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(6 p.m. on May 12 I introduce the date of May 13 because Jesus so desires)
An observation Jesus makes to me as I reread the dictation on February 20 in relation to the Passion of Jesus and the sorrows of Mary....330
“You have forgotten a word, and of course it has not been copied, and this entails a contradiction with what is later stated by you in the vision on Good Friday:331 John’s meeting Mary in the house of the Last Supper.
“Put things in order as follows: ‘And he shuttles between Caiphas’ house and the Pretorium, Caiphas’ house and Herod’s palace, and all over again between Caiphas’ house and the Pretorium.’ It is for this reason that John can say, ‘...I did everything possible so that He would see me.... I sought to have recourse to the powerful to obtain mercy....’
“In reality, it is a trifle. But we live among pharisees more intent on catching someone in the act than the Pharisees in my time were. We must thus be very heedful, in turn.
“The usual Pharisees will make a biting observation: ‘Why didn’t the Master call the spokesman’s attention to this error before now?’ To show you once more, I reply, that you are so relative that even if you are ‘spokesmen’ or directors of a spokesman, you do not notice the oversights which distort the facts. You read, meditate, copy, and leave the mistake caused by an omission of a word which brings about a shift in the situation.
“Correct and have it corrected. At least in the original, complete notebooks. Observe that, beginning in your manuscript, the word ‘Caiphas,’ is omitted. You were too exhausted that day, from both the long suffering of the vision you had had (‘The Burial of Jesus and the Desolation of Mary’) and the bombing undergone, that you were slow to follow the dictation. Nor did you perceive or note the mistake afterwards. There is nothing serious about this. It does not damage any sacred truth. But it is good to be exact even in secondary truths.
“The aforementioned Pharisees will also make another observation concerning yesterday’s dictation. I said, ‘You were right. It is too severe for you. The decree must be mitigated.332 I can already hear the scandalized chorus of these doctors of quibbling: ‘But, what is this? Didn’t God know that this was too severe? She is blaspheming by accusing God of not being perfect in understanding and applying.’
“I shall reply, once and for all, with the words uttered by Me twenty centuries ago: ‘...If the days of the final torment were not lessened, not a single soul would be saved; but they will be shortened for the sake of the chosen.’333 If this can occur for all believers in the final hour - a mercy as big as the earth to save the greatest possible number of souls from the desperation of horror - can’t it be used with this ‘little one,’ who by God’s will has a foretaste in herself of what will be the spiritual torment of the good in the last days?
“I thus defend her. I, too, should have borne the cross alone. That was the decree. But it was too much for my weakness. And man granted Me help.334 And shouldn’t she who is bearing a cross of expiation so great that it is killing her receive help?
“Let it kill her, then. It is a holocaust. But let it not drive her mad in her spirit, which she has entrusted to Me. She underwent the first part of her trial and remained faithful. I alone know the battles she had to fight. The Tempter promised her joy. She clasped pain more tightly to herself because joy was Evil and she wanted to follow Good. The taste of the fruit of Good is most bitter for human flesh. Only in the other life does it become the honey of Paradise.
“To have rejected Satan meant drawing down his hatred upon her, multiplied a hundredfold. To leave her completely at his mercy meant losing this heart. God is not inexorable. And for the sake of the chosen He modifies his decree.
“I, too, had the angel in Gethsemane.335 He had not been planned on. But the prayers of my Mother obtained him for Me. The woman who is now receiving a ray of sunlight, a drop of comfort, and an instant of fresh air every day so that she will not die before her mission is accomplished has had my Mother as her Advocate and other chosen souls on Earth and in Heaven who have prayed for her. She has had my Mercy, which has set itself up as a queen over against the Father’s Justice and said, ‘I have mercy. Have mercy as well.’ For if I am the First One, in Heaven and on Earth, who has respect for the decrees of the Eternal Father, I am also He to whom all judgment has been handed over by the Father336 and can thus say to my and your Father, ‘Father, have mercy on this creature of mine!’
