Jesus Christ invites us to contemplate His Passion and His Sacrificial Death.

Started by Xavier, March 22, 2019, 03:48:13 AM

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Xavier

We see very clearly that while Jesus is Merciful to all, those whose Faith and Love for Him were greater experience greater joy and more abundant grace after His Resurrection; this is true of all, right from St. Mary Magdalene, St. John the Apostle, the simple and humble shepherds etc, but especially His Holy Mother Who never wavered in Her unshakeable Faith in Him. In that hour when the world doubted and the faith of the Apostles had fallen, it was Mary Who believed against the whole world, comforting and consoling the rest, that they they too may believe or return to a stronger Faith in His Word and in His Promises. Hence, Hers is the greatest Merit in Heaven and Her Throne is nearest to that of the Holy Trinity. We see after the Resurrection how much greater it is to have always believed and loved Jesus, rather than wavered in weakness, as some may wish to tempt us to do during the hours the Church must follow and imitate Her Lord in being Crucified, before Her Resurrection and Final Triumph. Let us ask for the grace to believe as Mother Mary believed in that hour, with a few faithful companions like St. Magdalene and St. John, beside the others. Hers is the Catholic Faith that we by Her Grace have received from God through Her. When all had doubted, Mary as a figure of the Church our Mother remained in unshakeable Faith and Fidelity to Her Lord and Saviour, never doubting for an instant that He was the Son of God and in 3 days would rise again as He had promised. As Fr. G-L puts it in his own writings on Mary Co-Redemptrix, and as we all can see even more clearly in the Poem, "At the moment when Her Son was about to die on the Cross, apparently defeated and abandoned, She did not cease for a moment to believe that He was the Word made flesh, the Saviour of the world, Who would rise in three days as He had predicted. This was the greatest act of faith and hope ever made; after Christ's act of love, it was also the greatest act of love. It made Mary the Queen of Martyrs, for She was a Martyr, not only for Christ but with Christ." In those most tragic hours, we can truly say, Mary was the Church, and the Church was Mary. +ABL used to say, Ubi Maria, Ibi Ecclesia. In Mary we behold the Church in Her Complete and Perfect Holiness. In ourselves, we must strive to become like Her.

Next, the Lord begins to comfort and console His Apostles, encouraging them to be strong in their Faith and love for Him. Then, when the Apostles - who, as we know, would later on become heroes for Christ after Pentecost, and their efforts - try to argue with the Lord to justify themselves, forgetting the Lord's kindness to them temporarily, the Lord explains why He deemed it right to appear first to St. Magdalene, to the shepherds etc after His Mother. But all that the Lord says to them, He does it in love, to make them humble and holy.

"7 James, John's brother, is the first who dares to speak: «Why do You look at us so?» «Because I want to know you.»

«Do You not know us yet?»,

«As you do not know Me. If you knew Me, you would know Who I am and how I love you, and you would find words to tell Me your torture. You are silent, as if you were before a mighty stranger of whom you are afraid. Not long ago you were speaking... For almost four days you have been talking to yourselves saying: "I will say this to Him...", saying to My Spirit: "Come back, Lord, that I may tell You this". Now I have come, and you are silent? Have I changed so much that I no longer seem Myself to you? Or have you changed so much that you no longer love Me?» John, sitting near his Jesus, makes the usual gesture of laying his head on His chest, while he whispers: «I love You, my God», but he becomes stiff, preventing such abandon out of respect for the shining Son of God. Because Jesus seems to be shedding a light, although His Body is like ours. But Jesus clasps him to His Heart, and then John opens the flood-gates to his blissful tears. And it is the sign for everybody to do the same.

8 Peter, two seats behind John, falls on his knees between the table and the seat and he weeps shouting: «Forgive me, forgive me! Take me out of this hell in which I have been for so many hours. Tell me that You have seen my error for what it was. Not of the spirit, but of the flesh that overwhelmed my heart. Tell me that You have seen my repentance... It will last until my death. But... but do tell me that I must not fear You as Jesus... and I, and I... I will try to behave so well, as to make also God forgive me... and die... having only a long purgatory to suffer.» «Come here, Simon of Jonah.» «I am afraid.» «Come here. Be no longer cowardly.» «I do not deserve to come near You.»

«Come here. What did My Mother say to you? "If you do not look at Him on this veronica, you will never have the heart to look at Him again." O foolish man! Did that Face not tell you with its Sorrowful look that I understood you and forgave you? And yet I gave that linen as comfort, guide, absolution and blessing... But what has Satan done to you to blind you so much? Now I say to you: if you do not look at Me now, that I have spread a veil on My glory to adapt Myself to your weakness, never again will you be able to come to your Lord without fear. And then what will happen to you? You sinned out of presumption. Do you want now to sin again out of obstinacy? Come, I tell you.» Peter drags himself along on his knees, between the table and the seats, covering his weeping face with his hands. Jesus stops him when he is at His feet, by laying His Hand on his head. Peter, weeping more bitterly, takes that Hand and kisses it, amid hearty sobs Without restraint. He can only say: «Forgive me! Forgive me!» Jesus frees Himself from his grip and lifting the chin of the apostle with His hand, He compels him to raise his head, and He stares at his reddened, burnt eyes, tortured by repentance, with His own clear bright Eyes. He seems to be wishing to pierce his soul. He then says: «Come on. Remove the shame of Judas from Me. Kiss Me where he kissed Me. Wash with your kiss the sign of betrayal.» Peter raises his head, while Jesus bends even more, and he touches His cheek lightly... then he rests his head on Jesus' knees and remains thus... like an old child who has done wrong but is forgiven.

9 The others, who now see Jesus' kindness, become somewhat daring, and they approach Him, as best they can. His cousins are the first to come... They would like to say so much, but they do not succeed in saying anything. Jesus caresses them and encourages them with His smile. Matthew comes with Andrew. Matthew says: «As in Capernaum...», and Andrew: «I... I love You, I do.»

Bartholomew comes moaning: «I was not wise, but foolish. He is wise» and he points at the Zealot, at whom Jesus is already smiling. James of Zebedee comes and he whispers to John: «You should tell Him...»; and Jesus turns round and says: «You have said it for four evenings, and I have pitied you all that time.» Philip, the last, comes completely stooped. Jesus compels him to raise his head and says to him: «Greater courage is required to preach the Christ.»

10 They are all now around Jesus. They pluck up courage little by little. They find again what they had lost or had feared they had lost for good. Confidence and tranquillity come to light again and, although Jesus is so majestic as to make His apostles have a new respect for Him, they at long last find the courage to speak. It is His cousin James who says with a sigh: «Why have You done this to us, Lord? You knew that we are nothing and that everything comes from God. Why did You not give us the strength to remain beside You?»

Jesus looks at him and smiles. «Now everything has happened. And You do not have to suffer anything any more. But do not ask this sort of obedience of me any more. I have grown five years older every hour, and Your sufferings, which love and Satan have also increased five times more in I my imagination than what they really were, have really consumed all my strength. I have left only what I need to continue to obey, holding, like one who is drowning with his hands broken, my strength with my will, like teeth set on a board, in order not to perish... Oh! do not ask Your leper that any more.» Jesus looks at Simon Zealot and smiles. «Lord, You know what my heart wanted. But later I no longer had my heart... as if the rascals who had captured You had torn it off me... and I was left with a hole through which all my previous thoughts escaped. Why did You allow that, Lord?» asks Andrew. «I... you say it was your heart? I say that I was one who no longer had his reason. Like one who is struck by a club on the nape of his neck. When, at dead of night, I found myself at Jericho... oh! God! God!... But can a man perish like that? I say that that is what possession is like. Now I realise what is that dreadful thing!...» Philip opens his eyes wide at the recollection of his suffering. «Philip is right. I was looking back. I am old and not devoid of wisdom. And I did not know anything of what I had known till that hour. 11 I looked at Lazarus, so tortured but so sure of himself, and I said to myself: "But how can it be possible that he still knows how to find a reason and I can no longer find anything?"» says Bartholomew. «I also was looking at Lazarus. And as I hardly know what You have explained to us, I was not thinking of knowledge. But I said to myself: "If at least my heart were like his!"; instead I felt nothing but grief, grief, grief. Lazarus was grieved but had peace... Why so much peace for him?» Jesus in turn looks first at Philip, then at Bartholomew and then at James of Zebedee. He smiles and is silent. Judas says: «I was hoping to get to see what Lazarus certainly saw. That is why I was always close to him... His face!... A mirror. Shortly before the earthquake on Friday he was like a man who is crushed to death. Then all of a sudden he became imposing in his grief. Do you remember when he said: "An accomplished duty gives peace"? We all thought that it was only a reproach for us or an approval for himself. Now I think that he said so referring to You. Lazarus was like a lighthouse in our darkness. How much You have given him, Lord!» Jesus smiles and is silent. «Yes. His life. And perhaps with it You have given him a different soul.  Because, after all, in what is he different from us? And yet he is no longer a man. He is already something more than a man, and considering what he was in the past, he should have been even less perfect in spirit than we are. But he has made himself, and we... Lord, my love has been empty like certain ears of wheat. I have produced only chaff» says Andrew. And Matthew: «I cannot ask for anything. Because I have already received so much with my conversion. Of course! I should have liked to have what Lazarus had. A soul given by You. Because I also think as Andrew does...» «Also the Magdalene and Martha were like lighthouses. It must be their race. You did not see them. One was piety and silence. The other! If we were like a bundle round the Blessed Mother, it is because Mary of Magdala grouped us together with the flames of her courageous love. Yes. I said: the race. But I must say: love. They have exceeded us in love. That is why they have been what they have been» says John. Jesus smiles and is always silent. «But they have received a great reward for it...» «You appeared to them.» «To the three of them.» «To Mary immediately after Your Mother...» It is clear that the apostles have a regret for these privileged apparitions. «Mary for so many hours has known that You had risen. And we can only see You now...» «They are no longer in doubt. With us, instead, well... only now we feel that nothing has come to an end. Why to them, Lord, if You still love us and You do not reject us?» asks Judas of Alphaeus. «Yes. Why to the women, and in particular to Mary? You also touched her forehead, and she says that she seems to be wearing an eternal crown. And to us, Your apostles, nothing...»

12 Jesus no longer smiles. His Face is not upset, but He has stopped smiling. He looks gravely at Peter, who was the last to speak, recovering boldness as his fear vanishes, and He says: 

«I had twelve apostles. And I loved them with all My Heart. I had chosen them and like a mother I took care to bring them up in My Life. I had no secrets for them. I told them everything, I explained everything, I forgave everything. Their humanity, their thoughtlessness, and their stubbornness... everything. And I had some disciples. Some rich and some poor disciples. I had women with a gloomy past or of a delicate constitution. But the apostles were the favourite ones. My hour came. One betrayed Me and handed Me over to the executioners. Three slept while I was sweating blood. All of them, with the exception of two, ran away cowardly. One denied Me out of fear, although he had the example of another one, who was young and faithful. And, as if it were not enough, among the twelve I had a desperate suicide and one who doubted My forgiveness so much that only with difficulty and through maternal words he believed in God's Mercy. So that, if I had looked at My group, if I had looked at it with human eyes, I should have said: "With the exception of John, faithful out of love, and of Simon, faithful to obedience, I no longer have disciples." That is what I should have said while I was suffering in the enclosure of the Temple, in the Praetorium, along the streets, on the Cross. 13 I had some women... And one, the most guilty in the past, has been, as John said, the flame that has joined together the broken fibres of hearts. That woman is Mary of Magdala. You denied Me and you ran away. She defied death to be close to Me. When they insulted her, she uncovered her face, ready to receive spittle and slaps, considering that by doing so she would resemble her crucified King more. And when people sneered at her from the depth of their hearts because of her firm faith in My Resurrection, she continued to believe. Although tortured, she took action. When she was desolate this morning she said: "I will divest myself of everything, but give me my Master." Can you still dare to ask Me: "Why to her?" I had some poor disciples: the shepherds. I did not approach them very often, and yet how able they were to acknowledge Me with their faithfulness! I had some shy women disciples, like all the Hebrew women. And yet they left their homes and amid a tremendous crowd of people that cursed Me, they came to give Me that assistance that My apostles had denied Me. I had some heathen women who admired the "philosopher". Such I was for them. But the mighty Roman ladies were able to lower themselves to Hebrew customs, to say to Me, in the hour that I was forsaken by a world of ungrateful people: "We are friends of Yours."

14 My face was covered with spittle and blood. Tears and perspiration dripped on My wounds. Filth and dust encrusted them. Whose hands cleansed Me? Yours? Or yours? Or yours? None of your hands. This man was near My Mother. This one was gathering together the scattered sheep. You. And if My sheep were scattered, how could they help Me? You were concealing your faces, because you were afraid of the scorn of the world, while your Master was covered with the contempt of all the world. And He was innocent. I was thirsty. Yes. You had better know also that. I was dying of thirst. I had nothing but a temperature and pain. My Blood had already been shed in Gethsemane, drawn by the grief of being betrayed, forsaken, denied, beaten, overwhelmed by the infinite sins and by God's severity. And it had been shed in the Praetorium... Who thought of giving Me a drop of water for My parched throat? A hand of Israel? No. The pity of a heathen. The same hand that, by an eternal decree, opened My chest to show that My Heart already had a mortal wound, the one made by lack of love, by cowardice and by the betrayal. A heathen. I remind you: "I was thirsty and you gave Me drink". There was not even one person in the whole of Israel who gave Me comfort, either out of lack of possibility to do so, as in the case of My Mother and the faithful women, or because of bad will. And for the Unknown One a heathen found the pity that My people had denied Me. In Heaven he will find the sip he gave Me.

I solemnly tell you that, while I refused all comforts, because when one is a Victim one must not mitigate one's destiny, I did not want to reject the heathen, in whose offer I tasted the sweetness of all the love that will come to Me from the Gentiles, as compensation for the bitterness Israel gave Me. It did not quench My thirst, but it relieved My dejection. That is why I took that ignored sip. To draw to Me him who was already inclined towards Good. May he be blessed by the Father for his pity! 15 Are you no longer speaking? Why do you not continue to ask Me why I acted so. Do you not dare ask? I will tell you. I will tell you everything of the whys of this hour. Who are you? My continuators. Yes, you are, notwithstanding your bewilderment. What are you to do? To convert the world to Christ. Convert it!

It is the most delicate and difficult matter, My friends. Indignation, disgust, pride, excessive zeal, are all harmful to success. But, as nothing and nobody would induce you to be kind, complying, charitable with those who are in darkness, it has been necessary – do you understand? – it has been necessary for you, once for all, to crush your pride of Hebrews, of males, of apostles, to make room only for the true wisdom of your ministry: for meekness, patience, compassion, love without ostentation and disgust. You can see that everybody, among those whom you looked at with scorn or with proud indulgence, has exceeded you in believing and in acting. Everybody. The woman who had sinned in the past. Lazarus, imbued with profane culture, the first who in My Name has forgiven and guided. And the heathen ladies. And Chuza's delicate wife. Delicate? She really surpasses all of you! The first martyr of My faith. And the soldiers of Rome. And the shepherds. And the Herodian Manaen. And even Gamaliel, the rabbi. Do not start, John. Do you think that My Spirit was in darkness? All of you. And I say this so that in future, remembering your error, you may not close your hearts to those who come to the Cross. I tell you. And I know that, although I tell you, you will not do it until the Strength of the Lord bends you like twigs to My Will, which is to have Christians all over the Earth. I defeated Death. But it is not so hard as old Hebraism. But I will bend you.

16 You, Peter, instead of weeping dejectedly, since you are to be the Stone of My Church, have these bitter truths engraved in your heart. Myrrh is used to preserve from corruption. So, become imbued with myrrh. And when you want to close your heart and the Church to someone of a different faith, remember that is was not Israel, it was not Israel, it was not Israel, but it was Rome that defended Me and took pity on Me. Remember that not you, but a woman, a sinner, remained at the foot of the Cross and deserved to be the first to see Me. And in order not to be worthy of reproach, be the imitator of your God. Open your heart and the Church saying: "I, poor Peter, cannot despise anybody, because if I do, I shall be despised by God, and my error will become alive once again in His eyes." Woe to you, if I had not broken you so! You would not have become a shepherd, but a wolf.» 17 Jesus stands up. He looks most imposing. «My children. I will speak to you again, while I remain among you. But, in the meantime, I absolve you and forgive you. May the peace of forgiveness come to you, after the trial, that, although humiliating and cruel, has been beneficial and necessary. And with this peace in your hearts, become once again My faithful strong friends. The Father sent Me into the world. I send you into the world to continue My evangelization. All kinds of miseries will come to you asking for relief. Be kind, thinking of your misery when you remained without your Jesus. Be enlightened. It is not possible to see in darkness. Be pure to give purity. Be love, to love. Then He will come, Who is Light, Purification and Love. But in the meantime, to prepare you for your ministry, I communicate the Holy Spirit to you. For those whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven. For those whose sins you retain, they will be retained. May your experience make you just in judging. May the Holy Spirit make you saints, so that you may sanctify. May your sincere wish to overcome your faults make you heroes for the life expecting you. What is still to be said, I will tell you when your absent companion has come. Pray for him. Remain with My peace and without being upset by doubts about My love.»


