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Friday Morning
Jesus says:
“This is a lesson entirely for you.
“I am your Master, and you recognize this. This recognition of yours gives me joy. But I want you to recognize the full depth of what I am doing in you. I have taught you many things and will teach you many more, for you are still very far from being the way I would like you to be.
“One of the last things taught was the power of silence. I made you understand it by showing you21 Myself, who am silent before my current and former accusers, before Pilate, and the Pilates, who do not accuse me and, in human terms, do not hate Me, but who do not defend Me out of fear. I saw that you understood that lesson and were desirous of imitating Me, though acknowledging that by yourself you would never be able to.
“This desire and this humility of yours induced Me to act. I always act when I see someone’s willingness to be acted upon. I am not only a Master; I am also a Physician, and I know, as a physician, that no examination and no diagnosis is sufficient to heal if the patient refuses to submit to the doctor. It is not the word that saves - it is the act. I then acted upon you by clasping you to my Heart.
“Love my Heart, Maria, for it is precisely what has healed you of one of your main defects - that of vehemence, resistance, a lack of submissiveness to successive temporal events. Tedious, annoying, unfair - it is true. But which must be rendered useful, equitable, and beloved in thinking of eternal life, where all of you will rediscover them. Clasped to my Heart - and you know what morning it was - it not only spoke to you,22 but purified you with its flames. As a result, your humanity was changed, losing much of the humanity you all have - I might say ‘of its wildness’ - and acquiring a great deal of my humanity.
“I shall work other things in you, if I see you are always willing and humble, as I have worked others to make you more pleasing to our Father. You have realized you have been cured of many and by Whom. You have not realized others, for my hand has been so light.
“But consider this, so as not to err, when you observe yourself in amazement, seeing that your arms grow feathers, turning into wings: all the good you see has arisen where there were previously weeds and knotty branches is mine - I have given it to you. You could have done nothing by yourself, in spite of your good will. “For this last thing worked in you, by which you have become an imitator of Me in the silence which is prudence, which is charity, which is sacrifice, and which pleases Me more than incense, you gave Me praise by proclaiming that I had granted that grace. This acknowledgment spurs me to work more.
“I am a Master and Physician, but also a Father. And if I were not the God-Man, I would say I am a Mother for all of you, for like a mother I carry you, nourish you, care for you, instruct you, weep over you, and take pride in you. The love of a father is indeed different. The love of a mother is the love of loves, after that of God. That is why on the cross I gave you to my Mother. I did not entrust you to the Father, from whom I rescued you by dying. I gave you to the Mother, because you were unformed or just born, and a Mother’s breast was needed for you.
“All of you - and you, personally - be a daughter for me who recognizes the care given her spiritual girlhood. Observe those born of woman: scanty light in the rudimentary thought of a newborn babe, but you see him smile and caress the breast from which he receives milk. Observe the offspring of the beasts: they love the maternal bosom which nourishes them; they love the wing which covers them.
You, woman who are the daughter of a woman, you, a creature made in the likeness of God - do not be inferior to those born of animals. Always recognize my breast, which rears, nourishes, and instructs, and love it with a love which compensates Me and spurs Me to care for you more and more. Do not grow tired of loving. You know what I mean. Do not grow tired of loving if you do not want Me to grow tired of acting.
Go in peace, now. Remember, listen, and love. You know what I mean. That way you will make Me happy. I am Jesus, the Jesus who is the Savior.”
21 In the Autobiography the indications the writer had already received on the Lord’s passion are revealed or veiled.
22 The first dictation is dated April 23 and appears in the second Notebook. The interlacing of dates from one notebook to another shows us that Maria Valtorta did not always write continuously in the same notebook until using up all the pages, but sometimes made alternate use of several notebooks, perhaps to allow her industrious spiritual director, Rev. Romualdo M. Migliorini, O.S.M., to type up everything he received from her immediately.