without there being any right to do so, and the little defamed, betrayed, offended, and condemned one, without there being any right to do so.
“The individuals are the same, in terms of actions, though the personalities are different. God’s judgment is severe regarding those at that time and those at present, all the main actors in the drama - unjust or most holy, depending on whether it is observed from the standpoint of men or christs.
“Come, for we shall relive it together. And you will see that you are the faithful mirror of your Jesus.
“When did the Passion begin? And the trial? Maybe the night between Thursday and Friday? Perhaps in front of Caiphas in the hall of the Synedrium? No, long before. From the time I was born.
“Around Me there was always a contrast between the perfect love of a few and the perfect hatred of many. Around Me there was always the perfect comprehension of very few and the perfect incomprehension of very many. It has also been that way for you. Since you were born. And you suffered as I did, though, much more fortunate than you, I had that Mother as my mother. And that Mother consoled Me for all pain. Her love, second in power and perfection to that of my Divine Father, repaid Me for all hatred.
“Men persecuted Me from my childhood on. You also experienced the unjust jealousies and foolish envies which degenerate into hatred towards the persecuted, into their fear of the obscure, impending danger pressing in, when, while they are still small, they are unable to conceive of the true value of what is favorable or adverse to them, and the rustling of a branch, darkness, the worried cry of a man seized by wrath, and the uncertainty of an escape take on the appearance of great danger.
“I underwent exile, but it was never exile because that Mother was with Me. You underwent a harsher exile, though not forced to dwell in a foreign land, for the heart of the woman who served charity so little was a stranger to you.
“I was hungry. So were you.
“I was cold. So were you.
“I experienced the loss of friendships from childhood on. So did you.
“I then had work at an early age, sometimes superior to my small strength, for we were poor. You also had early work, sometimes superior to your small strength, for your house was poor in affection. The love of your father - the only true, great love you had among men - was not enough for your great heart. This hunger for love of yours, never sated, served to make you come to Me in a manner which is not common in creatures. The fruit of the scanty love they gave you was good, then, but having to taste this lack of love was very painful.
“You truly do not harbor resentment for the many who in the family or at school or in society did not love you, as I did not harbor resentment for the relatives who never loved Me as they should have and whose lack of love - indeed, lack of understanding - increased as I grew from adolescence into manhood and from manhood into being the Master, just as I did not harbor resentment towards my fellow Nazarenes, who were more hostile to the Master than all, except a few, of the inhabitants of other cities.
“I wept over the death of a presumed father who was most amiable and just. You also wept over the death of a most amiable and just father, which took place when he would have been most necessary for you and it would have been sweet to have him near. For Me as well it would have been sweet to know he was near my Mother, a vigorous defender against the accusations of relatives and Nazarenes when the carpenter Jesus became the rabbi Jesus. And it would have been sweet to have him near during the mission, in its harshest moments. And to have him to support Me with his love during the very bitter days of undergoing betrayal and suffering.
“Joseph’s faithful love would have consoled Me greatly for Judas’ betrayal! And the presence of Joseph alongside Mary on Calvary would have given Me peace when dying. You as well, if you now had your father here, with the same name as the Just One, and with such intense and fatherly acts of charity, would suffer less from the bitterness occasioned you by the betrayal of many and from being alone, undefended in so much war, like Mary....
“But these are the remote foundations for our true Passion, our true unjust trial. Let us go beyond, to the immediate foundations.
“You and I have always loved the will of God more than our own, and we have always wanted to serve and fulfill it, placing it before every interest and desire of ours - isn’t this true?
“I then left the house in Nazareth, where there was a lot of peace and only relative lack of understanding entering into it, brought by family members and fellow townspeople. I left the still easy and sweet Will of the Father in my regard - to be a man, I, who was God, and embrace the varied fleshly conditions of man, who is hungry, thirsty, and weary, who feels the fatigue and hardship of bad weather and the heat of the sun and the summer, and the moral conditions of suffering from mourning or ill will or being unable to provide greater comfort to the Tender Woman who had brought Me into the world, and to be subject as a man to men with temporary power, I, who was the Lord and King, with eternal, infinite power - and I embraced the harder Will of my Father, that which was set as an expanse joining the two extremes of the first period in my life - family life - with the final one, involving the real Passion and undertaking the public life.
“You as well. I called you - I, whose will is one with my Father’s - to the second part of your life, the part as my spokesman. As I was not unaware of what lay in store for Me in the public life, so you did not deceive yourself about what you would find in serving Me in an extraordinary way.
“More united to God, certainly, for the more we do his Will, the more the Father clasps us to Himself, and He unites us to Himself if we fulfill the painful Will He requests of us for the good of those who are unable to love God and their neighbor and who, already not grateful in God’s joy, become his enemies if weighed down by pain. More united, certainly, but also how much more tormented - oh, how much! - by men because they are the bearers of God’s Word.
