Jesus says:
“I have had you see and hear my suffering, my agony, and my cry to the Father192 all over again.
“You ask, ‘But why does the Eternal Father not listen to us?’ Before not listening to you, He did not listen to Me in the hour of expiation. And I was innocent. Even of those compromises with the sins of others which you like so much.
“Like everyone who is honest, I had not disapproved in my heart and then outwardly approved or criticized outwardly, but applauded inwardly. No. I had had a single attitude, judgment, and word, both inwardly and outwardly, and had taught this method of mine to my disciples and, through them, to you: ‘Let your language be “Yes,” if you mean yes, and
“No,” if you mean no.’193 For, you know, even compromise with one’s own conscience or that of others is a sin. I did not have even this sin, and because I did not - for this reason as well - I was killed. My justice had made Me speak against the sins of the most powerful (humanly speaking) and had drawn their wrath down upon Me. John the Baptist had already paid for his rectitude with the loss of his life.194 I was now losing my own for the same reason, still speaking in human terms.
“Those who killed Me did not believe I was the Son of God; at most, they thought I was a prophet. They did not think I was the Messiah. Only the simple-hearted, the pure, and the humble saw the truth under the appearance. The great did not. They were swollen with pride, and pride is smoke concealing the truth and corrupting the heart.
“But if they did not see and could not believe that the longawaited Messiah was a poor Galilean (they, who dreamed of his being born in a royal palace), a meek man who preached renunciation (they, who thought of him as a conqueror of peoples, a restorer of the power of Judah), they nevertheless felt I was a dangerous denouncer of their misdeeds and killed Me for this reason. They carried out the Sacrifice which had been awaited and decreed for centuries and centuries, but they did not know they were doing so much. They only thought they were doing something useful for themselves. For their interests. And Caiphas, that wily fox, to justify the crime he was preparing to get rid of the One he dreaded because of his sincere words, and out of fear that, in becoming king, he would purify the Temple of his abuses, said, ‘It is a good thing for one man to die for the people.’195
“It was good. A good thing which differed from what Caiphas thought. A greater good. But to give it to you I experienced the sternness of the Father. His abandonment. And you heard Me cry my desolate ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’196 But the Father did not intervene. And yet I did not lose faith in Him. I did not lose resignation in pain. I remained attached to Heaven, even though Heaven at that moment was rejecting Me.
“And, before Me, my Forerunner had remained faithful to God and to Truth, faithful and strong.
“After being arrested for the first time by that master of compromise that Herod was - who reconciled admiration for the prophet he greatly esteemed and consulted and listened to, knowing he was just; the rancor of his wife, who hated the Baptist for lashing out against her lust; and fear of the wrath of the people venerating its prophet - he was later released, also because of pressure from influential Jews who were disciples of the Baptist, with the order that he withdraw and remain silent. This is why you read197 that John the Baptist, having left the locality of the ford in the Jordan, where I was baptized, almost at the beginning of the Dead Sea and thus closer to Herod’s dwelling, had moved on to Enon, nearly on the border of Samaria, where he remained until he was captured a second time - since he did not want to remain silent about the vice reigning in the royal palace - and held prisoner until his death.
“The Baptist and I were the heroes of truth and uprightness. Herod was a champion of fraud and compromise. He had previously stolen his brother’s wife and reached a compromise with his conscience just to satisfy his flesh. And on this foundation of corruption he had then raised up the castles of his different crimes, one of which has gone down in history with the beheading of the Baptist.
“Consider carefully: sin is the root of sin. One sin rises upon another. And the tide of evil swells. And God cannot bend down where He sees a fondness for sin. And if it is painful for the innocent to suffer for the sake of a general expiation, it is right for those unable to root sin out of their hearts to experience abandonment by God, with all its poison, which eats into one’s entrails and makes one scream in agony, just as I screamed - I, who did not cry out because I was tortured by scourges, thorns, and nails.
“And I say to you once more and always,198 ‘Remain united to Me. I was alone in praying to the Father. But you are not alone. You have the Savior, the Son of the Most High, with you. Pray to the Father with Me, in my Name.’
“And to you, little John, I say that you see Me this way because I really do cry out for your sake, making your present tortures my own so as to earn the Father’s Justice, which is so offended that it does not want to bend to mercy. The love I have for you and the compassion I experience towards you give Me the pain of a mystical crucifixion, and I cry out in your name, to persuade the Father not to let you go any further into abandonment.
“It is Satan’s hour. But you, that are my earthly court, you, victim souls, take your sacrifice to its peak, take it to the torment of the ninth hour and remain faithful even in that ocean of desolation which that hour represents, and say with Me, ‘My God, my God.’ Let us fill Heaven with our prayer, O souls that imitate Me in becoming saviors of your brothers and sisters through your sacrifice. May the Father feel his disdain melting into compassion, and may his Justice be placated. Once more.”
192 See February 18. But this seems to refer to a new vision, perhaps not recorded hy the writer.
193 Matthew 5:37.
194 Matthew 14:1-2; Mark 6:14-29; Luke 9:7-9.
195 John 11:49-50; 18:14.
196 Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34.
197 John 3:23-24.
198 Cf. January 17, for example.