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John 21:19
Jesus says:
“Another brief teaching for those who, having nearly reached the goal, need to make the final efforts to embrace the end of the trial victoriously.
“‘Be perfect,’ I said.259 Perfection starts from the most burdensome things and is fulfilled with the lightest ones. It begins by taming the flesh; it is fulfilled by cleansing thought of those ideas which are not sinful, but which contain the blemish of a mental injustice that is not pleasing to God - forgiven by God, who is merciful, but not pleasing. Now, why seek to come to Me with one’s clothing not sullied by stains, but not fresh and pure like that of a lily whose dust has been washed away by the morning dew?
“I am your dew, and I flow forth to remove from you even the slightest blemish of humanity and error and adorn you with my Grace to make you jewels of the Father’s throne. I have given you my Love and my Blood. I have given you my Word and my Body. But I want to give you more than the Word. I want to give you my Thought.
“What is thought? It is the soul of the word. When two people love one another, they are satisfied with saying necessary words, but communicate their intimate thoughts as well. Oh, the joy of being able to say to those who love us what, like a lightning bolt, like music, like a throb, is burning in our mind and through this burning distinguishes us from the beasts, whose mental movements are limited to the rudimentary needs of life!
“Man thinks, and from thought he draws the masterworks of art, genius, and beauty. Man thinks, and in this thought of his he has an intimate friend who fills even the solitude of the hermit with company. Man’s thought, spiritual as it is, freely roams throughout the universe. It plunges into the remembrance of distant ages, immerses itself in prevision of times to come, studies and contemplates and meditates on God’s wonderful works in creation, and reflects on the mysteries of men (every man is a mystery enclosed in a mortal robe: luminous or dark, according to his holy or Satanic spirit, a mystery known only to God, for whom nothing is unknown), and from contemplation of things and men he rises to contemplations of God. Like a swift eagle that darts from a valley to its peaks and from these ascends higher to rove in the sky, to go up towards the sun and seek the stars, so human thought can rise, roam, and immerse itself in the shining purity of God after having meditated on human capacity and in divine immensity after having reflected on human relativity, on divine eternity after having contemplated human transience, and on Perfection after having observed human imperfection, without the pride which blinds.
“Well then, how sweet it is to communicate this thought of ours to those we love! Its lights, offered like gems to those dearest to us! It is the love of love, the purest, the most select.
“I want to give you my Thought, have you understand the Thought hidden in the Word. It is as if I took you and introduced you into my Mind and brought you to know the treasures enclosed therein. To make you increasingly like Me and thus more pleasing to my and your Father.
“In the Gospel of John, who perfectly possessed the Thought of the Word of God made Flesh, the thought of his Jesus, Master and Friend, there is a sentence: ‘Now he said this to indicate the death by which he would glorify God.’
“The death by which he would glorify God. Children! All deaths are glory offered to God when they are accepted and undergone in holiness. May even holy envy of this or that death be far removed from you. May the human measurement of the value of this or that death be far from you. Death is a determination by God which is fulfilled. Even if its executor is a fierce man making himself the arbiter of the destinies of others and by his adherence to Satan becoming Satan’s tool to torment his fellows and be their assassin, cursed by Me, death is always a final act of obedience to God, who has inflicted death on man for his sin.260
“You are familiar with so many indulgences, and there are petty souls (not little - petty) that, in their restricted religion wrapped in practices like a mummy in the darkness of a hypogeum, tally the daily sum of how many days of indulgence they acquire with this or that prayer. Indulgences exist so that you may enjoy them in the future life - it’s true. But illuminate, give wings to your soul and your religion. They are heavenly realities. Don’t make them slaves imprisoned in a dark jail. Light, light, wings, wings. Rise up! Love! Pray so as to love; be good so as to love; live so as to love.
“There are two indulgences which are the greatest - plenary. And they come from God, from Me, the eternal Pontiff. That of Love, which covers a multitude of sins. It destroys them in its fire. Those who love with all their strength consume their human imperfections moment by moment. Those who love commit nothing more than imperfections. The second plenary indulgence, granted by God, is that of a resigned death, of whatever kind it may be, a death willing to offer a final act of obedience to God.
“Death is always a calvary. Great or small, it is always a calvary. And it is always ‘great,’ even if it apparently has nothing making it seem to be so, for it is adjusted by God to the strength of each (I am speaking here of my children, not of those who are children of Satan), to the strength which God increases in the measure of the death that is the destiny of his creature; and it is great because, if fulfilled in a holy way, it takes on the greatness of what is holy. Every holy death, then, is glory rendered to God.
“How beautiful it is to see the rose opening on its stem! Observe it: it is enclosed like a ruby in its emerald setting, but it opens the thin plates of the setting and, like a mouth opening into a smile, unlocks the purple petals. With its silken smile it responds to the kiss of the sun. It opens. It is a halo of living velvet around the gold of the pistils. With its color and fragrance it sings the glory of the One who created it, and then in the evening it wearily bends and dies with a more intense scent, which is its final praise for the Lord.
“In forests how beautiful it is in the evening to hear the choir of the birds that, before going to rest, with all the trills of their throats sing the prayer of praise to the Father, who has nourished them! The choir seems to subside, but there is always the most enamored one, that casts forth a new trill and incites the others to follow him, for the sun has not yet set and the light is so pretty that it must receive a farewell so that it will love them and come back in the morning, for the good Lord still allows a seed to be seen on the ground, a dazed gnat, a tuft of wool to take to one’s young or give to the little stomach that the good Lord feeds. And the choir continues until the light fades and the grateful ones gather themselves on the branch, little balls of warmth that still have a peep under their feathers to say, ‘Thank you, O my Creator.’
“The death of the just is like that of the rose; it is like the bird’s sleep. Sweet, beautiful, pleasing to the Lord. In the area of a circus or in the darkness of a jail, in the midst of family affections or in the solitude of those without anyone, swift or long in torments, it is always, always, always glory rendered to God.
“Accept it in peace. Desire it in peace. Fulfill it in peace. May my peace remain in you even in this trial, in this desire, in this consummation. May you already have my eternal peace in you, beginning now, and for this final matter.
“Consider that the bloody death of an Agatha is no different for Me from that of a Liduina or a Thérèse Martin or a Dominic de Guzmán or a Thomas More or a Contardo Ferrini.261
“As I said, whoever does the will of my Father is blessed. I said, ‘Blessed,’ and my brother and sister and mother.262 I said this. For I glorified God my Father by doing his will in life and in death. Imitate your Master, then, and I will call you ‘my brothers, my sisters.’ ”263
259 In the preceding dictation (Mt 5:48).
260 Genesis 3:17.19
261 St. Agatha died as a martyr in the third century; St. Liduina (1380-1433) died of infirmity; St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873-1897) died of illness in the cloister; St. Dominic (1175-1221), the Founder of the Dominicans, died of exhaustion arising from his travels; St. Thomas More (sixteenth century) was beheaded by English King Henry VIII because of his profession of faith in the Church of Rome; and Blessed Contardo Ferrini (1859-1902) died of typhus.
262 Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-35; Luke 8:19-21.
263 The following episodes, originally written at this point in the notebook, are included in the life of Christ: “The Pharisees and the Woman Caught in Adultery” and a dictation with instruction (March 20), found in The Third Year of the Public Life; and “The First Lesson on Work Received by Jesus” and a dictation with instruction (March 21), found in the Preparation cycle.