Last night - I don’t know whether it was to have me observe an hour of Gethsemane, because it was Thursday evening, or through diabolical torment - I felt a storm brewing in my heart, which had been so peaceful since you came.538 And believe me, Father, I was afraid.
I said to myself, “If the Tempter takes hold of me again, I’m in for it!” I am more afraid of homesickness, which he provokes in me with a violence that makes me lose control, than a heart crisis. For I know how it leaves me afterwards, morally weakened and capable of feeling life’s inevitable misfortunes too acutely. It grafts me, if you will, into life and into the past, tearing me away from my Present, who is God, my Life. And I agonize over it, for I am like a bird accustomed to the azure and to space and enclosed in a cage in the dark and tormented by people unknown to it who cause it fright just at the sight of them.
What I say may seem excessive, since I am not among strangers or tormentors. But this is true for Maria as a woman, who is a woman so little at this point that she may now be said to be outside of life. My Life is elsewhere. By a miraculous overturning, the matters that are everything for others strike me as strange, whereas what my spirit is living seems like true life to me. A secret life, unknown to the world, and so intense!
Last night, right before the storm of memories took shape in my heart, with the torments following upon it, I was reviewing in my mind the things seen in visions and still reliving that bliss, recalling this or that episode, whose stages I was vividly viewing again. I was seeing again in my thought, not with inner sight. I was, in short, remembering. And I was smiling at the little Benjamin and taking delight at Jesus’ joy amidst the children,539 and seeing Zechariah’s house in Hebron again and Our Lady’s feminine care, and so on. And I said to myself, “How many things Jesus has had me see to make me fall in love with Him more and more! How much I have inside with which to live happily, like a king in the midst of his treasures! Thank you, Jesus!”
And then the...bogey came. But it hasn’t lasted long, if it doesn’t return. I called all my heavenly friends: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, John, and the little Thérèse, and I said to them, “Blow away the black clouds. I have no strength..., but I don’t want to lose my Sun. He is in me and gives me so much peace. Help me.” And I felt they were helping me. Smiles and caresses and peace, peace, peace.
This morning I woke up from the sopor singing the song I had composed to say to God that I love Him and desire Him. Really singing, you know? Like a bird who is happy with the first sunlight.
Sister Saviane540 wrote me, “May the faith which has always sustained you triumph in your soul, purified by suffering, and make the new, precious pearls on your immortal crown shine. May our dear Mother accompany you and prepare you for entry into the new Jerusalem when and as Jesus wills. You have offered yourself to Him.... At this turning point, more anguishing for you than for others, feel Heaven, with the array of your intercessors, very, very close to you on the painful pilgrimage.... Feel me near as well in prayer.... Jesus does not abandon you.... Let Jesus be your shield, your balm, and your reward....”
As always, this holy sister, who does not know anything in human terms, writes as if she knew everything. My everything, the special life which God has me live. Following her advice, I called my heavenly “intercessors,” for I believe this sister is enlightened. And I acted well. I will always do so when the... bogey returns. Since I am good for nothing and you are too far away to infuse your peace into me. You infused so much peace in the twentyfour hours you were here, ten days ago, that I am still strong.... It’s useless! God in Heaven and you on earth are necessary for poor Maria...!
I now open the Bible. It opens for me at Psalm 118 (if I read the Roman numeral rightly). And precisely at the Kaph541 stanza.
Jesus says to me:
“Read. It seems to have been written for you. But your soul does not waste away, waiting for help from Me. Something wasting away consumes and annuls itself. Your soul is, however, growing and fortifying itself in the wait. The wait serves to strip you of every remainder of humanity I want to have you simple and bare like a flower petal. The wait serves to fortify your hope. I want you with a hope more perfect and stronger than a block of steel. “Even if you should be on the threshold of the abyss and see hell stretching out to clutch you, and behind you, the world howling like a pack of dogs wanting to tear you apart and ready to rush at you, you must not be afraid. I tell you, ‘You must not be afraid.’ I am the Word that does not lie. Hope and believe in Me.