And Jesus disappears as He had come in, leaving an empty place between John and Peter. He disappears in a flash that is so bright that it makes the apostles close their eyes. And when their dazzled 'eyes are opened again, they find that only Jesus' peace is left, a flame that burns and cures and consumes the bitterness of the past in one only desire: to serve."
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

624. The Incredulity of Thomas. Jesus' Warning to the "Thomases" of Today. 7th April 1945.

1 The ten apostles are in the court-yard of the house of the Supper room. They are talking to one another and then they pray. Later they resume speaking. Simon Zealot says: «I am really distressed at Thomas' disappearance. I do not know where to look for him any more.» «Neither do I» says John. «He is not with his relatives. And no one has seen him. Has he perhaps been arrested?» «If that were the case, the Master would not have said: "I will tell you the rest when your absent companion is here."» «That is true. But I want to go to Bethany again. Perhaps he is wandering about those mountains and does not dare show himself.» «Go, Simon. You gathered us all together... and by gathering us you saved us, because you took us to Lazarus. Did you hear what words the Master spoke of him? He said: "The first who in My Name has forgiven and guided." Why does He not put him in the place of the Iscariot?» asks Matthew. «Probably because He does not want to give His perfect friend the place of the betrayer» replies Philip. 2 «A short while ago, I heard, when I was going round the markets and I spoke to the fishmongers, that... I can trust them, of course, that those of the Temple do not know what to do with Judas' body. I do not know who it was... but at dawn this morning the guards of the Temple found his putrid body inside the sacred enclosure, with the rope still round his neck. I think it must have been some heathens who pulled him down and threw him in there, who knows how» says Peter. «Instead, yesterday evening at the fountain I was told, I heard them say that since yesterday evening they threw the bowels of the traitor even at Annas' house. Heathens, certainly. Because no Hebrew would touch that body after more than five days. I wonder how rotten it must have been!» says James of Alphaeus. «Oh! it was horrible since the Sabbath!» says John turning pale at the recollection. «But how did he end up in that place? Did it belong to him?» «And who was ever told anything precise by Judas of Kerioth? Remember how reserved and complicated he was...»

«You can say: false, Bartholomew. He was never sincere. He was with us for three years, and we, who had everything in common, before him were like people before the high wall of a fortress.» «Of a fortress? Oh! Simon! Of a labyrinth!» exclaims Judas of Alphaeus. «Oh! listen. Let us not speak of him! I get the impression that we are evoking him and that he is to come to give us trouble. I should like to cancel his memory from me and from all hearts, whether they are the hearts of Hebrews or of Gentiles. Of Hebrews, in order not to blush because our race gave birth to that monster. Of Gentiles, so that none of them may say to us one day: "His betrayer was one from Israel".

3 I am a boy. And I should not be the first one to speak before you. I am the last and you, Peter, are the first. And here is the Zealot and Bartholomew, both learned men, and there are the brothers of the Lord. But, now, I should like to put one in the twelfth place at once, someone who is holy, because, as long as I see that empty place in our group, I shall see the mouth of hell with its stench among us. And I am afraid that it may lead us astray...» «No, John! You have been struck by the ugliness of his crime and of his hanging body...» «No, no. The Mother also said: "I saw Satan when I saw Judas of Kerioth". Oh! let us be quick in finding a holy person to put in that place!» «Listen, I am not going to choose anybody. If He, Who was God, chose an Iscariot, what will poor Peter choose?» «And yet you will have to...» «No, my dear friend. I am not choosing anything. I will ask the Lord. Enough of the sins committed by Peter!» «We have to ask so many things. The other evening we were like dull-witted people. But we must be taught. Because... How will we be able to understand whether a thing is really a sin? Or whether it is not? You have seen how the Lord speaks of the heathens in a different manner than we do. You have seen how He excuses more cowardice and a denial than the doubt about the possibility of His forgiveness... Oh! I am afraid of doing the wrong thing» says James of Alphaeus disconsolately. «He has really spoken to us so much. And yet I seem to know nothing. I have been dullwitted for a week» states the other James dejectedly. «And I.» «And I.» «I, too.»

They are all in the same situation and they look at each other utterly bewildered. They have recourse to the solution which is by now customary: «We shall go to Lazarus» they say. «We may find the Lord there... and Lazarus will help us.» 4 There is a knock at the main door. They all become silent and listen. And they utter an «oh!» of surprise when they see Elias come into the hall with Thomas. Such a strange Thomas that he seems another person. His companions crowd round him shouting their joy: «Do you know that He has risen and has come? And He is waiting for you so that He may come back!» «Yes. Also Elias told me. But I do not believe it. I believe what I see. And I see that it is the end for us. I see that we are all scattered. I see that there is not even a known sepulchre where we may mourn over His death. I see that the Sanhedrin wants to get rid of both their accomplice, whose burial they have decreed at the foot of the olive-tree where he hanged himself, as if he were a filthy animal, and of the followers of the Nazarene. On Friday I was stopped at the gates and they said to me: "Were you one of His followers as well? He is dead, now. Go back to beating gold." And I ran away...»

«Where? We have looked for you everywhere.» «Where? I went towards the house of my sister at Ramah. But I did not dare to go in because... I did not want to be reproached by a woman. So I wandered about the Judaean mountains and yesterday I ended up at Bethlehem, in His grotto. How much I wept... I fell asleep among the ruins and Elias, who had come there... I do not know why, found me.» «Why? Because in the hours of too great a joy or too great a sorrow, one goes where God is more felt. Many a time, in these past years, I have gone there by night, like a thief, to feel my soul being caressed by the remembrance of His cries. And then I would run away at sunrise, in order not to be stoned. But I was already comforted. Now I went there to say to that place: "I am happy" and to take what I can from it. That is what we have decided. We want to preach His Faith. And the strength to do so will be given to us by a bit of that wall, by a handful of that soil, by a splinter of those poles. We are not holy, as to dare to take the earth of Calvary...» «You are right, Elias. We shall have to do that as well. And we will. But Thomas?...» «Thomas slept and wept. I said to him: "Wake up and stop weeping. He has risen." He would not believe me. But I insisted so much that I convinced him. Here he is. He is now with you and I will go away. I will join my companions who are going to Galilee. Peace to you.» Elias goes away. 5 «Thomas: He has risen. I am telling you. He was with us. He ate some food. He spoke. He blessed us. He forgave us. He has given us the power to forgive. Oh! why did
you not come before?» Thomas does not shake off his dejection. He stubbornly shakes his head. «I do not believe. You have seen a ghost. You are all mad. The women first of all. A dead man does not rise by himself.» «A man, no. But He is God. Do you not believe that?» «Yes. I believe that He is God. But, just because I believe that, I think and say that, no matter how good He is, He cannot be so good to the extent of coming among those who have loved Him so little. And I say that, however humble He may be, He must have had enough of humiliating Himself in our filthy flesh. No. He may be, He certainly is triumphant in Heaven, and, perhaps, He may appear as a spirit. I say: perhaps. We do not deserve even that! But risen in flesh and bones, no. I do not believe it.» «But we have kissed Him, we have seen Him eat, we have heard His voice, we have felt His hand, we have seen His wounds!»

«Nothing. I do not believe it. I cannot believe. I should see in order to believe. If I do not see the holes of the nails in His hands, and I do not put my finger into them, if I do not touch the wounds of His feet and if I do not put my hand where the lance opened His chest, I will not believe. I am not a child or a woman. I want evidence. I reject what my reason cannot accept. And I cannot accept your word.»

«But Thomas! Do you think that we want to deceive you?» «No, my poor fellows. On the contrary! May you be blessed since you are so kind as to wish to guide me to that peace, that you have succeeded in giving yourselves through this illusion of yours. But... I do not believe in His Resurrection.» «Are you not afraid of being punished by Him? He hears and sees everything, you know?» «I ask Him to convince me. I am gifted with reason, and I make use of it. Let Him, the Master of human reason, revise mine if it has been led astray.» «But reason, He said so, is free.» «All the more reason for not making it the slave of a collective suggestion. I love you and I love the Lord. I will serve Him as best I can and I will stay with you to help you to serve Him. I will preach His doctrine. But I can only believe by seeing.» And Thomas, obstinate, listens only to himself. They speak to him of all those who have seen Him and how they have seen Him. They advise him to speak to the Mother. But he shakes his head, sitting on a stone seat, more stony himself than the seat. As obstinate as a child, he repeats: «I will believe if I see...»

The big word of unhappy people who deny what is so pleasant and holy to believe, admitting that God can do everything. -------------

6 Jesus says: «Little John, the cycle is over. After this you will put My Apparition to incredulous Thomas, as given to you on 9th August 1944. But when all the Gospel has been written, much will still have to added to Palm Sunday, to the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning in Holy Week, as I said at the beginning. The parts to be inserted, taken from what you saw last year, have already been pointed out to you by Me. If Father Migliorini so wishes, he can put the dictations of last year that I now point out to you. [...] 7 And, as I foresee the remarks of too many Thomases and of the too many scribes of the present days on a sentence of this dictation, which seems to be in contrast with the sip of water offered by Longinus... – oh! how happy the deniers of the supernatural, the rationalists of perfection contrariwise, would be, if they could find a fissure in the wonderful complex of this work of divine bounty and of your sacrifice, little John, to make it all collapse, by prizing open such fissure with the pick of their lethal rationalism – to prevent them, I say and explain. That poor sip of water – a drop in the fire of the fever and in the dryness of the emptied veins – taken out of love for a soul that was to be convinced of love to lead it to the Truth, taken with great difficulty in the severe pain that obstructed My breathing and prevented My from swallowing, so crushed I was by the cruel scourges, gave Me only a supernatural relief. For My body it was nothing, not to say that it was a torture... Rivers would have been required to quench My thirst then... And I could not drink because of the anguish of the praecordial pain. And you are aware of that pain... Rivers would have been required later... and they were not given to Me. Neither could I have accepted them because of the stronger and stronger suffocation. But how much relief they would have given to My Heart, had they been offered! It was of love that I was dying. Of love not given. Pity is love. And in Israel there was no pity. When you, good people, contemplate, or you, skeptical philosophers, analyse that "sip", give it the right name: "pity", not drink. So it can be said, without incurring falsehood, that "from the Supper onwards I had no comfort." Of all the people who surrounded Me there was not one who gave Me any comfort, as I did not want to take the spiced wine. I had vinegar and mockery. I had betrayal and blows. That is what I had. Nothing else. 8 You asked: "Why did I not see this deed of Longinus last year?" Because you were terrorised by the vision, suffered by you, of My tortures. Because you were not yet capable of describing and seeing. I shortened the times to give you consolation for your impending passion. But you can see that I had to take you again with Me to go back through all My Torture with greater perfection and peace. Is it perfect? Oh! no. A creature, although held in My arms and melted with Me, is still a creature, and will always have the reactions and capabilities of a creature. Being a creature, it will never be able to understand and describe the feelings and sufferings of the Man-God with absolute veracity and perfection.

And, in any case, they would not be understood by most people. Even these are not understood. And, 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.

9 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." Go in peace. I am with you.»
7th April 1945, Five o'clock p.m.
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

At the final Resurrection, too, all who have believed in and loved Jesus, having seen Him in the Glory of the Beatific Vision, will rise in bodies like Him. It is useless to deny the Solemn Truth of the Resurrection, which eyewitnesses have sworn to us and verified by their lives and their blood, the Lord Himself bearing witness by signs; if we have been weak in doubting it, we should grow stronger in Faith.

The Lord was merciful to St. Thomas and raised the Apostle to strong Faith. He is willing to do the same for all those who are doubters, but we must be willing to surrender those doubts to Him, and allow Him to enlighten and strengthen us; it will always be embarrassing at best to be before Jesus visibly if we have not believed in Him beforehand. Let us do that, therefore, knowing such Faith is Blessed.

625. Jesus Appears to the Apostles with Thomas. Speech on Priesthood. [9th August 1944] 1 The apostles are gathered in the Supper room, around the table where the Passover supper was consumed. But out of respect, the central seat, that of Jesus, has been left empty. Also the apostles, now that there is no longer One Who groups and distributes them according to His will or by choice of love, have placed themselves differently. Peter is still in his place. But Judas Thaddeus is now in John's place. Then comes Bartholomew, the oldest of the apostles, then James, John's brother, almost at the corner of the table on the right hand side, with respect to me who am looking on. John is sitting near James, but on the narrow side of the table. After Peter, instead, comes Matthew, and after him Thomas, then Philip, then Andrew, then James, Judas Thaddeus' brother, and Simon Zealot on the other sides. The long side in front of Peter is empty, as the apostles are sitting closer than they were at Passover. The windows are closed and the doors are locked. The lamp, of which only two flames are lit, sheds a feeble light only on the table. The rest of the large room is in a dim light. As there is a sideboard behind him, John is entrusted with the task of serving his companions with what they wish of their frugal meal, consisting of fish, which is on the table, bread, honey and fresh cheese. As he turns again towards the table, to give his elder brother the cheese he asked for, John sees the Lord. 2 Jesus has appeared in a very strange manner. The central part of the wall behind the apostles sitting at the table – a wall all of one piece except for the little door in the corner – brightens up at about one metre from the floor, with a feeble phosphoric light, like that shed by certain little pictures, which are luminous only in the dark at night. The light, about two metres high, is oval, like a niche. From the brilliancy, as if He were advancing from behind veils of luminous mist, Jesus emerges with increasing neatness. I do not know whether I have made myself understood. His Body seems to flow through the thickness of the wall, which does not open. It remains compact, but the Body passes just the same. Light seems to be the first emanation of His Body, the announcement of His approach. The Body at first consists of soft lines of light, as in Heaven I see the Father and the holy angels: immaterial. Then it becomes more and more material, taking the aspect of a real body in everything, that of His Divine glorified Body. It has taken me a long time to describe this, but it happened in a few seconds. Jesus is dressed in white, as when He rose and appeared to His Mother. He is most handsome, loving and smiling. He is standing with His arms along the sides of His Body, a little detached from it, but with His Hands towards the floor and the palms towards the apostles. The two wounds of His Hands are like two diamond stars, from which two very bright beams issue. I do not see His Feet, covered by His tunic, or His Chest. But from the fabric of His garment, which is not an earthly one, light emanates where the divine Wounds are concealed. At the beginning Jesus seems to be nothing but a Body of lunar whiteness, later, when it materialises appearing outside the halo of light, His hair, eyes, skin have their natural colours. In short, it is Jesus, Jesus-ManGod, but looking more solemn now that He has risen.

3 John sees Him when He is already like that. Nobody else had become aware of the apparition. John jumps to his feet, dropping the plate of the little round whole cheeses on the table and, laying his hands on the edge of the table, he bends a little towards it sideways, as if he were attracted by a magnet, and in a low subdued voice he utters an intensely expressive «Oh!». The others, who had raised their heads from their plates at the noisy fall of the plate of the cheese and at John's start and had looked at him with astonishment, when they see his ecstatic posture, look in the same direction as he is looking. They turn their heads or they turn round, according to their position with respect to the Master, and they see Jesus. They all stand up, deeply moved and happy, and they rush towards Him, as He, smiling more brightly advances towards them, walking now on the floor like all mortals. Jesus, Who previously looked fixedly only at John, and I think that the latter turned round because he felt attracted by that glance that caressed him, looks at them all and says: «Peace to you.» They are all now around Him, some on their knees at His feet, and among these there is Peter with John – and John even kisses the hem of His tunic and presses it to his face as if he wished to be caressed by it – some farther back, standing, but stooping in a respectful attitude. Peter, to arrive quicker, jumps over the seat without waiting for Matthew to come out first and make room for him. It must be borne in mind that the couch-seat served for two persons at a time.

4 The only one who has remained a little farther away, somewhat embarrassed, is Thomas. He is on his knees near the table. But he dare not come forward, on the contrary, he seems to be trying to hide behind the corner of the table. Jesus, while stretching out His Hands to be kissed – the apostles seek them with holy loving eagerness – looks around at the lowered heads, as if He were looking for the eleventh. He has actually seen him from the very beginning and He is behaving so only to give Thomas time to pluck up courage and come forward. When He sees that the incredulous apostle dare not do so, ashamed as he is of his lack of faith, He calls him: «Thomas. Come here.» Thomas raises his head, embarrassed, almost in tears, but he dare not go. He lowers his head again. Jesus takes a few steps towards him and repeats: «Come here, Thomas.» Jesus' voice is more authoritative than the first time. Thomas stands up reluctantly, abashed, and goes towards Jesus. «Here is the man who does not believe unless he sees!» exclaims Jesus. But in His voice there is the smile of forgiveness. Thomas feels that, he dares to look at Jesus and sees that He is really smiling, so he musters up courage and walks faster. «Come here, quite close to Me. Look. Put your finger, if it is not sufficient for you to look, into the wounds of your Master.» 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?...»

5 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.

