Jesus says:
“‘Be perfect, all of you whom I love with an exclusive love. Live as angels, you that make up my Court on earth.’
“If to all the loving invitation is made to be perfect like my Father, for those I have chosen as my intimates and friends, this becomes a delicate command. To be my disciples - not in the vague sense which is applied to all Christians, but in the distinctive sense in which I called my Twelve ‘disciples and friends’ - is a great honor, but it entails a great duty.
“Minor perfection - that is, not to commit serious sins and to obey the Law in its most emphatic rules - no longer suffices. One must reach the refinement of perfection, follow the Law as far as the slightest nuances - I would say practically to anticipate it with something more. Like the children who not only go towards their father’s house, walking alongside the one leading them, but who run forward festively, overcoming the weariness and obstacles of a rough path to get there more quickly, for their love spurs them on.
“The house of your Father is in Heaven; love is what spurs you to overcome every difficulty in flight, to quickly reach Heaven, where the Father awaits you with his arms already open to embrace you. Therefore, my disciple should not only obey the law in the major aspects which I have imposed on all, but interpret my desire, even that which has not been expressed, that you do the maximum good you can, a desire which the lover understands, for love is light and knowledge.
“Now I will explain to you two points in the Gospel. One is from Matthew, and one, from Luke. In reality, they are a single parable, but it is expressed with a few differences. It should not cause astonishment that these differences are found in my evangelists. When they wrote those pages, they were still men - already chosen, but not yet glorified. They could thus commit oversights and errors, in form, but not in substance. Only in the glory of God is there no longer error. But to reach it they still had to struggle and suffer a lot.
“Only one of the evangelists is phonographically exact in reporting what I said. But he was the pure and loving one. Reflect on this. Purity and charity are so powerful that they allow someone to understand, remember, and transmit my word without erring in even a comma or a reflection. John was a soul upon whom Love wrote his words, and He could do so because Love alights upon and has contact with the pure in heart alone, and John was a virginal soul, as pure as that of a small child. I did not entrust my Mother to Peter, but to John, for the Virgin had to stay with the virgin. Remember this clearly: God does not communicate spiritual substances restoring to the soul that immaculate freshness which attracts my gaze and procures my word to someone lacking purity in heart, preserved since birth or obtained anew with the assiduous labor of penance and love.
“My evangelists state, then, that a personage - one calls him a king; another suggests that he is a rich gentleman - held a large banquet - probably a wedding - inviting many friends. But the latter offered excuses, according to Luke, and Matthew goes further: they did not care at all. Unfortunately, you do not offer even excuses to your God and often respond to his invitations with indifference.
“Then the host at the banquet, after having punished the uncouth, so as not to waste the already prepared to no avail, sent his servants to gather together all the poor, the lame, the crippled, and the blind who were to be found in the area or who were arriving from all over the country, torn between fear and need. The order was to open the hall to them and seat them at the table after having properly washed and dressed them. But the hall was still not full. Then that rich man ordered his servants to go out again and invite anyone, even by the use of a demure violence. Not only the poor roaming around the houses of the rich thus entered, but also those who did not consider doing so, convinced as they were that they were unknown to the host and had no need of anything.
“When the hall was full, the rich gentleman entered and saw someone - there is no mention of his being a poor man or a passer-by, but this detail is of small account - who had taken off the wedding suit, and this makes one imagine that he was a rich and proud passer-by and not a poor man convinced of being needy. Then the indignant host, seeing his gift disparaged and seeing that respect for his dwelling had been trampled upon, had him thrown out, for nothing contaminated must enter the wedding hall.
“Now I will explain to you the twofold parable.
“The guests are those whom I call with a special vocation, a freely-given grace which I grant as an invitation to intimacy in my palace with Myself, as an election to my Court. The poor, the blind, the maimed, and the deformed are those who have not received special calls and aids and who by their own means alone have been unable to conserve and reach spiritual wealth and health, but, rather, by natural imprudence have increased their unhappiness - that is, they are the poor sinners, the weak souls, poor and deformed, who do not dare to present themselves at the door, but roam about the vicinity of the palace, waiting for an act of mercy to refresh them. The passers-by in a rush, who do not care about what is happening in the Lord’s dwelling, are those who live in the more or less revealed religions or in their own personal one, which has a name: money, business, and wealth. They believe they have no need to know Me.
“Now it often occurs that those called by Me neglect my appeal, lose interest in it, and prefer to deal with human matters instead of devoting themselves to supernatural ones. Then I have the poor, the blind, the lame, and the deformed brought in; I dress them in the wedding robe, have them take a seat at my table, declare them to be my guests, and treat them as friends. And I also call those who are outside my Church; I attract them insistently and courteously; and I even force them with sweet violence.
“In my Kingdom there is a place for all, and my joy is to have many of you enter. But woe to those who, chosen by Me through a vocation, neglect Me, preferring to devote themselves to natural matters. And woe to those who, benignly received, though not deserving to be, and robed by my magnanimity in the grace which covers over and annuls their ugliness, take off the wedding garment, failing to show respect for Me and for my dwelling, where nothing unworthy must circulate. They will be expelled from the Kingdom because they have trampled upon God’s gift.
