March 29prev home
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11 a.m.
Jesus says:
“Write: ‘Against the power of the Devil, the Cross has all power.’ And then describe what you will see.
“It is the week of Passion: the one preparing the triumph of the Cross. The cross is veiled on the altars, but the Crucified One is at work more than ever on his glorious scaffold, behind his veil, for those who love and beseech Him.
“Describe.”
I see a young woman, little more than a girl. She is struggling with a young man about thirty years old. The woman is beautiful. Tall, brown-haired, and shapely. The young man is also handsome. But in the same measure as the woman has a gentle, though severe, look, under his forced smile, there is something not very pleasant about the man. Under a patina of benevolence, he seems to have a dark, threatening character.
He is making great protestations of affection for the young woman, declaring he is ready to make her a happy wife, the queen of his heart and his home. But the woman, whom I hear addressed as “Justine,” rejects these proposals of love with serene constancy.
“But you could make me a saint of your God, Justine. Because you are a Christian - I know. But I am not an enemy of the Christians. I am not incredulous regarding the truths of the hereafter. I believe in the other life and in the existence of the spirit. I believe spiritual beings watch over us and manifest themselves and help us. I, too, receive assistance from them. As you see, I believe what you believe, and I can never accuse you because I would have to accuse myself as well of the same sin as yours. I do not believe, as many do, that Christians are men who practice evil magic. And I am convinced that the two of us, joined together, will do great things.”
“Cyprian, don’t insist. I am not arguing about your beliefs. I also want to believe that we will do great things together. I do not even deny that I am a Christian, and I want to acknowledge that you love Christians. I will pray that you may love them to the point of becoming a hero among them. Then, God willing, we shall be joined in a destiny. In an entirely spiritual destiny, though. For I am averse to other unions, wanting to reserve my whole self for my Lord to obtain that Life in which you say you believe as well and come to possess friendship with those spirits that you, too, recognize as watching over us and doing good works in the name of the Lord.”
“Be careful, Justine! My sentinel spirit is powerful. He will force you to give in to me.”
“Oh, no! If he is a heavenly spirit, he can want only what God wants. And God wants virginity for me and, I hope, martyrdom. Your spirit thus cannot spur me towards anything contrary to God’s will. For if, moreover, he is a spirit not coming from Heaven, then he can have no power over me, above whom the victorious sign is uplifted as a defense. In my mind, in my heart, in my spirit, and upon my flesh that sign is alive, and flesh, mind, heart, and spirit will be victorious over any voice except that of my Lord. Go in peace, brother, and my God enlighten you to know the truth. I will pray for the light of your soul.”
Cyprian leaves the house, muttering threats which I do not understand clearly. And Justine watches him depart with tears of pity. She then withdraws in prayer after having reassured two elderly people, who must be her parents, who rushed in as soon as the young man left. “Don’t be afraid. God will protect us and make Cyprian our own. Pray as well, and have faith.”
The vision has two parts, as if the scene were splitting in two. In one I see Justine’s room, and in the other, a room in Cyprian’s house.
The former is praying, prostrated before a simple cross, drawn between two windows as if it were an ornamental design, above which there is the figure of the Lamb, flanked on one side by the fish and on the other by a fount which seems to draw its liquid from the drops of blood flowing from the lacerated throat of the mystical Lamb. I understand they are figures from the Christian symbolism in vogue in those cruel times. In the midst of the air above Justine, prostrated in prayer, there hovers a gentle luminosity which, though incorporeal, has an angelic appearance.
In Cyprian’s room, on the other hand, in the midst of cabalistic instruments and cabalistic and magical signs, Cyprian himself is intent on trafficking, moving around a tripod on which he is throwing resinous substances, I would say, which form thick spirals of smoke, and tracing out signs upon them, murmuring the words of some obscure rites. In the environment, which is filled with a bluish mist concealing the outlines of objects and making Cyprian’s body seem to emerge from a distance through tremulous waters, a phosphorescent dot takes shape which slowly grows until it reaches a volume like that of a human body. I hear words whose meaning I do not grasp. I see, though, that Cyprian kneels down and offers signs of veneration as if he were praying to someone powerful. The mist gradually disappears, and Cyprian is alone again.
