priests

THE PRIESTS OF JESUS

Send this link to all priests you know

(Extracts from Maria Valtorta’s “The Poem of the Man-God”)

This is a selection of extracts which specifically relate to the apostles of Jesus in their destiny as priests, and to the priests of the (then) future who must remain obedient to His teachings - especially in times of persecution, apostasy and heresy.  The future priests will be the “doctors of souls” who will consecrate the Eucharist and administer the other Sacraments.  They will need perseverance, wisdom and love, they will be assisted by the compass of the Gospel, and they will be guided by the Holy Spirit.

[According to the decree of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, AAS 58, 1186, approved by Pope Paul VI on October 14th 1966, it is permitted to publish, without a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, works relating to private revelations, prophecies and miracles etc., provided that they contain nothing which contravenes faith and morals.

This compilation, therefore, has credibility only as human testimony and is not intended to represent the opinion of the Church.  The compiler wishes to affirm submission to the final and official judgement of the Church regarding the visions and dictations contained in these extracts.]

PRIESTS, PRAYER, AND OBEDIENCE

(Vol. 1, p. 159-60)

(Mary, the Mother of Jesus, tells Maria Valtorta that Joseph had a more heavenly soul than Elizabeth’s husband Zacharias, a priest.  She explains some of the general obligations associated with being a priest, and asks us to respect, to learn from, and to pray for priests:)

« ... In general, a priest is always enlightened by God. I said: "in general". He is enlightened when he is a real priest. It is not his robe that consecrates him: it is his soul. To judge whether one is a real priest, one must consider what comes out of his soul. As My Jesus said, the things that sanctify or contaminate come out from the soul, and they characterise the whole behaviour of a person. So, when one is a real priest, he is generally inspired by God. We must have a supernatural charity and pray for the others, who are not such.

But My Son has already placed you at the service of this redemption, so I will say no more. Be happy to suffer, so that the number of real priests may increase. And rely peacefully on the word of him who guides you. And believe and obey his advice. Obedience always saves you, even if the advice given to you is not completely perfect...

Obedience always saves you. Remember that. And respect for a priest is always a sign of a Christian education. Woe to those priests who lose their apostolic ardour! Also Jesus said that. But woe also to those who think that they are right in despising them! Because they consecrate and hand out the True Bread that descends from Heaven. And that contact makes them holy, just like a sacred chalice, even if they are not totally holy. They will answer to God for it. You must consider them as such and not worry about anything else. You must not be more strict than your Lord Jesus, Who, at their command, leaves Heaven and descends to be raised by their hands. You must learn from Him. And if they are blind, if they are deaf, if their souls are paralysed and their thoughts are unsound, if they are lepers full of faults in strong contrast with their mission, if they are like corpses in sepulchres, then call Jesus that He may heal them and revive them.

Call Him with your prayers, and your suffering, o victim souls. To save a soul is to predestine one's own soul to Heaven. But to save the soul of a priest is to save a large number of souls, because every holy priest is a net that drags souls to God. And to save a priest, that is to sanctify: re-sanctify, is to create this mystical net. Each prey is a light to be added to your eternal crown. »

THE EXAMPLE OF SIMEON

(Vol. 1, p. 163-4)

(Jesus comments to Maria about His Presentation, as a Baby, in the Temple.  He contrasts the attitude of the priest to whom He was presented, to that of the old man Simeon ...)

« ... Truth is not revealed to a priest engrossed in rites, but absent with his spirit, it is instead revealed to a simple believer.

The priest, always in contact with Divinity, devoted to what concerns God and to everything which is above the flesh, should have realised at once who was the Child Who was being offered that morning in the Temple. But it was necessary for him to have a living spirit, in order to realise it. A mere robe covering a drowsy spirit, if not a dead spirit, was not sufficient.

The Spirit of God can thunder if It wants, and rouse like a thunderbolt and shake like an earthquake the dullest spirit. It can. But generally, as It is an orderly Spirit, as God is Order in each Person and way of acting, It inspires and speaks, not where there is sufficient merit to deserve its effusion - in which case Its effusions would be most rare and not even you would know their light - but where It sees the "good will" to deserve such effusion.

How is such will exerted? With a life devoted, as far as possible, entirely to God: in faith, obedience, purity, charity, generosity and in prayer. Not in practices: in prayer. There is less difference between night and day than there is between practices and prayer. The latter is communion of the spirit with God, from which you emerge with fresh strength and a decision to belong more and more to God. The former are common habit exerted for various purposes, which are always selfish, and they leave you exactly as you were, nay, they aggravate your burden with the faults of falsehood and sluggishness.

Simeon had such good will. He had not been spared troubles and trials in his life. But he had not lost his good will. Age and misfortunes had not impaired or shaken his faith in the Lord and in His promises, neither did his good will to be more and more worthy of God tire or falter. And God sent Him the ray of the Spirit to guide him to the Temple, that he might see the Light that had come to the world, before his eyes of a faithful servant closed to the light of the sun, awaiting to be reopened to the Sun of God glowing in the Heavens, which I had reopened when I ascended after my Martyrdom.

"Prompted by the Holy Spirit" says the Gospel. Oh! If men only knew what a perfect Friend the Holy Spirit is! What Guide, what Teacher! If they only loved and invoked Him, this love of the Most Holy Trinity, this Light of Light, this Fire of Fire, this Intelligence, this Wisdom! How much more they would know of what is necessary to know!

Look, Mary; listen, My children. Simeon waited all his long life before "seeing the Light" and before knowing that God's promise was fulfilled. But he never doubted. He never said to himself: “It is useless to persevere in hoping and praying". He just persevered. And he deserved "to see" what neither the priest nor the proud and dull members of the Sanhedrin saw: the Son of God, the Messiah, the Saviour in the flesh of a Child Who warmed him and smiled at him. He received the smile of God from the lips of a Child, his first reward for an honest and pious life. »

THE ELECTION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES

(Vol. 2, p. 96-8)

(Jesus has spent a quiet week’s retreat with twelve of His disciples on a mountain.  One morning He wakes and gathers them and says:)

« Do you know what I have done to you? You all know. Your souls told your minds. But your souls, which were the queens these past days, have taught your minds two great virtues: humility and silence, the son of humility and prudence, which are the daughters of charity. Only eight days ago you would have come to proclaim your cleverness and your new knowledge, like clever children who are eager to astound people and overcome their rivals. Now you are silent. You have grown from children into adolescents and you are already aware that such a proclamation might humiliate a companion who was perhaps less helped by God, and therefore you do not speak.

You are also like pubescent girls. The holy reserve, concerning the change that revealed the nuptial mystery of souls with God, was born in you. These caves seemed cold, hostile and repulsive on the first day… now you are looking at them as if they were bright scented nuptial rooms. You have met God in them. Before you were aware of Him. But you did not know Him in the intimacy that blends two into one. Amongst you there are some who have been married for years, some who have had but a disappointing relationship with women, some who are chaste owing to various reasons. But the chaste ones now know what perfect love is, as the married ones know. Nay, I can say that nobody knows what perfect love is, as he who is unaware of carnal lusts. Because God reveals Himself in His fullness to the pure, both because He takes delight in giving Himself to those who are pure, as He, the Most Pure One, finds part of Himself in the creature free from lust, and because He wishes to compensate the creature for what it denies itself for His love.

I solemnly tell you that because of the love I have for you and of the wisdom I possess, if I did not have to accomplish the work of the Father, I would keep you here and be with you, isolated, as I am sure that I would soon make great saints of you, and you would no longer be subject to confusion, defections, failures, slackening, recurrences. But I cannot. I must go. And you must go. The world is waiting for us. The desecrated and desecrating world, which needs teachers and redeemers, is waiting for us. I wanted you to know God, so that you may love Him more than you love the world, which with all its affections is not worth one single smile of God. I wanted to make it possible for you to meditate on what the world is and what God is, so that you may yearn for what is better. At present you are yearning only for God. Oh! I wish I could secure you in your yearning of the present moment! But the world is waiting for us. And we shall go to the world, which is waiting for us, for the sake of the holy Charity that by My order is sending you to the world as it sent Me. But I implore you! Lock in your hearts, like a pearl in a coffer, the treasure of the past days in which you have examined, cured, elevated, renovated and united yourselves to God. And keep and preserve these precious memories in your hearts, like the witness stones erected by the Patriarchs in remembrance of the alliance with God.

As from today you are no longer My favourite disciples, but the apostles, the chiefs of My Church. All the hierarchies of the Church, throughout centuries, shall descend from you, and will call you masters, having as their Master your God in His treble power, wisdom and charity. I have not chosen you because you are the most worthy, but for a number of reasons that you need not know now. I have chosen you in place of the shepherds who have been My disciples since I was born. Why did I do it? Because it was right to do so. Amongst you there are Galileans and Judaeans, learned and unlearned, rich and poor people. And that is because of the world, that it may not say that I have chosen one category only. But you will not be sufficient for everything there is to be done. Neither now, nor later.

Not all of you will remember a passage of the Book. I will remind you. Book 2 of Chronicles, Chapter 29, tells how Hezekiah, King of Judah, had the Temple purified, and after it was purified, he had sacrifices offered in atonement, for his kingdom, for the Temple and for the whole of Judah, and then the offerings of the single individuals began. But as the priests were not sufficient for the sacrifices, the levites, who are consecrated with a shorter rite than the priests, were summoned.

That is what I will do. You are the priests, who have been prepared by Me, the Eternal Pontiff, diligently and for a long time. But you will not suffice for the work, which is much more extensive than the sacrifice of the offerings of individuals to the Lord their God. I will therefore associate with you the disciples who will remain such, those who are waiting for us at the foot of the mountain, those who are already higher up, those who are spread all over Israel and that later will be spread all over the world. They will be entrusted with equal tasks, because the mission is only one, but their position will be different in the eyes of the world. But not in the eyes of God, where there is justice, so that the obscure disciple, ignored by the apostles and by his brethren, who lives a holy life taking souls to God, will be greater than a known apostle, who has only the name of apostle and lowers his apostolic dignity for human purposes.

The task of the apostles and disciples will still be the same as the task of the priests and levites of Hezekiah: to perform the rites of the cult, to demolish idolatries, to purify hearts and places, to preach God and His Word. There is not a more holy task on the earth. Neither is there a dignity higher than yours. That is why I said to you: "Listen to yourselves and examine yourselves".

Woe betide the apostle who falls! He drags many disciples with him, and they drag a greater number of believers and the ruin grows larger and larger like a falling avalanche or a ring that expands on the lake when several stones are thrown in the same spot.

Will you all be perfect? No. Will the spirit of the present moment last? No. The world will throw its tentacles to choke your souls. That will be the victory of the world: to extinguish the light in the hearts of saints; the world, a son of Satan for five tenths, a servant of Satan, for three more tenths, indifferent to God for the remaining two tenths. Defend yourselves from yourselves, against yourselves, against the world, flesh and the demon. Above all, defend yourselves from yourselves. Stand on your guard, My children, against pride, sensuality, duplicity, tepidity, spiritual drowsiness and against avarice! When your inferior ego speaks and moans over alleged cruelty to it, hush it up by saying: "For a moment of hardship, which I give you now, I will procure for you, and for ever, the banquet of ecstasy that you enjoyed in the mountain cave at the end of the month of Shebat".

Let us go. Let us go and meet the others who in large numbers are awaiting My coming. And then I will go for a few hours to Tiberias and you, preaching Me, will go to wait for Me at the foot of the mountain that is on the road leading from Tiberias to the sea. I will come up there to preach. Take your bags and mantles. The retreat is over and the election has been made. »

JAMES, THE SACRAMENTS, AND THE PRIESTHOOD

(Vol. 2, p. 651-6)

(Jesus has taken His cousin, the apostle James, to Mount Carmel, where He reveals an important mission for James after He is gone.  James is distraught at Jesus’ revelation about His death, and Jesus comforts him with the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Returning down the mountain, James notices Jesus looking pensively over the area of Palestine between Mounts Carmel, Tabor and Herman ...)