“Here the two of us are on the journey, to evangelize, to bring the Good News, to harvest criticisms, calumnies, insults, reproaches, and accusations, to know faces which are painted sets behind which a snake’s heart is concealed, to take the measure of how fleeting friendship, gratitude, and human fidelity are, how changeable the human heart is, and how the glittering of gold leads it astray to the point of making it an enemy of the Friend, and how it loves the cold, lifeless flashing of a handful of coins, which it cannot take with it safely during life and inevitably leaves when death comes, more than the living splendor of the warm, intelligent love of the true Friend of souls.
“Come, come, come, Maria, my Maria. Place your little weary hand in my strong, firm hand and come with Me without fear. Like that! As if I were more your father than your Spouse and God, or a good brother of yours who understands because he has already experienced everything regarding the pain of God’s messengers and loves you because you love Him without accusing Him of being the cause of your suffering.
“The just never get the causes of their suffering mixed up. They always forgive – everyone - but know the faces and hearts of their executioners. And, above all, they know the face and love of God and know that if He allows men to serve Satan to torture their fellows, it is to make the true greatness of his true children shine forth - shine forth and be rewarded.
“Let us go, then, cheerfully, hand in hand. I have come to take you, to travel together through towns and cities in Palestine. The Land of your Jesus is beautiful in the spring, and you like it so much. Beautiful! Beautiful, even if in the midst of its rich nature, near clear waters and at the summit of forested heights – everywhere - asps and jackals are hidden. Let’s not flee from them. On the contrary, let’s go to encounter them. To recognize your tormentors in my enemies.
“These are pages for you alone. Only to the Good Woman - you know who she is - one of the Marys at your Calvary, can you give them, to comfort her for the promise which could not be kept. I must also punish, on occasion, those who mock Me! But may she accept this reparation from the Spouse so that she will understand that she is dear to Me and it is not because of a change in my will that I fail to keep the promise. This, too, will be sweet for her. But tell her not to say a word to anyone - anyone, I say. Not even to those who are dearest....
“ ‘One day Jesus, taking aside Peter, James, and John, went up to the mountaintop and was transfigured....’ That’s it - I take aside my little John and her sister, who shall be James in this case, and to them alone I will show how you are in Me and I am in you to the point where you are a little Me.
“Let us go, then. This is the place of Temptation, the encounter with the Enemy, the prince and principle of every other enemy of the just - a principle because he is the motive for every unjust human act. The other enemies of the servant of God are just puppets moved by him, his tools, sometimes unconsciously his tools, and they would be horrified and would react by being offended if someone were to say to them that they are such, for they.... Oh, they think they are in the right and are independent of all external pressure and are convinced they are serving God by oppressing the servant of God, whom, in defining themselves as ‘saints,’ they regard as a sinner.
“And what was different about those who for three years unjustly criticized Me, accusing Me of sin for every action of mine as the Incarnate Word, and, in less than one night, condemned Me as deserving of death?
“They also called themselves ‘the just’ in Israel, the only just ones, the repositories of the Law and Wisdom, the defenders of God, whom they truly defended and loved so little that they went so far as to kill his Son.
“They, too, thought they were free from external pressures and thus free in their judgment, whereas in reality the threefold concupiscence had been unleashed in them by Satan, their motivation, and the lust for glory, power, and wealth pricked and pushed them to the point of making them killers of God.
“They also said they were acting to offer honor and service to Yahweh by getting the sacrilegious Nazarene out of the way.
“But how could they honor and serve the God of their fathers - the God who, through direct instruction, had informed the First Parents about the future Messiah, had placed the prophecies on the lips of the Prophets of their people, and was shining in Me, One with Him in the Divine Nature, in all of my actions as a perfectly holy Man whom no one could ever find to be in sin - if they were persecuting Me to the point of slaying Me on the cross?
“But they were the hostile men moved by the enemy prince, by him who waited for Me near the rock in the desert to tempt Me and thus destroy the One who would defeat and destroy his work as a killer of the adoptive son of God. And the Enemy of God - always of God, even if he tempts men, for, in reality, on whom he is waging war when waging war on man? He wages war on God, for if he overcomes man, whom he attacks, he tears a son away from the Heavenly Father - and the Enemy of God, I was saying, tempted Me.
“Craftily. Oh, he knew how he had won the first time and knew that one single man among all born to woman, one alone , I say, would not tremble at all in the face of the carnal fruit offered and exalted by the lustful Demon. For the earth had had many heroes of purity - the virgins and the chaste, who are the white multitudes of the Heavens - but the battles waged against the incitement of the flesh in order to be faithful to the pure virtue which made them angels in human form remained, like inflamed rubies, under the whiteness of their stoles. I did not experience that trembling. How could I experience it if I was the Immaculate Son of the Immaculate Woman and of God? And if I did not open my mind to the words of Satan?
