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11 a.m.
I remain pensive over a conversation with someone I know. They all see the situation as drawn out and black... and I am in a hurry to go to my Director.632
Jesus says to me, “Be patient; all of you - be patient. Now, for everyone, it is a question of days.” He says nothing more. I write no more, for I am intent on “seeing,” and Jesus wants me to see.
Midday
In a pause in the “seeing,” certainly granted out of mercy on me, I am thinking about how to practice the virtues for this Second Friday of Our Lady of Sorrows.
As for pride and vanity, I hope to be doing fairly well after so many lessons received. Obedience to inspirations is even better, for it is very rare for me not to adhere promptly and totally to an inspiration I feel is coming to me from God. But in detachment from everything I am... slow. It is true that Jesus has taken care of it, to the point where I would no longer know what to give Him, for He has taken everything away from me. But serenity over the loss of certain things is lacking in me. I do not lament over my health or my life without affection.... But I regret the loss of my house....
These are the thoughts I brood over, and the sweet voice of the Mother says to me:
“Daughter, before going up to Calvary with me, as you give rest to your weakness, listen to your Mother’s teaching. I want to teach you the perfection of detachment.
“You must give my Jesus the most precious thing. You must still give it to Him. More precious than life, dearer than affections, more beloved than the home. One cannot slay memory... or impede homesickness. It is enough, though, to keep memory and homesickness pervaded with resignation. Then they are not imperfections. They are merits in the eyes of God. Thorns we enclose in our hearts so that they will be adorned with tears and blood and become jewels to offer to the divine throne. I, too, had them, and I know.
“But I want to teach you the perfection of detachment. A perfection which is not a single event which, when overcome, does not present itself again. But it is perfection which presents itself hundreds and hundreds of times in life. Or, rather, in a year or a month of life. Consider the sum of eternal graces coming therefrom. It is being able to detach oneself from one’s human way of thinking.
“What is human thinking composed of? Half, of resentment; a quarter, of hypersensitivity; and the other quarter, of selfishness. Does a neighbor graze us with a corolla or a feather? Oh, to the extremely sensitive human self that being grazed is more than a whiplash, more than the point of a gladius penetrating and searching! Egoism then explodes: ‘I am the king, and I don’t want offenses of any kind. I rule and don’t want resistance to my will.’ And hypersensitivity and merciless egoism then breed the resentments which do not fall way and attachments to one’s own ideas.
“My Son thus said,633 Si vis perfectus esse, i, vende quae habes: And I say to you, ‘If you want to be perfect, come, place your way of thinking, attachment to it, and, above all, resentments in my hand. I shall throw them onto the pyre of Charity. Do you think they are made of good material? You will see that they are not gold, but straw that burns and leaves heaps and heaps of ashes. Think as a daughter of God.
“Do you see my Son? He is under the cross, with the crown on his head. But He does not think of Himself. He says, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep over Me, but over your sins.’634
“That’s enough. Go on following Him to the top.”
And here is another thing which “poor Maria must not do.”635
That’s it. I have written636 at the command of Jesus, who a wanted me to come to describe the end as I was seeing it, at the exact hour - it’s 3:15 p.m., solar time, on this Friday. The very clear contemplation has continued since last night, with intervals I did not wish for and resumptions I did not seek.
I have you note this. Far I think it is important. They are matters so far outside my will that I cannot provoke or remove them, or make them clearer by concentrating, or suffer less by getting distracted. If it is something I love to see and I close my bodily eyes and ears to be more concentrated, I may lose sight of it, or it becomes darkened over, whereas it is clear, on the other hand, if God so wills, even if I apparently do and look at ordinary things. Only my face changes, and Paola sometimes realizes. On the 2nd, for example, my cousin Giuseppe637 also said, “What’s wrong with you? You’ve got the face of someone who is sleepy, and you’re very pale.”
In the pauses I received the two short dictations by Jesus and Mary. It is now over. At least for the time being. I don’t know if, as on all Friday evenings, I shall later see the Mother weeping over Jesus at the Tomb.
Mary’s dictation was provoked by a thought of mine this morning. I was thinking that, since I have to appear serene so as not to worry the others, it would be proper for the others to do the same with me, whereas they all come to set down their little or big bundle of moans and then go off happier - they are healthy, while I, sick and very sad, remain with my and their weight of pain; and I felt very much like saying, “Is that so, friends? Let’s keep our woes to ourselves a bit. Since....” And here the little devil of resentment and memory would leap out, even if silently.
The second temptation was to pay Marta back in her own coin by saying, “Until now I have done what others wished, with no advantage and a lot of harm. That’s enough, now. I’ll do as I please. Since....” Another appearance of the aforementioned devil.
But the Mother soothes me and tells me “I must not do so.” It is the holy refrain of my Teachers! By dint of not doing, Maria will no longer exist. But provided They help and love me....638
632 Father Migliorini. See note 312.
633 Matthew 19:21; Mark 10:21; Luke 18:22: “If you want to be perfect, go and sell what you own.”
634 Luke 23:28.
635 See August 10.
636 She is referring to another vision of the Passion which is not included here.
637 Giuseppe Belfanti, cousin of the writer’s mother and Paola’s father.
638 The original notebook at this point contains passages dealing with Mary Magdalene, written on August 12, 13, and 14, which are found in the cycles setting forth the second and third years of Jesus’ public life.