James looks at Him and says: « Are You looking at the beauty of this region? »

« Yes, also at that. But more than anything else I was thinking of future pilgrimages and of the necessity of sending disciples without any delay to do real missionary work, and not just limited work as we have done now. There are many areas where I am not yet known and I do not want to leave any place without the knowledge of Me. It is a worry constantly present in My mind: to go and do everything, while I can… »

« Now and again something happens that delays You. »

« Rather than delay Me they cause changes to My itinerary; because the trips we make are never useless. But there is still so much to be done… Also because after being absent from one place I find that many hearts have gone back to where they started from, and I have to start all over again. »

« Yes, the apathy of souls, their inconstancy and affection for evil are depressing and disgusting. »

« Depressing, yes, but do not say disgusting. The work of God is never disgusting. We must feel pity not disgust for poor souls. We must always have the heart of a father, of a good father. A good father is never disgusted at the diseases of his children. We must never have a dislike for anyone. »

« Jesus, may I ask You a few questions? I did not sleep last night. But I pondered very much while watching You sleep. You look so young when You are asleep. My brother! You were smiling, with Your head resting on Your folded arm, just like the posture of a little boy. I could see You very well in the clear moonlight of last night. And I pondered. And many questions came up from my heart… »

« Tell Me. »

« I was saying: I must ask Jesus how we shall be able to set up that organised body, which You called Church, and in which there will be hierarchies, if I understood properly, considering how incapable we are. Will You tell us what we must do, or shall we have to do it by ourselves? »

« When the time comes, I will tell you who is its head. Nothing else. While I am with you, I will inform you of its various classes with the differences between apostles, disciples and women disciples. Because they cannot be avoided. But as I want the disciples to respect and obey the apostles, so the apostles must love and be patient with the disciples. »

« And what shall we have to do? Preach You all the time and nothing else? »

« That is essential. Then you will have to absolve in My name and bless, readmit to Grace, administer the Sacraments that I will institute… »

« What are they? »

« They are supernatural and spiritual means, applied also through material means, which are used to convince men that the priest is really doing something. You know that man does not believe unless he sees. He always needs something to tell him that there is something. That is why, when I work miracles, I impose My hands, or I wet with saliva, or I give a morsel of soaked bread. I could work a miracle by means of a simple thought. But do you think that in that case people would say: "God has worked the miracle?" They would say: "The invalid is cured because it was time for him to be cured". And they would ascribe the merit to the doctor, or to medicines or to the physical strength of the invalid. The same will apply to sacraments: religious formalities to administer Grace, or give it again, or fortify it in believers. John, for instance, used to immerge sinners into water to symbolise cleanness from sin. In actual fact the mortification of confessing oneself unclean because of sins committed, was more useful than the water that washed only the body. I will have a baptism as well, My baptism, which will not be only a symbol, but will really cleanse a soul of the original sin and give back to it the spiritual state that Adam and Eve possessed before they sinned, a state, which is now improved, because it will be granted through the merits of the Man-God. »

« But… water does not descend upon the soul! A soul is spiritual. Who can touch it in a new-born baby, in an adult or in an old person? Nobody. »

« See, you admit that water is a material means, with no effect on a spiritual thing? So it will not be the water, but the word of the priest, a member of the Church of Christ, consecrated in his service, or the word of another true believer, who may replace him in exceptional cases, that will work the miracle of redeeming the baptised person from original sin. »

« All right. But man commits sins of his own… Who will remove the other sins? »

« It will always be the priest, James. If an adult is baptised, also the other sins will be removed with the original one. If a man has been baptised and he commits sins, the priest will absolve him in the name of God One and Trine and through the merits of the Incarnate Word, as I do with sinners. »

« But You are holy! We… »

« You must be holy because you touch holy things and you administer what belongs to God. »

« So shall we baptise the same man several times, as John does, in fact he grants immersion into water as many times as one goes to him? »

« John's baptism purifies only through the humility of the person who is immersed into water. I already told you. You shall not baptise again those who have already been baptised, unless a person has been baptised with a schismatic formula and not with the apostolic one, in which case a second baptism is to be administered, subject to a precise request of the person to be christened, if adult, and subject to a clear statement that the person in question wishes to become a member of the true Church. In all other cases, to give a soul its friendship and peace with God, you will use the words of forgiveness joined to the merits of Christ, and the soul that has come to you with true repentance and a humble confession, will be absolved. »

« And if a man cannot come because he is so ill that he cannot be moved? Will he die in sin? Will the fear for the judgement of God be added to the misery of his agony? »

« No. The priest will go to the dying person and give absolution. In actual fact he will give the person a more ample form of absolution, not a comprehensive one, but an absolution for each and every sense-organ, by means of which man generally sins. We have in Israel the Sacred Oil, compound according to the prescriptions given by the Most High, with which the altar, the Pontiff, priests and kings are consecrated. Man is really an altar. And he becomes king through his election to a throne in Heaven; he can therefore be consecrated with the oil of Unction. The Holy Oil will be taken with other rites of the Israelite cult and included in My Church, but with different uses. Because not everything in Israel is evil and to be rejected. Nay, many recollections of the old stock will be in My Church. And one will be the Oil of Unction, which will be used also in the Church to consecrate altars, Pontiffs, all ecclesiastic hierarchies, kings and believers, when they become princes and heirs of the Kingdom, or when they need the greatest help to appear before God with their bodies and senses cleansed of all sins. The grace of God will assist both the soul and the body, if God so wishes for the benefit of the sick person. A body does not always react against diseases also because its peace is upset by remorse and because of the work of Satan, who through the death of the sick person hopes to gain a soul to his kingdom and cause despair to those who are left behind. The sick person passes from the satanic grip and internal emotion to a peaceful state, through the certainty of God's forgiveness, which also brings about Satan's departure. And since the gift of Grace was coupled in our first progenitors with the gift of immunity from diseases and from all forms of sorrow, the sick person who has been restored to Grace as great as the Grace of a new-born baby christened with My baptism, may get over the illness. The sick man is assisted also by the prayers of his brethren, who are obliged to have not only physical but above all spiritual pity on invalids, in order to obtain both physical and spiritual salvation for their brother. Prayer is in fact a form of miracle, James. The prayer of a just man, as you have seen in Elijah, can be very powerful. »

« I understand only a little of what You say, but what I do understand fills me with deep respect for the sacerdotal character of Your priests. If I have understood You correctly, we shall have many points in common with You: preaching, absolution, miracles. Three sacraments, therefore. »

« No, James. Preaching and miracles are not sacraments. The Sacraments will be more: seven, like the sacred candelabrum of the Temple and the gifts of the Spirit of Love. And in fact the Sacraments are gifts and flames and are granted to man so that he may burn for ever before the Lord. There will be a Sacrament also for the marriage of man. And it is already symbolised in the holy marriage of Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, after she was freed from the demon. The Sacrament will give the married couple all the assistance needed to live together according to the law and the wishes of God. Husband and wife also become the ministers of a rite: the rite of procreation. Husband and wife become also the priests of a small church: their family. They must therefore be consecrated in order to procreate with the blessing of God and to bring up a progeny that will bless the Most Holy Name of God. »

« And by whom will priests be consecrated? »

« By Me, before I leave you. You will, afterwards, consecrate your successors and those whom you will aggregate to yourselves to propagate the Christian faith. »

« You will teach us, will You not? »

« I and He Whom I will send to you. Also His coming will be a Sacrament. It will be granted voluntarily by the Most Holy God in His first Epiphany, and it will then be given by those who have received the fullness of Priesthood. It will be strength and intelligence, confirmation in Faith, it will be holy piety and fear, it will be assistance in advice and supernatural wisdom, and it will be possession of a justice that by its nature and power will turn the child who receives it, into an adult. But you cannot for the time being understand that. But He will make you understand: the Divine Paraclete, the Eternal Love, when the moment comes for you to receive Him. And likewise, you cannot for the time being understand another Sacrament. It is so sublime that it is almost incomprehensible to angels. And yet you, simple men, will understand it by virtue of faith and love. I solemnly tell you that those who will love it and nourish their souls by it, will be able to trample on the demon with impunity. Because I will then be with them. Try to remember these things, brother. You will have to repeat them many times to your companions and to believers. You will all already know through your divine ministry, but you will be able to say: "He told me one day, coming down from Mount Carmel. He told me everything because since then I was destined to be the head of the Church of Israel". »

« Here is another question I wanted to ask You. I was thinking about it last night. Shall I have to say to my companions: "I will be the head here?" I don't like it. I will do it if You tell me. But I do not like it. »

« Be not afraid. The Paraclete Spirit will descend upon you all and will instil holy thoughts into you. You will all have the same thoughts for the glory of God in His Church. »

« And will there be no more of those… so unpleasant discussions that we have now? Even Judas of Simon will no longer be the cause of disagreement? »

« He will no longer be, do not worry. But there will still be differences of opinion. That is why I said to you: be careful and watch, without ever tiring, doing your duty to the end. »

« Another question, my Lord. How am I to behave during persecutions? By what You say, it looks as if I am the only one of the Twelve to be left. So the others will go away to avoid persecutions. And what about me? »

« You will stay in your place. Because if it is necessary that you are not all exterminated until the Church is well consolidated, which justifies the dispersion of many disciples and of almost all the apostles, nothing would justify your desertion and your abandoning the Church of Jerusalem. Nay, the greater its danger is, the more you will have to watch over it, as if it were your dearest child about to die. Your example will strengthen the souls of believers. And they will need it to pass the test. The weaker you see them, the more you will have to support them with pity and wisdom. If you are strong, do not be pitiless with weak people. Support them saying: "I have received everything from God to become so strong. I must admit it humbly and act charitably on behalf of those who have not been blessed with so many gifts of God", and you must share your strength through your word, your assistance, your calm and example. »

« And if among the believers there should be some wicked ones, who are the cause of danger and of scandal to the others, what shall I do? »

« Be wise when you accept them, because it is better to be few and good, than many and not good. You know the old apologue of the good apples and the bad ones. Make sure it does not happen also in your church. But should you find people who betray you as well, endeavour in every way to get them to repent, using severe measures as a last resource. But if it is a matter of small individual faults, do not be so severe as to dismay people. Forgive, always… A heart is more easily redeemed by forgiveness joined to tears and loving words than by anathema. If the fault is a grave one, but is the result of a sudden attack by Satan, and is so grave that the culprit feels the need to run away from your presence, go and look for the offender. Because he is a lamb led astray, and you are the shepherd. Do not be afraid of degrading yourself by going along muddy paths, searching pools and precipices. Your forehead will then be crowned with the crown of the martyr of love, and it will be the first of the three crowns… And if you are betrayed yourself, as the Baptist was, and like many others, because every holy man has his traitor, forgive. Forgive the traitor more than you would forgive anybody else. Forgive as God forgave men and as He will forgive. Call him "son" again, who will grieve you, because that is how the Father calls you through My lips, and, truly, there is no man who has not caused deep sorrow to the Father in Heaven… »

THE THEOLOGY OF A SIMPLE MAN

(Vol. 3, p. 370-2)

(Traveling along a road leading to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus teaches His apostles about prudence when approaching others. He asks:)

« ... The people you approach in a simple friendly way, more than I do, without making them feel uneasy, as I may do, who do they say that I am? And who do they say the Son of Man is? »

« Some say that You are Jesus, that is the Christ, and they are the best. Some say that You are a Prophet, some only a Rabbi, others, and You know, say that You are mad and possessed. »

« But some call You by the same name that You use and they say: "Son of man". »

« And some say that that is not possible, because the Son of man is a different thing. But that is not always a denial. Because in actual fact they acknowledge that You are more than the Son of man: You are the Son of God. Others instead say that You are not even the Son of man, but a poor man agitated by Satan or deranged by madness. You can thus see that there are many different opinions » says Bartholomew.

« What is the Son of man, therefore, according to the people? »

« He is a man in whom there are all the most beautiful virtues of men, a man gifted with all the requisites of intelligence, wisdom, grace, which we think were in Adam, to which some add the gift of not having to die. You know that there is already a rumour that John the Baptist is not dead. They say that he was only carried elsewhere by angels and that Herod, and above all, Herodias, to prevent people from saying that they had been defeated by God, killed a servant, had him beheaded and then showed his mutilated body saying it was the corpse of the Baptist. People say so many things! So many think that the Son of man is either Jeremiah, or Elijah, or one of the Prophets, or the Baptist, who was gifted with grace and wisdom and said that he was the Precursor of the Christ. Christ: the Anointed of God. The Son of man: a great man, born of man. Some cannot admit, or do not want to admit, that God has sent His Son to the earth. You said so yesterday: "Only those will believe, who are convinced of the infinite goodness of God". Israel believes more in God's severity than in His goodness...  » says Bartholomew again.