“And he, looking for the Messiah among those born to woman, by that means tirelessly tested men, and when he found someone who remained steady and without curiosity before his carnal seduction, he was sure he had found the sought-for Messiah, who would be the future Victor over him if he did not manage to defeat Him. And he then tempted the Man to slay the Savior, Redeemer, and Victor before He could save, redeem, and defeat sin and death. But instead of defeating he was defeated.
“Maria, do you remember your temptations? Didn’t he follow the same system to try to make you perish, to make you hateful to my gaze, so that I would not call you to receive my Word for men, and then - the second part of the temptation - when you were already my spokesman, to try to make you sin by pride, disobedience, and deceit, so that not only your soul, but my work would perish?
“You think, ‘But your work has perished, though I have been faithful in obedience, humble in spite of the honor You gave me, and sincere to the point of scrupulosity in always saying only the truth about what I have heard and seen.’
“No, the Work has not perished, though men have perfectly served Satan’s intentions to make it perish. I tell you it has not perished. It cannot perish. My Mother and I watch over it. Those who protected it badly and judged badly will perish, but the work does not perish. Men may prevail with their impure sentiments, but not destroy the work of God. Punishment will be for those who have sinned or are sinning. But the work does not sin, and you have not sinned. It shall not perish, then.
“Do you think you are over and done with being tempted? Don’t think so. And for this reason I called you today in that way [March 30, 1949, at 3:30 p.m.], telling you to give Me your hands, to transfuse my Strength into you. For I knew and know what hatred is now being unleashed against you, now that, to be faithful to the four cardinal virtues, in addition to the three theological virtues, you have disappointed men and overcome a new temptation.
“They ought to thank you because you keep them from sinning and incurring punishment. But when did that Order ever love you with a just love? With justice? What member protected you in holy fashion? Self-interest, conceit, diffidence, calumny, and deceit - that’s what is stirring in different hearts under the black robe covering them. But He who unmasked scribes and pharisees, He who is weary - I have been nauseated by their actions for two years now - uncovers and displays them. These are the men, the men who have already done you so much damage, who have ruined the work, who have caused you so much pain. There they are, with their true face - resentful because their hopes have been dashed.
“Remember! Remember! It was March 1947, and I said to you, ‘He, the priest who puts his hand in your plate and eats the bread I have given you - my Word - lifts his heel against you and establishes something iniquitous in his heart, saying,
“Afterwards she will not get up again.” ’ Do you see? It doesn’t matter. I told you and I repeat: in reality, being a spokesman is accidental, but being faithful in justice is what lasts forever. You should thus be concerned about this alone.
“Let us proceed. Let us recognize other enemies of mine.
“Now, on the shores of my sea in Galilee, those who are worried about the dead and leave Life. They are all who are caught up with earthly concerns, who lose sight of the proper end, which will yield an eternal reward, to follow a purpose which will end here, on earth. To bury the dead, especially if they are parents, is a good work, but a better work is to follow God, who gives life to the soul.
“Publishing the work is also good, for souls will find life therein, but obeying God – justice - and being humble, prudent, and respectful towards the Mystical Body is better, for it yields the reward of eternal life. A reward free from all human incitement.
“In reality, if the current haste to print came from a single motive - zeal to provide nourishment to souls - their disobedience would still be partly forgiven by Divine, Infinite Mercy. But there are many very human forms of impurity in this present hurry - many! And I, just as well as merciful, truly cannot absolve them, all the more when they, who ought to be a light for your soul - salt, support, and an example for your soul and that of your witnesses - become the sources of deceit, burdens, and a savor corrupting healthy taste, a bad example - in one word, a scandal. The way I judge those who scandalize the ‘least ones’ is well known.
“And yet you, too, find those who deal with dead things and would like you to and who, less heroic than the ones at the lake, are not able to follow my steps tracing out the right way, but linger with impure affection to caress dead things. It is not in such a way that one obtains from Heaven the miracle of their resurrection. Mary Magdalene, the great sinner and the great convert; the humble mother of the dead man in Naim; and Jairus, the head of the synagogue, blindly believed in my words and did not want to act on their own, but let Me act and followed Me with trust in the orders I gave and obtained the resurrection of their dead. Are they, who want to have you carry out actions which I advise you not to carry out, perhaps wiser than God? More powerful than I?
“Let us pass on, without worrying about the murmuring which my reply to the son of the dead father prompted among those present during the episode. The murmuring of the human voice. Negligible, then.
