Today, the 15th, I am rereading the Holy Hour dictated yesterday, and Jesus says to me:
“For those who always take the liberty of reproaching Me for my words, I say, if they don’t understand them, let them study theology. They reflect what theology teaches.
“And, as for the sentence, which will certainly bother them, ‘The spirit is an essence poured out by God,’441 let them consider that the soul is ‘a breath infused by God.’ When deprived of a soul, you are corpses.
“Let them open Genesis. It says, ‘The Lord God formed man with the mire of the earth and blew the breath of life upon his face.’442 Let them not say to Me, ‘To give them life.’ No, to give life to domestic or wild animals, whether quadrupeds, reptiles, or birds, He had no need to ‘blow the breath of life upon their face.’ He created them, and that was all. The breath of God is the soul, the soul as life. It is the breath of the Spirit of God that becomes a living spirit in man.
“Let them also open the Gospels. What do you think I restored life to the dead with? With my hand? With my voice? No. By infusing my breath, which, since it was God’s, was vital - that is, spiritual. It was a soul. I would bend over the dead and take their hand and command, ‘Get Up.’443 Yes. But this was the external, visible form. As I bent, I breathed the spirit upon their faces, the outpouring of my spirit, and life returned.
“And if, in the resurrection of Lazarus,444 they, who reproach Me for my statements, say to Me, ‘You did not approach Lazarus,’ I reply, ‘For this reason, in this miracle, I called upon the Father’s aid, and - learn, O men - to receive it without fault I thanked Him before the miracle for having heard Me: “Father, I thank You for having heard Me. I know that You always hear Me. But I say this for the people around Me, so that it will believe that You sent Me.” ’ Sure faith, prompt gratitude. Indeed, advance gratitude, the proof of sure faith. For Lazarus, buried in the tomb, beyond the space and the bands and the putrefaction, far from Me, the vital outpouring from God was needed. And life returned.
“Let them also open the Book. To Kings, Book III, Chapter 17.445 How does the prophet Elijah restore life to the son of the widow of Zarephath? By extending himself three times over the dead boy and crying out to God. But also by breathing his spirit into the dead one, which prayer to God had made powerful with a vital strength. Elijah, a prophet - that is, a servant of God, but not God or the Son of God - must repeat the prayer and infusion three times. But it is still breath which he infuses. Spiritual breath.
“And doesn’t the Book say, ‘Do not be like animals, whose life is in their nostrils’?446 To say that Life is not in breath, but in the depths, in a secret point, but from there it spreads throughout the body and can pour itself out in throbs going back up to Heaven - charity towards God - and expanding over the earth - charity towards one’s neighbor. Therefore: an essence poured forth and infused by God, it is nourished by the food of God.
“And as for the other sentence - ‘For you I requested my own glory; indeed, I have even given it to you...’447 - which will certainly jolt them, let them take the Gospel of John and open it to the place where my final prayer before the Passion is found.448 It would be salutary if they fed their spirits daily on it and gave it as bread crumbs to the flock of the ‘little ones’ I have entrusted to them.
“Fewer books and tomes, twentieth-century scribes! But this prayer, this one, whose every word opens horizons, fountains, and treasures of salvation because it teaches you love, faith, hope, fortitude, justice, prudence, and temperance. And if they fail to see where these virtues are in it, it will be hard for them to accept my lesson, which shows them to them.
“The basic note of my whole prayer is love.
“Faith is when I request heavenly gifts for men.
“Hope is when I speak of those who do not yet exist, but will be sanctified because the Father will sanctify them even afterwards, when I am no longer the evangelizer among men.
“It is fortitude because I cry out this prayer of mine, which seems like a triumphal hymn, in the hour in which I know that there is being prepared what is torture for the flesh and the apparent failure of all hope, faith, and love on the part of God and men and in God and men.
“It is justice when I ask that those who are not the children of perdition since they did not want to follow Satan ‘may be one with the Father and with Me.’ No, those who do not want to perish do not perish. They do not perish. And for those not wanting to perish friendship and union with God are reserved. For the Father and I are just and judge with justice, bearing in mind man’s weakness and the circumstances which increase weakness.
“And then I introduce prudence into my prayer. I do not say, ‘They are sanctified by Me, and there is no need for anything else. I am sure about them.’ No, I rather say, ‘Sanctify them in truth.’ I ask that this sanctification may be inexhaustible to counterbalance the inexhaustible, deleterious action of nature incited by Satan.