« Yes. They feel so undeserving that they consider it impossible that God has been so good as to send His Word to save them. The degraded state of their souls is a hindrance to their believing that » confirms the Zealot. And he adds: « You say that You are the Son of God and of man. In fact in You there is all grace and wisdom as man. And I really think that he who was born of Adam in the state of grace, would have been like You in beauty and intelligence and all virtues. The power of God shines in You. But who can believe that, among those who consider themselves gods and judge God by their standards in their infinite pride? Cruel, hateful, greedy, impure as they are, they cannot possibly think that God has gone to such an extreme of kindness as to give Himself to redeem them, His love to save them, His generosity to be at their mercy, His purity to sacrifice His life among men. Since they are so inflexible and captious in looking for faults and punishing them, they cannot believe that. »

« And who do you say that I am? Tell Me your own personal opinion, without taking into account My words or the words of other people. If you were compelled to judge Me, who would you say that I am? »

« You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God » exclaims Peter, kneeling down with his arms stretched upwards, towards Jesus, Who looks at him with His face bright with love and Who bends to raise and embrace him, saying:

« Simon, son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not the flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but My Father in Heaven. Since the first day you came with Me, you have been asking yourself that question, and because you are simple and honest, you have been able to understand and accept the reply that came to you from Heaven. You did not see supernatural manifestations as your brother, John and James did. You did not know My holiness as son, workman, citizen, as My brothers Judas and James did. You did not receive any miracle neither did you see Me work any; I showed no sign of power to you as I did with Philip, Nathanael, Simon Cananean, Thomas and Judas, who saw them. You were not subdued by My will, as Levi the publican was. And yet you exclaimed: "He is the Christ!". You believed since the first moment you saw Me, and your faith was never shaken. That is why I called you Cephas. And that is why on you, Peter, I will build My Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven. And whatever you loose on the earth shall be loosed also in Heaven, o prudent faithful man, whose heart I have been able to test. And now, from this moment you are the head, to whom obedience and respect are due as to another Myself. And I proclaim him such before all of you. »

If Jesus had crushed Peter under a hailstorm of reproaches, Peter would not have wept so copiously. He is weeping and is shaken by sobs, with his face on Jesus' chest. His weeping can be compared only to the tears he will shed in his grief for denying Jesus. He now weeps for many good humble feelings... A little of the old Simon - the fisherman of Bethsaida who had laughed incredulously and facetiously at his brother's first announcement saying: « Of course, the Messiah would appear just to you!...  » - a good little of the old Simon crumbles under those tears, and from his vanishing frail human nature, Peter appears, more and more clearly, the Pontiff of the Church of Christ.

When he raises his shy embarrassed face, he can make only one gesture to say everything, to promise everything, to strengthen himself completely for his new ministry: he throws his arms round Jesus' neck, compelling Him to bend and kiss him, mingling his somewhat bristly grizzled hair and beard with the soft golden hair and beard of Jesus. And he looks at Jesus with his large, loving, imploring and adoring eyes, still shining and red with tears, holding the Master's ascetic face, bent over his own, in his rough large stumpy hands, as if it were a vase from which a vital liquid flowed... and he drinks kindness, grace, confidence and strength from Jesus' face, eyes and smile...

They separate at last, and resume their journey towards Caesarea Philippi, and Jesus says to everybody: « Peter has spoken the truth. Many guess it, you are aware of it. But for the time being, do not say to anybody who the Christ is, in the full truth known to you. Let God speak to the hearts of people, as He speaks to yours. I solemnly tell you that those who add perfect faith and perfect love to My statements or yours, will learn the true meaning of the words "Jesus, the Christ, the Word, the Son of man and of God". »

THE BREAD FROM HEAVEN, AND A CHALLENGE TO THE DISCIPLES

(Vol. 3, p. 445-8)

(Jesus is preaching in the synagogue at Capernaum about the gifts of God.  He tells the people He is the Bread of Life which they must eat, that He was sent by the Father, and that He may raise them from death on the last day.   Some of His listeners begin to grumble...)

« And who has ever heard God or seen His Face? » ask many who begin to show signs of irritation and scandal. And they conclude: « You are either raving or You are a day-dreamer. »

« No one has seen God except Him Who came from God: He has seen the Father. And I am He.

And now listen to the Creed of future Life, without which no one can be saved.

I solemnly tell you that he who believes in Me has eternal Life. I solemnly tell you that I am the Bread of eternal Life.

Your fathers ate manna in the desert and they died. Because manna was a holy but temporary food and gave life as was required to reach the Land Promised by God to His people. But the Manna Which I am will have no limit of time or power. It is not only celestial, but divine and produces what is divine: the incorruptibility and immortality of what God created to His image and likeness. It will not last forty days, forty months, forty years, forty centuries. But it will last until the end of Time and will be given to all those who hunger for what is holy and pleasing to the Lord, Who will rejoice at giving Himself incommensurably to men, for whom He became incarnate, that they may have the Life which does not die.

I can give Myself, I can transubstantiate for the sake of men, so that the bread may become Flesh and the Flesh may become Bread, for the spiritual hunger of men, who without that Food would die of starvation and spiritual diseases. But if one eats this Bread with justice, one will live for ever. The bread which I will give is My Body sacrificed for the Life of the world, is My Love spread in the houses of God, so that all loving or unhappy souls may come to the Table of the Lord, and may find solace to their need to be united to God, and relief to their sorrows. »

«  But how can You give us Your flesh to eat? Who do You think we are? Blood-thirsty beasts? Savages? Murderers? Blood and crime disgust us. »

« I tell you solemnly that man is very often more cruel than beasts, that sin makes men savages, that pride makes them bloodthirsty murderers and that blood and crime will not disgust all the people present here. And also in future man will be the same, because Satan, sensuality and pride make him brutal. Man therefore with greater care must rid himself of the dreadful germs through the infusion of the Holy One. I tell you solemnly that if you do not eat the Flesh of the Son of man and you do not drink His Blood, you will not have Life in you. He who eats My Flesh worthily and drinks My Blood, has eternal Life and I will raise him up on the Last Day. For My Flesh is real Food and My Blood is real Drink. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood lives in Me, and I live in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live for the Father, so whoever eats Me will live also for Me and will go where I send him, and will do what I want, and will live austerely, as a man, and as ardently as a Seraph, and will be holy, because in order to be able to feed on My Flesh and My Blood, he will abstain from sin and will live ascending and finish his ascent at the feet of the Eternal Father. »

« He is mad! Who can live like that? In our religion only the priest is to be purified to offer the victim. He wants to make us victims of His madness. His doctrine is too painful and his language too hard! Who can listen to Him and practise what He says? » whisper the people present and many are disciples known as such.

The crowds disperse making their comments. And when the Master is alone in the synagogue with His most faithful followers, the number of disciples has diminished considerably. I cannot count them, but I would say that, more or less, they are about one hundred. So there must have been a remarkable defection also in the group of the old disciples by now at the service of God. Among those left there are the apostles, John the priest and John the scribe, Stephen, Hermas, Timoneus, Ermasteus, Agapo, Joseph, Solomon, Abel of Bethlehem of Galilee, and Abel the leper of Korazim, with his friend Samuel, Elias (the one who did not bury his father to follow Jesus), Philip of Arbela, Aser and Ishmael of Nazareth, and some whose names I do not know. They are speaking to one another in low voices commenting on the defection of the others and the words of Jesus, Who with folded arms is leaning against a high lectern.

« Are you scandalised at what I told you? And if I told you that one day you will see the Son of man ascend to Heaven where He was before, and sit beside His Father? What have you understood, assimilated and believed so far? And how have you heard and assimilated? Only through your humanity? It is the spirit that gives life and is important. The flesh is of no avail. My words are spirit and life, and they are to be heard and understood through the spirit to have life. But there are many among you whose spirits are dead because they are without faith. Many of you do not really believe. And they are staying with Me in vain. They will not receive Life, but Death. Because they are staying with Me, as I said at the beginning, either out of curiosity, or for human pleasure, or worse still, for more worthless purposes. They have not been led here by My Father, as a reward to their good will, but by Satan. Nobody can really come to Me, unless it is granted to him by My Father. You may go, you who find it difficult to remain here, because you are ashamed, from a human point of view, to leave Me, but you are more ashamed to stay at the service of One Who seems "mad and hard" to you. Go. It is better for you to be far away, than be here and do harm. »

Many of the disciples withdraw, among them there is John, the scribe, Marcus, the possessed Gerasene, who was cured by Jesus and the devils possessing him were sent into pigs. The good disciples consult with one another and run after their faithless companions endeavouring to stop them.

In the synagogue there is only Jesus with the chief of the synagogue and the apostles...

Jesus turns towards the twelve apostles, who are deeply humiliated and are standing in a corner and says to them: « Do you want to go as well? » He says so without bitterness and without sadness, but very seriously.

Peter replies with sorrowful transport: « Lord, where can we go? To whom? You are our life and our love. You alone have words of eternal Life. We know that You are the Christ, the Son of God. If You wish, send us away. But we will not leave You of our own free will, not even... not even if You should not love us any more... » and Peter sheds large tears silently...

Andrew, John, Alphaeus' two sons also weep openly, and the others, who are either pale or flushed through emotion, do not weep, but are clearly suffering.

« Why should I send you away? Did I not choose you twelve?... »

Jairus has wisely withdrawn to leave Jesus free to console or reproach His apostles. Jesus, Who has noticed his silent withdrawal, sits down; He is tired, disgusted, grieved and depressed, as if the revelation He is about to make, cost Him a greater effort than He can possibly bear, and He says: « And yet, one of you is a demon. »

His words drop slowly, frighteningly, in the synagogue, where only the light of the lamps seems to be cheerful... and no one dare speak. They look at one another with fearful disgust and painful inquisitiveness and each one examines himself with even greater anguish and uncertainty...

No one moves for a while. And Jesus remains alone, on His seat, with His hands crossed on His knees and lowered face. He at last looks up and says: « Come. I am not a leper! Or do you think I am?...  »

John then rushes forward and throwing his arms round Jesus’ neck he says: « I will be with You, then, my only love, in Your leprosy. I will be with You in Your conviction, in Your death, if that is what You think is awaiting You... »; and Peter creeps at His feet, takes them in his hands and laying them on his shoulders he says sobbing: « Press them here, tread on me! But do not make me think that You do not trust Your Simon. »

When the others see that Jesus is caressing the first two, they come forward and kiss Jesus' clothes, His hands and hair... Only the Iscariot dares to kiss Him on His cheek.

Jesus springs to His feet and His movement is so sudden that He seems to be repelling him rudely, and He says: « Let us go home. Tomorrow night we will leave for Hippo by boat. »

NO MAN IS ENTIRELY GOOD OR ENTIRELY WICKED

(Vol. 3, p. 524-6)

(Early in the third year of His public life, Jesus is in the quiet green garden of Gethsemane with Marjiam, the young boy whom Jesus has allowed His apostle Peter to adopt.  Jesus is having a happy discussion with Marjiam, and mentions a recent experience where He was addressing some people, and Peter was not paying attention but was talking to other people ...)

« There were asking him questions, Lord » says Marjiam, who no longer laughs, but tries to justify Peter.

« One can make a gesture with good grace that one will reply later, when the Word of the Lord has finished speaking. Remember that, for your future life, when you will be a priest. You must exact the greatest respect while you teach and in the place where you teach. »

« But then, Lord, it will be poor Marjiam who will be speaking...  »

« It does not matter. It is always God Who speaks through the lips of His servants, in the hours of their ministry. And as such He is to be listened to in silence and with respect. »

Marjiam pulls a wry face, which is expressive of his internal feeling.

