Since last night I have been seeing a very bright Heart. It looks like liquid gold, gold turned into precious glass and illuminated from within by a powerful light. Intense rays issue forth from it and surround it with a brilliantly shining halo. The Heart is beating impetuously, as when an emotion, a deep sentiment, arouses it. From the outlines of an even more dazzling, lighter gold, the abbreviation “IHS” can be read in it.
But this Heart, whose form and motion are in all respects exactly those of a heart, a human organ, appears to me as a living Host, radiant in its golden monstrance, for the flashing of the rays rounds it off, I would almost say, at its point, and most especially because in the place where the holy abbreviation is marked, a large Host, extremely luminous, alive in the luminous flesh of the Divine Heart, almost seems to be the soul of that blessed Heart.
I said my evening prayers, said in common, this way, with the eyes of my spirit fixed upon this Sun of love which is the Heart of Christ.... And I proposed to make my final offerings while the others ate, for it had not been possible for me to make them throughout the day for one reason or another.
But as soon as I was alone, as I put away the books I had on my bed and my work, in order to devote myself to what I intended to do, I suddenly got a heart attack that was so intense that I thought I was leaving for the other world. And I could no longer do anything else.... I could only say to Jesus, “Take this suffering, which You are giving me in place of what I wanted to give.” And I suffered that way for hours and hours.
And I am also suffering today, now, too. But I go on seeing the radiant Heart and am relieved by it in all respects, except in my flesh, which is a real complete torment.
Last night, thinking I really was dying, in order not to die alone, I had set before me, on my slightly bent knees, my Jesus, Our Lady of Fatima, and Gemma.423 I would also have wanted St. Joseph, but I could not move to get him. I was holding my beads for the Rosary and Our Lady of Sorrows and felt surrounded by the best possible nurses. I was looking very steadily at Jesus, Mary, and Gemma, when I felt the vise getting more intense and my heart slowing its beats down to the point of stopping for some seconds, and I thought, “I am going now.” I looked at them even more and called them. Not to be preserved from death. But to die in an act of love, so that my last word and my last glance would be for them. All the saints were in Gemma. Between Jesus and Mary I was also placing St. Joseph, and I was all set.
Then Jesus said:
“Your spirit has seen rightly My Heart is a living Eucharist. Where does love start from? From the heart. What is the Eucharist? It is love. When you think, then, of the Eucharist, you can say to yourselves, ‘This is the Heart of Jesus’ Heart.’ And when you think of my Heart, you can say, ‘This is the matrix in which the Eucharist was formed.’
“My Heart! The Host which immolated itself even beyond death, wanting to be split even after it had suffered everything so as not only to be martyred by betrayal, abandonment, and torture, but also offended beyond life to give its final drops, which were still in the innermost recesses of a Martyr who had bled to death.424
“The Host that was a host when it was still only Thought. And that became, made itself, a Thing so as to be a Host.
“I shall not say more to you because you cannot write any more. Love my Heart with your heart, until its final beat. Amidst the tortures of its illness, let your loving heart love Me, God’s Heart.”
423 She must be referring to St. Gemma Galgani (1878-1903) of Lucca, a virgin, to whom the writer was devoted.
424 John 19:33-34.