“Finally, temperance is when I dare to say, ‘I sacrifice Myself completely and want men completely.’ I would like to have them. But that would not be justice, for many do not deserve salvation because of their partnership with Satan. And then, with temperance, I ask for those who will be sanctified because they have believed and lived according to the Word which the Father has given to Me for Me to give to them. To these I give the glory which the Father has given Me. ‘And I have given them the glory which You gave Me, that they may be one with Us’ (John 27:22).449
“This is the sentence which will strike them as a heresy of my little John. No, I protect him. I clasp him to my heart. I place him in the circle of my arms - this ‘little one,’ who is able to listen to Me and comprehend Me because he loves Me. This is his strength. He loves Me and thus surpasses you, learned ones who are learned in the way you are able: with a single wing for your knowledge because you lack the other one, on not having total charity - you that are learned, but are not loving.
“This little ‘voice’ of mine, like that of a little sparrow remaining with its wings extended to follow the flight of the eagle because it would like to follow it to hear its song and repeat it to its companions - for the royal eagle does not oppress the little sparrows, but makes friends with them, even in prison - deserves to have the impetuous current of the royal flight carry its smallness, incapable of heights, off to the heights of Paradise and to have the eagle defend it, under the protection of its powerful wings, from kites and falcons and enable it, on the solitary rock, to feed on morsels which the eagle shreds for it. For the eagle loves it.
“It loves this little voice very much. And it has thus rebaptized it ‘John,’ so that it will be defended by the apostolic eagle, in addition to the Divine Eagle, and learn its song from ours, and have peace in the shadow of our fortitude, warmth from the Sun to which we carry it off, and food from what we give it. I defend it - John and I.
“And when the little sparrow no longer has a voice and grows silent after the final profession of love, when its little wings fold over its heart, which has beaten so much with love, and its eyes close, not out of satiety in seeing the Sun, its Sun,450 but because the Sun’s heat has consumed it, we shall take it and carry it off with us, beyond the limit separating the human from the superhuman, and we shall place it on Mary’s lap, at the foot of God’s throne, so that, on reopening its wings, mouth, and eyes, it may fly, sing, and see - fly to the Sun God, sing to the Sun God, and see the Sun God.
“This is for those who ‘hate her for no reason,’ as they have hated Me.
“For those, moreover, who love Me and love her, I say that I am giving them the Holy Hour.451 I have dictated it for many, but I dedicate it to them, who wished for it, and Father Migliorini. I do not dedicate it to my little voice. She is a perpetual adorer and has her Master, who suggests the adorations to her hour by hour, clasping her heart to his Heart.
“I dedicate it to Father Migliorini, who is the little father of this little voice, whose Father is God. To Paola, who I want to think and feel now and always that she has a Father and a Mother in Heaven and be serene, for faith in a true love - and no love is truer than ours - provides serenity. To Marta, because she, too, needs to think she is not alone. And to think this even when the ‘little voice’ is far from her, but active for her sake in my breast, more than she is now.
“I bless all of you.”
When Jesus was saying, “I protect my little John. I clasp him to my heart. I place him in the circle of my arms,” I felt myself being touched on my shoulders by Jesus. His right hand, on my right shoulder, and his left hand, on my left shoulder. And Jesus was attracting me to Himself in this way, remaining behind me and speaking through my hair to complete the rest of the dictation. I felt Jesus’ breath on the top of my head and his long hair tickling a temple.
How lovely it is to remain like this under Jesus’ mantle and against his heart! I felt - I did not see. I have seen Jesus, for myself, only on June 7.
441 See note 436.
442 Genesis 2:7.
443 Matthew 9:25; Mark 3:41; Luke 7:14, 8:58.
444 John 11:1-44.
445 This quote involves the division then in use. In current terms, the reference is to 1 Kings 17:17- 24.
446 This probably refers to Ecclesiastes 3:21.
447 See note 438.
448 John 17.
449 The writer seems to have added the Gospel reference later. It should read “John 17:22.”
450 We recall that the writer, in the years of psychological isolation preceding her death, when she had lost the capacity for dialogue and remained in her sick bed and no longer wrote or worked, frequently exclaimed, “What sunlight there is there!”
451 Dictated on June 14 and now dedicated to persons mentioned previously: Father Migliorini, Paola Belfanti, and Marta Diciotti.