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Isaiah 22:11, 14,18
Jesus says:
“Too often you do not ‘turn your gaze’ to Him who is your Providence. You put frills - often useless - on something and then say, ‘We made this thing.’
“No. You are not the authors of it; rather, you are often its destroyers, for you neutralize the fruits coming from a work, when you do not destroy the work itself with your hands and your destructive minds.
“God gives you so much; He gives you everything which is useful and necessary for your flesh and blood, and for your minds and spirits. For all of this, especially for what is aimed at the mind and the spirit, you dig a ‘lake.’ Oh, yes! A lake. But it is a lake where the clear waters of God stagnate and become corrupted because they are placed in contact with so many other things and exposed to all invasions.
“You have thus made knowledge - measurelessly multiplied, but not elevated towards God - into a danger for yourselves, and also religion, which you have wanted to dress up in the frills of so many useless things, analyze with a human lens, and degrade by making it a formula and not a way of life.
“It is always the same reproach which I must apply to you. You have believed yourselves to be equal or even superior to God. And you have fallen into works not of the children of God, but only of reasonable animals - the super-reasonable ones of the earth, but humanly reasonable. And it is already a great deal when you are reasonable and respect yourselves to the point of saying, ‘Let’s see about acting with a view towards tomorrow’ Most of the time you think only of today and of making today a carousal for your flesh, loved exceedingly by you.
“Not even when you are in the midst of the torments of a punishment do you emerge from this unhealthy euphoria of yours. But, rather, all the more you wish for enjoyment and the life of brutes intent only on sating hunger and the senses. And between one form of enjoyment and another you deride God, in whom you no longer believe, except to curse Him afterwards or entreat Him when you suffer. And why? What do you expect? That is not the way help is obtained from God. I am for those who are honest and faithful. Even if they are weak, I forgive and assist them. I am not for the mockers and deniers who know how to take their share and give my children only pain and torment.
“And you, the first among my children,254 fortify your heart by holding your mouth to the mystical fount of my torn breast. As you are my herald - and, more than a herald, my Vicar on earth, he who represents the Lamb and has the Lamb’s heart and word - so you shall be a new Christ in pain and in destiny.
“How much pain is already in the chalice which is approaching! And it is of no use to you to have already drunk so much from it and to have lived as a just man! It is of no use to you because the more you drink from it, the more pain fills it; because that pain is distilled and squeezed out by the Force hostile to you, which, unable to bite Christ, bites the flesh of his creatures. And what creature is more of a creature of mine than you, who are meek and just, who are evangelical, like my John?
“Like the Beloved One, establish yourself in Heaven, to the point of becoming enraptured by the ardor of contemplation, for the hour of pain is closer and closer and you need to be filled with contemplation to be able to undergo the passion without yielding.
“Remain ‘the Light of the world’ in my place, even if the darkness builds up upon you to crush you. Even when falling, hold up my Cross, which is Light. Even when dying, make the Voice be heard which speaks from Heaven by way of you, my exemplary Servant.
“You have wept and it has not helped for you to know the secret of Fatima. Your care for the world has turned against you, like the care used with someone obsessed. But it doesn’t matter. My Mother is with you, and I am with Her.
“We are close to the great ‘voices’ and the little ‘voices’ that speak in my name and consume themselves so that the Voice of Christ will still sound on this earth swarming with demons. Be blessed, great and small bearers of the Word. We will win out against Satan. I am telling you so. And in the hour of victory my Light itself shall be your light, which shall make you shine like new suns.”
Oh, Father.255 What sweet sensations yesterday and today. Yesterday morning I received the caresses of Mary Most Holy. Caresses, really - not just a manner of speaking. I was working and thinking. Of Heaven, of course. I was telling myself that the day will be wonderful when I am up above, no longer an orphan, alone, and loved more or less, as I am now. I received Our Lady’s caresses on my head and cheeks. My tears were falling on the work I was doing as I thought of the condition I am in now without relatives, and I was asking for comfort, and comfort came in the form of caresses. It is not the strong, large hand of Jesus and his attracting me as a friend, not to mention as a lover. It was a soft, light, maternal caress of a small, slight hand. On my head and cheeks. An unmistakable touch, and the memory of it is my delight.
Later, this morning, towards dawn, while I was half asleep and was praying - I was saying the rosary - I exclaimed, “Oh, Mother of Jesus, what can I do for you?” And She replied, “Love me.” That’s all. She said nothing else to me. But the way She said it! It’s the first time I have heard the words of Our Blessed Lady. And all day I have been thinking of that “Love me,” spoken so sweetly, as if by a mother bending over her daughter’s crib and whispering in her hair, between one kiss and another, her dearest wish as a mother.
Our Lady was needed to make me savor this, which I never had in my life as a daughter...! What I experience cannot be described except by one word: “Ecstasy”!
254 This refers to the Pope, as is clear from the words which follow.
255 Father Migliorini.