Jesus says:
“This morning, while reading the Book, a sentence struck you. I want to explain it to you, though it does not belong to the cycle I am relating. I shall thus deserve an annotation from the difficult doctors.
“But where can there ever be a ‘master’ who can give lessons to the Master and say to Him, ‘You must speak about this and not that, for this is the program’? Who gives Me the program? Who is the Master in ‘my’ school? I alone. I thus speak about what I please to whoever I please.
“You read in the Book of Judith: ‘...Give my spirit firmness to disdain him and strength to topple him, and this will be a monument to your Name.’391 That’s enough. The rest does not enter into the lesson.
“I shall have you observe only that for those pursuing an upright purpose even those things which, though not sinful, are weaknesses inclining one towards sin when granted to the self for its own satisfaction become good.
“Beauty is a good thing if one is able to make good use of it. Beauty is one of the gifts which God gave to the First Parents. They reflected the Perfection which had created them. This was most pure Spirit. But even if man could not be entirely spirit, like his Creator, he could - and that is what God wanted - bear witness to the Origin he proceeded from with the perfection of a harmonious, very beautiful body, a living vase to contain a spirit without a stain of sin. And this is to pulverize the shameful theory of your descending from a quadruman.
“You come from God. Not from a beast which the ancient Mosaic law called ‘unclean.’ Remember: ‘Among all the animals that walk on four feet, those walking on their hands shall be unclean.’392
“Beauty should, then, be admired in one of your fellows, with praise for Him who gave man such sovereignty in form over all animals, and used in you for good purposes, not for vanity, as Judith used it. To adorn oneself to seduce, to corrupt, or to adorn oneself only out of pride or for the ostentation of wealth is a sin. But when, with one’s side tortured by a haircloth and one’s body mortified by penance, one is able to use physical appearance and riches for an upright purpose, the means is then elevated to sanctity.
“I said, ‘When you fast, scent your head and wash your face, so that your fasting will not be seen, but known only by your Father.’393 And that is what I did. For I did not say a word which I had not first turned into action already in my life. And because I had acted that way, I was accused of being a friend of publicans and prostitutes, a lover of banquets and feasts.394
“If there was anything distressing for Me, it was precisely the gaiety of a banquet and the confusion of a feast. I ate to live. I did not make food the ‘joy of living,’ as many do. And a piece of bread, even if eaten simply along a grassy bank, wetting my mouth with the pure water of a stream, seated amidst the flowers of the field, in the greenness of a tree, the dwelling for birds which the Father supplies, among my friends/disciples, was dearer to Me than the rich banquet at which I was observed and spied on by human curiosity and incurable envy.
“If there was anything distressing for Me, it was contact with the impure. My being rested when innocence encircled Me. Remember that I had left the angels to come down among men. And it was children that did not make Me miss the angels. But I had come to save sinners. And how would I have saved them if I had disdained and fled them?
“Judith, then, used and made the most of her beauty and her wealth for a holy purpose. And, increasing her hidden penances to please God, she increased her attractiveness to please man and crush him ‘with his own sword’ - sensuality, the weapon which killed Holofernes more than the tyrant’s sword did.395
“Maria, all creatures have their tyrants. Sensuality, the world, one’s neighbor, the devil.
“How many tyrants in one’s neighbor! People who oppress, people who envy, people who unjustly condemn. And yet it is necessary to love this neighbor, even if he is wicked, out of love for Me.
“There is sensuality, an octopus always resurfacing to pull people to the depths. There is the devil, a medusa that holds people with his gaze to hypnotize God’s creatures and destroy them. Who can one ask for help from against these enemies? God: ‘Give my spirit firmness to disdain him and strength to topple him.’
“‘On my own,’ the faithful soul says, ‘I am nothing. By myself I can do nothing. Because I love You, I would like to please You and overcome. But I am weak. Weak in purpose, weak in the strength to fight. But if You help me, Lord, I shall be able to withstand and overcome.’
“Can God refuse his help to a child who asks for his help? No. He places Himself at your side, and precisely because you are weak, but faithful, precisely because you are nothing, but admit you are, He infuses firmness and strength into you. He transfuses Himself into you. What are you afraid of if God is with you?
“Why does God help you like this? Out of love. This is the first thing. And, moreover, because every victory of the man who deifies himself in Good and perfects himself to belong to God as Perfection is a monument for the Holy Name of God. Every man who becomes holy is a monument to the benignity, power, and sovereignty of God. A monument that once more speaks to the peoples of the wonders of God so that they will know that He is the Powerful One and that above Him there is no one greater.
“Go in peace.”
391 Judith 9:14-15 (Vulgate).
392 Leviticus 11:27.
393 Matthew 6:16-18.
394 Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34.
395 Judith 13:1-10.