I see a cavern in the rock where there is a bed of piled-up leaves on a rustic frame of interwoven branches bound together with rushes. It must be as comfortable as a rack for torture. The grotto also has a large stone which serves as a table and a smaller one which serves as a chair. Against the side farthest back there is another one: a large stone splinter sticking out of the rock which - I don’t know whether it is naturally or by patient, toilsome human effort - has been polished and presents a rather smooth surface. Upon this, which looks like a rustic altar, a cross made of two wicker-bound branches is resting. The inhabitant of the grotto has also planted ivy in an earthy cleft in the ground and guided its branches to frame the cross and encircle it, while, in two rustic vases, which seemed to have been modeled in the clay by an unskilled hand, there are wild flowers picked nearby, and, right at the foot of the cross, in a giant shell, there is a little wild cyclamen plant with small, very clean-cut leaves and two buds which are about to blossom. At the foot of this altar there is a sheaf of thorny branches and a scourge with knotted cords. In the grotto there is also a rustic jug with water. Nothing else.
Through the narrow, low aperture mountains can be seen in the background, and, since there appears a moving luminosity which is glimpsed in the distance, one would assume that the sea is visible from this point. But I cannot confirm this. Pendulous ivy branches, honeysuckle, and wild rosebushes - all the usual pomp, of mountainous locations - hang over the opening and form a sort of moving veil separating the interior from the exterior.
A thin woman, wearing rustic, dark clothing, covered by a goatskin as a blanket, goes into the grotto, pushing aside the hanging branches. She looks exhausted. It is impossible to determine her age. If one were to judge by her withered face, one would say she was quite old - over sixty. If one were to go by her flowing locks, still beautiful, thick, and golden, not over forty. Her hair hangs down in two braids over her curved, slender shoulders, and it is the only thing that shines out in that desolation. The woman must certainly have been beautiful, for her brow is still lofty and smooth, and her nose, well-shaped, and the oval, though thinned by weariness, regular. But her eyes no longer sparkle. They are deeply sunken in their sockets and marked by two bluish bistres.
Two eyes which reveal the many tears they have shed. Two wrinkles, almost two scars, have been engraved from the corner of each eye along the nose and finally dissolve into that other wrinkle typical of those who have suffered greatly, which descends from the nostrils like a circumflex accent to the corners of the mouth. Her temples look sunken, and the blue veins are outlined in the intense paleness. Her mouth hangs down in a weary curve and is a very pale pink. It must once have been a splendid mouth; now it is withered. The curve of the lips is like that of two broken wings dangling. A mouth of pain.
The woman drags herself over to the mass of stone which serves as a table and sets bilberries and wild strawberries upon it. She then goes to the altar and kneels down. But she is so exhausted that she nearly falls in doing so and must hold herself up with one hand on the stone slab. She prays, looking at the cross, and tears flow down her wrinkles to her mouth, which drinks them in. She then lets her goatskin slip down, remaining with only the rough tunic to cover her, and takes the scourges and the thorns.
She clasps the thorny branches tightly around her head and her loins and scourges herself with the cords. But she is too weak to do so. She drops the scourge and, supporting herself against the altar with both hands and her forehead, she says, “I can’t withstand any more, Rabbi! I can’t suffer more, in memory of your pain!”
The voice brings me to recognize her. It is Mary Magdalene. I am in her grotto as a penitent.
Mary is weeping. She calls Jesus lovingly. She cannot suffer any more. But she can still love. Her flesh, mortified by penance, can no longer withstand the effort of scourging herself, but her heart still beats passionately and consumes itself in its final strength by loving. And she loves, remaining with her forehead crowned with thorns and her waist clasped by thorns; she loves by speaking to her Master in a continuous profession of love and a renewed act of contrition.
She has slipped, with her brow touching the ground. The same posture she had on Calvary before Jesus, when He was placed on Mary’s lap, the same one she had in the house in Jerusalem when Veronica explained her veil, the same one she had in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, when Jesus called her and she recognized Him and worshipped Him.289 But now she is, crying because Jesus is not there.