In Justine’s room, on the other hand, a change is taking place. A phosphoric point dancing like a will-o’-the-wisp forms tighter and tighter circles around the young woman in prayer. My inner counselor advises me that it is the hour of temptation for Justine and that light conceals an evil spirit who, by prompting sensations and mental visions, seeks to incline God’s virgin towards sensuality.
“I do not see what she sees. I see only that she is suffering and that, when she is about to be overcome, she defeats the occult power with the sign of the cross traced out by her hand upon herself and in the air with a little cross she has removed from over her breast. When, the third time, the temptation must be violent, Justine leans against the cross drawn on the wall and raises the other little cross in front of herself with both hands. She looks like an isolated soldier defending herself to the rear by remaining pressed against an unshakable refuge and in front with an invincible shield. The phosphoric light does not withstand that twofold sign and dissolves. Justine remains in prayer. There is a gap here, for the vision appears to be interrupted. But I rediscover it later with the same individuals. The virgin and Cyprian are still there, in a brief conversation attended by many people who join Cyprian in asking the girl to give in and get married so as to free the city from a pestilence.
“It is not I,” Justine responds, “who ought to change my way of thinking, but your Cyprian. Let him free himself from slavery to his evil spirit, and the city will be saved. Now, more than ever, I remain faithful to the God in whom I believe, and I sacrifice everything to Him for the good of all of you. And now it will be seen whether the power of my God is superior to that of your gods and of the Evil One, whom he worships.”
“The crowd rises up, some against Cyprian and some against the young woman ...whom I find once again together with the young man, now much older and displaying the signs of priesthood: the palium and circular tonsure, no longer with the flamboyant, rather long hair he had before.
They are in the Antioch prison, awaiting martyrdom, and Cyprian reminds his female companion of a former conversation.
“So now what we prophesied as having to take place is occurring in a different way. Your cross has won, Justine. You have been my teacher, not my wife. You have freed me from evil and led me to Life. When the spirit of darkness I worshipped confessed to me his incapacity to overcome you, I understood. ‘She is victorious through the Cross,’ he said to me. ‘My power over her is null. Her Crucified God is more powerful than all of Hell together. He has already won out over me on numberless occasions and will always win out. Whoever believes in Him and in his Sign is saved from all treachery. Only those who do not believe in Him and disdain his Cross fall into our power and perish in our fire.’ I did not want to go to that fire, but know the Fire of God that made you so beautiful and pure, so powerful and holy You are the mother of my soul, and since you are my mother, I ask you in this hour to nourish my weakness with your strength so that we may rise to God together.”
“You are now my bishop, my brother. In the name of Christ our Lord, absolve me from every sin so that, purer than a lily I may precede you into glory”
“I bless you. I do not absolve you, for there is no sin in you. And forgive your brother for all the traps I have set for you. Pray for me, who have committed so many errors.”
“Your blood and your present love wash away every trace of error. But let us pray together: ‘Our Father....’ ”
Some jailers enter to disturb the noble prayer.
“Are the torments still not enough for you? Are you still withstanding? You won’t sacrifice to the gods?”
“We offer the sacrifice of ourselves to God. To the true, one, eternal, holy God. Give us Life. That’s what we want. Through Jesus Christ, the Lord of the world and of Rome, through the powerful King, before whom Caesar is base dust, through the God before whom the angels bow and the demons tremble. For us, death.”
The slayers furiously knock them to the ground and drag them along without being able to separate them, for the hands of Christ’s two heroes are joined to each other.
They thus go to the place of martyrdom, which seems to be one of the usual halls of the Quaestors. And two downward strokes falling from two muscular executioners sever the two heroic heads and give the souls wings for Heaven.
The vision ends like this.
Jesus says:
“The story of Justine of Antioch and Cyprian is one of the most beautiful stories in confirmation of my Cross.
