There is no dictation or vision today. It is Friday, and this time, too,664 it is Jesus who takes care of having me observe this Fourth Friday of Our Lady of Sorrows.
The fruits to be obtained from consideration of the Fourth Sorrow are patience in tribulations to imitate the Patient One, bending under his cross, a blameless life so as not to increase the weight for the Martyred One and the Mother’s pain over that weight, and compassionate affection for Jesus and Mary.
Since yesterday - right after the third vision and dictation for the cycle on Mary’s Childhood,665 already written, with great difficulty, because of the physical suffering, which is getting more and more acute, and the tropical heat and the effect of the heat on my maladies - I have really had to exercise patience in tribulations. I was thirsty for cold things for my blood, which sought to break my veins, and water was fire for me; I needed silence for my head, which was ringing like a bell, and there was continual clamor; I would have needed not to think... and was thinking that it had been a year since I saw Mother go out of the room and never come back.666 And behind this thought, the whole succession of the other ones and concerns and isolation in this - let’s just call it a town, keeping to myself the adjective I instinctively apply to it. The fever was so high that it gave me the sensations of delirium. I saw monstrous shadows and heard strange things. I even heard the bells in Viareggio tolling, as if for a solemn funeral. Do you know how clearly I heard the voices of St. Paolino’s and St. Andrea’s?667 I asked Marta, “What’s wrong with these bells that are tolling?” I got no answer because Marta was blissfully sleeping, since it was 2 a.m.
Today is like yesterday.... Patience! It is evident that I must spend Thursday and Friday afternoons in this way. It seems impossible - doesn’t it? - that with the sweetness of that vision, which was so gentle, of the maternal happiness of St. Anne, and with the harmony of her song within me, I can suffer so much. But that’s the way it is. I do not lose the memory of the joyous scene I have seen, but it is time to suffer, and I suffer.
These are the days and hours when I read and reread my litanies on goodness, and now the prayer Jesus dictated to me on the 19th as well.668 If I did not believe that these two prayers are a real truth, entirely true, there would be reason to go mad on observing the way I am treated by Jesus. But I know why He treats me this way and am thus serene. It is enough for Him not to hide any more, as in April.669 I cannot endure that.
664 As on August 19.
665 The episode, written on August 24, is entitled “Anne, with a Canticle, Announces She Is a Mother.” It is found in the Preparation cycle.
666 As noted on August 9.
667 Two churches in Viareggio, the city from which the writer was evacuated.
668 See August 19.
669 From April 9 on.