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The Ascension of Our Lord, 8 a.m. (Solar Time)
As I pray, I receive the intellectual vision of an immense purple cloth which a boundless number of angels, remaining on their knees in profound adoration, spread out, holding it by one of its edges (so to speak) over the whole earth.
I said “purple” to indicate its color. But the most beautiful silk and purple are like cotton fabric of little worth compared to this material, which is not cloth, for my inner advisor notifies me that it is the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord, which the angels continually extend over the whole earth so that his merits will descend into spirits and before the whole creation so that it will worship the Blood which a God shed out of love for his creatures.
I see nothing else. But it is a vision of such beauty that it absorbs all my other sensations, cancels out the intense pain and physical exhaustion, brings comfort to every hope, and revives all joy.
Against that shining blue of the sky of Paradise, compared to which our bluest sky is a dull affair, there stand the angelic flames: incandescent lights in human form, pearls and silver fused and ignited to become the appearances of bodies perceptible to my human heaviness, appearances of such a perfect beauty that they put to shame the loveliest artistic figurations. Melozzo and Angelico, Tiziano and Dolci, Perugino and Guercino, and all painters of angels, if they are in God’s glory, must be horrified by themselves when comparing these angelic perfections to their shapeless sketches, debased so far towards our humanity.
And, more splendid than these sapphires of the celestial sky and these inflamed pearls of the angels, the veil of the Most Precious Blood, a ruby which is fluid, a velvet which is liquid, a color which is a voice, a voice which is Grace. Grace for us.
I look and adore. Until Jesus speaks.
Jesus says:
“The usual trying spirits - I call them ‘incredulous rationalists’ - will find this dictation to be inconsistent. To speak of the Blood today, which is the commemoration of my Ascension into Heaven. Why? Because I want to. And if I want to, it is a sign that it is not inconsistent, for I never do anything illogical. Besides, I am not speaking for this blind ballast of mankind, a mob of soulless idols, models of haughtiness and foolishness. I am speaking for my children. And especially for you, Maria.
“We have been separated for forty days.352 Your pain and your love have counted them. Today, the day commemorating my separation from my disciples,353 I am returning, poor little violet of my cross,354 submerged and burned by the salt of your tears, but thirsty for my Blood in order to live. There is nothing but my Blood which makes you live. There is nothing but my Voice which consoles you. There is nothing but my Presence which makes you happy. Here I am with you.
“Are you crying? Do not cry. Listen. What you have seen intellectually is what really takes place.
“My Blood does not cease to spread over the earth. For twenty centuries it has been shining before the creation as a witness to love, and, like dew, it descends wherever there is a cross which says, ‘This is Christ’s land.’
“The angels of every single believer - indeed, of each one who bears the name ‘Christian’ - in their angelic nature do nothing but interlace flights between heaven and earth to draw from the divine treasures for every person they watch over. Nor does the angelic operation cease here, for the numberless other members of the angelic people by an eternal order worship for those who as non- Christians do not worship the true God and ask my Blood to spread over all creatures so as to be adored by them.
“The angels of the just worship rejoicing, joined to their souls, which receive a foretaste on earth of the adoration which will be eternal. The angels of those who are not Christians worship in hope, hoping that they may become their guardians under the sign of the cross. The angels of sinners who are no longer children of God worship in tears. And, weeping, they continue to beseech the Blood that it may redeem those hearts by its power. Finally, the angels of the churches scattered over the earth worship, taking to God the Blood elevated at every Mass in memory of Me.
“The Blood descends and the Blood ascends at an ince sant pace. There is no time of day at which my Blood does not rise up to God and come down to earth from God’s throne.
“You have never thought about this, Maria. But the Mass repeats the three leading points in my life as Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God.
“When, at the Consecration, the species become Flesh and Blood, I thus become incarnate as I once did. Not in the Virgin’s womb. But in the hands of a virgin. This is why angelic purity is required in my priests. Woe to the profaners who, with bodies sullied by carnal union, touch the Body of God! For if your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and must thus be kept holy and chaste, the body of the priest at whose command I descend from Heaven to become Flesh and Blood and rest in his hands as in a cradle must be purer than a lily. And, along with his body, his mind, heart, and tongue.
“In the Elevation is the Crucifixion. ‘When I am raised up, I shall draw everything to Myself.’355 And when I am raised up from an altar, I thus draw all the heartbeats, all the needs, all the sorrows, and all the prayers of those present and present Myself with them to the Father and say, ‘Here I am; the One Consummated by love asks You, O Father, to grant everything for the sake of these who are “mine,” for I have given everything for their sake.’
“And when the Sacrifice is consummated with the consuming of the Species, I thus return to my Father, saying to you, ‘I bless you. I am with you until the end of the world,’356 as on the morning of the Ascension.
“Out of love I become incarnate; out of love I am consumed; out of love I ascend. To plead on your behalf. It is always Love that reigns in my works.
“Meditate on the Mass in these lights with which I illuminate you. And consider that there is no instant in the day in which a Host is not consumed out of love for you and Blood is not consecrated to increase the heavenly pools in which the spirits of human beings are cleansed, infirmities are healed, aridities are watered, sterilities are fecundated, and what belonged to error becomes God’s.
“Contemplate my Blood, which, after having poured itself out in agonizing pains, ascends to the Father, crying out for your sake, ‘Father, into your hands I entrust these spirits of mine. Father, do not abandon them. I, the eternally immolated Lamb, want this for them.’ And repeat to yourself, so as to cancel out even the memory of former doubt, ‘For this reason my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices, and my body, too, rests in hope, for You did not leave my soul in the hell of pain. But out of love for your Blood, even more than in the recent past, You have made the ways of life known to me and will fill me with joy in your presence.’
“With slight modifications, these are the words of Peter after Pentecost.357 Say them a few days in advance. You have drunk so much gall, poor Maria. Console your heart with the honey of eternal words.
“I bless you, like the twelve, before ascending.”
352 As stated in the text for May 17.
353 Mark 16:19-20, Luke 24:50-53.
354 See the vision on April 22, in The Notebooks. 1943.
355 John 12:32.
356 Matthew 28:16-20.
357 Acts 2:25-28 (from Psalm 16:8-11).