6 «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? 7 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. 8 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 idle 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.

9 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.

10 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.

And most blessed those priests who will remain apostles: bread, water, light, voice, rest and medicine for My poor children. They will shine in Heaven with a special light. I swear it to you, I Who am the Truth.

11 Let us get up, My friends, and come with Me, that I may teach you again to pray. It is prayer that nourishes the strength of the apostle, because it blends him with God.» And here Jesus stands up and goes towards the little staircase. But when He is at its bottom, He turns round and looks at me. Oh! Father! He looks at me! He thinks of me! He looks for His little «voice», and the joy of being with His friends does not make Him forget me! He looks at me over the heads of the disciples, and smiles at me. He raises His hand blessing me and He says: «Peace be with you». And the vision ends."
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

626. At Gethsemane with the Apostles. 11th April 1947.

1 The apostles put on their mantles and ask: «Where are we going Lord?» Their language is no longer so familiar as it was before Passover. If I were allowed to say so, I should say that they speak with their souls on their knees. Rather than the posture of their bodies, which are always respectfully somewhat bent before the Risen Lord, rather than their reservedness in touching Him and their trembling joy when He touches, caresses or kisses them, or speaks to some in particular, it is their whole attitude, something that cannot be described but is so obvious, and that says that, more than their humanity, it is their spirits that cannot become again as they were in their relationship with the Master, and pervade all their human acts with their new feelings. Previously He was «the Master». The Master Whom their faith believed to be God. But for their senses He was always a man. Now He is «the Lord». He is God. It is no longer necessary to make an act of faith to believe it. Evidence has abolished such need. He is God. He is the Lord to Whom the Lord has said: «Sit at My right hand, and has proclaimed it by means of His word and of the miracle of His Resurrection. He is God like the Father. And He is the God Whom they abandoned out of fear, after receiving so much from Him...» They always look at Him with their eyes full of the reverential veneration, with which a true believer looks at the Host glowing in the monstrance, or looks at the Body of Christ raised by the priest in the daily Sacrifice. In their eyes that want to see the beloved face, which is even more handsome than in the past, there is also the expression of one who dare not see, of one who dare not linger to look... Love urges them to set their hearts on their Beloved, fear makes them close their eyes and lower their heads, as if they were dazzled by lightning.

2 In fact, although Jesus, the Risen Jesus, is really He, it is not He at the same time. If one looks at Him carefully, He is different. The features of His face, the colour of His eyes and of His hair, His size, hands and feet are identical, and yet He is different. His voice and actions are the same, and yet He is different. His body is a real one, so much so that it now intercepts the light of the setting sun, as its last rays enter the room through the open window. It casts behind Him the shadow of His tall person. And yet He is different. He has not become proud or offish, and yet He is different. A new perennial majesty has spread where there reigned so much the indefatigable Master's humble modest aspect, at times so modest as to appear disheartened. Now that the emaciation of the last days has disappeared, that the mark of the physical and moral tiredness, which made Him look older, has vanished, that His eyes are no longer sorrowful and imploring, as when He seemed to ask without speaking: «Why do you reject Me? Take Me...», the Risen Christ seems even taller and stronger, free from all encumbrances, sure, victorious, majestic, divine. Not even when He was mighty in His powerful miracles, or imposing in the most important moments of His teaching, was He as He is now that He has risen and is glorified. No light emanates from Him. No. No light emanates as in His transfiguration and in His first apparitions after His resurrection. And yet He seems bright. It is really the Body of God, with the beauty of glorified bodies. He attracts and frightens at the same time.

3 Perhaps it is those wounds, so clearly visible on His hands and feet, that command such deep respect. I do not know. I know that the apostles, although Jesus is so kind to them and tries to recreate the atmosphere of days gone by, are different. Whilst previously they were so insistent and talkative, now they speak very little, and if He does not reply, they do not insist. If He smiles at them or at one of them, they change colour and do not dare reply, with a smile, to His smile. If, as He is doing now, He stretches out His hand to take His white mantle – He is always dressed in a white garment which shines more than the whitest satin, since He is the Risen Lord – none of
them go, as they used to do previously, contending for the joy and the honour of helping Him. They seem to be afraid to touch His garments and His body. And He has to say, as He does now: «Come, John. Help your Master. These wounds are real wounds, and wounded hands are not as agile as they were previously...» John obeys, helping Jesus to put on His wide mantle, and he seems to be dressing a Pontiff, so careful and diligent are his movements, avoiding to touch His Hands on which are the red stigmata. But, however careful he is, he knocks against Jesus' left hand and he shouts as if he had been hurt, and he looks fixedly at the back of that hand, fearing to see it bleed again. That cruel wound is so sensitive! Jesus lays His right hand on his head saying: «You had more courage when you received Me as I was taken off the Cross. And then it was still dripping blood, so much so that your hair was red with it. New dew of the night on the new loving disciple. You had picked me like a bunch from the stump... Why are you weeping? I gave you My dew of a Martyr. On My Head you shed your dew of compassion. But then you would cry... Not now. 4 And you, Simon Peter, why are you weeping? You have not knocked against My Hand. You did not see Me dead...» «Ah! My God! That is why I am weeping! Because of my sin.» «I have forgiven you, Simon of Jonah.» «But I cannot forgive myself. No. Nothing will put an end to my tears. Not even Your forgiveness.» «But My Glory will.» «You glorious. I sinner.»

«You glorious, after being My fishermen. Peter, you will have a great, good, miraculous haul. Then I will say to you: "Come to the eternal banquet." And you will not weep any more. But you all have tears in your eyes. And you, James, My brother, are lying in that corner as if you had lost all blessings, Why?» «Because I was hoping that... So, do You feel Your Wounds? Do You still feel them? I was hoping that all sorrow had come to an end for You, that every sign had been cancelled. Also for us. For us sinners. Those Wounds!... How grievous it is to see them!» «Yes. Why have You not effaced them? No sign was left with Lazarus... They are a... a reproach those Wounds! They shout in a dreadful voice! They are more dazzling and frightening than the lightning on Sinai!» says Bartholemew. «They shout our cowardice. Because we ran away while You were receiving them...» says Philip.

«And the more we look at them, the more our consciences reproach us and throw cowardice, foolishness and incredulity in our faces» says Thomas. «For the sake of our peace and that of this people of sinners, as You have died and risen to forgive the world, o Lord, cancel those charges against the world!» begs Andrew.

5 «They are the Health of the world. It is in them that there is Health. The world that hates, opened them, but the Love has turned them into Medicine and Light. Through them Fault was nailed. Through them all the sins of men were suspended and supported, so that the Fire of Love might consume them on the true Altar. When the Most High ordered Moses to make the ark and the altar of incense, did He not want them pierced with rings, so that they could be lifted and carried wherever the Lord wanted? I have been pierced, too. I am more than ark and altar. I am by far more than ark and altar. I have burnt the incense of My love for God and for My neighbor, and I carried the weight of all the iniquities of the world. And the world must remember that, to remember how much it cost a God. To remember how a God loved it.

To remember what is brought about by sin. To remember that in One only there is salvation: in Him Whom they pierced. If the world did not see the redness of My Wounds, it would really soon forget that a God sacrificed Himself for its sins, it would forget that I really died in the most cruel torture, it would forget which is the balm for its wounds. Here is the balm. Come and kiss it. Each kiss is an increase of purification and grace for you. I solemnly tell you that purification and grace are never sufficient, because the world consumes what is infused by Heaven and it is necessary to counterbalance the ruins of the world by means of Heaven and its treasures. I am Heaven. All Heaven is in Me, and the celestial treasures flow from the open wounds.»
He stretches out His Hands to be kissed by His Apostles. And He has to press His wounded Hands against the eager timid lips, because the fear of increasing His pain prevents those lips from pressing against those Wounds. «This is not what causes pain, even if it gives stiffness. The pain is a different one!...» «Which, Lord?» asks James of Alphaeus.

«That I died for too many in vain... 6 But let us go. Or rather, go ahead. We are going to Gethsemane... What? Are you afraid?» «Not for ourselves, Lord... The fact is that the great ones in Jerusalem hate You more than previously.» «Be not afraid. Neither for yourselves, as God protects you, nor for Me. With regard to Me, the constraints of Mankind are over. I am going to My Mother, and then I will join you. We have to cancel many horrible things of the recent past of sin and hatred. And we will do it through love, through the opposite of sin... See? Your kisses cancel and soothe the pain and consequences of the nails in the live flesh. So, what we do will cancel the horrible signs and will sanctify the places desecrated by sin. So that their sight may not grieve you too much...» «Are we going also to the Temple?» Everybody's face shows dreadful fear. «No. I would sanctify it through My presence. And that is not possible. It could have been possible. But I did not want it. There is no more redemption for it. It is a corpse that is decomposing quickly. Let us leave it to its dead people, so that they may bury it. Lions and vultures will really tear the sepulchre and the corpse to pieces and not even the skeleton will be left of the Great Dead One that did not want the Life.» Jesus climbs the little staircase and goes out. The others follow Him silently. But when they set foot in the corridor that serves as an entrance-hall, Jesus is no longer there. The house is silent and seems desert. All the doors are closed.

7 John points at the door in front of the Supper room and says: «Mary is there. She is always there. As if She were in continuous ecstasy. Her face shines with ineffable light. It is the joy that irradiates from Her Heart. Yesterday She said to me: "Consider, John, how much happiness has spread through all the kingdoms of God." I asked Her: "Which kingdoms?" I thought that She was acquainted with some wonderful revelation on the kingdom of Her Son, Who had defeated also death. She replied to me: "In Paradise, in Purgatory, in Limbo". Forgiveness to those in Purgatory. Ascent to Heaven of all the just and of all those who had been forgiven. Paradise peopled with blissful souls. God glorified in them. Our ancestors and relatives up there, in jubilation. And happiness also to the kingdom which is the Earth, where the sign is now shining, and the fountain, that defeats Satan and cancels the Sin and sins, is opened. No longer just peace to men of good will, but also redemption and re-election to the rank of children of God. I see the crowds, oh! how many! descend to this Fountain, and plunge into it and come out renewed, beautiful, in wedding-dresses, in royal garments. The wedding of souls with Grace, the royalty of being children of the Father and brothers of Jesus."»

They have gone out into the street, while speaking, and they go away, as it grows dark. 8 The street is not very crowded, particularly at this time, when people gather round tables for supper. Jerusalem, after the stream of people that flooded it at Passover, and abandoned it after the festivities, which were so tragical this year, looks even more empty than usual. And Thomas notices it and makes the others notice it. «That's what it is. The foreigners, who were terrorised, left the town precipitately after the Friday, and those who resisted the great fear of that day, ran away at the second earthquake, the one that certainly took place when the Lord came out of the Sepulchre. And also those who were not Gentiles fled. Many, I am certain of this, did not even consume the lamb and they will have to come back for the supplementary Passover. And also the citizens of this place have fled or run away, some to take their dead relatives away, those who died in the earthquake on Preparation Day, some out of fear of the wrath of God. It has been a very strong example» says the Zealot.. «And it was a good thing. Lightning and stones on all the sinners!» imprecates Bartholemew. «Don't say that! Don't say that! We deserve the punishments of Heaven more than anybody else. We also are sinners... Do you remember in this place?... How long ago? Ten? Ten evenings... or ten years, or ten hours? So remote and so near my sin seems to me, those hours, that evening... that I never know... I am dull-witted! We were so sure, so bellicose, so heroical! And then? And then? Ah!...» and Peter strikes his forehead with his hand and points at the little square, where they already are: «There. And I was already afraid there!» «Enough! Enough, Simon! He has forgiven you. And Mary, before Him. Stop it! You are torturing yourself» says John. «Oh! I wish I were! You, John, must always support me, you know? Always! It's because you can guide people that He gave you His Mother. It is just. But I, a fainthearted lying worm, need to be guided more than Mary does. Because I have scales on my eyes and I cannot see...» «You will really get them if you behave like that. You will really burn your eyes, and the Lord will not be here to cure them...» says John again, embracing his shoulders to comfort him. «It would suffice me to see well with my soul. And then... my eyes do not matter.» «But they do matter to many people!!
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

 9 What will sick people do now? Yesterday you saw how desperate was that woman!» says Andrew. «Yes...»

They look at one another and then all together they admit: «And none of us felt worthy of imposing our hands on her...» Humbleness, brought about by the recollection of their behaviour, crushes them. But Thomas says to John: «But you could have done it. You did not run away, you did not deny, you were not incredulous...» «I have a sin as well. And it is a sin against love, like yours. Near the arch of Joshua's house, I caught Helkai by the neck and I would have strangled him, because he was abusing the Mother. And I hated and cursed Judas of Kerioth!» says John. «Be silent! Don't mention that name. It's the name of a demon, and I am under the impression that he is not in hell yet, and that he is wandering about here, around us, to make us sin again» says Peter with real terror. «Oh! he is in hell all right! But even if he were here, his power is over now. He had everything to be an angel, and he was the demon, and Jesus has defeated the demon» says Andrew. «All right... But it is better not to mention his name. I am afraid. Now I know how weak I am. As far as you are concerned, John, do not feel guilty. Everybody will curse the man who betrayed the Master!»

«It is right to do so» says Thaddeus, who has always had the same opinion of the Iscariot. «No. Mary said to me that the judgment of God is enough for him and that we must cherish only one feeling: gratitude for not being the traitors. And if She does not curse, although She is the Mother Who saw the tortures of Her Son, shall we do so? Let us forget...» «That's foolish!» exclaims his brother James. «And yet it is the Master's word for Judas' sins...» says John with a sigh and then becomes silent. «What? Are there others as well? You know... Speak up!» «I have promised to try and forget, and I am striving to do so. With regard to Helkai... I was guilty of excess... But on that day each of us had his angel and his demon beside him, and we did not always listen to the angel of light...» The Zealot says: «Do you know that Nahum is crippled and his son was crushed by a wall or a landslip? Yes. On the day of His death. He was found later. Oh! much later, when he already was putrid. He was found by one who was coming to the market. And Nahum was with others like him, and I do not know what happened to him, whether he was struck by a rock or he had a stroke of apoplexy. I know that he looks like shattered and does not even understand. He looks like a beast, he slobbers and howls, and yesterday with his only sound hand he caught by the throat his... master who had gone to him and he shouted and shouted: "Because of you! Because of you!" If the servants had not rushed there...» «How do you know, Simon?» they ask the Zealot. «I saw Joseph yesterday» he replies laconically.

10 «I think that the Master is late in coming. And I am worried» says James of Alphaeus. «Let us go back...» suggests Matthew. «Or let us stop here at the little bridge» says Bartholomew. They stop. But James of Zebedee and the other James, Andrew and Thomas, go back, and pensive, they look at the ground, they look at the houses. Andrew, growing pale, points at the wall of a house, where a red-brown spot stands out on the white of the lime, and he says: «It is blood! Perhaps Blood of the Master? Was He already losing blood here? Oh! tell me!» «And what do you want us to tell you, if none of us followed him?» says James of Alphaeus dejectedly. «But my brother, and above all John, followed Him...» «Not at once. Not at once. John told me that they followed Him from Malachi's house onwards. There was nobody here. None of us...» says James of Zebedee. They look, as if they were hypnotised, at the large dark spot on the white wall, a little off the ground, and Thomas remarks: «Not even the rain has washed it away. Not even the hailstones, which fell so heavily these past days, have scraped it... If I knew that it is His Blood, I would scrape that wall...» «Let us ask the people of the house. Perhaps they know...» suggests Matthew, who has joined them. «No, you know? They might recognise us as His apostles, they might be enemies of the Christ and...» replies Thomas. «And we are still cowards...» ends James of Alphaeus with a deep sigh. Very slowly they have all approached that wall and they look... 11 A woman passes by, a late-comer who is coming back from the fountain with pitchers dripping cold water. She watches them. She lays her pitchers on the ground and questions them. «Are you looking at that spot on the wall? Are you disciples of the Master? You seem to be so, even if you are haggard-faced and... even if I did not see you follow the Lord, when He passed by here, captured to be put to death. This makes me feel uncertain, because a disciple, who follows the Master in pleasant hours and is proud to be His disciple, and looks severely at those who are not as prompt as he is to leave everything in order to follow the Master, should follow the Master also in unpleasant hours. He should at least do that. And I have not seen you. No. I have not seen you. And if I did not see you, it means that I, a woman from Sidon, went behind Him Whom His Jewish disciples did not follow. But I received a favour from Him. You... Had He perhaps never favoured you?

