Jesus says:
“When I reveal to you unknown episodes in my public life, I already hear the chorus of difficult doctors saying, ‘But this fact is not mentioned in the Gospels. How can she say, “I saw this”?’ I respond to them with the words of the Gospels.
“‘And Jesus passed through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing all the weakness and illnesses,’ Matthew says.648
“And, in addition: ‘Go and tell John what you see and hear: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, and the good news is announced to the poor.’649
“And, in addition: ‘Woe to you, Chorazin; woe to you, Bethsaida - for if in Tyre and Sidon the miracles worked in your midst had taken place, for a long time now they would have been doing penance in sackcloth and ashes.... And you, Capernaum - will you be exalted to heaven? You will descend to hell, for if in Sodom the miracles worked in you had taken place, it might still exist.’650
“And Mark:’... And many people followed Him from Galilee, Judah, Idumaea, and beyond the Jordan. Many people, having heard what He was doing, also came to Him from the surroundings of Tyre and Sidon....’651
“And Luke: ‘Jesus went through the cities and villages, preaching and announcing the good news and the Kingdom of God, and with Him were the twelve and some women who had been freed from evil spirits and infirmities.’652
“And my John: ‘After this, Jesus went beyond the Sea of Galilee, and a great crowd followed Him because they saw the miracles worked by Him among the sick.’653
“And since John was present at all the miracles, of whatever nature, which I worked for three years, the beloved one bears Me this unlimited witness: ‘This is the disciple who has seen these things and has written them. We know that his testimony is true. There are, moreover, other things done by Jesus, and, if they were to be written one by one, I believe the world could not contain the books which would have to be written.’654
“So? What do the doctors of quibbling say now?
“If my goodness, to relieve a woman who loves Me and bears my cross for you - she took it from my shoulders and imposed it on herself because she loves Me to the point of wanting to die, but not wanting to know I am afflicted - if my goodness, to awaken you from the lethargy in which you are dying, makes known episodes in this ministry, would like to turn this into a reproach for that goodness?
“You truly do not deserve this gift and this effort by your Savior to draw you out of the miasma in which you are asphyxiating. But, since I give it to you, accept it and rise up. These are new notes in the chorus sung by my Gospels. If only they at least served to attract your attention again, which is now and remains dormant before the well-known episodes in the Gospels, which, above all, you read so poorly and with your minds absent.
“You won’t indeed want to think that in three years I worked the few miracles narrated? You won’t think that the few women mentioned were the ones healed or the few miracles mentioned the only ones worked. But if the shadow of Peter served to heal,655 what must my shadow have done? Or my breath? Or my glance? Remember the woman suffering from bleeding: ‘If I manage to touch the hem of his robe, I shall be healed.’656 And so it was.
“The power of miracles issued from Me continually. I had come to take people to God and open the dikes of Love, closed by the day of sin. Centuries of love expanded like waves over the little world of Palestine. All God’s love for man, which could finally expand as He desired to redeem men first with Love rather than Blood.
“You may ask Me, ‘But why to her, who is such a poor thing?’ I shall answer you when she, whom you disdain and I love, is less exhausted. You would deserve the silence I observed with Herod.657 But it is my attempt to redeem you - whom pride makes the hardest to persuade.”
647 The text preceding this entry contains the episode involving “The Orphans Matthias and Mary,” found in the cycle on The Second Year of the Public Life.
648 Matthew 4:23; 9:35.
649 Matthew 11:4-5; Luke 7:22.
650 Matthew 11:20-24; Luke 10:13-15.
651 Mark 3:7-8.
652 Luke 8:1-3.
653 John 6:1-2.
654 John 21:24-25
655 Acts 5:14-15.
656 Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-29; Luke 8:43-44.
657 Luke 23:8-9.