With my mind still disturbed by yesterday’s dictation and struggling between obedience and a desire not to cause pain to Father Migliorini, I say the Veni Sancte Spiritus this morning as usual before opening the Bible to find light and comfort when Jesus does not speak directly.
It opens at the page bearing the final part of Judith’s prayer before going to see Holofernes. “God of the heavens..., listen to this poor person turning to You with boundless hope in your mercy.... Place the words in my mouth and fortify the purpose in my heart, that your house may always preserve its holiness....” (Chapter 9, verses 17-19)718
I say to myself, “This really suits me, who want only the glory of God, recognizing my wretchedness and weakness. I want nothing but for the house of God, the militant Church, to know holiness, an ever-increasing holiness.
But, as I write this, the blessed voice of my Lord, who been present continuously since the day before yesterday in his white robe as a Teacher, says to me:
“Not only my House. Yours, too - that is, the spiritual house of your heart, where you receive God - and love for your God must - and, with my strength, you will be able - always preserve its holiness - that is, friendship with God and zeal to the point of sacrifice for his cause. Never be afraid to speak or act. Do you see how in the times for making the most serious decisions I am visibly close to you? It is to give you strength and approval.”
And, indeed, when He is there, courage and sincerity come! How could someone do something untrue, or even just remain silent for the sake of human affcections, when He is looking with those eyes?
Later, He has me open at the end of the prophecy of Jonah,719 and Jesus - speaking severely, and I am afraid - says:
“Write. There is something for both of you.720 Since the two of you are afflicted over something which has not cost you any effort, which you have not caused to grow, and - one of you in one sense, and the other, in another - you would like to take this mercy away from the contemporary Ninevehs - that is, you, the spokesman, as regards your lay brothers, and Father Migliorini, as regards his consecrated brothers.
“Don’t you know that in each of the two Ninevehs there are 120,000 people unable to distinguish between their right hand and their left one - that is, between good and evil - because a combination of elements which are as many pitfalls and works of Satan have reduced them to spiritual deficiency? Don’t you know that among these 120,000 people in each of the Ninevehs there are at least ten percent and five percent, respectively, that feel their unhappiness in spiritual blindness and disability in spiritual intelligence and cry out to Me, ‘Jesus, have mercy on us, who are sick! Make us see! Open our hearts and our minds to comprehend You!’ And shouldn’t I, Jesus of Nazareth, the good Master, the Divine Thaumaturge, take pity on them? But not only on them. On those, too, whose trafficking with Vice has made like animals.
“What a large number of animals the earth has! Men whom Satan’s witchcraft has degraded into being animals and nothing else!
“I have come to bring back the Spirit. I was the Forerunner of the coming of the Paraclete. And I shall come to gather together those faithful to the Spirit of the Lord, who is Knowledge and Awareness of Good and Faithfulness and Love for God. But I cannot come in a robe of flesh now to prepare the ways for the triumph of the King. The Father no longer wants this.721 Shall I let the boat of poor mankind be shipwrecked, then, and let very few therein be saved? No. The Flesh does not come, but the Word comes and entrusts Himself to his servants, for the sake of my poor men.
“And my servants are not the owners of the Word, but its guardians and distributors. They must be such without irritation or human attachments. I repeat my commands of yesterday,722 then. And let them be abided by. Scrupulously.”
718 In the current Bible, Judith 9:12-14.
719 Jonah 4:10-11.
720 Maria Valtorta Father Migliorini.
721 As stated in the dictation on April 23, 1943, in The Notebooks. 1943.
722 On September 24.