“Life is fleeing from me, my Master. And will I have to die without seeing You again? When will I be able to take delight in your face? My sins are before me and accuse me. You have forgiven me, and I believe hell will not possess me. But how long will I be detained in expiation before living by You! Oh, good Master! For the sake of the love You have given me, comfort my soul! The hour of death has come. For the sake of your desolate dying on the cross, comfort your creature! You begot me. You. Not my mother. You raised me up, more than You raised up Lazarus, my brother. For he was already good, and death could only mean waiting in your Limbo. I was dead in my soul, and to die meant eternal death. Jesus, into your hands I entrust my spirit! It is yours because You have redeemed it. As a final expiation, I agree to experience the harshness of your dying in abandonment. But give me a sign that my life has served to expiate my sinning.”290
“Mary!” Jesus has appead. He seems to come down from the rustic cross. But He is not wounded and dying. He is as handsome as on the morning of the Resurrection. He comes down from the altar and goes towards the prostrate woman. He bends over her. He calls her again, and, since she seems to believe that Voice is sounding for her spiritual senses and remains with her face to the ground, she does not see the light Christ is emitting. He touches her, resting his hand on her head and taking her by the elbow, as in Bethany,291 to lift her up again.
When she feels touched and recognizes that hand by its length, she cries out loudly. And she uplifts her face, transfigured with joy. And she lowers it to kiss the feet of her Lord.
“Get up, Mary. It’s Me. Life is fleeing. It’s true. But I have come to tell you that Christ awaits you. There is no waiting for Mary. Everything is forgiven her. From the first moment it was forgiven. But now it is more than forgiven. Your place is already prepared in my Kingdom. I have come, Mary, to tell you this. I did not order the angel to do so because I repay a hundredfold for what I receive, and I remember what I have received from you.
Mary, let us together relive a moment in the past. Remember Bethany.292 It was the evening after the Sabbath. Six days remained before my death. Do you remember your house? Everything was beautiful in the blossoming tract of its orchard. The water was singing in the pool, and the first roses could be scented around its walls. Lazarus had invited me to his supper, and you had stripped the garden of the loveliest flowers to adorn the table where your Master would take his sustenance. Martha did not dare to reproach you because she remembered my words293 and looked at you with gentle envy, for you shone with love while coming and going for the preparations.
And then I arrived. You ran faster than a gazelle, preceding the servants, to open the gate with your usual cry. It always sounded like the cry of a freed prisoner. I was, in fact, your liberation, and you were a liberated prisoner. The apostles were with Me. All of them. Even the one who was then like a gangrenous member of the apostolic body. But you were there to take his place. And you did not know that while observing your head bending to kiss my feet and your sincere, love-filled eyes, I forgot my disgust over having the betrayer at my side. I wanted you on Calvary for this reason. You in Joseph’s garden for this reason. Because to see you was to be sure that my death was not without a purpose. And my showing Myself to you was an act of gratitude for your faithful love. Mary, blessed are you, that have never betrayed and confirmed Me in my hope as the Redeemer - you, in whom I saw all those saved by my death! While everyone ate, you worshipped.
You had given Me the perfumed water for my weary feet and chaste, ardent kisses for my hands, and, still not content, you wanted to break open your last precious vase and anoint my head, freshening up my hair as a mother does, and anoint my hands and feet so that all your Master’s limbs would be scented as members of the consecrated King....
And Judas, who hated you because you were now honest and rejected the appetites of males with your honesty, reproached you.... But I defended you because you had done everything out of love, such a great love that the memory of it accompanied Me in the agony from Thursday night until the ninth hour.... Now, because of this act of love you gave Me on the threshold of my death, I come, on the threshold of your death, to repay you with love.
Your Master loves you, Mary. He is here to say this to you. Do not be afraid or anxious about another death. Your death is no different from that of those shedding their blood for my sake. What does the martyr give? His life out of love for his God. What does the penitent give? His life out of love for his God. What does the lover give? His life out of love for his God. See that there is no difference. Martyrdom, penance, and love consummate the same sacrifice and for the same purpose. In you, then, a penitent and a lover, there is martyrdom, as in those perishing in the arenas. Mary, I will precede you into glory. Kiss my hand and lie down in peace. Rest. It is time for you to rest. Give Me your thorns. Now is the time for roses. Rest and wait. I bless you, blessed one.”