Jesus notices it and says: « Are you not convinced? Why such an expression? Speak, son, without any fear. »

« My Lord, I was just wondering whether God is on the lips and in the hearts of His priests at present, and I was terrorised at the thought that future priests may be like them... And I concluded saying that... many priests make the Lord cut a poor figure... I have certainly committed a sin... But they are so nasty and greedy, so arid... that...  »

« Do not judge. But remember your sensation of disgust. Bear it in mind in future. And with all your strength avoid being like those who disgust you and ensure that those under your direction are not like them either. Make the evil you see be useful for a good purpose. Every action and piece of knowledge must be changed into good through righteous judgement and will. »

« Oh! Lord! Before we go into the house, which is already in sight, please reply to another question! You do not deny that priests at present are faulty. You tell me not to judge. But You judge. And You can do so. And You judge with justice. Now listen, Lord, to my question. When priests of the present speak of God and of religion, we know what the majority of them are like, but I am referring to the worst among them, are we to listen to them as being truthful? »

« Yes, My son, always. Out of respect for their mission. When they perform actions pertaining to their ministry, they are no longer Annas, a man, or Sadoc, a man, and so forth. They are "the priest". Always separate poor humanity from ministry. »

« But if they act even so badly...  »

« God will provide. And then!... Listen, Marjiam! There is no man entirely good or entirely wicked. And no one is so entirely good as to be entitled to judge his brothers as being completely wicked. We must bear in mind our own faults, and set against them the good qualities of those we want to judge, we shall then have the right measure for a charitable judgement. I have not yet found a completely wicked man.  »

« Not even Doras, Lord? »

« Not even him, because he is an honest husband and a loving father.  »

« Not even Doras' father? »

« He, too, was an honest husband and a loving father. »

« But he was nothing but that! »

« He was nothing but that. But in that respect he was not wicked. So he was not totally wicked. »

« Is Judas not wicked either? »

« No. »

« But he is not good. »

« He is not totally good as he is not totally wicked. Are you not convinced of what I am saying? »

« I am convinced that You are totally good and that You are completely devoid of wickedness. Yes, I am persuaded that You are so. So much so, that You never accuse anyone...  »

« Oh! My dear son! If I uttered the first syllable of a word of accusation, you would all assail the person accused, like wild beasts!... I prevent you from doing so, so that you may not get stained with the sin of rash judgement. Try to understand Me, Marjiam. It is not the question that I do not see evil, where there is evil, or that I do not see the mixture of good and evil in some people. Neither it is the question that I do not understand whether a soul rises above or falls below the level to which I led it. It has nothing to do with all that, son. But it is a matter of prudence to avoid lack of charity in you. And I will always do so. Also in future, when I shall have to declare My opinion on a person. Do you not know, son, that at times a word of praise and of encouragement is of more avail than many reproaches? Do you not know that out of one hundred very bad cases, considered as relatively good, at least half become really good, because, after being helped by My word, they are assisted also by very kind people, who would otherwise shun men who are pointed out as being very wicked? Souls are to be supported, not depressed. But if I were not the first to support them and cover up their faults, pressing you to be kind to them and assist them, you would never devote yourselves to them with active clemency. Remember that, Marjiam...  »

PERSEVERANCE, CONVERSIONS, AND THE TEREBINTH TREE

(Vol. 4, p. 394-7)

(Jesus accompanies John the apostle, and Abel, a disciple from Bethlehem, to the mountains of Jiphthahel, where they meet some lepers who want only food, not conversion.  Jesus tells Abel:)

« Perseverance is required in conversions. What does not succeed in one year, may succeed in two or more. One must insist speaking of God, even if they appear to be like the rocks sheltering them. »

« Am I wrong then in providing food for them?… I always brought them some food before the Sabbath, because the Jews do not travel on Sabbaths and no one thinks of them… »

« You did the right thing. You said it yourself: they are heathens, thus more anxious about their bodies and blood than their souls. The loving care you have for their hunger awakes their affection towards the unknown person who sees to them. And when they love you they will listen to you, also when you speak of something which is not food. Love preludes the desire to follow him whom one has learned to love. They will follow you one day in the ways of the spirit. Corporal works of mercy pave the way for spiritual ones, which make it so free and level, that the entry of God in a man prepared in such a way for the divine meeting takes place without the individual knowing it. He finds God within himself and he does not know whence He entered. Whence! At times behind a smile, behind a compassionate word, behind a piece of bread there is the initial opening of the door of a heart closed to Grace and the beginning of God's journey to enter that heart.

Souls! They are the most varied thing there is. No matter, and there are so many matters on the Earth, is so varied in its aspects as souls in their tendencies and reactions. See this mighty terebinth? It is in the middle of a wood of terebinths like it in species. How many are they? Hundreds and hundreds, perhaps a thousand, perhaps more. They cover this rough slope of the mountain, exceeding with their sharp healthy smell of resins every other scent of the valley and mountain. But look. They are a thousand and more but, if you watch carefully, there is not one like any other in thickness, height, power, inclination, disposition. Some are as straight as blades, some face north, some south, some east, some west. Some have grown in deep earth, some on a protrusion and no one knows how it can support the tree and how it can stand up itself, outstretched as it is over the abyss, almost forming a bridge, with the other versant, high above the torrent, which is now dry, but is so stormy in the rainy season. Some are twisted as if a cruel man had tortured them when they were tender plants, some are faultless. Some are leafy almost as far down as the ground, some are bare with just a tuft of leaves on their tops. Some have branches only on the right hand side. Some are leafy below while their tops have been burned by lightning. This one is withered and survives only in an obstinate branch, one only, which has come up almost from the root, sucking the surviving sap which dried up at the top. And this one, the first one I pointed out to you, as beautiful as a tree can be, has it perhaps a branch, a twig, a leaf - what do I say speaking of one leaf out of the thousands which it bears - which is like any other? They seem to be, but they are not. Look at this branch, the lowest one. Look at its top, just at the top of the branch. How many leaves are on that top? Perhaps two hundred thin green needles. And yet see? Is there one like any other in shade, size, freshness, flexibility, bearing, age? There is not.

It is the same with souls. As numerous as they are, as many are their differences in tendencies and reactions. And he who is not capable of understanding them and working on them according to their various tendencies and reactions, is not a good master and doctor of souls. It is not an easy task, My friends. One must study continuously and be accustomed to meditation which enlightens more than reading fixed texts for a long time. The book which a master and doctor of souls must study are the souls themselves. As many pages as souls and in each page many sentiments and passions of past and present times and in the embryo stage. So what is required is continuous, diligent, meditative study, constant patience, endurance, courage, in doctoring the most putrid wounds, to cure them without showing disgust, which disheartens the patient. And one must act without false pity, which in order not to mortify anybody by uncovering putrefaction and not removing it lest the rotten part might suffer, allows it to become gangrenous, poisoning the whole body. And at the same time prudence is needed to avoid irritating the wounds of hearts with too coarse manners and not to be infected by their contact: one must not be so sure of oneself as to pretend that one is not afraid of being infected when dealing with sinners. And where do all these virtues, necessary to the master and doctor of souls, find light to see and understand, where do they find patience, which at times is heroical, to persevere although they are requited with indifference and often with insults, and their strength to doctor wisely, their prudence not to injure patients and themselves? In love. Always in love. It throws light on everything, it gives wisdom, strength and prudence. It preserves from the curiosity which causes people to take upon themselves the faults which have been cured.

When one is full of love one cannot have any other desire or science but love. See? Doctors say that when a man has been on the point of dying of a disease, it is most unlikely that he will catch the same disease again, because his blood has already been affected by it and has overcome it. The concept is not perfect, but it is not entirely wrong. But love, which is health and not a disease, does what doctors say and with regard to all bad passions. He who is deeply in love with God and his brothers, does not do anything which may grieve God and his brothers, consequently even if he approaches people with diseased spirits and he becomes acquainted with matters which love had so far concealed, he is not corrupted by them, because he remains faithful to love and does not commit sin. What do you expect sensuality to be when one has overcome it through charity? What are riches for those who find all treasures in the love of God and of souls? What are gluttony, avarice, incredulity, indolence, pride for those who crave only for God, for those who give themselves, even themselves to serve God, for those who find all their good in His Faith, for those who are urged by the untiring flame of charity and work indefatigably to give joy to God, for those who love God - to love Him is to know Him - and cannot become proud, because they see themselves as they are with regard to God?

One day you will be priests of My Church. You will therefore be the doctors and masters of spirits. Remember these words of Mine. It will not be the name you bear, or your garment, or the duties you perform that will make you priests, that is, ministers of Christ, masters and doctors of souls, but it will be the love which you possess to make you such. It will give you everything you need to be such, and the souls, although different one from another, will acquire one only likeness: that of the Father, if you know how to work on them with love. »

« Oh! what a beautiful lesson, Master! » says John.

« But shall we ever succeed in being such? » asks Abel.

Jesus looks at both of them, He then lays an arm round the neck of each and draws them towards Himself, one on His right, the other on His left hand side and kisses their hair saying: « You will succeed because you have understood love. »

THE FIRST EUCHARIST

(Vol. 5, p. 504-5)

(It is the night of Holy Thursday, and Jesus is with His apostles in the Supper Room, celebrating the feast of the Passover.  It is now time for the institution of a rite which will have far greater significance, for Christians, in the times to come ...)

Jesus sits down. He does not lie down. He sits as we do. And He says: « Now that the old rite has been accomplished, I will celebrate the new one. I have promised you a miracle of love. It is time to work it. That is why I have longed for this Passover. From now on this is the Victim that will be consumed in a perpetual rite of love. My beloved friends, I have loved you throughout the whole life of the Earth. I have loved you for the whole eternity, My children. And I want to love you till the end. There is nothing greater than this. Bear that in mind. I am going away. But we shall remain for ever united through the miracle that I will now work. »

Jesus takes a loaf still entire and places it on the chalice that has been filled. He blesses and offers both, He then breaks the bread and takes thirteen morsels of it, and gives one to each apostle saying: « Take this and eat it. This is My Body. Do this in remembrance of Me, Who am going away. » He gives the chalice and says: « Take this and drink it. This is My Blood. This is the chalice of the new alliance in My Blood and through My Blood, that will be shed for you, to remit your sins and give you the Life. Do this in remembrance of Me. »

Jesus is very sad. There is no smile, no trace of light, no colour on His face. It is already an agonizing face. The apostles look at Him utterly anguished.

Jesus stands up saying: « Do not move. I shall be back at once. » He takes the thirteenth morsel of bread and the chalice, and He goes out of the Supper-room.

« He is going to His Mother » whispers John.

And Judas Thaddeus says with a sigh: « Poor woman! »

Peter asks in a very low voice: « Do you think She knows? »

« She knows everything. She has always been aware of everything. »

They all speak in very low voices, as if they were in front of a corpse.

« But do you think that really… » asks Thomas, who does not want to believe yet.

« And do you doubt it? It is His hour » replies James of Zebedee.

« May God grant us strength to be faithful » says the Zealot.

« Oh! I… » says Peter who is about to speak. But John, who is on the look-out, says: « Silence! He is here. »

Jesus comes back in. He has the empty chalice in His hands. Only at its bottom there is a trace of wine, and in the light of the chandelier it looks just like blood.

Judas Iscariot, in front of whom is the chalice, looks at it as if he were enchanted, then he averts his eyes. Jesus watches him and shudders, and John, leaning as he is on His chest, feels it. « Why not say so! You are shivering… » he exclaims.

« No. I am not shivering because I am feverish… I have told you everything, and I have given you everything. I could not have given you anything else. I have given you Myself. »

He makes His usual kind gesture with His hands, which, previously joined, now separate and stretch out, while He bows His head as if He wished to say: « Excuse Me if I cannot give you more. It is so. »

« I have told you everything and I have given you everything. And I repeat. The new rite has been accomplished. Do this in remembrance of Me. I have washed your feet to teach you to be humble and pure like your Master. Because I solemnly tell you that disciples must be like their Master. Remember that, bear it in mind. Also when you are in high offices, remember that. There is no disciple greater than his Master. As I washed you, do the same to one another. That is, love one another like brothers, helping and respecting one another, setting an example to one another. And be pure, to be worthy of eating the living Bread that descended from Heaven, and have the strength, in yourselves and through It, to be My disciples in the hostile world that will hate you because of My Name. But one of you is not pure. One of you will betray Me. My Spirit is deeply perturbed by that… The hand of him who will betray Me is here with Me on this table, and neither My love, nor My Body and Blood, nor My word make him mend his ways and repent. I would forgive him going to My death also on his behalf... »

WORTHINESS OR PROFANITY FOR THE SACRAMENT

(Vol. 5, p. 519)

(Jesus comments to Maria Valtorta about four main teachings from the episode of the Last Supper.  The first is the necessity for all children of God to obey the Law; the second is the power of Mary’s prayer; and the third is the need for self-control and charity towards others ...)