It seems strange to me, because He helped Gentiles and Samaritans, sinners and also highwaymen, giving them eternal life, if He could no longer give them the life of their bodies. Did He perhaps not love you? Then that means that you were worse than asps and unclean hyenas, although, I really think that He loved also vipers and jackals, not because they are such, but because they were created by His Father. That is blood. Yes. It is blood. The blood of a woman from the shores of the great sea. Once it was the land of the Philistines, and its inhabitants are still somewhat despised by the Hebrews. And yet she was able to defend the Master, until her husband killed her, throwing her there with so much strength, after beating her, that her head was split, and brains and blood squirted out on the wall of the house, where her orphans are now weeping. But she had been helped. The Master had cured her husband, who was unclean with a horrible disease. So she loved the Master. She loved till she died for Him. She preceded Him in Abraham's bosom, as you say. Also Annaleah preceded Him, and she also would have been able to die like that, if she had not died unexpectedly beforehand. And also a mother, further up, has washed the street with her blood, with the blood of her womb opened by her brutal son, to defend the Master. And an old woman died of grief, when she saw Him, Who had given eyes back to her son, pass by wounded and beaten. And an old man, a beggar died, because he stood up to defend Him, and his head was struck by the stone destined to the head of your Lord. Because you believed Him to be such, did you not? The valiant men of a king die around him. But none of you died. You were far away from those who were striking Him. Ah! no! One died. He killed himself. But not out of grief. Not to defend the Master.

First he sold Him, then he pointed Him out with a kiss, then he killed himself. He had nothing else to do. He could not grow any more in iniquity. He was perfect. Like Beelzebub. The world would have stoned him to remove him from the earth. Oh! I think that that compassionate woman, who died to prevent the Martyr from being struck, I think that old Anne, who died of grief seeing Him in that state, and the old beggar and Samuel's mother and the virgin who died and I, who am not able to go up to the Temple, because I feel sorry for the lambs and doves that are sacrificed, I think that we would have had the courage to stone him, and we would not have trembled seeing him torn by our stones... He was aware of that, and he spared the world the trouble of killing him, and he spared us the trouble of becoming executioners to avenge the Innocent...» She looks at them with contempt. Her contempt has become more and more evident as she has spoken. Her large black eyes have the hardness of the eyes of rapacious animals, while she looks at the group that does not know how to react and cannot react... The last word is hissed through her teeth: «Bastards!», and she picks up her pitchers and goes away, and she is happy that she has spat her scorn on the disciples who abandoned their Master... They are crushed, with their heads lowered, their arms hanging, enervated... The truth overwhelms them. They meditate on the consequences of their cowardice... They are silent... They dare not look at one another. Even John and the Zealot, the two who are free from this fault, have the same attitude as the others, probably because of their sorrow seeing their companions so mortified and because of their impossibility to cure the wound brought about by the sincere words of the woman...

12 The road is by now in a dim light. The moon, in her last days, rises late, so twilight deepens quickly. There is dead silence. Not a noise or a human voice. And only the bubbling of the Kidron reigns in the silence. So, when Jesus' voice resounds, it makes them start, as if it were a frightening sound, whilst it is so gentle when it says: «What are you doing here? I was waiting for you among the olive-trees... Why are you contemplating dead things when Life is awaiting you? Come with Me.» Jesus seems to be coming towards them from Gethsemane. He stops beside them. He looks at that spot, on which are fixed the terrified eyes of the apostles and He says: «That woman is already in peace. And she has forgotten her sorrow. Inactive for her children? No. Twice as active. And she will sanctify them, because that is all she asks of God.» He sets out and they follow Him, in silence. But Jesus turns round and says: «Why do you ask in your hearts: "And why does she not ask for the conversion of her husband? She is not holy if she hates him..." She does not hate him. She forgave him since the time he killed her. But, being a soul that has entered the Kingdom of Light, she can see with wisdom and justice. And she sees that there is no conversion and forgiveness for her husband. So she prays for those who may benefit by her prayer.

13 No, it is not My blood. And yet I lost so much of it also on this road!... But the steps of My enemies have spread it, mixed it with dust and filth, and the rain has dissolved and carried it away among the layers of dust. But there is so much of it, still visible... Because so much flowed out of Me that steps and water will not be able to cancel it easily. We will go together, and you will see My Blood shed for you...»
«Where? Where does He want to go? To the place where He wept? To the Praetorium?» they ask each other. And John says: «But Claudia went away again two days after the Sabbath, and they say that she was indignant and even frightened of being near her husband... The Roman lance told me. Claudia separates her responsibility from her husband's. Because she had warned him not to persecute the Just Man, as it is better to be persecuted by men rather than by the Most High, Whose Messiah was the Master. And neither Plautina nor Lydia are here. They followed Claudia to Caesarea. And Valeria has gone to Bether with Johanna. If they had been here, we could have gone in. But now... I do not know... Longinus is not here either, as Claudia wanted him to escort her...» «It will be where you saw the grass wet with blood...» Jesus, Who is ahead of them, turns round and says: «At Golgotha. There is so much of My Blood there, that the dust is like hard ferrous mineral. And there is someone who has preceded you...»

14 «But it is an unclean place!» shouts Bartholomew. Jesus smiles compassionately and replies: «Every place in Jerusalem is unclean after the dreadful sin; and yet you feel no other uneasiness to stay there, except that of fear of the crowds...» «Highwaymen have always died there...» «I died there. And I have sanctified it forever. I solemnly tell you, that until the end of times, there will be no holier place than it, and from all over the Earth and in all ages crowds will come to kiss that dust. And there is already someone who has preceded you, without fearing mockery and revenge, without being afraid of being contaminated. And yet, the person who has preceded you had double reason for being afraid of that.»

«Who is it, Lord?» asks John, whose side Peter prods with his elbow to make him ask the question. «Mary of Lazarus! As she picked the flowers trampled on by My feet as I entered her house, before Passover, a souvenir of joy that she distributed to her companions, so now she went up to Calvary, and with her hands she dug the earth, hard with My Blood, and she came down with her load and laid it on My Mother's lap. She was not afraid. And she was known as "the Sinner" and as "the disciple". Neither She, Who in Her lap received that earth of the place of the Skull, thought She would be contaminated. My Blood has cancelled everything, and holy is the clod of earth where it fell. Tomorrow, before the sixth hour, you will go up to Golgotha. I will join you... But who wants to see My Blood, here it is.» He points at the parapet of the little bridge. «My mouth struck here, and blood came out... My mouth had uttered but holy words, and words of love. So why was it struck, and why did no one doctor it with a kiss?...»

15 They go into Gethsemane. But Jesus first has to open a lock, that now blocks the entrance to the Garden of Olives. A new lock. A strong fence, with sharp points, tall, closed with a strong new lock. Jesus has the key, which is so new that it shines like steel, and He opens the lock in the light of a burning branch that Philip has lit in order to see, as it is now completely dark. «It was not here... Why?...» they whisper to one another, looking at the enclosure that isolates Gethsemane. «Lazarus certainly did not want anybody here any more. Look over there. Stones and bricks and lime. It is wood now, later it will be a wall...» Jesus says: «Come. Do not attend to dead things, I tell you... Here. You were here... And here I was surrounded and captured, and you ran away there... If this enclosure had been there at that time... It would have prevented you from running away at once. But how could Lazarus think, since he was so anxious to follow Me, while you were anxious to run away, that you would run away? Am I making you suffer? I suffered previously. And I want to cancel that sorrow. Kiss Me, Peter...» «No, Lord! No! The gesture of Judas, here, at the same hour, no, no, no!» «Kiss Me. I want you to make with sincere love the insincere gesture of Judas. Afterwards you will be happy. We shall be happier. You and I. Come, Peter. Kiss Me.» Peter does not only kiss Him. With his tears he washes the cheek of the Lord and he withdraws, covering his face and sitting on the ground to weep. One after the other, the others kiss Him in the same place. Some more, some less, they all have tears on their faces...

16 «And now let us go. All together. I separated you from Me that evening after fortifying you with My Body, and for a few hours. But you fell immediately. Always remember how weak you were, and that without the help of God you would not be able to remain in justice for one hour. Here. Here I told those, who considered themselves the strongest, to keep watch, they considered themselves so strong as to ask to drink at My chalice and to proclaim, even at the cost of their death, that they would not deny Me. And I left them, advising them to pray... I left them, and they fell asleep. Remember this and teach it: he who is left by Jesus, if he does not keep in touch with Him through prayer, is overcome by drowsiness and can be captured. If I had not waked you up, you could really have been killed in your sleep and have appeared at the judgement of God heavily laden with humanity. Come here... There you are! Lower the branch, Philip. There! Who wants to see some of My Blood, should look. Here, in the greatest anguish, like one who is dying, I sweated blood.

Look... So much, that the earth is hard with it and the grass is still red, because the rain was not able to melt the clots of blood that had dried up among stalks and corollas. There! And I leaned there and the angel of the Lord hovered here to comfort Me in My will to do the Will of God. Because, remember this, if you always wish to do the Will of God, where the creature cannot persist, God comes with His angel to support the exhausted hero. When you are in anguish, do not be afraid of falling into cowardice or abjuration, if you persist in wanting what God wants. God will make you giants of heroism, if you remain faithful to His will. Remember that! Remember that! I told you once that after the temptation in the desert I was assisted by angels. Now you must know that here also, after the extreme temptation, I was assisted by an angel. And the same will happen to you and to all those who will be My believers. Because I solemnly tell you that what I have had as help, you also will have. I would obtain it for you Myself, if it were not already the Father, in His loving justice, to grant it to you. Only your sorrow will always be inferior to Mine...
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

17 Sit down. The moon is rising in the east. She will shed her light on us. I do not think that you will sleep tonight, although you are still so much and only men. No. You will not sleep because an agent, that you did not have previously, has entered into you. It is remorse. A torture, that is true. But it serves to pass to higher stages, both in good and in evil. In Judas of Kerioth, as he moved away from God, it brought about desperation and damnation. In you who have never come away from the closeness to God – I can assure you, because in you there was not the will and the full consideration of what you were doing – it will cause a trustful repentance that will lead you to wisdom and justice. Remain where you are. I am withdrawing over there, within a stone's throw, awaiting dawn.»

«Oh! do not leave us, Lord! You have said what we are, when we are far from You!» implores Andrew on his knees, his hands stretched out, as if he were begging for an offer of pity. «You have your remorse. It is a good friend in good people.» «Do not go away, Lord! You told us that we would pray together...» beseeches Thaddeus, who no longer dare take the friendly attitude of a relative towards the Risen Master and is standing with his tall person lightly bent forwards in veneration.

«And is meditation not the most active prayer? And have I not made you contemplate and meditate and have I not given a subject on which to meditate since I met you on the road, moving your hearts with true acts of holy feelings? This is prayer, men: to get in touch with the Eternal and with the things that help to lead the spirit far beyond the Earth, and from the meditation on the perfections of God and the miseries of man, of one's ego, rouse acts of a will, which is either loving or repairing, but always adoring, even if it is a will rising from a meditation on a fault or a punishment. Evil and good serve for the final purpose, if one knows how to make use of them. I have told you many a time. Sin is an irremediable ruin only if it is not followed by repentance and atonement. In the opposite case, the contrition of a heart makes a solid mortar to keep the foundations of holiness compact and its stones are good resolutions. Could you keep stones joined together without mortar? Without the substance, that is apparently ugly and base, but without which clean stones and polished marbles will not remain united together to form a building?»

18 Jesus is on the point of going away. John, to whom his brother and the other James with Peter and Bartholomew have spoken in low voices, stands up and follows Him saying: «Jesus, my God. We were hoping to say the prayer to Your Father with You. Your prayer. We feel that we have been forgiven only a little, if You do not grant us to say it with You. We feel that we need it so much...»«Where two are united in prayer, I am in the middle of them. So say the prayer together, and I shall be among you.» «Ah! You no longer judge us worthy of praying with You!» shouts Peter with his face concealed in the grass, not all clean of the divine Blood, and he weeps bitterly.

James of Alphaeus exclaims: «We are unhappy, brot... Lord.» He corrects himself at once, saying: "Lord" instead of "brother". And Jesus looks at him and says: «Why do you not say brother to Me, you, who are of My blood? A brother to all men, I am so twice, three times to you, as son of Adam, as son of David, as son of God. Complete your word.» «Brother, my Lord, we are unhappy and foolish, as You know, and the dejection in which we are makes us more foolish. How can we say Your prayer with our souls, if we do not know its meaning?» «How many times, as to boys under age, have I explained it to you! But more stubborn and obstinate than the most absent-minded pupil of a pedagogue, you have not remembered My word!» «That is true! But now our minds are fixed on our torture of not having understood You... Oh! we have understood nothing! I confess it on behalf of everybody! And we do not understand You well yet, Lord. But, I beg You, take the indulgence for our evil from the same evil that makes us dull-witted. You had breathed Your last and the great rabbi shouted the truth on the dullness of Israel, over there, at the foot of Your Cross.

And You, omnipresent God, Spirit of God freed from the prison of the Body, heard those words: "Ages and ages of spiritual blindness are upon the interior sight", and he made this request to You: "Since You are the Liberator, come into my poor thought, which is a prisoner of formulas." O my adored and adorable Jesus, Who have saved us from the original Sin, taking our sins upon Yourself and consuming them in the ardour of Your perfect love, take and consume also our intellects of obstinate Israelites, give us new mentalities, as pure as that of a new-born baby, make us lose our memories, to fill us only with Your wisdom. So many things of the past died on that horrible day. Dead like You. But now that You have risen from the dead, make a new thought come into our minds. Create new hearts and new minds for us, my Lord, and we shall understand You» begs John.

19 «That task is not for Me, but for Him of Whom I spoke to you at the last Supper. Every word of Mine is lost in the abyss of your thoughts, all or in part, or remains locked and closed in its spirit. Only the Paraclete, when He comes, will draw My words from your abyss and will open them to you, to make you understand the spirit of them.» «But You have infused Him into us» says the Zealot objectingly. «But You said that, when You had gone to the Father, He, the Spirit of Truth, would come» objects also Matthew with the Zealot. «Tell Me: when a baby is born, has he a soul infused in him?» «Of course he has!» they all reply.

«But has that soul the Grace of God?» «No. There is the Sin of origin on it and it deprives it of Grace.» «And where do the soul and Grace come from?» «From God.» «Why then does God not give man a soul in grace directly?» «Because Adam was punished, and we in him. But now that You have become the Redeemer, it will be so.»

«No. It will not be so. Men will always be born impure in their souls, that God created and that Adam's inheritance has stained. But, through a rite that I will explain to you another day, the soul infused into man will be vivified by Grace, and the Spirit of the Lord will take possession of it. But you, who were baptised with water by John, will be baptised with Fire by the Power of God. And then the Spirit of God will really be in you. And it will be the Master, Whom men cannot persecute or drive away, and Who in your interior will explain the spirit of My words to you and many other instructions. I have infused it into you, because only through My merits everything can be obtained and be valid. God can be obtained and the word of a delegate of God can obtain validity. But the Spirit of Truth is not yet in you as Master.»

«Well, let it be so. In due course it will come. But in the meantime, let us feel that You have forgiven us. Be our Master, my Lord. Again, again, because You said that we must forgive seventy times seven» insists John and he concludes – he is always the most confiding and loving one – daring to take in his own hands Jesus' left Hand, which is hanging down His side and on which the moonlight seems to enlarge the hole of the nail, saying: «Since You are the eternal Light, do not allow Your servants to remain in darkness» and he kisses His fingers lightly, on the tips, these fingers which have remained a little bent just like those of one who has been wounded and is cured, but the nerves are left slightly contracted.

20 «Come. Let us go farther up and we will say the prayer together» says Jesus obligingly, leaving His hand in those of John, while He already walks towards the highest limit of Gethsemane, towards the higher road which, through the Field of the Galileans, goes to Bethany. Here also one can see that the delimitation works wanted by Lazarus are in course. Even more, here, farther away from the house of the keeper of the olive-grove, they have built a smooth high wall, that follows the hedge and the winding path that were the limit of Gethsemane. Jerusalem, below, comes slowly out of darkness, also on the western side, because the moon is now at her zenith and illuminates everything with the white light of her thin crescent, as bright as a diamond flame laid on the dark firmament, where there are palpitating the shining corollas of an incalculable number of stars, of the unbelievable stars of the eastern skies.

21 Jesus stretches out His arms in His usual attitude of prayer and intones: «Our Father Who art in Heaven.» He stops and comments: «That He is a Father is proved to you by the fact that He has forgiven you. You, obliged to be perfect more than anybody else, you, who have received so many favours, and so, as you say, unsuited for the mission, which Lord, who were not your Father, would not have punished you? I have not punished you. The Father has not punished you. Because the Son does what the Father does, because the Father does what the Son does, as we are one only Divinity united in Love. I am in the Father, and the Father is with Me. The Word is always near God, Who is without beginning. And the Word is before all things, since always, since an eternity named always, since an eternal present near God, and is God like God, being the Word of the divine Thought. So, when I shall have gone, and in this manner you will pray our, My, your Father, whereby we are brothers, I the first-born, you, the younger brothers, be always willing to see also Me in My Father and yours. Be willing to see the Word, Who was "the Master" for you, and loved you even to accepting death and beyond death, leaving Himself to you in food and drink, so that you may be in Me and I in you as long as the exile lasts, and then you and I in the Kingdom, for which I taught you to pray, saying: "Thy Kingdom come", after you have implored that your work may sanctify the Name of the Lord, giving Him glory on Earth and in Heaven. Yes. There would be no Kingdom for you in Heaven, the Kingdom for those who will believe like you, if first you did not want the Kingdom of God in yourselves through the real practice of the Law of God and of My word, which is the perfectioning of the Law, having given, in the time of Grace, the Law of the chosen ones, that is, of those who are, beyond the civil, moral, religious constitutions of the Mosaic time, already in the spiritual Law of the time of Christ.