“Here we are in my city of Nazareth. There, too, I was a Master and the author of miracles. But it did not love Me, and ‘on account of the incredulity of the Nazarenes Christ did not work many miracles in Nazareth.’ It did not love Me, and when I told it the truth out of love for my city, which I would have liked to be holy - the truth told to those sinning to draw them out of their error is always charity, and charity of the most select kind - it took up stones to lapidate Me, and, dragging Me to a mountain-top, they tried to kill Me.
“You, too, in the city which should be yours (the Order of the Servants of Mary), are not loved, and because of this incredulity of theirs you cannot provide the other miracle of the explanations of the Epistles of St. Paul, which only I can make clear, with the full truth and in conformity with Paul’s thought. And because you tell the truth, they lapidate you and would like to cast you down. The stones do, indeed, wound you, but they cannot make you fall into decline, because with Me you pass in their midst. And if they fail to change, not only will you pass with Me, but with Me you shall go away far from them, to give you at least a peaceful passing in the arms of Love, without men’s disturbing your final hour with their shouts and actions which are not good.
“Let us go even farther. The encounter with false friends.
“Who are they? They the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, who invited Me to their banquets in order to criticize Me and my disciples because they had not performed exterior purifications; or they grumbled because I forgave the sinful woman who had surpassed all of them by giving Me that comfort, customary among the Jews, which they had not given Me; or they questioned Me about legal or spiritual matters, displaying a desire to learn, but, in reality, nursing in their hearts the hope of catching Me in an error; nor did my replies as Incarnate Wisdom and the true Son of the Torah avail to persuade them that I was the announced Messiah. But, on the contrary, they served to formulate the charges against Me on the night between Thursday and Friday.
“There they are! The ones who asked Me why my disciples did not wash before taking their seats at the table, forgetting that one of them, Simon the pharisee, had deliberately not given Me anything to wash or perfume Myself with, as was customary in Palestine, when he had wanted Me as his guest, but, on the contrary, had grumbled in his heart about the repentant woman’s action to make reparation - reparation, I say, for her sins, but also for the sin committed by him, Simon the pharisee.
“There they are! The ones questioning Me about divorce, the ones tempting Me concerning taxes for Caesar so as to get a charge to be brought against Me before Pilate.... Oh, the crafty accusers, who wanted Me dead, but did not want the martyrdom to be illegal!
“There they are! The ones who dragged the adulteress to Me with a two-faced intention....
“The ones who were scandalized when I purified the House of my Father, which had become a place for barter, usury, and trade.
“The ones who pretended to misunderstand the second life of the flesh after the Last Judgment, the resurrection, to see if I was stating a heresy.
“The ones who speciously had the question posed to Me as to which was the greatest of the precepts.
“The ones who said that to believe in Me they needed a sign. Did they perhaps believe after they got one? They did not. As they do not believe in you, as they did not, and as they never truly will, even if they say they believe you are my spokesman and that the lessons in the work come from Wisdom, and they say so to deceive you about their real purposes; or they believe and believed and will believe in unstable fashion, and only when the strength of certain forms of testimony bends them to the ground, like proud trees bent down by a hurricane, ready to rise up again and deny their transitory faith as soon as the power of God no longer spurs them and his splendor does not blaze forth fearfully before them.
“Friends? No, friends do not bring torment with specious questions to see if they can make someone fall into error, since there is no error in the writings.
“Friends do not reproach someone for unreal sins when they know they should be reproached for their actions which are not good, which they have carried out and continue to carry out, knowing they are doing so.
“Friends do not place someone in a position to criticize the actions of Authorities and rebel against them by altering the truth about the actions by Authorities in order to denounce to the latter afterwards the acts of rebellion and criticisms instigated by their biased words.
“Friends do not rebel when just zeal sweeps away what occupies their souls, profaned by the sensuality of the mind, as filth and an unworthy trafficking.
“Friends do not pretend to misunderstand clear explanations in order to raise objections, hoping to make you fall into heresy.
“Friends do not turn illicit actions into betrayal so as to say afterwards that a friend is their accomplice.
“Friends do not portray a friend as mad or possessed, a liar or a sneak.
“True friends do not do all of these things. Are they, then, your false friends, friends? No, they are tempters. They are defamers. They are deniers. They are crafty. They are thieves and liars. They make an attempt on your life, which they consume with their actions, and the work, which they damage with their actions - they are thus unpunished killers and destroyers.... No, not unpunished. They could be as long as my patience lasted - not after it is exhausted.
“They are without charity and thus without God. Attentive, just like - and more than - the strategists of old in the Temple, but not out of reverential love for the Holiness of the Lord, the true Head of the Temple, but to seek a motive by which to convict the simple of sin. Always ready to assert what is not true, to alter things, to add or remove, nursing an impure plan in their hearts.