« The fourth: the more one is worthy of receiving a Sacrament, the greater is its effect. That is: if one has become worthy of it through persevering good will, that subdues the flesh and makes the spirit sovereign, mastering concupiscences, directing one's being towards virtues, bending it like a bow towards the perfection of virtues and above all of Love.

Because, when you love, you are inclined to make the person you love happy. John, who loved Me as nobody else did, and who was pure, received the utmost transformation from the Sacrament. He began as from that moment to be the eagle, that is accustomed to soaring easily in the High Heaven of God and staring at the eternal Sun. But woe to him who receives the Sacrament without being worthy of it, and who, on the contrary, has increased his human unworthiness with mortal sins. Then instead of being the germ of preservation and life, it becomes the germ of corruption and death. Death of the spirit and decomposition of the flesh, whereby it "bursts", as Peter says with regard to Judas. It does not shed blood, the vital liquid always beautiful in its purple hue, but its entrails burst out, blackened by lechery, rottenness pouring out of the decomposed body, as out of the carrion of an unclean animal, a disgusting sight for passers-by.

The death of the profaner of the Sacrament is always the death of a desperate person who, therefore, does not know the placid passing away peculiar to those who are in grace, or the heroic death of the victim who suffers intensely but looks fixedly at Heaven and feels certain peace in the soul. The death of one in despair is marked by dreadful contortions and terror, it is a horrible convulsion of the soul already gripped by the hand of Satan, who chokes it to detach it from the body and suffocates it with his nauseating breath. That is the difference between those who pass away after being nourished with love, faith, hope and every other virtue and heavenly doctrine, and with the angelical Bread that accompanies them with its fruit - better still if with its real presence - in the last journey, and those who pass away, after the life of a brute, with the death of a brute that Grace and the Sacrament cannot comfort. The former is the serene end of a saint, to whom death opens the eternal Kingdom. The latter is the frightful fall of a damned soul, that feels it is falling into eternal death and in a moment knows what it wanted to lose and for which it can no longer find any remedy. Acquisition and joy for the former; despoilment and terror for the latter.

This is what you give yourselves, according to whether you believe and love, or you do not believe and you deride My gift. And it is the lesson of this contemplation. »

TO FORGIVE THOSE WHO ARE WEAK

(Vol. 5, p. 682-3)

(Jesus has been betrayed, condemned and crucified.  It is Holy Saturday night, and after many hours of anguish, His Mother is praying on Her knees in Her room in the house of the Last Supper.  Her sister-in-law Mary of Alphaeus, the mother of the apostles James and Judas Thaddeus, comes into the room and they begin a conversation, during which Mary of Alphaeus expresses her anger at the desertion of Jesus by His apostles:)

« … Oh! when I see them, I will reproach them severely. They behaved cowardly. That everybody else should behave so is understandable, but not them, my sons! I will never forgive them… »

« Forgive them, forgive them… It was a moment of dismay… They did not believe that He could be captured. He had said so… »

« That is why I will not forgive them. They knew. So they were already prepared. When one knows something, and believes the person who tells it, nothing surprises any more! »

« Mary, also to all of you He said: "I will rise". And yet… If I could lay your breasts and heads open, on your hearts and on your brains I would see written: "It is not possible". »

« But, at least… Yes… It is difficult to believe… But we remained on Calvary. »

« Through the gratuitous grace of God. Otherwise we would have run away as well. Longinus (the centurion), did you hear him? He said: "horrible thing". And he is a warrior. We, women, all alone with a boy, we resisted through God's direct help. So do not boast about it. It is no merit of ours. »

« And why was it not given to them? »

« Because they will be the priests of tomorrow. So they must know. They must know, having experienced it themselves, how easy it is for a follower of a Creed to lapse… »

“THIS GOSPEL” IS PARTICULARLY FOR PRIESTS

(Vol. 5, p. 752-3)

(Jesus has risen from the dead, and has appeared to all His apostles except Thomas, who does not believe He has risen.  Jesus comments to Maria Valtorta - whom He calls His “little John” - on the many other Thomases there are in the present times ...)

« ... Instead of kneeling down and blessing God, Who has granted you this knowledge, the only thing to be done, the majority will take books, new ones and old ones, will check, measure, look against the light, hoping, hoping, hoping. What? To find discrepancies with other similar works, and thus demolish, demolish, demolish. In the name of (human) science, of (human) reason, of (human) criticism, of the three times human pride. How much of holy works is demolished by man, to build with the ruins edifices that are not holy. You have removed the pure gold, poor men. The simple and precious gold of Wisdom. You have put stucco and plaster, badly painted with gilt dust, that the impact of life, of people, of human storms washes away at once, leaving a pitting of leprosy that soon crumbles, reducing your knowledge to nothing.

Oh! poor Thomases, who believe only what you understand and what you feel in yourselves! But bless God and try to ascend, because I will give you a hand! Ascend in faith and in love. I wanted the mortification of the apostles, so that they may become capable of being the "fathers of souls". I beg you, and I speak in particular to you, My priests. Accept the humiliation of being placed after a layman, in order to become "fathers of souls". This work is for everybody. But this Gospel is dedicated to you in particular, as in it the Master takes His priests by the hand and leads them through the rows of the pupils, so that they, the priests, may become teachers capable of guiding the pupils, and in it the Doctor takes you among the sick people - every man has his spiritual disease - and He shows you the symptoms and the treatment!

So, take heart. Come and look. Come and eat. Come and drink. And do not refuse. And do not hate little John. The good among you will receive a holy joy from this work. The honest scholars a light. The absent-minded, who are not wicked, a pleasure. The wicked a means to give vent to their evil science. But little John has had only sorrow and fatigue, so that, now, at the end of the work, he is like a person languishing with a disease.

So, what shall I say to his friends and Mine: to Mary of Magdala and John, to Martha and Lazarus and Simon, to the angels who have watched over him in his work? I will say: "Little John, our friend, is languishing. Let us go and take the water of the eternal rivers to him and say: "Come, little John. Look at the Sun and rise. Because many would like to see what you see. But only the favourites are granted to know, in advance, the eternal Lord and His days in the world. Come. The Saviour, with His friends, is coming to your abode, while waiting for you to go, with Him and Them, to His Abode". »

SAINTS AND JUDASES

(Vol. 5, p. 755-61)

(Jesus appears to His apostles again, this time with Thomas present.  He invites Thomas to put his fingers into His wounds ...)

Jesus has stretched His Hands out, then He has opened His tunic on His chest, uncovering the gash on His Side. No light emanates now from the Wounds. It no longer emanates since He began to walk like a mortal Man, when He came out of the halo of lunar light, and the Wounds now appear in their bloody reality: two irregular holes, the left one of which extends as far as the thumb, and they pierce a wrist and a palm at its base, and a long gash, which in the upper part is lightly curved like a circumflex accent, on His Side.

Thomas trembles, looks but does not touch. He moves his lips, but is not able to speak clearly.

« Give Me your hand, Thomas » says Jesus so kindly. And with His right hand He takes the right one of the apostle, He grasps his forefinger and takes it towards the hole of His left Hand, He thrusts it well into it, to make him feel that His palm has been pierced, and then from His Hand He takes it to His Side. Now He grasps the four fingers of Thomas, at their base, at the metacarpus, and puts those four big fingers into the gash of His Side, making them go in deeply, not limiting Himself to leaning them against its edge, and He holds them there, looking fixedly at Thomas. A severe yet kind look, while he continues to say: « … Put your finger here, put your fingers and also your hand, if you wish so, into My Side and do not doubt, but believe. » That is what He says while doing what I have said previously.

Thomas - it would appear that the closeness of the divine Heart, which He almost touches, has communicated courage to him - succeeds at last in speaking and uttering words, and falling on his knees with his arms raised and bursting into tears of repentance, he says: « My Lord and My God! » He cannot say anything else.

Jesus forgives him. He lays His right hand on his head and replies: « Thomas, Thomas! You believe now because you have seen… But blessed are those who will believe in Me without seeing! Which reward shall I have to give them, if I have to reward you, whose faith has been assisted by the power of seeing?… »

Then Jesus lays His arm on John's shoulder, He takes Peter by the hand and approaches the table. He sits at His place. They are now sitting as they were on Passover evening. But Jesus wants Thomas to sit next to John.

« Eat, My friends » says Jesus.

But no one is hungry any more. Joy fills them. The joy of contemplation.

So Jesus gathers together the little cheeses scattered on the table, He puts them on a plate, He cuts them and hands them out, and He gives the first bit just to Thomas, laying it on a piece of bread and passing it behind John's shoulders; He pours wine from the amphorae into a chalice and hands it to His friends: this time Peter is the first to be served. Then He has some honeycombs given to Him, He breaks them and gives the first bit to John, with a smile which is sweeter than the golden trickling honey. And to encourage them He eats some of it Himself. He tastes nothing but the honey.

John with his usual gesture rests his head on Jesus' shoulder, and Jesus draws him to His Heart and speaks holding him so.

« You must not get upset, My friends, when I appear to you. I am always your Master, Who has shared with you food and sleep and Who has chosen you because He loves you. I love you also now. » Jesus lays much stress upon these last words.

« You » He continues « have been with Me in the trials… You will be with Me also in the glory. Do not lower your heads. On Sunday evening, when I came to you for the first time after My Resurrection, I infused the Holy Spirit into you… may the Spirit come also to you who were not present… Do you not know that the infusion of the Spirit is like a baptism of fire, because the Spirit is Love, and love cancels sins? Therefore your sin of desertion, while I was dying, is forgiven. »

In saying so Jesus kisses the head of John who did not desert, and John weeps for joy.

« I have given you the power to remit sins. But one cannot give what one does not possess. So you must be certain that I possess this power in a perfect manner and I make use of it for you, who must be pure in the highest degree to purify those who will come to you, soiled with sin. How could one judge and purify, if one deserved to be condemned and were personally impure? How could a man judge another man if he had planks in his own eyes and infernal weights in his heart? How could he say: "I absolve you in the name of God" if, because of his own sins, he did not have God with him?

My friends, consider your dignity of priests.

Before, I was among men to judge and to forgive. Now I am going to the Father. I am going back to My Kingdom. The faculty to judge is not taken off Me. On the contrary, it is entirely in My hands, because the Father has entrusted it to Me. But it is a terrible judgement because it will take place when it is no longer possible for man to obtain forgiveness through years of expiation on the Earth. Each human being will come to Me with his spirit when, through material death, he leaves his body as useless mortal remains. And I will judge him for the first time. Then Mankind will come again clothed with its flesh, resumed by divine order, to be separated into two parts. The lambs with the Shepherd, the wild billy-goats with their Torturer. But how many men would there be, who would be with their Shepherd, if after the Baptismal bath they did not have who can forgive them in My name?

That is why I create priests. To save those who had been saved by My Blood. My Blood saves. But men continue to fall into death. To fall again into Death. It is necessary for them to be continuously washed in It, seventy and seventy times seven, by those who have the authority to do so, so that they may not be a prey to Death. You and your successors will do that. That is why I absolve you of all your sins. Because you need to see, and sin blinds one, because it deprives the spirit of the Light which is God. Because you need to understand, and sin makes one dull, because it deprives the spirit of the Intelligence which is God. Because it is your ministry to purify, and sin sullies, because it deprives the spirit of the Purity which is God.

Great is your ministry of judging and absolving in My name!

When you consecrate the Bread and Wine for you and make them My Body and My Blood, you will do a great, supernaturally great and sublime thing. In order to accomplish it worthily you must be pure, because you will touch Him Who is the Pure One and you will nourish yourselves with the Flesh of a God. You must be pure in your hearts, minds, limbs and tongues, because with your hearts you must love the Eucharist, and no profane love is to be mixed with this celestial love, as that would be a sacrilege. Pure in your minds, because you must believe and understand this mystery of love, and the impurity of thought kills Faith and Intellect. The science of the world remains, but the Wisdom of God dies in you. You must be pure in your limbs, because the Word will descend into your bosoms, as it descended into Mary's womb by deed of the Love.