22 You see what it is to have the closeness of God, but not God in you; what it is to have the word of God, but not the real practice of that word. Man has committed every crime by having God close to him, but not in his heart; by having the knowledge of the word, but not the obedience to it. Everything! Everything because of that. Dullness and delinquency, deicide, betrayal, tortures, the death of the Innocent and of His Cain, everything has come through that. And yet, who was loved by Me like Judas? But he did not have Me-God in his heart. And he is the damned deicide, infinitely guilty as an Israelite and as a disciple, as a suicide and a deicide, in addition to his seven deadly sins and every other sin of his. You can now have the Kingdom of God in yourselves more easily, because I have obtained it for you with My death. I have redeemed you with My sorrow. Bear that in your minds. So let no one trample on Grace, because it cost the life and the Blood of a God. So let the Kingdom of God be in you, men, through Grace; let it be on the Earth, through the Church, let it be in Heaven, for the blessed souls who, having lived with God in their hearts, united to the Body of which Christ is the Head, united to the Vine of which every Christian is a branch, deserve to rest in the Kingdom of Him for Whom all things have been made: Me, Who am speaking to you and Who have given Myself to the Will of the Father, so that everything might be accomplished. I can therefore teach you, without hypocrisy, that you must say: "Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." How I have done the will of My Father can be told even by the clods of earth, by plants, by flowers, by the stones in Palestine, by My wounded Body and by a whole population. Do as I did. To the very end. Even unto death on a cross, if God so wishes. Because, remember, I have done it, and there is no disciple who deserves mercy more than I do. And yet I have consumed the greatest sorrow. And yet I have obeyed with perpetual renunciations. You know. You will understand even more in future when you resemble Me drinking a draught at My chalice... Let this thought be constantly present to you: "Through His obedience to the Father, He saved us." And if you want to be saviours, do what I have done. There will be some who will be acquainted with the cross, some with the tortures of tyrants, some with the torture of love, some with the exile from Heaven, to which they will tend until a very late age before ascending there. Well, in everything let the will of God be done. Consider that the torment of death or the torment of life, while you would like to die to come where I am, are the same in the eyes of God, if they are suffered with cheerful obedience. They are His Will. So they are holy.

23 "Give us this day our daily bread." Day by day, hour by hour. It is faith. It is love. It is obedience. It is humility. It is hope, this asking for the bread for one day, and accepting it as it is. Sweet today, bitter tomorrow, much, little, with spices or with ashes. Always as it is just. God, Who is a Father, gives it. So it is good. Another time I will speak to you of the other Bread, which it would be healthy to eat every day, and to pray the Father to keep it. Because woe betide that day and those places where there should be none through the will of men! Now you can see how mighty men are in their deeds of darkness. Pray the Father that He may defend His Bread and give you it. The more darkness will try to suffocate the Light and the Life, as it did on Preparation Day, the more He may give you of it. The second Preparation Day would be without resurrection. Remember that, all of you. If the Word can no longer be killed, His doctrine could still be killed and the freedom and will of loving Him could be extinguished in too many people. But then also Life and Light would come to an end for men. And woe betide that day! Let the Temple be an example for you. Remember, I said: "It is the great Corpse".

24 "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us."

Since you are all sinners, be meek with sinners. Remember My words: "Why do you observe the splinter in your brother's eye, if first you do not take the plank out of your own eye?" That Spirit that I infused into you, that order that I gave you, grant you the authority to remit the sins of your neighbour, in the name of God. But how will you be able to do that, if God does not remit them to you? I will speak again of that. For the time being I say to you: Forgive those who offend you, in order to be forgiven and to be entitled to absolve or to condemn. He who is without sin can do so with full justice. He who does not forgive, while he is in sin and feigns to be scandalised, is a hypocrite and Hell awaits him. Because, if there is still mercy for wards, severe will be the verdict. against the guardians of wards, guilty of the same or greater sins, although they had the fullness of the Spirit to assist them.

25 "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." That is humility, the fundamental stone of perfection. I solemnly tell you to bless those who humiliate you, because they give you what is necessary for your celestial thrones. No. Temptation is not a ruin, if man remains humbly near the Father and asks Him not to allow Satan, the world and the flesh to triumph over him. The crowns of the blessed souls are adorned with the gems of the temptations they overcame. Do not look for them. But do not be cowards when they come. Humble, and thus strong, shout to My Father and yours: "Deliver us from evil", and you will defeat evil. And you will really sanctify the Name of God with your deeds, as I said at the beginning, because every man, when seeing you, will say: "God exists, because they live as gods, so perfect is their behaviour", and they will come to God, multiplying the citizens of the Kingdom of God.

26 Kneel down, that I may bless you and My blessing may open your minds to meditate.» They prostrate themselves on the ground and He blesses them, then He disappears, as if He were absorbed by a moonbeam. Shortly afterwards the apostles raise their heads, surprised at not hearing any more words, and they realise that Jesus has disappeared... They prostrate themselves again with their faces on the ground, in the age-old fear of every Israelite who experiences the sensation of having been in touch with God, as He is in Heaven."
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

627. The Apostles Go along the Way of the Cross. 14th April 1947. 1 Jerusalem is already burning hot in the midday sun. A shady archivolt is a relief for one's eyes dazzled by the sun, that blazes down on the white walls of houses and makes the surface of streets exceedingly hot. And the incandescent white of the walls and the dark of the archivolts make Jerusalem a whimsical picture in black and white, a succession of bright lights and dim lights, and the contrast with the bright lights makes the latter look dark, a succession as tormenting as an obsession, because it deprives one of the faculty of sight, because the light is either too strong or too dim. People proceed with half-closed eyes, striving to walk fast in the areas of light and heat, slowing down under the archivolts, where one must go slow, because the contrast between light and darkness prevents one from seeing anything, even if one's eyes are open. That is how the apostles proceed in a town that the midday heat makes deserted. And they perspire and wipe their faces and necks with their head-coverings and they pant... But when they have to leave the town, they no longer have the relief of the archivolts. The road that runs along the walls and disappears towards the north and the south like a dazzling ribbon of incandescent dust, gives the impression of a furnace ground. The heat rising from it is like that of an oven, a heat that dries one's lungs. The little torrent that flows beyond the walls has a thin trickle of water in the centre of its bed of stones, that the sun makes as white as desiccated skulls. The apostles rush towards that stream of water and drink it. They immerse their head-coverings into it, and after washing their faces, they put them on their heads still dripping. They wallow in it, in that thin trickle of water, with their bare feet. Of course, it is a very poor relief. The water is as warm as if it had been poured out of a pot hanging over a fire. And they say so: «It is warm and scanty. It tastes of mud and lye. When it is so little, it tastes of the washing done at dawn.»

2 They begin to climb Golgotha. The scorched Golgotha, where the blazing sun has dried the sparse grass that looked like thin down on the yellowish mountain fifteen days previously. Now only stiff and very rare tufts of thorny plants, all aculei and no leaves, here and there prick up their skeleton-like stems, of a yellowish green because of the dust of the mountain, exactly like bones just taken out of the earth. Yes. They do look like bunches of desiccated bones stuck into the ground. There is one of them, which after a straight stem about two spans long, has a sudden bend that ends in five twigs after a kind of palette. It really looks like the hand of a skeleton, stretched out to catch whoever passes by and hold him in that place of nightmares. «Do you want to take the long road or the short one?» asks John, who is the only one who has already been up that mountain. «The shorter one! The shorter one! Let us be quick! One suffocates to death here!» they all say, except the Zealot and James of Alphaeus. «Let us go!» The stones of the paved street are as hot as plates taken out of a fire. «But it is not possible to go on here! It is impossible!» they say after a few metres. «And yet the Lord climbed up as far as that spot, where that thorn-bush is, and He was already wounded and was carrying the cross» remarks John, who has been weeping since he has been on Calvary. They proceed. But they soon throw themselves on the ground, utterly exhausted and gasping for air. Their head-coverings which they had dipped into the stream, have already been dried by the sun, on the other hand their garments are wet with perspiration. «Too steep and too hot!» says Bartholomew, puffing and blowing. «Yes. Far too much!» confirms Matthew, who is congested. «The sun is the same everywhere. But to go uphill, let us take that road. It is longer, but not so toilsome. Longinus also took it to make it possible for the Lord to climb it. See there, where that rather dark stone is? The Lord fell there and we thought He was dead, as we were looking from there, from the north, over there, see? where that cavity is, before the slope rises steeply. He did not move any more. Oh! the cry of His Mother! It resounds in me here! I will never forget that cry! I will not forget any of Her moaning... Ah! there are things that make one an old man in one hour and they give the measure of the sorrow of the world... Come on, let us go! Our Martyr, the Lord, did not stop here as long as you have done!» says John urging them.

3 They stand up looking astonished and they follow him as far as the intersection of the paved road with the spiral path, and they go along the latter. Yes. It is not so steep. But as far as the sun is concerned! Its heat is even stronger, as the slope, which the path skirts, reverberates its heat on the wayfarers already scorched by the sun. «But why make us come up here at this time?! Could He not have made us come up at dawn, as soon as there was enough light to see where we were putting our feet? All the more that we were outside the walls and we could have come without awaiting the gates to be opened.» They complain and grumble among themselves. Men, still and always men, now, after the tragedy of Good Friday, which is more the tragedy of their proud and cowardly humanity, than a tragedy of the Christ, Who is always the triumphant hero even when dying; men as they were previously, when they were inebriated with the shouts of hosannas of the crowds, and the were overjoyed thinking of the feasts and sumptuous banquets in Lazarus' house... Deaf, blind, dull minded to all the signs and warning of the impending storm. James of Alphaeus and the Zealot are weeping silently. Also Andrew no longer complains after John's last words. John speaks also now, remembering, and his recollections are a brotherly admonition, an exhortation not to complain...

He says: «This is the hour in which He came up here. And He had already walked for a long time. Oh! I could say that, since He left the Supper room, He did not have a moment's rest! And it was a very warm day! There was the sultriness of the oncoming storm... And He was burning with a high temperature. Nike says that she had the impression of touching fire when she laid the linen cloth on His face. The place where He met the women must be somewhere here... As we were on the opposite side, we did not see the meeting. But, as Nike and the other women told me... Come on. Let us go! Just consider that the Roman ladies, who are accustomed to moving about in litters, walked up this road exposed to the sun from the morning, from the third hour, when He was sentenced to death. Oh! they, the heathen women, preceded everybody, and they sent slaves to warn the others who were absent for some reason...»

4 They proceed... That road is a burning torture! They even stagger. Peter says: «If He does not work a miracle, we shall fall struck by the sun.» «Yes. My heart is burning in my throat» says Matthew in agreement. Bartholomew no longer speaks. He seems to be inebriated. John holds him by the elbow and supports him, as he did with the Mother on the cruel Good Friday. And to comfort them he says: «Not far from here there is some shade. Where I took the Mother. We will rest there.» They proceed, more and more slowly... They are now at the rock where Mary was. And John tells them. There is in fact a little shade. But the air is still and hot. «If there were at least a stalk of anise, a mint leaf, a blade of grass! My mouth is like parchment placed near a fire. But nothing! Nothing!» moans Thomas, whose veins are swollen at his neck and forehead. «I would give the rest of my life for a drop of water» says James of Zebedee. Judas Thaddeus bursts into tears and shouts: «My poor brother, how much You suffered! He said... He said, do you remember? that He was dying of thirst! Oh! now I understand! I had not understood the full meaning of those words! He was dying of thirst! And there was not one who gave Him a drop of water, while He was still able to drink! And He was feverish, in addition to the sun!» «Johanna had taken Him a refreshment...» says Andrew.

«He was no longer able to drink, by that time! He could not speak any more... When He met His Mother over there, ten steps from here, all He could say was: "Mother!", and He could not even kiss Her, not even from afar, although Simon from Cyrene had relieved Him of the cross. His lips were dry, hardened by the wounds... Oh! I could see Him clearly, from behind the line of legionaries! Because I did not pass here. I would have taken His cross, if they had allowed me to pass! But they were afraid for me... because of the crowd that wanted to stone us... He could not speak... or drink... or kiss... It was almost impossible for Him to look with His painful eyes through the crusts of blood that ran down from His forehead!... His garment was torn near His knee, that one could see wounded, bleeding... His hands were swollen and wounded... He had a wound on His chin and cheek... The cross had made a wound on His shoulder, already cut by the scourging... The ropes had cut into His waist... His hair was dripping with the blood of the wounds made by the thorns... He had...» «Be quiet! Be quiet! It is not possible to listen. Be quiet! I beg and I order you!» shouts Peter, who seems to be tortured. «It is not possible to listen to me! You cannot listen to me! But I had to see and hear Him in His torture! And His Mother? What about His Mother, then?» They bend their heads, sobbing and they resume going. on... They no longer complain. But now they all weep over Christ's sorrows.

5 They are now at the top. On the first esplanade: a slab of fire. The reflection of the heat is such that the earth seems to be trembling, because of that phenomenon caused by the sun on the burning sands of deserts. «Come. Let us go up here. The centurion made us pass here. Me as well. He thought I was Mary's son. The women were over there. And the shepherds there. And over there the Judaeans...» John points out the various places and concludes: «But the crowd was below, below, they covered the slope down to the valley, down to the road. They were on the walls, on the terraces near the walls. As far as one could see. I saw that when the sun began to be veiled. Previously it was as it is now, and I could not see...» In fact Jerusalem looks like a mirage trembling down at the bottom. The excess of light acts as a veil for those who want to see it. And John says: «In other hours – Mary of Lazarus said so, but I did not know when and why she had come here – one can see the black remains of the houses set on fire by lightning. The houses of the most guilty ones... of many, at least, among them... Look! Here (John counts his steps, he reconstructs the scene) Longinus was here and Mary and I here. And here was the cross of the repentant robber and over there the other one. And this is where they cast lots for His garments. And over there the Mother fell when He died... and from here I saw His Heart being pierced (John becomes as white as death) because His Cross was here» and he kneels down on the ground, worshipping with his face on the earth that had been dug along the whole length of earth covered with blood under the transverse bar of the cross and around the vertical stake of it. The Magdalene must have worked hard to dig so much earth, about a good span deep, in a soil so hard, mixed with stones and rubble, that make it a compact crust! They have all thrown themselves on the ground to kiss the dust, which they now wet with their tears...

6 John is the first to stand up, and lovingly pitiless, he recalls every episode... He no longer feels the heat of the sun... Nobody feels it... He tells them how Jesus refused the wine with myrrh, how He took His clothes off and put on His Mother's veil, how He appeared so badly scourged and wounded, how He lay down on the cross and shouted at the first nail, and then He no longer shouted, so that His Mother should not suffer so much, and how they lacerated His wrist and dislocated His arm to pull it to the right point and how, when He had been completely nailed, they turned the cross over to hammer in the nails, and it lay heavy on the Martyr, Whose panting could be heard, and the cross was turned over again and raised while they were dragging it, and it was dropped into the hole and earthed up, and how His Body fell down tearing His hands, and the crown moving tore His head, and the words He spoke to His Father in Heaven, His words asking forgiveness for those who crucified Him and forgave the repentant robber, and His words to His Mother and to John, and the arrival of Joseph and Nicodemus, so openly heroic in defying the whole world, and the courage of Mary of Magdala, and His cry full of anguish to His Father Who had abandoned Him, and His thirst, and the vinegar with gall, and His last agony, and His feeble entreaty to His Mother, and Her words, with His soul already at the point of death because of the torture, the torture... and His resignation and abandonment to God, and His last horrible convulsion and the cry that made the world tremble, and Mary's cry when She saw Him dead... «Be quiet! Be quiet! Be quiet!» shouts Peter, and he seems to be pierced by the lance. Also the others implore him saying: «Be silent! Be silent!...»

7 «I have nothing further to say. The sacrifice was over. The burial... our torture, not His. There is no value in it other than the Mother's grief. Our torture! Does it perhaps deserve compassion? Let us give Him it, instead of asking compassion for ourselves. We have always avoided sorrow, fatigue and abandonment too much, leaving all that to Him, to Him alone. We have really been worthless disciples, as we loved Him for the joy of being loved, out of pride of being great in His kingdom, but we did not love Him in His sorrow... Now no longer so. Here. We must swear here, this is an altar, and it is high up, facing Heaven and Earth, that it will no longer be so. Now joy for Him, the cross for us. Let us swear it. It is the only way to give peace to our souls. Here Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the Lord died, to be the Saviour and Redeemer. Let the man, that is, what we are, die here, and the true disciple rise.