“I call them ‘concupiscent.’ And they are in two of the three branches of the accursed tree born in man from the seed of the forbidden apple. They are in the concupiscence of the eyes, for unhealthy curiosity and avarice moved them to occupy themselves with you, and the concupiscence of the eyes is curiosity and avarice. And they are in the concupiscence of the mind, or pride of life, to make this face of human concupiscence clearer for you. It arises from the selfishness which unbridled self-love has prompted in them, to the point where they think they are like God - indeed, to the point of being able to order God to do what they want, just as with all their power they try to push and bend their neighbors to make them their slaves serving and fearing them and not daring to react to their poorly concealed violence. From the accursed branch of mental concupiscence hang the poisoned fruits of vainglory, which, in esteeming itself in disorderly fashion, demands praise and gratitude from all, upon whom the vainglorious impose themselves with the hypocritical appearance of saints, pulled over to cover the dark truth of their concupiscent souls. The pride of life in them extinguishes the Life which is true and endless glory, places God after the self, and makes man, who ought to be a servant of God, a rebel against divine law and a servant of the law of sin.
“I detest them more than the open enemies who have the courage to show what they are, knowing that for this reason they are judged severely by the good. I do not love the snakes that envelop themselves in flowery branches to conceal their real appearance and bite, not giving those attacked the time to defend themselves. I hate hypocrisy more than murderous violence. For the former kills not only the flesh and a human life, in challenging the severity of laws, but kills - or tries to kill - the good name, the esteem, and the reputation of the just, and sometimes forever on earth - an unpunished assassin that does not shed blood, but that in reality is more of a killer than a killer, an assassin that only God will strike with his punishments. But, before being punished by God, how much evil it does! How much good it destroys. How much pain it creates!
“Look around you. You see your false friends. And you now know them, without any possible doubt. Be resolute, as I was, in resisting without applying the law of retaliation,376 but also without lowering yourself to bargaining with them to obtain earthly peace. It would be a twofold error. Because your acquiescence would confirm in their souls their wicked conclusions regarding you. And because, while continuing not to have them as friends on earth, you would lose the eternal friendship of your Eternal Friend: your Jesus. I tell you: be resolute, do not avenge yourself, but, on the contrary, forgive, without yielding by even a hairbreadth to their purposes. And forgive. Forgive. God will then do his part.
“And let us proceed through other regions, and an encounter with another kind of hidden enemies, those I shall call ‘unstable friends.’ The ones who are seduced by a miracle, but the blazing forth of truth and power, by a dream of hope, and by hopes of triumph. The ones who follow as long as there is no danger in following, ready to go away tomorrow if they think that following offers no gain, but, on the contrary, might prove to be a nuisance.
“Who is the first one, not in terms of temporal order, but in the seriousness of his sin? It is Peter. The first of the Apostles, the Rock on which I founded my Church. So ready to come to Me, so bold in defending Me, in professing the truth about Me! And then? And then see him as a coward, a liar, and a spiritual traitor to his Jesus. ‘I do not know this Man. I am not his disciple.’
“I tell you truly that at that moment Peter was more wretched than Judas, for Judas was bold in his crime and, though knowing he was revealing himself in his full horror and branding himself forever with the world’s disdain as long as the world existed, he defied everything and came, in the presence of a people whose reactions he did not know, to point Me out to the assassins. He professed himself to be my disciple by that act and did not deny it; he was and wanted to be known as the ‘betrayer’ and the ‘deicide.’
“Peter, on the other hand, lacked the courage to say, ‘I am his disciple; I know Him.’ He should have added, ‘And I profess that He is the Just One, as befits the true Son of the true God.’ And he would have done nothing but tribute honor to the truth, to that truth in which he had always believed as long as it was not dangerous to believe in it, that truth which was glory for him, too, for it is an honor to follow and love the just and a supreme honor to be the disciples of God. But he denied....
“His Master was now being dragged before the Synedrium as a wrongdoer, a sacrilegious man, and a demon; it was dangerous to go against the Synedrium, and to go against a mob rebelling against one who until the previous day had been acclaimed was ma also dangerous. It takes heroism to defend someone who has fallen into disgrace. And heroism comes from an inner life which is intensely nourished by charity - that is, sustained by union with God and by loving, certain faith in the Friend.
“Peter had not yet been confirmed in charity and grace. Peter was still ‘man’ and had man’s selfishness and baseness, unstable faith, and ephemeral friendship. He thought of defending himself from possible dangers and not of defending his Friend, at least by word. He let the enemies and the bought witnesses be the only ones to speak of Him. Against their lies he did not raise up his frank, just words. And so, too, Peter, who just a few hours before had dipped his bread into my plate, had fed on Me, and had professed that he would be ready to lay down his life out of love for Me, raised his heel against Me by denying Me and saying, ‘I do not know Him.’