You have the living example of how a bosom, which receives the Word Incarnate, must be. The example is the Woman Who, without original sin and without personal sin, bore Me. Look how pure is the summit of the Hermon still enveloped in the veil of winter snow. From the Mount of Olives it looks like a lot of lilies stripped of their petals or like sea-foam, that rises like an offering against the other whiteness of the clouds, blown by the April wind along the blue fields of the sky. Look at a lily that now opens the mouth of its corolla to a scented smile. And yet both purities are not so bright as that of the womb that carried Me. Dust blown by the winds has fallen on the snow of the mountain and on the silk of the flower. Human eyes cannot perceive it, so light is it. But it is there, and it spoils the whiteness. Even more, look at the purest pearl taken from the sea, from the shell where it was born, to adorn the sceptre of a king. It is perfect in its compact iridescence, that is unaware of the desecrating touch of all flesh, as it was formed in the pearly hollow of the oyster, isolated in the sapphire fluid of sea depths. And yet it is not so pure as the womb that bore Me. In its centre there is a grain of sand: a very minute corpuscle, but still an earthly one. In Her Who is the Pearl of the Sea, there is no grain of sin, not even of incentive to sin. The Pearl born in the Ocean of the Trinity to bring the Second Person to the Earth, She is compact around Her fulcrum, which is not the seed of earthly concupiscence, but the spark of the eternal Love. The spark that found correspondence in Her and thus engendered the Divine Meteor, that now calls and draws to Itself the children of God: I, the Christ, the Morning Star. I give you that inviolate Purity as example.

But when, as vintagers do with vats, you dip your hands into the sea of My Blood and from it you draw what is needed to cleanse the soiled stoles of the poor wretches who committed sin, be perfect, in addition to being pure, in order not to stain yourselves with a greater sin, even more, with several sins, by shedding or touching the Blood of a God in a sacrilegious manner, or by failing in love and justice, denying or giving it with a severity that is not of the Christ, Who was good to the wicked to attract them to His Heart, and three times good with the weak, to encourage them to be trustful. Such severity would be used three times undeservedly, because it would be used against My Will, My Doctrine and Justice. How can one be severe with lambs when one is an idol shepherd?

O My beloved friends, whom I am sending along the roads of the world to continue the work that I began and that will be pursued until the end of Time, remember these words of Mine. I am telling you them so that you may repeat them to those whom you will consecrate to the ministry, to which I have consecrated you.

I see… I look at future ages… Time and the infinite crowds of men that will exist are all in front of Me… I see… massacres and wars, false peace treaties and horrible slaughters, hatred and robbery, sensuality and pride. Now and again a green oasis: a period of return to the Cross. Like an obelisk that indicates pure water among the arid sands of the desert, My Cross will be raised with love, after the poison of evil has made men rabid, and around it, planted on the edges of healthy waters, there will thrive the palms of a period of peace and wealth in the world. Spirits, like deer and gazelles, like swallows and doves will rush to that pleasant, cool, nourishing shelter, to be cured of their sorrows and hope once again. And it will gather its branches close together like a dome as a protection from storms and dog-days and will keep away serpents and wild animals with the Sign that puts Evil to flight. And it will be so, as long as men so wish..

I see… Men and men… women, old people, children, warriors, scholars, doctors, peasants… They all come and pass by with their loads of hopes and sorrows. And I see many stagger, because their sorrow is too great, and their hope has slipped off the load first of all, as the load is too heavy, and their hope has crumbled on the ground… And I see many fall on the roadsides, because they are pushed by others who are stronger, stronger or luckier, as their weights are lighter. And I see many who, feeling that they are abandoned by those who pass by, and they are even trampled on, and feeling that they are about to die, go to the extent of hating and cursing.

Poor children! Among all these, struck by life, who pass by or fall, My Love has deliberately spread some compassionate Samaritans, good doctors, lights in the night, voices in the silence, so that the weak who fall may find assistance, and once again they may see Light and hear the Voice that says: "Hope. You are not alone. Over you there is God. Jesus is with you". I have deliberately placed this active charity, so that My poor children may not die in their spirits, losing their paternal abode, and they may continue to believe in Me-Love, seeing My reflection in My ministers.

But, o grief that makes the Wound of My Heart bleed as it did when it was opened on Golgotha! But what do My divine eyes see? Are there perhaps no priests among the infinite crowds passing by? Is that why My Heart is bleeding? Are seminaries empty? So does My divine invitation no longer resound in hearts? Is man's heart no longer capable of hearing it? No. Throughout ages there will be seminaries and Levites in them. Priests will come out of them, because in the hour of adolescence My invitation will have sounded with a celestial voice in many hearts, and they will have followed it. But other, other, other voices will have come later with their youth and maturity, and My Voice will have been overwhelmed in those hearts. My Voice that speaks throughout ages to its ministers, that they may always be what you are now: the apostles at Christ's school. The cassock has remained. But the priest is dead. This will happen to too many in the course of ages. Useless dark shadows, they will not be a lever that lifts, a rope that pulls, a fountain that quenches people's thirst, corn that satisfies their hunger, a heart that is a pillow, a light in darkness, a voice that repeats what the Master says to him. But for poor mankind they will be a weight of scandal, a weight of death, a parasite, a putrefaction… Horror! Once again and always I shall have the greatest Judases of the future in My priests!

My friends, I am in My glory, and yet I weep. I take pity on these infinite crowds, herds without shepherds or with too few shepherds. Infinite pity! Well, I swear it on My Divinity, I will give them the bread, the water, the light, the voice that those chosen for this work do not want to give. I will repeat the miracle of the loaves and fish in future ages. With few mean little fish, and with scanty crusts of bread - humble laic souls - I will give food to many people, and they will be satisfied, and there will be some for those of the future, because "I feel sorry for this people" and I do not want it to perish.

Blessed are those who will deserve to be such. Not blessed because they are such. But because they will have deserved it with their love and sacrifice... »

REMORSE AND HUMILITY

(Vol. 5, p. 790-2)

(The apostles have re-traced the Way of the Cross, and are filled with remorse at the realisation of their cowardice and their desertion of Jesus when He was crucified.  They return to the house of the Last Supper, where Jesus appears to them.  He says:)

« Are you not going to say anything to Me? Speak up! I am always Jesus. Has your boldness of today already vanished? »

« Oh! Master! Lord! » shouts Peter, falling on his knees at Jesus feet. « Our boldness has not vanished. But we are destroyed as we realise the harm we have done to Your Faith. We are crushed! »

« Pride dies, humility is born. Knowledge rises, love increases. Be not afraid. You are becoming apostles, now. That is what I wanted. »

« But we shall not be able to do anything any more! The people, and they are right, deride us! We have destroyed Your work. We have destroyed Your Church! » They are all distressed. They shout and gesticulate…

Jesus is solemnly calm. Sustaining His words with a gesture, He says: « Peace! Peace! Not even Hell will destroy My Church. It will not be the unsteadiness of a stone, not fixed properly yet, that will cause the building to perish. Peace! Peace! You will work. And you will do much good, because now you humbly acknowledge what you are, because now you are wise with a great wisdom: the knowledge that every act has very wide repercussions, at times, indelible, and that who is high up - remember what I told you about the lamp that is to be placed high up so that it may be seen, and just because it is seen by everybody its flame must be pure - and that who is high up has the obligation, more than those who are not high up, to be perfect. See, My children? What passes unnoticed or excusable when it is done by a believer, does not pass unnoticed if it is done by a priest, and the judgement of the people is severe. But your future will cancel your past. I did not speak to you on Golgotha, but I let the world speak. I comfort you. Come on, do not weep. Take some refreshment now, and let Me cure you. So. » He touches their wounded heads lightly. Then He says: « But you had better go away from here. That is why I said: "Go to Mount Tabor to pray". You will be able to stay in the nearby villages and go up every morning at dawn awaiting Me. »

« Lord, the world does not believe that You have risen » says Thaddeus in a low voice.

« I will convince the world. I will help you to defeat the world. Be faithful to Me. I do not ask for anything else. And bless those who humiliate you, because they sanctify you. »

He breaks the bread, He divides it into parts, He offers it, hands it out, saying: « This is My viaticum for you who are going away. I have already prepared the food there for My pilgrims. Do the same yourselves, in future, with those among you who will be leaving. Be paternal to all the believers. Everything I do, or I make you do, do it yourselves as well. In future, make also the journey to Calvary, meditating and making people meditate on the stations of the Cross. Contemplate! Do contemplate My sorrows. Because it is through them, not through the present glory, that I have saved you. In the other room there is Lazarus with his sisters. They have come to say goodbye to the Mother. You may go in, too, because My Mother will be leaving shortly in Lazarus' wagon. Peace be with you. » He stands up and goes out quickly.

« Lord! Lord! » shouts Andrew.

« What do you want, brother? » asks Peter.

« I wanted to ask Him so many things. I wanted to inform Him of those who ask to be cured… I don't know! When He is among us, we are not able to say anything! » and he runs away looking for the Lord.

« It is true! We are like absent-minded people! » they all agree.

« And yet He is so good to us. He called us: "children" with so much kindness that it opened my heart! » exclaims James of Alphaeus.

« But He is so much God, now! I tremble when He is near me, as if I were near the Holy of Holies » says Thaddeus.

Andrew comes back: « He is no longer here. Space, time and walls are subjected to Him. »

« He is God! He is God! » they also say, full of veneration…

THE UNCTION FOR THE DYING

(Vol. 5 p. 846-7)

(Jesus is giving some further teachings to His apostles and disciples before His Ascension into Heaven.  He reminds the apostles of a gesture made by Mary Magdalene before His death ...)

« … You saw Mary of Lazarus spread ointment on My limbs at the supper of the Sabbath at Bethany. I then said to you: "She has prepared Me for My burial". In actual fact she did. Not for My burial, because she thought that that sorrow was still far away, but to purify and embalm My limbs from all the impurities of the road, so that I might ascend the throne scented with balsamic oil.

The life of man is a road. The entry of man into the next life ought to be an entry into the Kingdom. Every king is anointed and perfumed before ascending his throne and showing himself to his people. Also the Christian is the son of a king, and he goes along his road, directing his steps towards the kingdom where the Father calls him. The death of a Christian is nothing but the entry into the Kingdom to ascend the throne that the Father has prepared for him. Death is not frightful for him who is not afraid of God, knowing that he is in His grace. But let the garment of him who is to ascend the throne be purified of all rubbish, so that it may be preserved beautiful for the resurrection, and let his spirit be purified, so that it may shine on the throne that the Father has prepared for him and he may appear in the dignity befitting a son of such a great king. Let the unction given to dying Christians, or rather, to Christians being born, because I solemnly tell you that he who dies in the Lord is born to the eternal life, let that unction be an increase of Grace, the annulment of sins of which the man is fully repentant, the exciter of fervent yearning for Good, the giver of strength for the supreme struggle.

Repeat the gesture of Mary on the bodies of the chosen ones. And let no one deem it unworthy of him. I accepted that balsamic oil from a woman. Every Christian should consider himself honoured by it, as a supreme grace of the Church whose son he is, and should accept it from the priest to be cleansed of the last stains. And every priest ought to be happy to repeat on the body of his dying brother, the gesture of love that Mary made on the suffering Christ. I truly tell you that what you did not do to Me then, letting a woman exceed you, and now you think of it with so much regret, you can do in future and for as many times as you will bend over one who is dying to prepare him to his meeting with God. I am in beggars and in dying people, in pilgrims, in orphans, in widows, in prisoners, in those who are hungry, thirsty or cold, in who is grieved or tired. I am in all the members of My mystic Body, which is the union of all My believers. Love Me in them and you will make amends for your indifference on so many occasions, giving great joy to Me and so much glory to yourselves... »

THE DREADFUL TIMES TO COME

(Vol. 5, p. 847-51, 854-5)

(Continuing His instructions, Jesus warns of future times of persecution, apostasy and heresies, when His priests will be assisted by the compass of the Gospel, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit ...)

« ... Finally, consider that the world, age, diseases, time, persecutions conspire against you. Therefore do not be avaricious with what you have received and do not be imprudent. For this reason transmit the Priesthood in My Name to the best disciples, so that the Earth may not be left without priests. And ensure that the sacred character is granted after a severe examination, not verbal, but of the deeds of him who asks to be a priest, or of him whom you judge suitable to be one.