Rise! Let us swear in the Holy Name of Jesus Christ that we want to embrace His doctrine to the extent of being able to die for the redemption of the world.» John seems a seraph. While he is gesticulating his, head-covering has fallen off, and his fair hair shines in the sun. He has climbed on some rubble thrown on one side, probably the supports of the crosses of the robbers, and he unintentionally takes the stretched-out arms attitude, that Jesus often took when teaching, and in particular the attitude He had on the cross. The others look at him, so handsome, so fervent, so young, the youngest of them all, and so mature spiritually. Calvary has made him reach a perfect age... They look at him and shout: «We swear it!» «Let us pray then, so that the Father may ratify our oath: "Our Father Who art in Heaven..."» The chorus of the eleven voices becomes confident, more and more confident as it proceeds. And Peter beats his breast while he says: «forgive us our trespasses», and they all kneel down when they say the last supplication: «deliver us from evil.» They remain so, bent to the ground, meditating...

8 Jesus is among them. I have not seen when and whence He appeared. One would say from that part of the mountain that is inaccessible. He shines with love in the bright midday light and He says: «He who remains in Me will have no harm from the Evil One. I solemnly tell you that those who are united to Me in serving the Most High Creator, Whose desire is the salvation of every man, will be able to expel demons, to make reptiles and poisons harmless, to pass among wild beasts and through flames without being hurt, for all the time that God wants them to remain on the Earth to serve Him.» «When did You come, Lord?» they say raising their heads, but remaining on their knees. «Your oath called Me. And now, now that the feet of My apostles have trodden on these clods, go down quickly to town, to the Supper room. The women from Galilee will leave in the evening with My Mother. You and John will go with them. We will all meet in Galilee, on the Tabor» He says to the Zealot and John.
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

Blessed Gabriel M. Allegra, O.F.M, Biblical scholar, had said, "The dogmas which the Church continues defending in the course of the ages...are a solemn affirmation of the faith of the Apostles. Through an ineffable charism, Valtorta had been plunged again into the tender, moving, spontaneous faith of the Apostles, especially of St. John ...

In her tragic destiny, a powerful and moving figure in the Poem is Mary of Simon, the mother of Judas, and who was so loved by Jesus. No poet or dramatist has ever thought up a profile so robust, so delicate, and at the same time so pitiful, as that unfortunate and gentle woman ..." Among the many persons Jesus appears to and consoles after His Resurrection, including the 500, are this Mary of Simon.

A flashback to the life of Mary of Simon, and how perfectly Jesus fulfilled the law of loving even His enemy, and of caring for his mother; while the perfidious traitor did not care about even his own family members, the Lord Jesus in His Providence supplied for their needs.

From Volume 3, Vision 369:

Mary of Simon (mother of Judas) «I have no proof of anything against You. But it is an avalanche which is about to fall. I caught him and he could not deny the evidence that... Here he is... For pity's sake, be quiet! He is looking at me. He suspects. He is my grief. There is no mother in Israel more unhappy than I am!...»

Mary whispers: «I am... because I add the sorrows of all unhappy mothers to My own... Because My sorrow is caused by the hatred of the whole world, not of one man only.» Johanna calls Jesus and He goes towards her; in the meantime Judas approaches his mother, who is still being comforted by Mary, and he lashes her: «Have you been able to show your frenzy and calumniate me? Are you happy now?»

«Judas! Is that how you speak to your mother?» asks Mary severely. It is the first time I see Her thus... «Yes. Because I am tired of her persecution.» «Oh! My son, it is not persecution! It is love! You say that I am ill. But it is you who are ill! You say that I calumniate you and I listen to your enemies. But you are wronging yourself, because you follow and are friendly with wicked people who will ruin you. Because you are weak, son, and they are aware of your weakness... Listen to your mother. Listen to Ananias, who is old and wise. Judas! Have mercy on me! Judas!!! Where are you going, Judas?!» Judas, who is almost running across the terrace, turns round and shouts: «Where I am useful and respected» and he rushes down the staircase, while the unhappy mother, leaning over the parapet, shouts to him: «Don't go! Don't go! They want to ruin you! Son! My son!...» Judas has arrived downstairs where the trees prevent his mother from seeing him. He reappears for a moment in an empty space before entering the hall. «He has gone!... Pride devours him!» moans his mother. «Let us pray for him, Mary. Let us pray together, the two of us...» says the Blessed Virgin holding the hand of the sad mother of the future Deicide ...

Volume 3, Vision 394. Anne of Kerioth. Farewell to Judas' Mother. 28th February 1946. «Lord, would You come with me, with me alone, to see an unhappy mother. I desire this more than anything else» says Mary of Simon, standing respectfully before Jesus, while after the midday meal, the apostles have scattered to rest before resuming their journey in the evening. Jesus instead is resting in the shade of the apple-trees laden with small green apples about to ripen and Mary seems to be resuming a conversation previously begun.

«Yes, woman. I also wish to be with you, all alone in these last hours, as I was the first time I came here. Let us go.» And they go into the house where Jesus takes His mantle and Mary her veil and mantle. They follow paths through fields, orchards and forest trees. It is still warm. Waves of warm air come from the fields where the crops are ripe. But the mountain breeze moderates the heat which would have been unbearable down in the plain. «I am sorry to make You walk in this heat. But later... it would no longer be possible. And I have always longed for this thing, without ever daring to ask You. A short while ago You said to me: "Mary, to show that I love you, as if you were My mother, I say to you: ask Me whatever you wish to have and I will satisfy you" and so I dared. Lord, do You know where we are going?» «No, woman.» «We are going to the house of the woman, who was to be Judas' mother-in-law... (Mary sighs heavily). She was to... She is not and never will be, because Judas left the girl who died of a broken heart... and her mother now bears me and my son ill-will. She always curses us... Judas is so... weak and inclined to Evil, that he needs blessings only!... I would like You to speak to her... You can convince her... and tell her that it was a mercy that the marriage did not take place... that it is no fault of mine... that she may die without any grudge; because she is dying slowly with such grief in her soul. I would like to be at peace with her... because I have suffered and I was ashamed of what happened and it grieves me to see that the person who has been my companion since I came here when I got married, is no longer my friend. In short, Lord, You know...» «Yes, do not worry. Your request is an honest one and I will fulfill the task because it is a good thing.» After crossing a little valley, they climb up another hill, on which there is a village. «Anne has lived here since her daughter died. In her estate. Before she was at Kerioth. But while she lived there, her reproaches broke my heart every time we met.» They take a side path just before the village and arrive at a low house, in the fields. «Now! My heart is trembling, now that I am here! She will refuse to see me... she will reject me... she will be upset and her poor heart will suffer even more... Master...» «Yes, I will go. You stay here, till I call you. And pray in order to assist Me.» And Jesus goes, all alone, as far as the wide-open door of the house, which He enters greeting with His kind salutation. A woman comes towards Him: «What do You want? Who are You?» «I have come to bring relief to your mistress. Take Me to her.» «Are You a doctor? It is of no avail! There is no hope. Her heart is dying.» «There is still her soul to be saved. I am the Rabbi.» «You are of no use even as such. She is displeased with the Eternal Father and does not want to listen to sermons. Leave her alone.» «I have come just because she is in that frame of mind. Let me go in and she will not be so unhappy in her last days.» The woman shrugs her shoulders and says: «Come in!» There is a cool half-dark corridor with several doors. At the end of the corridor the last door is half-open and moaning can be heard from it. The woman enters the room saying: «My mistress, there is a rabbi who wants to speak to you.» «Why?... To tell me that I am cursed? That I will have no peace not even in the next life?» says the sick woman panting and upset.

«No. To tell you that your peace will be complete, if you only wish so, and you will be happy forever with your Johanna» says Jesus appearing at the door. The sick woman, whose face is yellow and swollen, and who is panting in her little bed, leaning on many pillows, looks at Him and says: «Oh! What words! It is the first time that a rabbi does not reproach me... What hope!... My Johanna... with me... blessed... no more grief... the grief caused by a cursed man... she who gave birth to him did not avoid it... she betrayed me... after enticing me... My unhappy daughter...» she pants more and more. «See? You are making her feel worse. I knew. Come away.» «No. You go away. Leave me alone with her...» The woman goes out shaking her head. Jesus approaches the bed slowly.

He kindly wipes the perspiration on the face of the woman, who finds difficulty in doing so because her hands are incredibly swollen, and He fans her head with a fan made with palm leaves. He helps her to drink as she seeks some refreshment in the liquor on the night table. He seems a son near a diseased mother. He finally sits down, kindly but firmly determined to fulfill His mission. The woman watches Him and calms down, and with an agonising smile she says: «You are handsome and kind. Who are You, Rabbi? You are as gentle as my beloved daughter was in comforting me.» «I am Jesus of Nazareth!» «You?!... And You have come to me?... Why?...» «Because I love you. I have a mother, too, and in every mother I see Mine, and in the tears of mothers, I see My Mother's...» «Why? Does Your Mother weep? Why? Has another son of Hers died?»

«Not yet... I am Her only Son and I am still alive. But She already weeps because She knows that I must die.» «Oh! Poor woman! How dreadful to know beforehand that a son must die. But how does She know? You are healthy. You are strong. You are good. I deluded myself until she died, and she was so ill!... How can Your Mother know that You must die?» «Because I am the Son of man, foretold by the prophets. I am the Man of sorrows seen by Isaiah, the Messiah sung by David and described as the tortured Redeemer. I am the Saviour, the Redeemer, woman. And death, a dreadful death is awaiting Me... and My Mother will be present... and My Mother has been aware, since I was born, that Her heart will be broken by sorrow like My own... Do not weep... Through My death I will open the gates of Heaven to your Johanna...» «Also to me! To me!...» «Yes. In due course. But first you must learn to love and forgive. To begin to love again. To be just. And to forgive... Otherwise you will not be able to go to Heaven, with Johanna, and with Me...»

The woman weeps uncontrollably. She moans: «To love... To love when men have taught us to hate... when God has ceased to love us having no mercy on us... it is difficult... How can we love, when men have tortured us, and our friends have hurt us and God has abandoned us?...» «No. He has not abandoned you. I am here. To make heavenly promises to you. To assure you that your grief will turn into joy, if you so wish. Listen to Me, Anne... You are weeping because the marriage was cancelled, and that has become the cause of all your grief, and because of that you say that a man is a murderer and his poor mother an accomplice. Listen, Anne. In the next few months you will realise that it was a grace from Heaven that Johanna did not get married to Judas...» «Don't mention his name to me!» shouts the woman. «I am mentioning it, to tell you that you must thank the Lord and you will be thanking Him in a few months' time...» «I will be dead...» «No. You will be alive and you will remember Me, and you will understand that there are sorrows greater than yours...» «Greater? It's not possible!»

«What about My Mother Who will see Me die on a cross?» Jesus has stood up. He is imposing.

«And what about the grief of the mother of the betrayer of Jesus Christ, the Son of God? Think, woman, of that mother... You... The whole of Kerioth, the country around it and beyond it have sympathised with you in your grief! You have been as proud of it as of the crown of a martyr. But that mother! Like Cain, without being Cain, being instead Abel: victim of her traitorous son, the killer of God, a sacrilegious cursed son, she will not be able to stand the look of men, because each glance will be like a stone of lapidation, and in every word, in every voice of man, she will seem to be hearing a curse, an abuse and she will never find shelter on the Earth until her death, until God, Who is just, takes the martyr with Himself making her forget that she is the mother of the murderer of God, by giving her the possession of God... Is that mother's sorrow not greater?»
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

«Oh! immense sorrow!...» «You understand... Be good, Anne. Admit that God was good in what He did...» «But my daughter is dead! Judas made her die, to have a richer dowry... His mother approved...» «No. That is not true. I can assure you, and I read hearts. Judas is My apostle but I tell you – he behaved badly and will be punished for it. But his mother is innocent. She loves you, and would like to be loved by you... Anne, you are two unhappy mothers. But you are proud of your dead child, who was innocent and pure, celebrated and honoured by the world... Mary of Simon cannot be proud of her son. His conduct is reproved by men.» «That is true. But if he had married Johanna, he would not be reproved.»

«But in a short time you would see Johanna die of a broken heart, because Judas will die a violent death.» «What are You saying? Oh! poor Mary! When? How? Where?» «Soon. And in a dreadful way... Anne! You are good! You are a mother! You are aware of the sorrow of a mother! Anne, become Mary's friend once again! Let sorrow join you as joy was to unite you. Let me go away happily, knowing that she will have a friend, one only, at least one» «Lord... to love her... means to forgive her... It is very hard... I seem to be burying my daughter once again... to be killing her myself...»

«Such thoughts originate in Darkness! Do not listen to them. Listen to Me, the Light of the world. The Light of the world tells you that Johanna's destiny has been less bitter dying a virgin than dying the widow of Judas. Believe Me, Anne. And consider that Mary of Simon is more unhappy than you are...» The woman is pensive, she struggles, weeps and says: «But I have cursed her, both her and the fruit of her womb! I have sinned...» «And I absolve you. And the more you love her, the more you will be absolved in Heaven.»


«But if I become her friend... I will meet Judas. Lord, I cannot do that!...» «You will never meet him again. I will never come back to Kerioth again, neither will Judas. We have already said goodbye to the people...» «Oh! You said...» «That I will not come back again. Judas said that he will not be able to come back until after My accession. But he believes he will be seeing Me ascending a throne. Instead death on a cross is waiting Me. And he thinks that he will become one of My ministers. Death instead is awaiting him. But You shall not tell anybody that. Never. His mother is not to know until everything has been accomplished. You said: "Poor woman! To know beforehand that her son must die." But if My Mother's suffering, also because of that, is already increasing the merits of My Sacrifice, silence is compassion for Mary of Simon. You shall not speak.»

«No, my Lord. I swear to it in the name of my Johanna.» «I want another promise! A great, holy one! You are good. You already love Me...» «Yes, so much. I have been at peace since You came here...»

«When Mary of Simon no longer has her son and the world insults her with sneering words, you, you only, will open your heart and your house to her. Will you promise Me? In the names of God and of Johanna. She would have done that, because Mary was still the mother of the man she still loved» insists Jesus. «... Yes!» replies the woman shedding tears. «May God bless you, woman, and give you peace... and good health. Come let us go and meet Mary, and give her the kiss of peace»

«But Lord I cannot walk. My legs are swollen and I cannot move them. See? I am here, all dressed, but I am just a trunk...»

«You were. Come!» and Jesus stretches out His hand invitingly. The woman, staring at Jesus' eyes, moves her legs, she stretches them out of the little bed, lays her bare feet on the floor, stands up and walks... She seems fascinated. She is not even aware that she has already been cured... She goes out into the dim corridor, her hand still in Jesus'... She goes towards the door. She is almost there when she meets the servant seen previously, who utters a cry of joyful fear... Other servants rush there, fearing she was dying, whereas they see that their mistress, who shortly before was about to breathe her last and hated Mary of Simon, is now walking fast with her arms stretched out, after leaving Jesus' hand, towards poor Mary, whom she calls and embraces to her heart, while they both weep... ... On their way back to the house, after the peaceful farewell, Mary of Simon thanks her Lord and asks: «When will You come back to do more good?» «Never, woman. I have already told the citizens. But My heart will always be with you. Remember, always remember that I loved you and I love you. Remember that I know that you are good, and that is why God loves you. Always bear that in mind, also in the most dreadful hours. You must never think that God considers you guilty. In His eyes your soul appears and will always appear adorned with the gems of your virtues and the pearls of your suffering. Mary of Simon, mother of Judas, I want to bless you, I want to embrace you and kiss you so that your faithful sincere maternal kiss may compensate Me for any other one... and My kiss may make amends for all your sorrows. Come, mother of Judas. And thank you, thank you for all the love and honour you have given Me» and He embraces her and kisses her forehead, as He does with Mary of Alphaeus. «But we will meet again! I will come at Passover...»

«No. Do not come. I beseech you. Do you want to make Me happy? Do not come. Women at next Passover... no!» «But why?...» «Because... there will be a frightful rising in Jerusalem next Passover. It is no place for women! Nay... Mary, I will order your relative to join you. You must stay together. You need him because... Judas from now on will not be able to assist you or to come...» «I will do as You say... So never again I shall see Your face which reflects the peace of Heaven? How much peace You have infused from Your eyes into my sorrowful heart!...» says Mary weeping. «Do not weep. Life is short. Later you will see me forever in My Kingdom.» «So You think that your humble servant will enter it?...» «I already see your seat among the martyrs and co-redeemers. Do not be afraid, Mary. The Lord will be your eternal compensation. Let us go. Night is falling and it is time for Me to resume My journey...» And they go back the same road through fields and orchards, towards the house, where the apostles are waiting. Jesus bids goodbye hurriedly, blesses and sets out at the head of His apostles... While He goes away, Mary weeps, on her knees...
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

And to continue now the post-Resurrection Apparitions in His Glorious and Glorified Resurrected Body, the Lord appears to many people.