“Why did Peter commit that sin - he, already designated as the Pontiff of the Church, which was then at the dawn of its foundation? Because he was ‘carnal man’ whom trial and penance had not yet been able to convert into ‘inner man.’ Why did God allow that sin in the first Pontiff of the Church of Christ? So that, ‘when he had repented, he would confirm his brothers and sisters’ - i.e., so that, in remembering his weakness, his own, he, who for three years had fed on my charity and wisdom, would be able to judge with true justice - without the intransigence of an ancient Israelite or the weakness of an imperfect priest - the sins of his lambs, always less blameworthy than he because they had not fed directly on my Word. And also so that, following the example of him who had sinned and been forgiven and then, when humbled and repentant, was rendered an ‘interior man and holy priest,’ a true Father and Shepherd of the children of God and the lambs of my Flock, every Pontiff would be, like the first Peter, a judge and father, without intransigence or weakness, a good Shepherd, another Me, so that my Flock would not perish and my Doctrine not be trampled upon.
“Other unstable friends: the disciples who abandoned the Master after the discourse on the Bread of Heaven. Why did they abandon Him? Because Jesus called them back to following the Christ not according to the stimuli of the flesh, but through the impulses of the spirit - that is, by regeneration of the old man, reborn as a son of God by having believed in Me and accepted Me.
“Didn’t I say to the Samaritan woman, ‘The time is coming when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth’? And didn’t I say to Nicodemus, ‘Whoever is not reborn in the spirit will not possess the Kingdom of Heaven’? And the woman with an impure life, a religious schismatic, accepted my word and from then on worshipped God in spirit and truth. And the great Nicodemus, the light of the Synedrium, accepted my invitation and was born again, to the point where he was openly my friend when a Peter denied Me. Why, then, shouldn’t I have reproached the disciples following Me for too many things which were vanity and not spirit and truth?
“But in them was the pride of being ‘the disciples,’ and, thus imagining they were already grounded in the Kingdom, they then rebelled against the Master and wanted to act as masters for Him in an argument revealing their uncertain faith in Me, their imperfect preparation, and, what is more serious, their desire not to be perfected by Me. It was the ancient sin rising up again. Always the same one. The Spirit of Evil whistled his song in their ears, and they accepted it, felt they were gods, judged they could do without masters, and went off. And they went off! Where to? Where all who are dragged away by pride and intoxicated by the law of the flesh go: far from God’s way and proximity.
“Much less serious in his instability was the rich young man, who, though attracted by the Master, was also attracted by wealth and, when caught between the two opposing currents, preferred to abandon himself to the more comfortable one: to enjoy wealth.
“Another example - but more serious because the unstable one here was one who had obtained a great miracle from Me and had approached Me several times - was that of Cusa. He, too, was for Me as long as the memory of his anguish over his sick wife lasted and as long as being my true friend could not jeopardize his position at the Court. But when Herod no longer feared Me because, in his human sight, I was the defeated one, the leper, the madman, the accursed one, the one repudiated by the Temple and the Nation, and, indeed, no longer fearing Me and feeling offended by my silence, he hated Me intensely, Cusa, who had already lent himself to the trap of my enemies in drawing me into his house for the banquet at which I was deceitfully offered the kingdom - the very human and paltry kingdom - thus aligned against Me to the point of punishing his wife for being faithful to Me, nor did my resurrection convert him or any other miracle. The man blinded by false values who abandoned secure, eternal things for the precarious favor of a king and the fleeting power of an office at Court!
“How many of these followers of what yields ephemeral honor, of what is a chain even for the free will and judgment of the soul and mind, how many servants - indeed, slaves - of their pride I have among my own ministers!
“These were my unstable friends. Do you recognize in them the figures of yours?
“Here are the ones who, after feeling heightened in prestige as your friends, are ready to say, ‘I am not concerned about this creature. I don’t know her and don’t want to know her.’
“Here are the ones who showed love for you as long as they hoped your light would give them a halo of glory and your exertion would yield them gain, but whose true sentiment emerged when your light was seen to be veiled by a judgment provoked more by them and their actions - always opposed to my counsels - than by any other motive and who now fail to show love for you.
“Here are the ones who waited to state an opinion... because they lacked the charitable courage to support you as long as your triumph was uncertain.
“Here are the ones who, between unjust wealth and the true wealth of serving God in his instrument, preferred the ease of the former, avoiding trouble....
