Though I am very tired, for in the last seven days the Lord has used my strength... energetically and I have none left, I feel the need to introduce a note at the end of this notebook which will perhaps be useful to you. I am placing it here deliberately because, since Paul has now read the last vision, this notebook will not be taken in hand by anyone else, and this note will thus be read by no one else but you.
I spoke to you and wrote - on that sheet I gave to you on July 11639 - about what happens to me in seeing people not as what they appear to be, but as what they really are within. A phenomenon which makes me suffer very much, for it strips me of illusions and makes me experience repugnance which I must overcome with a superabundance of charity. It is very sad to say, “Everything is futile for him. It’s an incurable gangrene.” And to have to have him near, smelling the stench of his master, Satan, who has a grip on him and doesn’t let him go...!
Perhaps you, on hearing that confidential remark of mine on July 11, thought - as I did, moreover - that this seeing someone with the face of demon, so ugly as to be repellent, also derived from my particular state of mind in being irritated with him. I, too, wanted to believe this. I would have preferred to think that it was I who was lacking in charity rather than have him be as I saw him. I have been obeying you for thirty-four days now, Father, and, as I wrote at the bottom of the vision and dictation on the 9th, I lack not only words of reproach, but even thoughts. I strive never to think of what happened and the way my guests have behaved towards me, in spite of the fact that faults in tact and affection on their part are still manifest. I exclude Paola.
But that phenomenon remains. Just the same. I almost never see my cousin, and if I see him, it is for a few minutes a day. But on his face of flesh the other always appears.... And I make an effort to avoid acts of fear or repugnance.
In the meantime, I will tell you that, in spite of the fact that Paola and I have been pointing out the beauty of the dictations for the past month, in the Hour of Gethsemane dictated on July 6 and all the rest, he has not asked to read them any more. For two months now - June 18 to August 14 - he has lost all interest in them. At first, when we arrived here,640 it was a weary, intermittent affair. Then it was absolute abandonment. It is not that I demand that they be read.... But it hurts me to see that not even the literary beauty of the dictations seduces him any longer. I hoped that, by way of beauty, something would get through and beauty would serve to make holiness penetrate. However....
So much for him. A very vivid and clear sensation. The clearest and hardest to overcome. Regarding the others, whether or not they are in the house, it endures. But, fortunately, no one else is in that pitiful state, and my spirit thus suffers less with its knowledge. A twofold suffering! Of human affection, for I am fond of him as a relative, and of superhuman affection, for as a Christian I would like his welfare.
This painful knowledge is also an aid to me, though, in justifying all of his actions, which before, since the change took place in a few days, bewildered me, and I was unable to account for it. There is aversion not towards me as Maria Valtorta, but towards me as a “little voice of Jesus.” The scent of the Master - which pervades me and issues forth from me, for I am literally saturated with it and can say that I live only in the circle of his teaching - cannot be endured by those who are enemies of the Master and are in error.
Unfortunate creature! And how many like him there must be! And if after a year of continual contact with and reading of the dictations - from April 1943 to April 1944 and beyond, sporadically - he is like this, what will he be like when he has returned to the coils of Satanism, widely practiced in his circle? These are painful thoughts, you know? Not regarding Paola. There are joyful thoughts, for I see that the seed has fallen into her and become deeply rooted and put forth solid virtues. That’s done. And now onwards. Jesus said641 one should not demand to save all. I do not demand and proceed.
638 The original notebook at this point contains passages dealing with Mary Magdalene, written on August 12, 13, and 14, which are found in the cycles setting forth the second and third years of Jesus’ public life.
639 The date of Father Migliorini’s visit.
640 In St. Andrea di Compito.
641 On July 13.