Consider what is a Priest. The good he can do. The evil he can do. You have had the example of what can be done by a priest who has lapsed from his sacred character. I truly tell you that this country will be dispersed because of the sins of the Temple. But I also truly tell you that also the Earth will be destroyed when the abomination of desolation will affect the new Priesthood, by leading men to apostasy in order to embrace the doctrines of hell. Then the son of Satan will arise and peoples will moan in dreadful fright, as only few will remain faithful to the Lord, and also then, after horrible convulsions, the end will come after the victory of God and of His few Chosen ones, and the wrath of God on all the cursed ones. Woe, three times woe if for those few there will still be no saints, the last pavilions of the Temple of Christ! Woe, three times woe, if to comfort the last Christians, there will be no true Priests, as there will be for the first ones. Really the last persecution will be horrible, as it will not be the persecution of men but of the son of Satan and of his followers. Priests? Those of the last hour will have to be more than priests, so wild will be the persecution of the hordes of the Antichrist. Like the man dressed in linen, who is so holy as to be beside the Lord, in the vision of Ezekiel, they will have to be untiring in marking a Tau with their perfection on the spirits of the few faithful ones, so that the flames of may do not cancel that sign. Priests? Angels. Angels swinging the thurible of the incences of their virtues to purify the air of the miasmata of Satan. Angels? More than angels: other Christs, others Myself, so that the believers of the last times may be able to persevere until the end. That is what they will have to be.

But future good and evil have roots in the present. Avalanches begin with a snowflake. A priest who is unworthy, impure, heretic, unfaithful, incredulous, tepid or cold, dull, insipid, lustful, does ten times as much harm as a believer guilty of the same sins, and he drags many more to commit sin. Laxity in the Priesthood, the reception of impure doctrines, selfishness, greed, concupiscence in the Priesthood, you are aware of the result of all that: deicide. Now, in future ages, the Son of God can no longer be killed, but the faith in God, the idea of God, can. So a deicide will be accomplished, which is even more irreparable, because it is without resurrection. Oh! it can be accomplished, yes. I see… It will be possible to accomplish it, because of the too many Judases of Kerioth of future ages. How horrible!…

My Church demolished by its own ministers! While I support it with the help of victims. And they, the Priests, who will have only the garment and not the soul of a Priest, who help the ebullition of the waves agitated by the infernal Snake against your boat, Peter. Stand up! Rise! Transmit this order to your successors: "Hands on the rudder, the lash on the shipwrecked people who wanted to be shipwrecked, and try to founder the boat of God". Strike, but save and proceed. Be severe, because just is the punishment for marauders. Defend the treasure of the faith, Hold the lamp aloft, like a lighthouse above the rough sea, so that those who follow your boat may see and not perish. Shepherd and pilot for the dreadful times, gather, guide, hold My Gospel high, because safety is found in it and in no other science.

The days will come when, as it happened to us in Israel, but even more deeply, the Priesthood will think it is a chosen class, because it knows the superfluous and does not know the indispensable any longer, or is aware of it in the deaf form in which the Priests now know the Law: in its garment, exaggeratedly overburdened with fringes, but not in its spirit. The days will come when all the books will replace the Book, and this will be used only as one, who must use an object by force, handles it mechanically, as a peasant ploughs, sows, harvests, without meditating on the wonderful providence which is that multiplication of seeds that is renewed each year: a seed is thrown into turned soil and it becomes stalk, ear of corn, then flour and then bread through God's paternal love. Who, putting a mouthful of bread in his mouth, raises his spirit to Him Who created the first seed and for ages has made it spring up again and grow, giving the right quantity of rain and heat, so that it may open and grow and ripen without rotting or getting burnt? Likewise the time will come when the Gospel will be taught scientifically well, spiritually badly.

Now, what is science if it lacks wisdom? It is straw. Straw that swells and does not nourish. And I truly tell you that the time will come in which too many among the Priests will be like swollen straw-stacks, proud straw-stacks, that will stand up straight in the pride of being so swollen, as if they had given themselves all those ears of wheat that crowned the straw, as if the ears were still on the summits of the straw, and will think that they are everything because, instead of the handful of wheat, the true nourishment that is the spirit of the Gospel, they will have all that straw: a heap! A heap! But can straw be enough? It is not even sufficient for the stomach of a beast of burden, and if its master does not strengthen the animal with fodder and fresh herbs, the beast of burden nourished only with straw wastes away and may even die. And yet I tell you that the time will come when the Priests, forgetting that with few ears of wheat I taught spirits the Truth, and forgetting also what it cost their Lord that true bread of the spirit, drawn completely and only from the Divine Wisdom, spoken by the Divine Word, dignified in its doctrinal form, indefatigable in its repetitions, so that the truth spoken should not get lost, humble in its form, without the false glitter of human sciences, without historical or geographical completions, will not take care of its soul, but of the garment to be thrown on it, to show the crowds how many things they know, and the spirit of the Gospel will get lost in them, under avalanches of human science. And if they do not possess it, how can they transmit it? What will these swollen straw-stacks give the believers? Straw. What nourishment will the spirits of the believers get from it? Enough to lead a wretched languishing life. Which fruit will ripen from such teaching and from this imperfect knowledge of the Gospel? The coolness of hearts, the replacement of the only true doctrine with heretical doctrines, with doctrines and ideas that are more than heretical, the preparation of the ground in favour of the Beast for his transient icy dark horrible kingdom.

I truly tell you that, as the Father and Creator multiplies the stars so that the sky may not become depopulated because of those that perish, when their lives end, likewise I shall have to evangelize thousands of times the disciples that I will scatter among men in future ages. And I also truly tell you that the destiny of these disciples will be the same as Mine: the synagogue and proud people will persecute them as they persecuted Me. But both they and I have our reward: that of doing the Will of God and serving Him even to death on a cross, so that His glory may shine and the knowledge of Him may not perish.

But you, Pontiff, and you, Shepherds, watch that the spirit of the Gospel may not get lost in you and in your successors, and pray the Holy Spirit untiringly that the Pentecost may be continually renewed in you - you do not understand what I mean, but you will soon know - so that you may understand all the languages and choose and distinguish My voices from those of the Monkey of God: Satan. And do not allow My future voices to become void. And each of them is an act of mercy of Mine to assist you, and the more are the reasons by which I see that Christianity needs them to get through the storms of times, the more numerous they will be.

Shepherd and pilot, Peter! Shepherd and pilot. It will not be sufficient for you one day to be shepherd if you are not pilot, and to be pilot if you are not shepherd. You will have to be both to keep the lambs gathered together, as hellish tentacles and fierce claws will try to snatch them from you, or music of false impossible promises will seduce you, and to proceed with the boat caught in all the winds blowing from the north, south, east and west, lashed and tossed by the powers of the depths, hit by the arrows shot by the archers of the Beast, burnt by the breath of the dragon, with its edges swept by its tail, so that the imprudent ones will be burnt and will perish, falling into the stormy sea.

Shepherd and pilot in dreadful times. And your compass is the Gospel. In it there is Life and Safety. And everything is said in it. Every article of the holy Code, every answer for the manifold cases of souls are in it. And ensure that Priests and believers do not depart from it, and that no doubts arise about it. And take care that no alterations, changes and adulterations are made to it. The Gospel is I Myself. From My birth to My death. In the Gospel there is God. Because the works of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit are manifest in it. The Gospel is love. I said: "My Word is Life". I said: "God is Love". So let people know My Word and have love in them, that is, God, to have the Kingdom of God. Because he who is not in God, does not have the Life in him. Because those who do not receive the Word of the Father will not be able to be one thing with the Father, with Me and with the Holy Spirit in Heaven, and they will not be able to belong to the only Fold, which is as holy as I want it. They will not be vine-shoots joined to the Vine, because he who, wholly or partly, rejects My Word is a member in whom the sap of the Vine no longer flows. My Word is juice that nourishes, makes one grow and yield fruit.

You will do all that in memory of Me, as I taught you. There is still much that I should tell you about what I have now said to you. But I have only sown the seed. The Holy Spirit will make it sprout in you. I wanted to give you the seed Myself, because I know your hearts and I know how you would falter with fear at spiritual immaterial orders. The fear of deceit would paralyse all will in you. So I am the first to speak to you of all things. Then the Paraclete will remind you of My words and will enlarge on them in detail. And you will not be afraid, because you will remember that I gave you the first seed. Allow yourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit. If My hand was kind in guiding you, His Light is very mild. He is the Love of God. So I am going away happy, because I know that He will take My place and will lead you to the knowledge of God. You do not know Him yet, although I have said so much to you about Him. But it is not your fault. You have done everything to understand Me and you are therefore justified, even if in three years you have understood little. The lack of Grace dulled your spirits. Even now you understand little, notwithstanding that the Grace of God descended upon you from My cross. You are in need of the Fire. One day I spoke to one of you about it, while going along the roads near the Jordan.

The hour has come. I am going back to My Father, but I am not leaving you all alone, because I leave you the Eucharist, that is, your Jesus made food for men. And I leave you the Friend: the Paraclete. He will guide you. I pass your souls from My light to His Light, and He will accomplish your formation...

When false prophets arise among the believers, and they profess their ideas as if they were inspired, and they are the heretics, then you will have to fight their heretical doctrines with means firmer than words. But do not worry. The Holy Spirit will guide you. I never say anything that may not happen. »

« And what shall we do with heretics? »

« Fight the heresy itself with all your strength, but with every means try to convert the heretics to the Lord. Never get tired in looking for the sheep that have gone astray in order to take them back to the Fold. Pray, suffer, get people to pray, to suffer, go around begging the pure, the good, the generous believers for sacrifices and sufferings, because these are the means to convert your brothers. The Passion of Christ continues in Christians. I have not excluded you from this great work, which is the Redemption of the world. You are all members of one single body. Help one another, and let those who are strong and healthy work for the weaker ones, and those who are united stretch out their hands and call their brothers who are far away. »

« But will there be any, after they have been brothers in one house? »

« There will be some. »

« Why? »

« For so many reasons. They will still have My Name. And what is even more, they will take pride in that Name. They will work to make it known. They will help in making Me known as far as the extreme boundaries of the Earth. Let them do, because, I remind you, who is not against Me is for Me. But, poor children! their work will always be incomplete, their merits always imperfect. They cannot be in Me if they are separated from the Vine. Their works will always be incomplete. You, I say you, referring to your future successors, must be where they are. Do not say pharisaically: "I am not going in order not to be contaminated". Or lazily: "I am not going, because there already is who preaches the Lord". Or timidly: "I am not going in order not to be driven away by them". Go. I tell you: Go. To all peoples. As far as the boundaries of the world. So that all My Doctrine and My Only Church may be made known and souls may be able to become part of it. »

« And shall we tell them or write all your actions? »

« I have told you. The Holy Spirit will advise you what it is right to say or be quiet about, according to the times. You can see it! What I have done is believed or denied, and at times is used as a weapon against Me, manipulated as it is by hands that hate Me. They have called Me Beelzebub when, as the Master, I worked miracles in the presence of everybody. And what will they say now, when they learn that I have acted in such a supernatural manner? They will curse Me even more. And you would be persecuted before the time. So be silent until it is the time to speak. »

« But if that hour should come when we, the witnesses, are dead? »

« In My Church there will always be priests, doctors, prophets, exorcizers, confessors, people who work miracles or are inspired, as is necessary so that peoples may have from the Church what is necessary. Heaven: the Church Triumphant will not leave the Church Teaching all alone, and the latter will assist the Church Militant. They are not three bodies. They are only one Body. There is no division among them, but communion of love and of purpose: to love Charity and enjoy it in Heaven, its Kingdom. And for this reason the Church Militant will have to provide with love for the suffrages on behalf of that part of it which, already destined to the Church Triumphant, is still excluded from it, because of the satisfactory expiation of faults absolved but not entirely expiated with regard to the Perfect Divine Justice. In the mystic Body everything is to be done in love and through love. Because love is the blood that circulates in it. Assist your brothers who are being purified. As I said that the works of corporal mercy achieve a reward for you, in Heaven, so I told you that also the spiritual ones achieve it for you. And I truly tell you that a prayer for the souls of the dead, that they may enter into peace, is a great work of mercy, for which God will bless you and the souls for whom you have prayed will be grateful. When, at the resurrection of the bodies, you are all gathered before Christ Judge, among those whom I will bless, there will be also those who showed love for their brothers who were being purified, making offerings and praying for their peace. I tell you. Not one of the good actions will be left without fruit, and many will shine brightly in Heaven, without having preached, administered, made apostolic journeys, embraced special states, but only because they prayed and suffered to give peace to the souls that were being purified, to lead men to conversion. They also, priests unknown to the world, unknown apostles, victims whom God alone sees, will receive the reward of the workers of the Lord, as of their lives they made a perpetual sacrifice of love for their brothers and for the glory of God. I truly tell you that one can arrive at eternal life along many ways, and this is one of them, and it is so dear to My Heart...  »

PETER CELEBRATES THE EUCHARIST

(Vol. 5, p. 861-2, 886-90)

(Jesus appears to the apostles, His Mother and the women disciples in the house of the keeper of the Garden of Gethsemane.  He calls the apostles Peter and His cousin James upstairs, to where others are waiting including the disciple Matthias and the boy Marjiam ...)