“Here are the ones who, when reminded of the duty to be ‘spiritual,’ while being carnal, prefer to go off on their own on their path, which is no longer the one I pointed to.
“Here are the ones who, after receiving so much from Me and you, leave the friendship of the King of kings and his faithful one to please their inner king and, after offering you a halo of hay and flowers, which are such today, but tomorrow are fodder and then nothing more, they array themselves against you because you refuse it, preferring the thorny crown of perfection and eternal glory, and on your head they set a crown of mockery....
“Oh, let them go ahead! And let them depart! ‘Woe to those who are alone’377 has been stated. But it is better to be alone than to have friends who seek evil. It is better to be crowned with mockery, which will fall like dead leaves - indeed, which are already falling, when I decide to make the truth shine forth - than to wear a false crown which can deceive only the foolish and the carnal. It is this dark hour which will give you perfect light here and hereafter. I tell you so.
“And now the friends who betray. Judas is the perfect specimen. But all those who, after receiving benefits, dedicate themselves to accusing with untrue accusations are his followers. I had them. You had them.
“I had the perfect specimen in the one greedy far money and disappointed in his proud designs. You do, too, in these.
“I did in the one who was as dear to Me as a brother. You also do. He betrayed Me with a sign of love. With false signs of love they betrayed you.
“He said he believed in Me and pointed Me out as a satan. They also told you they believed you were an instrument of God, but when, because you really were one, you opposed their plan, they then said and say you are an instrument of Satan.
“He said he was seduced by my Wisdom, but openly called Me mad when disappointment and wrath concerning the plans he had in his heart and their being discovered made him an enemy of the Divine Friend. They also told you they were seduced by the Wisdom speaking in you and making you its spokesman; now, disappointed and uncovered, they say you are demented and abnormal, because of both a congenital defect and the infirmities which have aggravated your mental imperfect.
“He tempted Me to sin because he could not accept that I was superior to sin because I was God and the Just Man, perfectly just, voluntarily just. They tempted you to sin, not with the same means tried by Judas, but with what spurred them on, and with the twofold purpose of attaining their utilitarian and proud aim and getting valid evidence to have you judged guilty, in the mad dream that, once you were out of the way, greater and freer gain and pride would accrue to them.
“In reality, the thirty coins were the heavy stone which Judas tied around his neck to plunge into the abyss, and the mad hope of triumphing in just any way - after he had been unable to be the ‘great one’ of Christ, King of Israel - was the rope which made him a suicide, deprived of Life and life - eternally dead, dead, dead; eternally satan, satan, satan. The second lucifer for God the Son as the first Lucifer was such for God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, both of them rebels, proud, and greedy and both of them struck down - the Archangel and the Apostle - by Divine Justice.
“But what’s different now? And in reality if your prayer had not interceded to give them time to be converted, punishment would already have descended from Heaven. As Judas, to get a justification for his iniquitous action, by every means sought to make Me appear as a sinner, in such a way that he would appear as a just man tormentedly acting against his friend to give honor to God, to persuade the uncertain that I was a false Christ, and to fortify the adversaries, in order to crown his mad dream. Others did the same with you.
“The time has come which I prophesied to you two years ago. It is sufficient for you to reread those words of mine to know the point they have reached, without my continuing the parallel which brings you anguish and sickens Me.
“Another weapon of those who are not just and lack the courage to suffer the consequences of their injustice: they then seek with tears and specious appeals to affection to silence or bring to a halt the words and actions of those rightfully carrying out their mission, which the imperfect do not like.
“The trap of affections! They tempted Me not to be the Christ by waving my Mother’s anguish in front of Me and my duty to be her son according to the flesh. My reply is well known: ‘My mother and my brothers and sisters are those who do the Will of God.’ This Will was more than my Mother for Me. For all the true children of God this Will must be more than everything else, whether it is sweet or as bitter as the chalice at Gethsemane and the sponge soaked in vinegar on the Cross.
“They would like to make you, too, remain silent or withdraw from the way you have taken by invoking their love and the effort made for you and the work. No, it’s not love, nor is it effort made out of love for you. Love is respect and understanding, the desire not to cause harm or pain to those who are loved. You love them - you that, though grieved in a thousand ways by their actions, want to save them and keep them from suffering and defend them as if they were your children.... Oh, poor thing who have still not grasped the abyss of their hearts! They say they love you; they tell you to remember their love, but they appeal to it to paralyze words and actions by you which could be the cause of their punishment and a gag and restraint smothering their words and impeding new actions by them.
“Don’t be upset by anything, and let nothing bend you to compromises you would later not feel happy about. Do not luxuriate in their more or less sincere tears or avowals of more or less sincere affection, but at the same time do not be held back from acting according to justice by those tears or those avowals. Do not be held back, either, by an unreasonable fear of acting against charity, when all means of patience and persuasion have been exhausted in vain.