“Nor should you think that she is in a rose garden now. After a month of merciless severity337 she is now experiencing an hour’s truce. But may you - that, scandalized, think too much importance is attached to a brief event - never experience what she is still suffering and will suffer for a long time to come. Not one of you, intransigent doctors, would remain faithful as she was able to. She is suffering for you as well - arid towers of hard flint on the outside, filled with soft clay on the inside - for you. For you, that, as always,338 place heavy weights on others, but for yourselves do not want to be weighed down by even the weight of a feather.
“Let them grumble, Maria. I always responded with silence to those grumbling about Me.339 A silence which grew deeper and deeper the more the grumbling became calumny and the calumny accusation and accusation condemnation and condemnation blasphemy. On the cross it was a silence involving my gaze, too.... I looked only towards Heaven, to see if I ‘could encounter God’s gaze, and my Mother, to refresh my soul in her purity.
“You are on the cross and remain there. Be silent and seek only God and Mary.”
(My Note)
Jesus has me place the date of the 13th on this dictation - that is, tomorrow. But He dictated it to me at 6 p.m. on Friday the 12th. And right after I finished - I mean immediately, at once; my God, what a battle! I am terrified! - I was overtaken again by that wave of desperation which gives me flashes of madness. I try to say the Rosary. But I hear the devil guffawing and mocking me. Oh, Eternal Father! Have mercy!
They, are the moments when Satan wants to convince me that I am a fake, a madwoman, someone who deceives everyone. He wants to convince me that nothing is true, that I am damned.... I would scream, if I were alone, to find an outlet. But I am at the house of others,340 and who can understand...? They are the moments when God, Jesus, Mary, and their “voices” and caresses seem to me to be the dream of an infirm mind.... And yet I have heard those “voices.” Is it possible that I am mad? Mad only for this reason? I do everything else-correspondence, accounts, living arrangements - with facility and order. So?
Why can this horrid demon torment me like this? Cancel out even certainty about what I have heard and felt! Isn’t the not feeling or hearing in these hours enough? Must I also experience a loss of certainty about what I have received?
O Lord! O Mary! Have mercy on me!
The Morning of May 13
After Communion in Honor of the Immaculate Heart
Mary says:
“I want you to understand my joys better. You will say the Franciscan rosary more willingly.
“In the first one, I was not happy because of my glory and joy, but because the time had come for man’s redemption and God’s forgiveness of man.
“The second one made me happy not because of the praise offered me by my cousin, but because I had begun redemption by sanctifying the Baptist by taking my Jesus, your Redeemer, to him.
“The blessedness of the third one was not exclusively because I had become a mother, without pain or the staining of my virginity, or because of the grace of being able to kiss God, my Son, either. But because the Earth now had the Savior.
“What made me happy the fourth time was that in the three Magi I saw all of those who, from everywhere in the world and in all periods of the earth, from that moment on, would come towards the Light, towards my Lord, and would proclaim Him to be their King and their Savior and God.
“The joy of the fifth event did not come exclusively from my love as a Mother who ceases to suffer because her lost Son is found again. It would have been selfishness. But it was inexpressible joy to hear the ‘Good News’ echoing forth for the first time and to understand that a few years in advance it was falling into some hearts and sprouting there into an eternal plant. I rejoiced over these people instructed in advance.
“The sixth joy was an even greater love for you, redeemed creatures. The Risen One told me that the Heavens were open and already inhabited by the holy ones of the Lord who had been awaiting that hour for centuries and that in those Heavens the seats of all the saved were ready. And for me, your Mother, to know that your dwelling was ready was a joy of incalculable depth.
“Finally, the seventh joy was not because of my glory. But because, having been made the Queen of the Heavens by the goodness of God, as the Queen I could concern myself with you, my beloved ones, and, chosen as I was to sit at the right hand of God, I could speak, pray, and obtain graces directly for you, with powerful entreaty.
“No joy was for me alone. Selfishness, even the most just and holy, destroys love. Every joy came to me through perfect love and was spurred towards an even more perfect love.