“Not only your eyes, but also your lips have been consumed and wearied in asking Me with your voice and gaze, ‘When will You console me?’ Oh, soon, my beloved! A little bit more cross, and you shall then be consoled much more than you hope, consoled so supernaturally that you will remain ecstatic with joyous amazement. It will not seem possible to you then that you have merited so much. It will not seem possible to you because joy erases the memory of previous pain and humility keeps the sentiments of a servant of mine lowered.
“My little, beloved disciple, sweet daughter of my love, don’t look if the hail of afflictions has made you like a goatskin exposed to the frosts. Every tear is a gem. Every act of faith, as the pain strikes, is more than a gem. You shall come to Me more adorned than a bride.
“I have already taught you not to count the days of the past and the future. Always say the word of God: ‘Now.’ I am suffering now. The past no longer exists. The future might not exist. But God is loving me now, and I am loving God now, and God is rewarding me now for eternity. Now, always now.’
“The psalmist asks, ‘When will You apply justice to those persecuting me?’ He could say this. I had not yet come to bring forgiveness and love. You must not say it. You must not even desire it. Because I said, ‘When someone strikes you, offer the other cheek. Love those who hate you so as not to be like the people in the world, who love only those who love them. Blessed are you if you are persecuted.’542 Leave the task of defense and punishment to Me. Love. It is sweeter and holier.
“If you knew how I love you when I see that not only have you been unable to hate any more - and you hated - since I told you to love even your enemies out of love for Me, but you have suffered on perceiving others hating, for hatred among brothers is an offense against Me as the Father of all men!
“Even if the iniquitous were to tell you fables, it would be futile. You are now above them and their words. Firmly in God, in the refuge of his heart, like a bird in a nest. You thus know, nourished as you are directly at my breast, what the true food is, and the false tastes of deceitful foods can no longer seduce you. You live by and in the Word of Truth, and the hatred of those greedy for deceit can only astonish you, as a child is astonished by the irritability with which an adult responds to his caress. But it does not provoke hatred. Rather, it detaches you from men. It is this that I want. And it pushes you more and more towards Me, into Me. It is this that I want even more.
“Those who speak the truth which God places on their lips become so hateful to the world that it seeks, not so much to make the person disappear, for the world is vile and is afraid of prisons, as to destroy esteem for and the memory of them among the good. But remain faithful.
“To the commandments given to all a special one is added for my ‘voices,’ my beloved ones. Absolute faithfulness. A faithfulness not only in what is commanded, but in what is counseled or even desired by Me. Over against all human advantage, then, be faithful to Me. Joan543 was faithful to her ‘voices’ as far as the stake. And they were the voices of angels and saints. Your Voice is mine. Be faithful to it to the point of martyrdom, if you are asked to. Any martyrdom. And that of vile calumny, crafty warfare, envy, and lies is no less agonizing than a pyre. Be faithful to Me. I will help you.
“And now, say the last distich: ‘In your mercy, grant me life, and I will put the teachings of your mouth into practice.’
“Yes, Life. And I shall grant you Life. Here, as long as you serve Me; in Heaven, so that you may rest in my joy. Life, here, so that you will increasingly live out what I teach you. Drink, drink at the fount of my Divine Word. Jesus the Teacher is more than ever your Teacher, for there are too few who want Him as their Teacher, and He gives Himself measurelessly to the few who have understood that there is no knowledge or word in the world which is holier or truer than his.
“O beloved ones, who love Me and live by my word, living coffers in which I place the gems of my thought, golden lamps shining with the light burning in you - come, come. I look at this little flock of loving lambs amidst the packs of ferocious wolves, lambs who bear witness to Me in the world contaminated by Satan, lambs whose life is a profession of faith and a proof that God exists and a sparkling of joy.
“Marked with my Sign! Oh; come, blessed ones! My heart is open to you. Come and rest upon it. Come....
“I say to you, ‘Rejoice! God is with you.‘”
538 Father Migliorini visited her on July 10, as noted the day after.
539 In the vision on February 7. The other episodes belong to her work on the Gospel.
540 Sister Giuseppina Saviane, of the Sisters of the Blessed Child Mary at the Bianconi School in Monza, where the writer had studied.
541 Psalm 119 in the current Bible. The reference is to the Vulgate.
542 Matthew 5:10-11 and 34-39 and 43-47; Luke 6:22-23 and 27-36.
543 St. Joan of Arc (1412-1431).