“I taught, ‘If your brother has sins against you, go, take him aside, and correct him; if he heeds you, you have won over your brother. If he does not, take witnesses with you so that everything may be confirmed by them. If he does not yield and repent, inform the Church; if he then does not yield and listen even to the Church, treat him like a gentile or publican.’
“This is why for years I have selected witnesses for you. And I now tell you they should get into real action by being present and also speaking on your behalf so that those abusing your patience, courtesy, and respect for the priestly robe will feel uncomfortable with others who are not you....
“It is not an offense against charity to be just with the blameworthy and just by exercising justice in every action. Did I perhaps offend charity towards my Mother by exercising the heroic justice of doing the whole Will of my Father?. No, in all truth. On the contrary, by doing this I made Her, the Immaculate One, the Co-Redemptrix. I place this second glorious crown on her head, which She would otherwise not have had. Nor did She refuse to wear it, though it was a crown of boundless pain. Look at Us. I was the Son who did not deny his most beloved Mother, but set the Will of God before Her, because that will must hold precedence over other loves, wills, and human rights, even the holiest ones. And look at Her: the Mother who did not keep her Son from doing the Will for which He had taken on flesh. Robe your heart in our heroism and act with true charity.
“Patience becomes foolishness, as does charity itself, when they are not joined to justice. When I saw that the limit had been reached beyond which patience and charity would turn into complicity and injustice, I, the perfect Patient One, separated Myself from the blameworthy after severe words. There is no love, no matter how great, that can permit a misdeed by one it loves. Remember this. One must act. One should then pray for the redemption of sinners. But one must act. Always. Because not doing so would mean that one wants to be their accomplices.
“And, having dealt with the distant and proximate foundations for our passion and seen the faces - especially the spiritual faces - of our enemies, before immersing ourselves in the real Passion, let us pause to contemplate the few friends we have.
“Few, and among these few, I had very few among the priests and doctors. But those very few were good. Jairus and Joseph and Nicodemus were among the very few, along with very few others, including the Good Scribe.
“And since I am just, I shall also include among them the great Gamaliel, though it may seem strange to the superficial. His real justice caused him to be absent at my condemnation. A great and serious act at that time and before that assembly. And I remembered him in my Heart, tormented by so much hatred, betrayal, and sin in a whole people - my People, taught, miraculously cured, and loved by Me - in my followers and, more than followers, my chosen ones, now scattered because the Shepherd had been seized.... Everyone against Me except a few! My People! My Jerusalem! I remembered the gesture by Gamaliel, the greatest rabbi in Israel, a Jew down to the deepest marrow of his bones, encrusted with traditions - indeed, locked in the impregnable jasper of the old doctrine, but still a just man.
“He had not been either my friend or my enemy when I was free and strong. He awaited the sign to believe I was the Messiah. But when he saw Me unjustly portrayed as an evildoer, though not yet believing I was the Christ, he nonetheless emerged from his reserve to summon the judges, drunken with hatred, back to legality. If he had been able to give a character of justice to his firm belief in the luminous words of a wise Child during a far-off Passover, he would have been on Golgotha with Joseph and Nicodemus. But his belief was too fettered and thus an obstacle to seeing the truth.
“You, too, face some who, because of the rigidity of their faith, create obstacles to seeing the truth for themselves, regarding both you and the work. They are waiting for a sign, as Gamaliel was. Always include them in the ranks of friends, though, even if they do not appear to be such, for excessive justice makes them slow to recognize the truth. And pray that, for them, too, the tremor of a heavenly earthquake will cut through the threefold veil covering the Holy of Holies of their just, closed spirits, which may then see the truth of this work and of yourself, my spokesman, so that our exertion as the One Dictating and the one writing may not be futile.
“And now let us observe the lay friends, more numerous, though apparently less holy, because they are lay people and are also from regions regarded as ‘anathema’ by the ‘saints’ of Israel.
“Lazarus, a friend at all times and in all circumstances, and his sisters; and the inhabitants of the coastal towns, the mountains, and the lake; and those of Samaria, better, in most cases, than my own fellow citizens; those of Ephraim, who offered hospitality to the Persecuted One, in whom they believed without demanding a sign in order to believe.
“You, too, have found among lay people those able to believe without demanding a sign, the sign requested, without ill will, but out of excessive prudence, by others who are not laymen. But, if they are able to see, I have given the latter a sign, for both those among them who are just and those who do you so much harm because they are not just.
375 A priest at San Paolino’s Parish in Viareggio.
376 Exodus 21:23-25, Leviticus 24:17-20, Deuteronomy 19:21, Matthew 5:38
377 Qoheleth 4:10