The two He has called go up behind Him and Jesus sits at the central table, where Marjiam is, and says to the two Apostles: « You will do what I tell you » and to Matthias, who is at the head of the table, He says: « Begin the Passover banquet. » This evening Jesus has Marjiam beside Him, where John was the last time. Peter and James are behind the Lord awaiting His orders.

And the banquet is celebrated with the same ritual of the Passover Supper: hymns, questions, libations. I do not know whether it is the same at the other tables. I look fixedly where Jesus is, unless His will compels me to look elsewhere, and I forget everything to contemplate my Lord, Who is now offering the best morsels of His lamb - He has taken it on His plate but He does not eat any of it, neither does He take any lettuce or sauce, and He does not drink of the Chalice - and He offers the best morsels to Marjiam, who is really blissful.

At the beginning Jesus made a gesture to Peter to bend and listen to Him, and Peter after listening to Him said in a loud voice: « At this moment the Lord offered the chalice for us all, as He was the Father and Head of His Family. »

Now He makes another gesture to Peter, who listens again and then stands up and says: « And at this point the Lord girded Himself to purify us and teach us what we are to do to consume the Eucharistic Sacrifice worthily. »

The supper proceeds until at another sign Peter says again: « At this moment the Lord, after taking the bread and the wine, offered them, and praying blessed them, and after breaking the bread into parts, He handed them to us saying: "This is My Body and this is My Blood of the new eternal Testament, and it will be shed for you and for many to the remission of sins". »

Jesus stands up. He is most imposing. He orders Peter and James to take a loaf of bread and break it into small morsels and to fill a chalice, the biggest one there is on the tables, with wine. They obey and hold the bread and the wine in front of Him, and Jesus stretches out His hands over them and prays without any other action except His enraptured look…

« Hand out the morsels of bread and offer the brotherly chalice, Every time you do this, you shall do it in memory of Me. »

The two Apostles obey, full of veneration…

While the distribution of the Species takes place, Jesus goes down to the women. I think, but I cannot see, because I do not go in where they are, that Jesus administers Holy Communion to His Mother with His own hands. This is what I think, but I do not know whether it is true. But I cannot understand why He should go there, if it were not to do that.

Then He goes back up to the terrace. He does not sit down any more. The supper is about to end. He asks: « Is it all consumed? »

« It is all consumed, Lord. »

« As I did on the Cross. Stand up. Let us pray. »

He stretches out His arms, as if He were on the cross, and He intones the prayer of the Our Father.

I do not know why I am weeping. I think that it is perhaps the last time that I shall hear Him say it… And, as no painter or sculptor will ever be able to give us the true image of Jesus, so no one, however holy he may be, will ever be able to say the Our Father so manfully and at the same time so gently. I shall always feel a great nostalgia for these Our Fathers as I heard them from Jesus, a real conversation of His soul with the most loved and adored Father of Heaven, a cry of honour, of obedience, of faith, of submission, of humility, of mercy, of wish, of trust… everything!

« Go. And may the Grace of the Lord be in all of you and may His peace accompany you » Jesus says dismissing them. And He disappears in a bright light that by far exceeds the moonlight, as the moon is now full and high over the silent Garden, and the light of the lamps placed on the tables.

Not a voice. Tears on faces, adoration in hearts… and nothing else. The night watches and knows, with the angels, the throbs of those blessed hearts.

(Jesus has ascended into Heaven, and the Holy Spirit has descended upon the apostles and Mary.  It is some time later, at one of the first meetings of Christians, in the days immediately after Pentecost ...)

The twelve apostles are once again twelve, because Matthias, already elected in the place of the traitor, is among them. And the fact that all twelve are there proves that they had not yet parted to go and evangelize, according to the order of the Master. So it must have been Pentecost only a short time ago, and the persecutions of the Sanhedrin against the servants of Jesus Christ have not yet begun. Because if they had begun, they would not celebrate with so much calm, and without taking any precautions, in a house even too well known to those of the Temple, that is in the house of the Supper room, and exactly in the room where the Last Supper was consumed, the Eucharist was instituted, and the true and total betrayal as well as the Redemption began.

The large room, however, has undergone a modification, necessary for its new function as a church, and required by the number of the believers. The large table is no longer near the wall of the little staircase, but it is near, or rather against the wall facing it, so that even those who cannot go into the Supper room, already crowded with people - in the Supper room, the first church of the Christian world - can see what is happening there, thronging the entrance corridor, near the little door, completely open, that admits to the room.

In the room there are men and women of all ages. In a group of women, near the large table, but in a corner, there is Mary, the Mother, surrounded by Martha and Mary of Lazarus, by Nike, Eliza, Mary of Alphaeus, Salome, Johanna of Chuza, in short, by many of the women disciples, both Jewish and not Jewish, whom Jesus had cured, comforted, evangelized, and who had become sheep of His fold. Among the men there are Nicodemus, Lazarus, Joseph of Arimathea, a large number of disciples, among whom there are Stephen, Hermas, the shepherds, Elisha the son of the leader of the synagogue of Engedi, and many more. There is also Longinus, not in his military uniform, but as if he were an ordinary citizen, with a long plain greyish tunic. Then many more, who have certainly entered the flock of Christ after Pentecost and the first evangelization of the Twelve.

Peter speaks also now, evangelizing and teaching the people present. He speaks once again of the Last Supper. Again, because from his words it is clear that he has already spoken of it.

He says: « I tell you once again » and he stresses these words very much « of this Supper in which, before being sacrificed by men, Jesus the Nazarene, as He was called, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Saviour, as He is to be called and believed with all our hearts and minds, because our salvation is in this faith, sacrificed Himself of His own free will, and out of excess of love, giving Himself in Food and Drink to men and saying to us, His servants and continuators: "Do this in memory of Me". And that is what we do. But, o men, as we, His witnesses, believe that in the Bread and in the Wine, offered and blessed, as He did, in His memory and out of obedience to His divine order, there is His Most Holy Body and His Most Holy Blood, that Body and that Blood that are of a God, of the Son of the Most High God, and that they have been crucified and shed for the sake and the lives of men, so you also, all of you, who have come to be part of the true, new, immortal Church, predicted by the Prophets and founded by the Christ, must believe it. Believe and bless the Lord Who to us - His crucifiers, if not materially, certainly morally and spiritually, because of our weakness in serving Him, because of our dullness in understanding Him, because of our cowardice in abandoning Him running away in His supreme hour, in our, no, in my personal betrayal of a man fearful and cowardly to the extent of disowning and denying Him and denying that I was His disciple, and more than that, the first among His servants (and large tears stream down Peter's face) shortly before the first hour, there, in the Court of the Temple - believe and bless, I was saying, the Lord, Who leaves this eternal sign of forgiveness to us. Believe and bless the Lord, Who allows those, who did not know Him when He was the Nazarene, to know Him now that He is the Word Incarnate reunited to His Father. Come and take it. He said: "He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood will have eternal Life". And we did not understand then (and Peter weeps again). We did not understand because we were slow in understanding. But now the Holy Spirit has brightened our intelligence, has fortified our faith, has infused charity into us, and we understand. And in the name of the Most High God, of the God of Abraham, of Jacob, of Moses, in the most high name of the God Who spoke to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, to Ezekiel, to Daniel and to the other Prophets, we swear to you that this is the truth and we beseech you to believe, so that you may have eternal Life. »

Peter is full of stateliness while speaking. There is no longer anything in him of the rather coarse fisherman of not long ago. He has climbed on a stool to speak and to be seen and heard better, because, small as he is, if he had remained standing on the floor of the room, he could not have been seen by those farther away, whereas he wants to dominate the crowd. He speaks moderately, in an appropriate voice, with the gestures of a true orator. His eyes, always expressive, are now more eloquent than ever. Love, faith, authority, contrition, everything shines through his eyes anticipating and reinforcing his words.

He has finished speaking now. He comes down from the stool and passes behind the large table, in the space between the table and the wall, and waits.

James and Judas, that is the two sons of Alphaeus and cousins of the Christ, now lay a white table-cloth on the table. To do so they lift the large low chest, which is on the centre of the table, and they spread a very fine linen cloth also on its lid.

The apostle John goes now to Mary and asks Her something. Mary slips off from Her neck a kind of a small key and gives it to John. John takes it, goes back to the chest, opens it, letting down the front panel, which is laid on the table and covered with a third linen cloth.

Inside the chest there is a horizontal partition that divides it into two sections. In the lower section there is a chalice and a metal plate. In the upper section, in the centre, the chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper and for the first Eucharist, the remains of the bread broken by Him, laid on a small plate as precious as the chalice. On the sides of the chalice and of the small plate laid on it, on one side there is the crown of thorns, the nails and the sponge. On the other side one of the shrouds, rolled up, the veil with which Nike wiped Jesus' Face, and the one that Mary gave Her Son to gird up His loins. At the bottom there are other things, but as they remain rather concealed and no one speaks of them or shows them, it is not known what they are. The other ones, instead, and which are visible, are shown to the people present by John and Judas of Alphaeus, and the crowd kneels in front of them. But neither the chalice nor the small plate of the bread are touched or shown, nor is the Shroud unfolded, but only the rolled cloth is shown, saying what it is. Perhaps John and Judas do not unfold it in order not to awake in Mary the sorrowful memory of the cruel tortures suffered by Her Son.

When this part of the ceremony is over, the apostles in chorus intone some prayers, I should say some psalms, because they are sung as the Hebrews used to do in their synagogues or in their pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the solemnities prescribed by the Law. The chorus of the apostles is joined by the crowd and so it becomes more and more impressive.

At the end they bring some bread that is laid on the small metal plate, which was in the lower section of the chest, and also some small amphorae, which are also of metal.

John, who is kneeling on the other side of the table - whereas Peter is always between the table and the wall, but facing the crowd - hands the tray with the bread to Peter, who raises it and offers it. He then blesses it and lays it on the chest.

Judas of Alphaeus, who is also kneeling beside John, in his turn, hands Peter the chalice of the lower section and the two amphorae that were previously near the small plate of the bread, and Peter pours their contents into the chalice, which he then raises and offers, as he had done with the bread. He blesses also the chalice and lays it on the chest beside the bread.

They say more prayers. Peter breaks the bread into many morsels, while the people prostrate themselves even more, and he says: « This is My Body. Do this is memory of Me ».

He comes out from behind the table, taking the tray full of the morsels of bread, and as first thing he goes to Mary and gives Her a morsel. Then he goes to the front of the table and hands out the consecrated Bread to all those who approach him to have it. A few morsels are left over, and still on their tray, they are laid on the chest.

He now takes the chalice and offers it, always beginning from Mary, to those who are present. John and Judas follow him with the small amphorae and they add the liquids when the chalice is empty, while Peter repeats the elevation, the offering and the blessing to consecrate the liquid.

When all those who asked to be nourished with the Eucharist are satisfied, the apostles consume the bread and wine left over. Then they sing another psalm or hymn and after it Peter blesses the crowd who, after his blessing, go away little by little.

Mary, the Mother, Who has always remained on Her knees during the whole ceremony of the consecration and the distribution of the species of the Bread and Wine, stands up and goes to the chest. She bends across the large table and with Her forehead She touches the upper section of the chest, where the chalice and the small plate used by Jesus at the Last Supper are laid, and She kisses the edges of them. A kiss that is also for all the relies gathered there. Then John closes the chest and hands the key back to Mary, Who puts it again round Her neck.

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Compiled by David D. Murray, for the

Maria Valtorta Readers’ Group

12 Parker Road, Silvan Vic.  3795  AUSTRALIA

Tel/Fax  03 9737 9228