“Among sinners and converts, I sometimes see souls that are so beautiful and so grateful that I chose them to be my spouses, in place of others, previously called, who have rejected Me.
“You, Maria, were a poor thing, a beggar, hungry, agitated, and unclothed. After having tried to satiate your hunger by yourself, to calm your anxiety, to cover your wretchedness, without success, you approached my Dwelling, having understood that only therein are peace and true refreshment to be found. And I received you, situating you in the place of another who, called by Me, rejected grace, and, on seeing you grateful and willing, I chose you as my bride. The bride does not remain in the banquet hall. She penetrates into the spouse’s room and comes to know his secrets. But woe to you if good will and gratitude were to slumber. You must go on working to please Me more and more. To work for yourself, to thank Me for having called you. To work for the other, who rejected the mystical wedding, so that she will be converted and come back to Me. One day you will know who it is.
“Now nourish yourself at my table; clothe yourself in my garments, warmed at my fire; rest upon my heart; console Me for the defections of those called; love Me out of gratitude; love Me to make reparation; love Me to impetrate; love Me to increase your merits. I give the wedding garment to the one I love with a preferential love. But the beloved must adorn it ever more with a life of angelic perfection. She should never say, ‘Enough.’ Your Spouse and King is such a Lord that the bride’s garment must be covered with gems so as to be worthy to clothe the chosen one to sit in the palace of her Lord.”
Jesus further states:
“This time I will show Myself to you under another aspect. The Eucharist is Flesh, but it is also Blood. Here I am under the aspect of Blood. See how it drips and flows in rivulets over my disfigured face, how it runs along my neck, my torso, my robe, doubly red because it is soaked with my Blood. See how it bathes my bound hands and runs down to my feet, to the ground. I am truly the One who crushes the grape that the Prophet speaks about, but my love has crushed Me. Only a few are able to value the infinite price and enjoy the most powerful merits of this Blood I have entirely shed, down to the last drop, for mankind.
“Now I ask those able to look at it and understand to imitate Veronica and dry the bloody Face of their God with their love. Now I ask those loving Me to medicate, with their love, the wounds men continuously inflict upon Me. Now I ask them, above all, not to let this Blood be lost, to gather it in with boundless attention, in its smallest droplets, and pour it upon those not caring about my Blood.
“In the month about to end, I have spoken to you a great deal about my Heart and about my Body in the Sacrament. Now, for the month of the Blood, I will have you pray to my Blood. Say the following, then:
“‘Most Divine Blood that issue forth for us from the veins of God made man, come down like dew of redemption upon the polluted earth and upon the souls that sin renders similar to lepers. See: I receive You, Blood of my Jesus, and sprinkle You over the Church, the world, sinners, and Purgatory. Help, comfort, cleanse, set aflame, penetrate, and fecundate, O most divine Juice of Life. Nor may indifference and sin set an obstacle in the way of your flow. But, rather, for the sake of the few who love You and the numberless ones who die without You, hasten and spread over all this most divine rain so that people will come to You trustingly in life, through You be forgiven in death, and with You enter into the glory of your Kingdom. So be it.’
“That’s enough for now. I offer my open veins to your spiritual thirst. Drink from this fount. You will experience Paradise and the savor of your God, and that savor will never fade for you if you are always able to come to Me with your lips and your soul cleansed by love.”
My Jesus had begun to speak at 4 o’clock in the morning, amidst the pauses in my drowsiness. The word descended like a drop of light into my awakenings and sank into the returns of sleep, for I am so exhausted and weary... It was as if Jesus were bending over my bed and saying a word to me from time to time. However, when the time came for me to sit up and move about, shaking off sleep, those words, which had been repeated several times, like the refrain of a spiritual lullaby, shone brightly in my mind. They are the first two sentences of the first passage on the 28th. “Be perfect... Live as angels.” The other sentences were articulated following upon them. Not very much remained to be said when you69 came with Holy Communion. And everything was ended immediately afterwards.
The other passage, as you will readily understand, is an internal view (can it be so stated?) of my Jesus, wounded and dripping blood. It is not the handsome Jesus, dressed in white, orderly, and majestic on other occasions, and it is not the resplendent Baby the last time, smiling from Mary’s breast.
It is a sad, extremely sad Jesus, whose tears are mixed with blood, bruised, unkempt, dirty, with his robe torn, his hands bound, and the crown tightly thrust into his head. I distinctly see the crown of large thorns, not long, but very dense, which penetrate and scratch his flesh. Every hair has its drop of blood, and blood descends in rivulets from his forehead over his eyes, along his nose, and down onto his beard and neck and robe, dripping onto his hands; and his hands are so pale that it seems redder. It soaks the earth after having soaked his feet. But what is so very sad to see is his look... It is asking for mercy and love and, beneath its resigned gentleness, betrays an infinite sorrow.
Here, too,70 if I could, I would like to be able to draw it for you and me. For, if I consider carefully, no painting of Jesus and Mary that I am familiar with resembles what I see, in either the features or the expression. The latter, above all, is missing in literary works. But for me to become a painter... Nothing is impossible for God, it is true, but that is quite a lot...! And I believe that the good Lord will not do so, so I won’t congratulate myself on it either...
69 Father Migliorini.
70 As in the text of June 23.