“The Cross, the scaffold watered by my Blood, has, over the course of the centuries, worked numberless miracles. And it would still work them if you had faith in it. But the miracle of the conversion of Cyprian, a soul in the power of Satan that becomes a martyr of Jesus, is one of the most powerful and beautiful miracles.
“What do you see, O men? A girl alone with a little cross in her hands and a tenuous cross sketched on the wall. A girl with a heart truly convinced of the power of the Cross who takes refuge in it to overcome.
“In front of her, a man whom trafficking with Satan enriches with all the capital vices. In him are lust, wrath, deceit, spiritual blindness, and error. In him are sacrilege and alliance with the forces of Hell. And assisting him is the lord of Hell with all his seductions.
“Well then, the girl is victorious. And not only this, but, clinched by an invincible power, Satan must confess the truth and lose his follower. The faithful virgin is not victorious for herself alone, but for her city, freeing Antioch from the witchcraft which is spreading like a pestilence, killing the citizens. And she is victorious for Cyprian, turning him, a servant of Satan, into a servant of Christ. The devil, illness, and man - overcome by a girl’s hand holding up the cross.
“You are not very familiar with this martyr of mine. But you ought to depict her standing upright upon the stone covering Hell, under which Satan is snarling, defeated and imprisoned, with her little hand armed with the cross. And remember her that way, and imitate her that way. For Satan, now more than ever, is scurrying over the earth and unleashing his forces of evil to make you perish. And there is nothing but the Cross that can defeat him. Remember that he himself confessed, ‘The Crucified God is more powerful than all of Hell. He will always defeat me. Whoever believes in Him is safe from every snare.’
“Faith, faith, my children. It is a vital matter for you. Either you believe, and you will have good, or you do not believe, and you will experience more and more evil.
“O you that believe, use this sign with veneration. O you that are doubtful and with doubt have erased it from your spirit, as if under the effects of corrosive juices - and doubt is in fact as corrosive as an acid - sculpt this sign again in your thought and in your heart which renders you sure of divine protection.
“If the cross is now veiled as a symbol of my death,285 let it never be veiled in your hearts. As if upon an altar, let it shine therein. And let it be light to guide you to your destination. Let it be the banner upon which you will focus your blessed gaze on the last day, when by that sign I will separate the sheep from the billy goats and push the latter into eternal Darkness, bringing my blessed ones into the Light with Me.”
Jesus then says to me:
“You have experienced the power of the Cross. You have no doubts about the authenticity of the vision, for you, too, have seen Satan fleeing under your hand uplifting my cross.286 But how few are those who believe this way! And in not believing they do not even have recourse to this blessed sign.
“This vision should also be included in the gospels of Faith.287 It is not the Gospel. But it is Faith. And it is still the Gospel, for I said, ‘I will give to those who believe in Me the power to trample on snakes and scorpions and the Enemy’s power, and nothing will do them harm.’288
“May your faith increase with every beat of your heart. And if, in weariness, it slows down its beating, may your believing not slow down.
“The closer the hour of reunion with God comes, the more faith must be increased. For in the hour of death, Satan, who has never tired of disturbing you with his deceits - and, crafty, fierce, and flattering as he is, has sought to bend, you with smiles, songs, roars, hisses, caresses, and scratches - augments his operations to tear you away from Heaven. This is precisely the time to embrace the Cross so that the waves of the final Satanic storm will not submerge you. Afterwards eternal Peace comes.
“Cheer up, Maria. May the Cross be your strength now and at the hour of death.
“Let the cross of death, man’s last cross, have two arms. Let one be my Cross, and the other, the name of Mary. Then death occurs in the peace of those liberated as well from the nearness of Satan. For he, the Accursed One, does not endure the Cross and the Name of my Mother.
“Let this be made known to many. For you all have to die, and you all need this teaching to emerge victoriously from the final snare of the one who hates you immensely.”
285 This was the custom in churches during the week of the Passion, as is recalled at the beginning of the entry for March 29.
286 Probably a reference to an episode in Maria Valtorta’s Autobiography, pp. 276-277.
287 Initiated with the brief dictation on February 28.
288 Luke 10:19.