628. Jesus Appears to Various People in Different Places. 16th and 17th April 1947 I. To Annaleah's mother. 1 Eliza, Annaleah's mother, is weeping disconsolately in her house, closed in a little room, where there is a small bed without any bedclothes, probably Annaleah's bed. Her head is resting on her arms, which, in turn, are lying stretched out on the little bed, as if she wanted to embrace it all. Her body lies heavy on her knees in a languid posture. There is nothing vigorous about her but her tears. A faint light comes in through the open window. The day has just dawned. But there is a bright light when Jesus enters. I say: enters, meaning that He is in the room, whilst previously He was not. And I will always say so to mean His appearing in a closed place, without repeating myself as to how He shows Himself from behind a great brightness, which recalls that of the Transfiguration, from behind a white fire – allow me the comparison – that seems to melt walls and doors to allow Jesus to enter with His real, breathing, solid, glorified Body: a fire, a brightness that closes itself in Him and conceals Him when He goes away. But afterwards, it takes the beautiful aspect of the Risen Master, but a Man, a real Man, a hundred times more beautiful than He was before His Passion. It is He, but it is He the glorious King. «Why are you weeping, Eliza?»

2
I do not know how the woman does not recognise the unmistakable voice. Perhaps sorrow overwhelms her. She replies as if she were speaking to a relative, who has probably come to her after Annaleah's death. «Did you hear those men yesterday evening? He was nothing. Magic power, but not divine. And I was resigning myself to the death of my daughter, thinking that she was loved by God, in peace... He had told me!...» she weeps more loudly. «But many have seen Him risen. God only can raise Himself from the dead by Himself.» «That is what I also told those people yesterday. You heard me. I fought against their words. Because their words were the death of my hope, of my peace. But they – did you hear them? – they said: "It was all a make-believe of His followers, in order not to admit that they were fools. He is dead, dead and buried, and decomposed, they have stolen and destroyed His corpse, and now they say that He has risen." That is what they said... And that is why the Most High sent the second earthquake, to make them feel His wrath for their sacrilegious lie. Oh! I have no more consolation.» 3 «But if you saw the risen Lord with your own eyes, and you touched Him with your own hands, would you believe?...» «I am not worthy of that... But I should certainly believe! It would be sufficient for me to see Him. I should not dare touch His Body because, if it were so, it would be a divine body, and a woman cannot approach the Holy of Holies.» «Raise your head, Eliza, and see Who is standing in front of you!» The woman raises her white-haired head, her face disfigured by tears, and she sees... She drops even lower on her heels, she rubs her eyes, she opens her mouth to utter a cry that wants to come up, but is stifled in her throat by amazement. «It is I. The Lord. Touch My Hand. Kiss it. You sacrificed your daughter to Me. You deserve it. And on this hand find again the spiritual kiss of your child. She is in Heaven. She is blessed. You will speak to the disciples about that and about this day.» The woman is so enraptured that she dare not make the gesture, and it is Jesus Himself who presses the tips of His fingers against her lips. «Oh! You have really risen!!! Happy! Happy I am! May You be blessed for comforting me!» She stoops to kiss His feet, and she does so, and she remains like that. The supernatural light envelops the Christ in its brightness and the room is devoid of Him. But the mother's heart is full of unshakeable certainty.

II. To Mary of Simon at Kerioth, with Anne, the mother of Johanna, and old Ananias.

4 The house of Anne, the mother of Johanna. The country house where Jesus, in the company of Judas' mother, worked the miracle of curing Anne. Here also there is a room and a woman lying on a bed. A woman who is altered beyond recognition by mortal anguish. Her face is worn out. Fever devours it, inflaming her cheekbones, so sunken are her cheeks. Her eyes, black ringed, red with fever and tears, are half closed under her swollen eyelids. Where there is no reddening caused by fever, her complexion is yellowish, greenish, as if bile were spread in her blood. Her lean arms and thin hands are relaxed on the bedclothes, which are raised by her rapid panting. Near the sick woman, who is no one else but Judas' mother, there is Anne, Johanna's mother. She wipes perspiration and tears, she waves a fan of palm, she changes the cloths, dipped in spicy vinegar, on the forehead and throat of the sick woman, she caresses her hands and loose hair, that in a short time has become more white than black, and is spread on the pillow, and, wet as it is with perspiration, adheres to her ears, which have become transparent. Also Anne weeps, uttering words of comfort: «Don't, Mary! Don't! Enough! He... he has sinned. But you, you know how the Lord Jesus...» «Be quiet! That Name... to me... said to me... is profaned... I am the mother... of the Cain... of God! Ah!»

Her quiet weeping changes into exhausted heart-rending sobbing. She feels she is choking, she catches hold of the neck of her friend, who assists her while she vomits some bile. «Peace! Peace, Mary! Don't! Oh! what shall I tell you to convince you that He, the Lord, loves you? I repeat it to you! I swear it on the things which are most holy to me: my Saviour and my child. He told me when you brought Him to me. He had for you words and providence of infinite love. You are innocent. He loves you. I am certain, certain that He would give Himself once again to give you peace, poor martyr mother.» «Mother of the Cain of God! Can you hear it? That wind, out there... It says so... The voice goes all over the world... the voice of the wind, and it says: "Mary of Simon, the mother of Judas, he who betrayed the Master and handed Him over to His executioners." Can you hear it? Everything says so...

The stream out there... The doves... the sheep... The whole Earth shouts that I am... No, I do not want to recover my health. I want to die!... God is just and He will not punish me in the next life. But here, no. The world does not forgive... it does not distinguish... I am becoming mad, because the world howls...: "You are Judas' mother."» She is exhausted and collapses on the pillows. Anne recomposes her and goes out to take away the dirty linen cloths... Mary, her eyes closed, deadly pale after the effort she made, moans: «The mother of Judas! of Judas! of Judas!» She pants, then resumes: «But what is Judas? What did I give birth to? What is Judas? What have I...»

5. Jesus is in the room, which is lit up by a trembling light, because daylight is still too faint to illuminate the large room, in which the bed is at the end, very far from the only window. He calls her gently: «Mary! Mary of Simon!» The woman is almost delirious and does not attach importance to the voice. Her mind is far away, carried away by the vortex of her grief, and she repeats the ideas that haunt her brain, monotonously, like the tick-tack of a pendulum-clock: «The mother of Judas! What have I given birth to? The world shouts: "The mother of Judas"...» Two tears well up in the corners of Jesus' very mild eyes. I am surprised at them. I did not think that Jesus could weep also after His resurrection... He bends.

The bed is so low for Him Who is so tall! He lays His hand on the feverish forehead, pushing aside the cloths damp with vinegar, and He says: «A poor wretch. That and nothing else. If the world shouts, God covers the shout of the world saying to you: "Have peace, because I love you." Look at Me, poor mother! Gather your lost spirit and put it in My hands. I am Jesus!...» Mary of Simon opens her eyes, as if she were coming out of a nightmare and she sees the Lord, she feels His Hand on her forehead, she covers her face with her trembling hands and moans: «Do not curse me! If I had known what I was giving birth to, I would have torn my womb to prevent him from being born.» «And you would have sinned. Mary! oh! Mary! Do not depart from your justice because of the sin of another person. The mothers who have fulfilled their duty must not consider themselves responsible for the sins of their sons. You have done your duty, Mary. Give Me your poor hands. Be calm, poor mother.» «I am Judas' mother. I am unclean like all the things that demon touched. The mother of a demon! Do not touch me.» She struggles to avoid the divine Hands that want to hold her. The two tears of Jesus fall on her face burning once again with fever. «I have purified you, Mary. My tears of compassion are on you. I have not shed My tears on anybody since I consumed My sorrow. But I am weeping over you with all My loving pity.» He has succeeded in getting hold of her hands and He sits, yes, He really sits down on the edge of the little bed, holding her trembling hands in His. The loving compassion of His bright eyes caresses, envelops and cures the poor wretch, who calms down weeping silently and whispering: «Have You no grudge against me?»

«I have love. That is why I have come. Have peace.» «You forgive! But the world! Your Mother! She will hate me.» «She thinks of you as of a sister. The world is cruel. That is true. But My Mother is the Mother of the Love, and She is good. You cannot go about in the world, but She will come to you when everything is at peace. Time pacifies...» «Make me die, if You love me...» «A little longer. Your son was not able to give Me anything. Give Me a period of time of your suffering. It will be a short one.» «My son has given You too much... Infinite horror he has given You.» «And you your infinite sorrow. The horror is over. It no longer serves. Your sorrow serves. It joins these wounds of Mine, and Your tears and My Blood wash the world. All sorrows join together to wash the world. Your tears are between My Blood and the tears of My Mother and around them there is all the sorrow of the saints who will suffer for the Christ and for men, for My sake and for the sake of men. Poor Mary!» He lays her down gently, He crosses her hands and watches her as she calms down... 6 Anne comes back in and stops dumbfounded on the threshold.

Jesus, Who is now standing, looks at her saying: «You have complied with My wish. There is peace for obedient people. Your soul has understood Me. Live in My peace.» He lowers His eyes again on Mary of Simon, who looks at Him through a stream of tears which are now more calm, and He smiles at her again. And He says to her: «Lay your hope in the Lord. He will give you all His comfort.» He blesses her and is about to go away. Mary of Simon utters a passionate cry: «They say that my son betrayed You with a kiss! Is it true, Lord? If it is so, allow me to wash it by kissing Your Hands. There is nothing else I can do! I cannot do anything else to cancel... to cancel...» She is struck with deeper grief. Jesus, oh! Jesus does not give her His hands to kiss, those hands on which the wide sleeve of His snow-white tunic reaches down to half the metacarpus concealing the wounds, but He takes her head in His hands and He bends and with His divine lips He lightly touches the burning forehead of the most unhappy of all women, and standing up again He says to her: «My tears and My kiss! No one has ever had so much from Me. So be at peace, because there is nothing but love between you and Me.» He blesses her and, after going across the room quickly, He goes out behind Anne, who did not dare to come forward, or to speak, but is weeping deeply moved.

7 But when they are in the corridor that leads to the main door, Anne dares to speak and to ask the question which she has at heart: «My Johanna?» «For fifteen days she has rejoiced in Heaven. I did not mention it there, because too big is the contrast between your daughter and her son.» «It is true! A great torture! I think she will die of it.» «No. Not soon.» «Now she will be more at peace. You have consoled her. You! You Who more than anybody...» «I Who pity her more than anybody else. I am the Divine Pity. I am the Love. I tell you, woman: if Judas had only cast a glance of repentance at Me, I would have obtained God's forgiveness for him...» How sad is Jesus' face! The woman is struck by it. Words and silence struggle on her lips, but she is a woman, and curiosity is the winner. She asks: «Was it a... an... Yes, I mean: did that wretched man sin all of a sudden, or...» «He had been sinning for months and no word of Mine, no act of Mine was able to stop him, so strong was his will to sin. But do not tell her that...»

«I will not!... Lord! Because now, when Ananias ran away from Jerusalem, the very night of the Preparation Day, without even completing the Passover, he came in here shouting: "Your son has betrayed the Master and has handed Him over to His enemies! He betrayed Him with a kiss. And I have seen the Master beaten, covered with spittle, scourged, crowned with thorns, laden with a cross, crucified and dead through the action of your son. And our name is shouted with obscene triumph by the enemies of the Master, and they relate the feats of your son, who, for less than the price that a lamb costs, has sold the Messiah and with the betrayal of a kiss has pointed Him out to the guards!", Mary fell on the ground, and became black all of a sudden, and the doctor says that her liver has burst and the bile has flown out and all her blood is corrupted by it. And... the world is bad. She is right...

I had to bring her here, because they came near her house in Kerioth to shout: "Your son is a Deicide and a suicide! He has hanged himself! And Beelzebub has taken his soul, and Satan has come to take even his body." Is that horrible wonder true?» «No, woman. He was found dead, hanging from an olive-tree...» «Ah! And they shouted: "Christ has risen and is God. Your son has betrayed God. You are the mother of the betrayer of God. You are the mother of Judas." At night, with Ananias and a faithful servant, the only one left to me, because no one wanted to stay near her... I brought her here. But Mary hears those cries in the noises of the earth, in everything.» «Poor mother! It is horrible, indeed.» «But did that demon not think of all this, Lord?» «It was one of the reasons I had recourse to, to hold him back. But to no avail. Judas went so far as to hate God, as he had never loved his father and mother or any other neighbour with true love.» «That is true.» «Goodbye, woman.

May My blessing comfort you to bear the mockery of the world because of your compassion for Mary. Kiss My hand. I can show it to you. It would have done too much harm to her to see this.»
He throws the sleeve back, uncovering the pierced wrist. Anne utters a groan as with her lips she lightly touches the tips of His fingers.

8 The noise of a door that is opened and a stifled cry: «The Lord!», A rather old man prostrates himself and remains so. «Ananias, the Lord is good. He has come to comfort your relative and to comfort us as well» says Anne to console also the elderly man, who is too deeply moved. But the man dare not move. He weeps saying: «We are of horrible blood. I cannot look at the Lord.» Jesus goes to him. He touches his head, repeating the same words as He said to Mary of Simon: «Relatives who have done their duty must not consider themselves responsible for the sin of a relative. Take heart, man! God is just. Peace to you and to this house. I have come and you will go where I send you. For the supplementary Passover the disciples will be at Bethany. You will go to them and you will tell them that on the twelfth day from His death, you saw the Lord at Kerioth, alive and true, in Body and Soul and Divinity. They will believe you, because I have already been with them quite a lot.

But it will confirm them in their faith on My Divine Nature to know that I am everywhere on the same day. And before that, this very day, you will go to Kerioth to ask the leader of the synagogue to gather the people together, and in the presence of everybody you will say that I came here, and that they are to remember My words of the farewell. They will certainly say to you: "Why did He not come to us?" You will reply so: "The Lord told me to say to you that, if you had done what He told you to do to the innocent mother, He would have shown Himself. You failed in your duty of love, and that is why the Lord has not shown Himself." Will you do that?»


«That is difficult, Lord! It is difficult to do that! They consider us all as heart lepers... The leader of the synagogue will not listen to me, and he will not let me speak to the people. He may beat me... However, I will do it, because You want it.» The elderly man does not raise his head. He speaks bent in deep prostration. «Look at Me, Ananias!» The man looks up trembling with veneration. Jesus is as bright and handsome as He was on Mount Tabor... The light envelops Him, concealing His features and His smile... And the corridor is left without Him, without any door being moved to let Him pass. The two worship and worship, as they have become all adoration through the divine manifestation.
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

Our Lord Jesus continues appearing to various people in different places up until the 40th Day of His Ascension, before sending the Holy Spirit on the Apostles on the 50th day of Pentecost. As we read, we taking notice of the deep faith of those in Israel faithful to the Lord God, their amazement and joy in contemplating the Lord Jesus Risen and Glorious, their happiness and peace that God Almighty had become Man and was now in His Glory.

III. To the children of Juttah with their mother Sarah. 9 The orchard of Sarah's house. The children who are playing under the leafy trees. The youngest one who rolls on the grass near a thick row of vine-leaves, the other bigger ones who chase one another with joyful cries of swallows, playing at hide-and-seek behind hedges and vines. Jesus appears near the little one to whom He gave His name. Oh! holy simplicity of the innocents! Jesai is not surprised seeing Him there all of a sudden, but he stretches out his little arms, so that Jesus may take him in His, and Jesus takes him: there is the greatest simplicity in the acts of both. The others arrive running – and once again the blessed simplicity of children! – and without any astonishment they approach Him happily. Nothing seems to have changed for them. They probably do not know. But after Jesus has caressed each of them, Mary, the oldest and most sensible one, says: «So do You no longer suffer, Lord, now that You have risen? I was so sorry!...» «I no longer suffer. I have come to bless you before I ascend to My Father and yours, in Heaven. But also from there I will always bless you, if you are always good. You will tell those who love Me that I have left My blessing with you today. Remember this day.»

10 «Are You not coming to the house? Mother is there. They will not believe us» says Mary again. But her brother does not ask. He shouts: «Mummy, mummy. The Lord is here!...» and running towards the house, he repeats that cry. Sarah rushes, she looks out of the window... just in time to see Jesus, very handsome at the edge of the orchard, disappear in the light that absorbs Him... «The Lord! But why did you not call me before?...» says Sarah as soon as she is able to speak. «But when? where did He come from? Was He alone? How foolish you are!» «We found Him here. A moment before He was not here... He did not come from the road or from the kitchen garden. And He had Jesai in His arms... And He told us that He had come to bless us and to give us His blessing for those who love Him in Jutta and to remember this day. And now He is going to Heaven. But He will love us if we are good. How handsome He was! He had wounds in His hands. But they no longer hurt Him. Also His feet were wounded. I saw them among the grass. That flower there touched just the wound of one foot. I will pick it...» they all speak together, excited with emotion. They even perspire in the excitement of speaking. Sarah caresses them whispering: «God is great! Let us go. Come. Let us go and tell everybody. You, innocents, will speak. You can speak of God.»