Jesus has obliged Mary to lie down on her couch. And the saint, with her face washed with tears of ecstasy, has lain down as her God has wanted her to and now seems to sleep, with her arms crossed over her chest and her tears continuing to fall, but with a smile on her mouth.
She rises again to a sitting position when a very bright radiance appears in the grotto because of the arrival of an angel bearing a chalice which he sets upon the altar and worships. Mary, kneeling beside her cot, worships, too. She can no longer move. Her strength is failing. But she is blessed. The angel takes the chalice and gives her Communion. He then goes back up to Heaven.
Mary, like a flower scorched by too much sun, bends - she bends with her arms still crossed over her chest and falls, with her face amidst the leaves of her cot. She is dead. The Eucharistic ecstasy has cut the last thread of life.294
Jesus says:
“Although creatures may be consummate in the generosity of love and in repaying those who have loved them, they are always very relative. But your Jesus surpasses all human immensity in desire and every limit to satisfaction. For your Jesus is God, and to you, the generous and loving - since this is a page which I address especially to you, the souls that are not satisfied with obeying the precept, but embrace the counsel and push your love for Me to holy acts of heroism - I give with my abundance as God, and as a good God.
“I create the miracle for you, to repay you with joy for all the joy you give Me. I take the place of what you lack or produce what you need. But I let nothing be lacking for you that have stripped yourselves of everything out of love for Me to the point of living in a material or moral solitude in the midst of the world, which does not comprehend you and which mocks you and which, repeating the insult of old which was previously directed at Me,295 your Master, shouts at you, ‘Madmen!’ and takes your penances and your lights to be diabolical signs. For the world enslaved to Satan believes that satan is the saints who have placed the world under their feet and turned it into a stool to rise higher towards Me and plunge into my Light.
“But go ahead and let them call you ‘madmen and demons.’ I know that you are possessors of true wisdom, of upright intelligence, and that you have the soul of an angel in a mortal body. I remember, and not a single loving sigh is forgotten, what you have done for Me; and, as I defend you against the world - for I bring the best ones in the world to know what you are in my eyes - so I compensate you when the hour comes, and I consider that it is time to infuse some sweetness into your chalice.
“It is only I who have drunk it to the last drop without sweetening it with honey, I who had to cling to the thought of those who would love Me in the future, so as to be able to withstand to the last, without coming to curse man, for whom I was shedding my Blood, and experience - more than experience, abandon Myself to - the desperation of my condition as one abandoned by God.296
“But I don’t want you to suffer what I suffered. My experience was too cruel to impose on you. And it would mean tempting you beyond your strength. God is never imprudent. He wants to save, not destroy, you. And to impose certain excessively cruel hours on you would mean destroying your souls, which would bend down like a branch burdened with too much weight and in the end would remain broken and experience the mire, after having experienced so much Heaven.
“I never disappoint those who hope in Me. Say this over and over again to everyone.”297
289 In the visions on February 18, February 19, and February 21, respectively.
290 In the writings of Maria Valtorta, particularly in her major work on the Gospel, Mary Magdalene, the sister of Mary and Lazarus, is identified with the unnamed sinful woman in Luke 7:36-50.
291 See the vision on March 23.
292 Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-11.
293 Luke 10:38-42.
294 At this point the Italian edition of The Notebooks includes a vision of Mary Magdalene’s anointing Jesus.
295 Matthew 12:24; Mark 3:22,30; Luke 11:15; John 10:20
296 Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34.
297 The following texts written at this point in the Notebook have been included in the Passion cycle in the life of Christ: “Judas Iscariot after the Betrayal” and the dictation concerning it (March 31, 1944) and the dictations on “Mary’s Annulment of Eve” (April 2) and “Cain and the First Parents” (April 5).