Last night, too, from 2 a.m. till dawn, I was with Jesus, as on the previous night.
He said to me, “Here I am, with my little John, so that he will not weep.” But I was not crying. I have wept no more since the night before last. One cannot cry when He is consoling. And He knows this. And, smiling, He told me tonight, “I have worked the miracle again of transforming tears into a smile, thorns into roses, and turbulence into peace. As when Giacomino died,787 and I caressed you for the first time, to keep you from crying any more.”
I, while continuing to rest on his chest - I like so much to hear his heart beat - asked, “Are You not going to speak today, either, Jesus?”
And He replied, “But if I speak, you must write and thus leave this pillow. Do you prefer that?”
“No, Jesus. I prefer this. Though your words, too, make me happy. But I was thinking about souls.”
“My poor, little John, you are too ill to allow Me to have you write. You know I am also a Physician, your greatest Physician, even for your poor body, which serves as an instrument for Me and should not be crushed. I am thus severe with those who do not treat you as someone in your condition should be treated - like a child. You are my child. For the time being, this is what you are.
When you are better, you will again be the lesser John. Now remain here. You have seen how expert I am in rocking children to sleep. I seem like a perfect father. But aren’t I? Didn’t I generate all my saints? Haven’t I loved you so perfectly that I died to give you life?”
“Yes, Jesus. Nothing for souls, then?”
“Beloved mendicant! Do you want, or do you want to give?”
“I want, and I want to give.”
“Give me your suffering.”
“Too little and something too habitual. I want to give more. And then I want something for myself.”
“A gift or a memento?”
“Whatever You want, but something which speaks to me of You.”
Jesus clasped me very tightly and said, “I will give you something which was mine and which You shall give Me for souls.” And, with Jesus still holding me against his chest, in such a way that the left half of my thorax was entirely free, I felt myself to be hit with two blows of a scourge. Just two. But what harm they did! In every place where the little hammers of the bands had struck - that is, at about ten points - I felt pain like a projectile penetrating into my bone and organs, and my skin stung where the thongs had made it swell.
Just two! And Jesus explains, “No more because they hurt too much. They hurt too much! And you are sick. Give Me the pain of the torment which was mine, which was atrocious. Give it to Me for souls. And now be still, here with Me.”
And I was left like that - blessed and tortured. Blessed in my soul and tortured in my body. But how happy!
787 See May 13, in The Notebooks. 1943.