“I am now blessed. I could not be more so because I am surrounded by the Triune embrace of God. But I still use my blessedness out of love for you. Even here I apply the law: I love God with my whole self and my neighbor as myself.341 Myself, not because I am Mary, but because Mary found grace before the Lord and is loved by Him; she is thus a holy creature in Him and of Him, part of Him.
“Oh, my theology! It has only one key word: ‘Love.’ I am Queen of the Heavens because I have understood this theology as no other creature has.
“Love. You will be saved. Love. Love in words or in silence. Love in action or immobility. Love in fervor or in the suffering of aridity. Love in joy and in pain. Love in victory and in weakness. Love in temptation and in freedom from the Enemy. Always love.
“Let there be a point in you, the deepest one, which, in the midst of a whole wounded, stricken, agonizing being stupefied by pain, exhausted by the devil’s assaults, nauseated by life events, and tossed about like a ship in a storm, is able to remain still and alive in love. A point in you which has this one mission - to love - and fulfills it for your mind, heart, and flesh. And let that point be your sanctuary. Let the altar be there with the lamp which is always lit, with flowers which are always fresh, and with praise which is always resounding.
“Whether you weep or laugh, hope or doubt, are exhausted or not, let the holiest part of your spirit, the one living in that point consecrated for worship of God, always be able to say: Gloria tibi, Domine. Gloria! Laudamus Te! Benedicimus Te! Adoramus Te! Glorificamus Te! Quoniam Tu solus Sanctus, Tu solus Dominus, Tu solus Altissimus. Cum Angelis et Archangelis, cum Thronis, et Dominationibus, cumque omni militia caelestis exercitus, himnum gloriae tuae canimus, sine fine dicentes: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus!342
“Before the Elevation comes praise. Before the Consummation comes praise. Be able to say your Mass. Every victim is a priest. But one is not a priest if one does not know how to celebrate Mass. In all its parts.
“Look at my Jesus. Before being elevated and consummated, He gave praise to the Father.343 And He already knew what awaited Him.
“O Maria, let your heart sing. Let it sing even if tears rain down from your eyes. Let song cover your moan and the voices of Satan, who wants to convince you to mistrust yourself to keep you from following your mission, who wants to convince you that God does not hear you to keep you from praying, who wants to convince you that you are lost in order to destroy you.
“No. You are not. Persevere. A day or an hour of faithfulness at this moment is worth more than the ten years spent in physical pain and penance, but with peace in your heart and God perceptible at your side. Persevere. ‘Whoever perseveres until the end will be saved.’344 My and your Jesus says so. And I tell you so. Suffer in peace. I will come soon.”
(My Note)
I am immersed in pain. I go into sopor accompanied by it, and when I emerge, I find him there, giving me his nightmare at once: “God does not love you. You are damned. You are a liar. A madwoman. A heretic.”
It is a real nightmare. It removes all comfort. It even darkens the material light of the sun and the sight of the natural beauty which, in other states of mind, would bring me joy. It makes me incapable of any occupation. It cancels out the quietude prayer gave me and the joy of praying. I speak and hear that thought. I write, and it seethes in my brain. I read, and it overcomes the words. It is there, always there....
As soon as I regain awareness, the first sensation is this thought. I have not yet opened my eyes and mouth and moved my hands, but it is already in motion, boring into my heart and mind. As soon as the Master or the Mother has finished speaking, it resumes its work as a woodworm tirelessly producing decay where it has made its nest.
One must experience it to grasp what it is....
330 See note 181.
331 On April 7.
332 See note 326.
333 Matthew 24:22; Mark 13:20.
334 Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26.
335 Luke 22:43.
336 John 5:22.
337 Since April 9.
338 Matthew 23:4; Luke 11:46.
339 Matthew 26:62-63.
340 The Giovannetti house in St. Andrea di Compito. See note 312.
341 ???
342 The Latin text of the Gloria in the Preface used in the Missal at that time.
343 John 14-17.
344 Matthew 10:22; 24:13.