July 1prev home
next
The Most Precious Blood. Saturday
1 John 5:5-8
I did not write yesterday because I was in agony, and Jesus let me rest and suffer.
St. John now says:
“I, the witness, testify to you that Christ Jesus, because He loved us to the point of hating Himself - since out of love for us He placed Himself in the hands of man and death, He, the eternally Living One - shed all of his Blood for us.
“I testify to you, I, who set my feet in the footprints left by Him in the streets of Jerusalem and who, under the cross, received drops of his Blood on my head and saw Blood and water flowing from his open side and was entirely tinged with Blood when we took Him off the cross, like a bunch of grapes that was so ripe it was open all over and dripping humor to be made into inebriating, refreshing wine.
“Let those who blaspheme by saying the Christ was not true God and true Man cease to blaspheme out of mercy on their souls.
Nothing prevented the Word God from appearing among men by materializing his divine spirit, already a mature, adult man appearing by a miracle among the throngs to instruct them on the perfection of the Law and redeem them with the Word. Moreover, nothing could prevent the Powerful One from not only materializing his spirit, but making it in all respects like ours, in a body endowed with real flesh, real veins, real nerves, real bones, and real blood, knowing that by the Word men would not be redeemed and that for the sake of Justice a Sacrifice was needed. The angels have materialized, and so do we when we have to appear to you by the divine will. Consecrated Hosts and images have dripped blood to shake off your doubts and indifference.
“But so that Denial would have no excuse, He thus wanted to become a little embryo maturing in a woman’s womb and then a small child moaning and sucking in order to live, and then a boy, adolescent, young man, and adult, like the greatest and the smallest among those born of a woman. For, in truth, being born and dying make us all equal. And He, the God, did not want to be different from us, since out of love He wanted to become Man.
“He was different only in his Perfection and in his Passion, which no creature has suffered so completely and horrendously - in flesh, mind, heart, and spirit. And He wanted it for Himself, though He was in truth the One who deserved no punishment, the eternally Innocent One, whose activity is only love and light, knowledge and goodness.
“He thus took on a soul and with it descended into the immaculate womb.
“O happy soul created by the Father to be the soul of his Incarnate Word! O happy womb, which brought the perfection of its immaculateness to the perfection of divine Motherhood and filled itself with Light! You became the beacon of the world, as long as the world lives, blessed womb of Jesus’ and my Mother! Tower of David, tower of pearl, tower of ivory, tower of lily, shining more than the moon because of the Sun, who enclosed Himself in you!
“My Lord took on a soul and robed it in flesh that was nourished and formed with the blood of the Virgin, and it is amazing that the blood He had taken from the Pure One - in whom it seemed there ought to be only whiteness clearer that the snowiness clothing a lily - was redder than a ruby. He took on flesh because Love had fecundated God’s Loving One, so that Jesus Christ may be said to be the fruit of perfect Love wedded to the most perfect love and Fire fused to snow to make the most precious, sacred, and pure Matter which Creation had manifested and seen flourishing.
“And He gave up his soul, as we do, with a loud cry, when, having consummated the Sacrifice, his heart and veins were emptied of blood, and, to show that in his charity He had reserved nothing for Himself, through his open side He cried out, ‘Here I am, dead for your sake,’ discharging the last drop of blood and the water of his lifeless flesh so that you would not say, ‘He was not a man and did not really die.”
“He was a man and had all the weakness and torments of dying man. He really died, for no one would have lived after the deep lance thrust, and through the gash I saw his heart, opened in the same way as the heart of a lamb that the butcher exhibits in his shop, and his lung, still and contracted after his last gasp. The spirit, the water, and the blood testify on earth that Jesus Christ was Man. As his word, which the voice of the Father and the apparition over Him of the Holy Spirit confirm,492 testifies that He is the Son of God.
“Do not entertain doubts concerning either his human nature or his divine nature. Those who have overcome the world will triumph. The world, which denies, because it is full of Satanic hatred, cannot believe that there was someone who loved so much that, being God, He humiliated Himself to become Man and wanted to die to restore Life to us.
“The world is overcome with faith. And faith testifies to you that Jesus Christ, our Lord, is true God and true Man, and that out of love for us He took on flesh in the womb of Mary and, born not by the power of man, but by a divine wedding, He died for us on the cross, giving all of his Most Precious Blood for us, asking, in exchange, only that we believe, hope, and love Him and in Him.
“This is the Blood in which the stoles of believers become cleansed and worthy to shine before the throne of God. This is the Blood that like a river issues forth from the throne of the Lamb and nourishes the tree of Life, whose fruits are medicine for the world, and those in its shade will no longer know weeping or hunger or thirst or pain, for all the misfortunes of the flesh will be over for them, and their spirits will be blessed in Jesus our Lord. So be it. So be it for all your servants, O Lord! For all, come, Lord Jesus!493
“May the grace of our Lord Jesus always be with you!”
And my St. John carries me off to Heaven. How long it had been since I had heard his gentle voice,494 the most beautiful one after those of Jesus and Mary! If you heard it just once, even a single sentence uttered by this voice, you would never forget it. To hear him speaking is rest and strength. Calm, passionate, and powerful, he really is the eagle bearing us towards the Sun.495 I am very happy that, precisely today, it is precisely he who has spoken about the Most Precious Blood, for which I feel such love.
Thirteen years ago I made the total offering of myself. Precisely on the Feast of the Blood of Jesus. I do not repent of having given myself. If I could go back, even now, when I know what it means to have given oneself, I would do it over again at once. Because of my generosity - I have nothing but this - may God be merciful to me and give the poor ant wings to ascend to Him.
492 Matthew 3:16-17; 17:5; Mark 1:10-11; 9:7; Luke 3:21-22; 9:34-35; John 1:32-34.
493 Revelation 7:9-17; 22:1-5 and 20-21.
494 Cf. March 6.
495 Cf. the entries for June 14 and 15.