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The Morning of Good Friday4
Jesus says:
“The first time my Father, to purify the world, send a lavacre of water; the second, He sent a lavacre of blood - and what Blood! Neither the first nor the second lavacre has availed to make men sons and daughters of God. Now the Father is weary, and to make the human race perish He lets the punishments of hell be unleashed, for men have preferred hell to Heaven, and their dominator - Lucifer - tortures them to spur them to curse Us so as to render them his sons and daughters completely.
“I would come a second time to die, to save them from an even more atrocious death... But my Father does not allow me to... My Love would permit it; Justice does not. It knows that it would be useless. I will thus come only at the final hour. But woe to those who will see me in that hour after having chosen Lucifer as their lord! There will be no need for weapons in the hands of my angels to win the battle against the antichrists. My look will suffice.
“Oh, if men even now were capable of turning to Me, who am salvation! I desire nothing but this and I weep because I see nothing is able to make them lift up their heads to Heaven, from which I am extending my arms towards them.
“Suffer, Maria, and tell the good to suffer to substitute for my second martyrdom, which the Father does not want Me to carry out. To every creature practicing self-immolation it is granted to save some souls. Some - and it is not surprising that those granted to each little redeemer are few if it is remembered that I, the Divine Redeemer, on Calvary, in the hour of immolation, was able to save the thief, Longinus and very, very few others out of the thousands of persons present at my death...”
A reflection on a discourse which is reported to me where it is stated that my prayers are relied on heavily [to obtain favors], for it has been recognized that what I have asked for has come true. It doesn’t cause me any pride, but a deeper gratitude to God, who is so good as to allow me to be able to obtain the happiness of other hearts. But to these hearts I want to say - and I will say - that it is not through my merit that this occurs. All could arrive at the same capacity if they wanted to. There is no method or special study to arrive at this power of entreaty. What matters is to make one’s heart a Bethlehem manger in which to receive the infant Jesus and make oneself a cross to bear Jesus the Redeemer. When we bear Him that way – indissolubly - we become nothing but a complement to Him, and He alone is the real protagonist of all things. The secret to obtaining all the graces which our fellow man attributes to our nonexistent merits is exclusively this annihilation of ours in Christ, so complete as to dissolve our human personality and oblige Jesus to act alone in every event. All we do is take to Him the voices of individuals joined to a kiss of love. He does the rest.
4 This is the first dictation received by Maria Valtorta. Marta Diciotti, who lived with the writer for many years, states that it took place around midday on April 23, 1943, Good Friday, and that Maria was left surprised, confided this fact to her, and asked her to go and bring Father Migliorini. Marta left the house, resorting to a ploy so as not to arouse the curiosity of Maria’s mother, who was a very authoritarian woman and not inclined towards religious matters. Father Migliorini came at once and remained in intimate conversation with the infirm writer.