IV. To young Jaia, at Pella. 11 The young man is working with zeal around a cart. He is loading it with vegetables picked in a nearby vegetable garden. The little donkey beats the hard surface of the country road with its hoof. When he turns round to take a basket of lettuce, he sees Jesus Who smiles at him. He drops the basket on the ground and he kneels down, rubbing his eyes, incredulous of what he sees, and he whispers: «Most High, do not lead me into illusions! Lord, do not allow me to be deceived by Satan by means of false seducing appearances. My Lord is really dead! And He was buried, and they now say that His corpse has been stolen. Have mercy, Most High Lord! Show me the truth.» «I am the Truth, Jaia. I am the Light of the World. Look at Me. See Me. That is why I gave your sight back to you, so that you may witness My power and My Resurrection.» «Oh! It is really the Lord! It is You! Yes! You are Jesus!» He drags himself along on his knees to kiss His feet. «You will say that you have seen Me and have spoken to Me and that I am really alive. You will say that you have seen Me today. My peace and My blessing to you.» Jaia remains alone. He is happy. He forgets the cart and the vegetables. In vain the restless donkey beats the road and brays, protesting because of the long wait... Jaia is enraptured.

12 A woman comes out of the house near the kitchen garden and sees him there, wan with emotion, his face with a far-away look. She shouts: «Jaffa! What is the matter with you? What happened to you?» She rushes towards him and shakes him. She brings him back to earth... «The Lord! I have seen the Risen Lord. I have kissed His feet and seen His wounds. They have told lies. It was really God and He has risen. I thought it was a deceit. But it is He! It is He!» The woman trembles thrilled with emotion and whispers: «Are you quite sure?» «You are good, woman. For His sake you have taken my mother and me as your servants. Do not refuse to believe!...» «If you are sure, I believe. But was He really flesh? Was He warm? Did He breathe? Did He speak? Did He really have a voice, or did you think so?» «I am certain. It was the warm flesh of a living being, it was a real voice, it was breath. As handsome as God, but Man, like me and you. Let us go, let us go and tell those who suffer or are in doubt.»

V. To John of Nob. 13 The old man is all alone in his house. But he is serene. He is repairing a chair as on one side the nails have come out, and he smiles at I wonder which dream. There is a knock at the door. The old man, without leaving his work, says: «Come in. What do you want, you who come? Still one of those? I am too old to change! Even if the whole world shouted to me: "He is dead", I say: "He is living". Even if I had to die to say so. So, come in!» He gets up to go to the door, to see who knocks without going in. But when he is near it, the door opens and Jesus goes in. «Oh! Oh! Oh! My Lord! Alive! I believed! And He comes to reward my faith! Blessed! I did not doubt. In my grief I said: "If He sent me the lamb for the banquet of joy, it means that He will rise this day." Then I understood everything. When You died and the Earth was shaken, I understood what I had not yet understood. And they thought that I was mad, at Nob, because at sunset on the day after the Sabbath, I prepared a banquet and I went and invited some beggars saying: "Our Friend has risen!" They were already saying that it was not true. They were saying that they had stolen You during the night. But I did not believe them, because since You died I understood that You were dying to rise again, and that that was the sign of Jonah.»

Jesus, smiling, lets him speak. Then he asks: «And do you still wish to die now, or do you want to stay to witness My glory?» «Whatever You want, Lord!» «No. What you want.» The old man is pensive. He then decides: «It would be lovely to go out of this world, where You no longer are as You were previously. But I forgo the peace of Heaven to say to the incredulous: "I have seen Him!"» Jesus lays His hand on his head blessing him and He adds: «But it will soon be also peace, and you will come to Me with the rank of confessor of the Christ.» And He goes away. In this case, probably out of pity for the old man, He did not appear or disappear in a wonderful way, but He did everything as if He were the Jesus of days gone by, when He used to enter or come out of a house in a normal human way.

VI. To Matthias, the old solitary man near Jabesh-Gilead. 14 The old man is working at his vegetables and is talking to himself: «All wealth that I have for Him. And He will never taste them again. I have worked in vain. I believe that He was the Son of God, that He died and has risen. But He is no longer the Master, Who sits at the table of the poor or of the rich and shares the food with equal love, perhaps, no certainly with more love with the poor than with the rich. Now He is the Risen Lord. He has risen to confirm us, His believers, in our faith. And they say that it is not true. That no one has ever risen by himself. No one. No. No man. But He did. Because He is God.» He claps his hands to drive away the pigeons that come down to steal the seed in the earth that has just been dug and sown, and he says: «It is useless now for you to procreate! He will never relish your little ones again! And you, useless bees? For whom do you produce honey? I was hoping to have Him at least once with me, now that I am not so poor. Every thing has flourished here, after He came... Ah! but with that money, that I have never touched, I want to go to Nazareth, to His Mother, and say to Her: "Make me Your servant, but let me stay here where You are, because You are still He"...» He wipes a tear with the back of his hand...

15 «Matthias, have you some bread for a pilgrim?» Matthias looks up, but, as he is on his knees, he cannot see who is speaking from behind the tall hedge, that surrounds his small property lost in this green solitary place beyond the Jordan. But he replies: «Whoever you may be, come, in the name of the Lord Jesus.» And he stands up to open the fence. He finds himself facing Jesus, and he remains with his hand on the latch, unable to make a gesture. «Do you not want Me as your guest, Matthias? You did once. And you were regretting that you could not do so again. I am here and are you not opening to Me?» says Jesus smiling... «Oh! Lord... I... I... I am not worthy that my Lord should come in here... I...» Jesus passes His hand over the fence and opens the lock saying: «The Lord enters wherever He wants, Matthias.» He goes in, He proceeds along the humble kitchen garden, He goes towards the house and on the threshold He says: «So, you can sacrifice the little ones of your pigeons. Take your vegetables away from the garden and the honey from your bees. We will share the bread together, and your work will not have been useless, and your desire vain. And this place will be dear to you, and you will not have to go where there will soon be silence and abandonment. I am everywhere, Matthias. He who loves Me, is always with Me. My disciples will be in Jerusalem. My Church will arise there. Make sure you are there for the supplementary Passover.»
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

«Forgive me, Lord. But I could not resist in that place and I ran away. I arrived there at the ninth hour the day before Preparation Day, and the day after... Oh! I ran away as I did not want to see You die. Only for that, Lord.» «I know. And I know that you went back, and you were one of the first, to weep over My sepulchre. But I was already out of it. I know everything. 16 Here, I will sit here and rest. I have always rested here... And the angels know that.» The man busies himself, but he seems to be moving in a church, so reverently he moves about. Now and again he wipes a tear, which is about to mingle with his smile, while he comes and goes to get the little pigeons, kill them, prepare them, poke the fire, pick and wash the vegetables, and put the early figs in a plate, and lay the table with the best tableware. But when everything is ready, how can he sit down and eat? He wants to serve, which seems a great deal to him, and does not want anything else. But Jesus, Who has offered and blessed the food, offers him half of the pigeon, which He has cut, placing the meat on a piece of bread, that He has dipped into the sauce. «Oh! as to a favourite!» says the man, and he eats, weeping for joy and emotion, without taking his eyes off Jesus, Who eats... drinks, enjoys the vegetables, the fruit, the honey, and offers His chalice to him after taking a sip of wine. Previously He had always drunk water. The meal is over. «I am really alive, as you can see. And you are quite happy. Remember that twelve days ago I was dying by the will of men. But nothing is the will of men when the will of God does not agree to it. And more than that, the contrary will of men becomes a servile instrument of the eternal Will. Goodbye, Matthias. As I said that he will be with Me, who gave Me a drink when I was the Pilgrim about Whom every doubt was lawful, so I say to you: you will have part in My celestial Kingdom.» «But I am losing You now, Lord!» «In every pilgrim see Me; in every beggar, Me; in every sick person, Me; in everyone needing bread, water and clothes, Me. I am in whoever suffers, and what is done to those who suffer, is done to Me.» He stretches out His arms blessing and disappears.

VII. To Abraham of Engedi, who dies in His Arms. 17 The square of Engedi: pillared temple of rustling palm-trees. The fountain: mirror for the April sky. The pigeons: low murmur of organ. Old Abraham passes through it with his working tools on his shoulders. He looks even older, but serene like one who has found relief after a violent storm. He passes also through the rest of the town, and goes to the vineyards near the fountains. The beautiful fertile vineyards, already promising abundant crops. He goes in and begins to hoe, to prune, to tie. Now and again he stands up, he leans on the hoe, he ponders. He smooths his patriarchal beard, he sighs, he shakes his head, in an inward conversation. A man, all enveloped in his mantle, comes up the road towards the fountains and the vineyards. I say: a man. But it is Jesus, because it is His garment and His gait. But for the old man it is a man. And the Man asks Abraham: «May I stop here?»

«Hospitality is sacred. I have never denied it to anybody. Come. Come in. May the rest in the shade of my vines be pleasant to you. Do you want some milk? Some bread? I will give you what I possess here.» «And what can I give you? I have nothing.» «He who is the Messiah has given me everything, for every man. And no matter what I give, it is nothing when compared to what He has given me.» «Do you know that they crucified Him?» «I know that He has risen from the dead. Are you one of those who crucified Him? I am not allowed to hate, because He does not want hatred. But, if I were allowed, I would hate you if you were.» «I am not one of His crucifiers. Do not worry. So you know everything about Him.» «Yes, everything. And Elisha... He is my son, you know? Elisha did not come back any more from Jerusalem, and he said: "Dismiss me, father, because I am leaving all my wealth in order to preach the Lord. I will go to Capernaum to look for John, and I will join the faithful disciples."» «So your son has left you? So old and alone?» «What you call abandonment is the joy I have dreamt of. Had leprosy not deprived me of him? And who gave him back to me? The Messiah. And am I losing him because he preaches the Lord? Of course not! I shall find him again also in eternal life.

18 But you speak in a way that makes me suspicious. Are you an emissary of the Temple? Have you come to persecute those who believe in the risen Master? Strike! I will not run away. I will not imitate the three wise men of remote days. I will stay. Because if I fall for Him, I shall join Him in Heaven and my prayer of last year will be answered.» «That is true. You then said: "I anxiously waited for the Lord, and He heard me."» «How do you know? Are you one of His disciples? Were you here with Him when I prayed Him? Oh! if you are such, help me to make my cry reach Him, so that He may remember.» He prostrates himself, thinking that he is speaking to an apostle.

«It is I, Abraham of Engedi, and I say to you: "Come".» Jesus stretches out His arms towards him, revealing Himself, and inviting him to throw himself into them, relaxing on His Heart. At that moment a boy comes into the vineyard. He is followed by an adolescent and he shouts: «Father! Father! Here we are to help you.» But the trilling cry of the boy is drowned by the powerful cry of the old man, a true cry of liberation: «Here I am! I am coming!» And Abraham throws himself into the arms of Jesus, shouting again: «Jesus, Holy Messiah! Into Your hands I commit my spirit!» A blessed death. A death I envy! On the Heart of Christ, in the serene peace of the April flowery country...

19 Jesus lays the old man gently on the flowery grass that waves in the breeze, at the foot of a row of vines, and He says to the children, who, astonished and frightened, are about to burst into tears: «Do not weep. He died in the Lord. Blessed are those who die in Him! Go, boys, and tell those of Engedi that their synagogue leader has seen the risen Lord and had his prayer answered by Him. Do not weep! Do not weep!» He caresses them while leading them to the exit. He then goes back to the deceased man and tidies his beard and hair, He lowers his eyelids, which were half closed, He puts the body in order, and on it He lays the mantle that Abraham had taken off to work. He remains there until He hears some voices coming from the road. Then He stands up. Wonderful... Those who rush there see Him. They shout. They run faster to reach Jesus. But He disappears from their eyes in the refulgence of beams brighter than the sun.

VIII. To Elijah, the Essene of Mount Cherith. 20 The harsh solitude of the rough mountain at the bottom of which flows the Cherith. Elijah is praying, even more emaciated and bearded, wearing a coarse woollen garment, which is neither grey nor brown, and makes him look like the rocks surrounding him. He hears a noise resembling that of wind or thunder. He looks up. Jesus has appeared on a rock hanging balanced over the precipice, at the bottom of which there is the torrent. «The Master!» He throws himself on the ground, face downwards. «I, Elijah. Did you not hear the earthquake on Preparation Day?» «Yes, I did, and I went down to Jericho and to Nike. I did not find any of those who love You. I asked after You. They hit me. Then I felt the earth tremble once again, but not so violently, and I came back here to do penance, thinking that the dam of celestial wrath had opened.» «Of Divine Mercy. I died and have risen. Look at My wounds. Join the servants of the Lord on Mount Tabor and tell them that I sent you .» He blesses him and disappears.
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

Jesus continues His post-Resurrection Appearances, to confirm some in the Faith, console others in their sorrows - and is severe to some.

IX. To Dorcas and her child in the castle of Caesarea Philippi. 21 Dorcas' little boy, supported by his mother, is taking his first steps on the rampart of the fortress. And Dorcas, bent as she is, does not see the Lord appear. But when, having left the little boy somewhat free, she sees him walk steadily and fast towards the corner of the rampart, she straightens herself up to run, so that he may not fall and may perish passing through the battlements or openings made on purpose for offensive weapons. And in doing so she sees Jesus, Who takes up the child, pressing him to His heart and kissing him. The woman dare not make a gesture. But she utters a loud cry. A cry that makes those of the courts look up and causes faces to lean out of windows: «The Lord! The Lord! The Messiah is here! He has really risen.» But before people can rush there, Jesus has already disappeared. 22 «You are mad! You were dreaming! Plays of light have made you see a ghost.» «Oh! He was really alive! See how my son is looking there and how he is holding in his hands an apple as beautiful as his little face. He is gnawing at it with his little teeth. I have no apples...» «Nobody has ripe apples these days, and so fresh...» they say rather shocked. «Let us ask Tobias» say some of the women. «What do you want to do? He can hardly say "mummy"!» say the men mockingly. But the women bend over the little boy and say: «Who gave you the apple?» And the lips, that can hardly say the most simple words, in a joyful smile that displays his tiny little teeth and his still empty gums, without any hesitation says: «Jesus.» «Oh!» «Hey! you call him Jesai! He can say his name.» «Jesus you, or Jesus the Lord? Which Lord? Where did you see Him?» insist the women «There, the Lord. Jesus the Lord.» «Where is He? Where did He go?» «There.» He points at the sky full of sun and smiles happily and bites his apple. And while the men go away shaking their heads, Dorcas says to the women: «He was handsome. He seemed to be dressed in light. And on His hands He had the signs of the nails, as red as gems against so much whiteness. I saw Him very well, because He held the child so» and she makes the gesture of Jesus. 23 The superintendent hastens there, he makes them repeat the story, he ponders, and concludes: «The psalm says: "On the lips of children and babes in arms You have placed the perfect praise." And why not the truth? They are innocent. And we... Let us remember this day... No! I am going to the village of the disciples. I am going to see whether the Rabbi is there... And yet... He was dead... Who knows!...» And with this «who knows!» that ends its conclusion internally, the superintendent goes away, while the women, full of excitement, continue asking questions of the child, who laughs and repeats: «Jesus, there. And then there. Jesus Lord» and he points at the place where Jesus was, then at the sun where he saw Him disappear, happy, happy.

X. To the people gathered in the synagogue of Kedesh. 24 The people of Kedesh are gathered in the synagogue and are discussing the last events with Matthias, the synagogue leader. The synagogue is rather half dark, because the doors are closed and the curtains are lowered on the windows, heavy curtains that the April wind hardly moves. A lightning illuminates the room. It looks like a lightning, but it is the light that precedes Jesus. And Jesus shows Himself, astonishing many people. He stretches out His arms and the wounds on His hands and feet appear clearly visible, because He shows Himself on the last of the three steps that lead to a closed door. He says: «I have risen from the dead. I remind you of the dispute between the scribes and Me. I have given the wicked generation the sign that I had promised. That of Jonah. I give My blessing to those who love Me and are faithful to Me.» Nothing else. He disappears. «But it was He! Where from? And yet He was alive! He had said so! Well! Now I understand. The sign of Jonah: three days in the bowels of the Earth and then the resurrection...» A babble of comments...

XI. To a group of rabbis at Giscala. 25 A poisonous group of rabbis who try to convince some hesitating men of their requests. They would like to get these men to go to Gamaliel, who has closed himself in his house and does not want to see anybody. These men say: «We tell you that he is not here. We do not know where he is. He came. He consulted some rolls. He went away. He did not say one word»; «He was frightening, so upset and aged he was» reply the others. With a bad grace the rabbis turn their backs on those who have spoken and, they go away saying: «Also Gamaliel is as mad as Simon! It is not true that the Galilean has risen! It is not true! It is not true! It is not true that He is God. It is not true. Nothing is true. We alone are in the truth.» The very pain they take in saying that it is not true, proves that they are afraid that it is true, that they need to be reassured. They have walked along the wall of the house and they are near Hillel's tomb. Howling their denials all the time, they raise their heads... and they run away shouting. The Jesus extremely kind to good people is there, frighteningly powerful, with His arms opened out as on the cross... The wounds on His hands are as red as if they were still dripping blood. He does not utter one word. But His eyes fulminate them. The rabbis run away, they fall, they get up, they wound themselves against trees and stones, mad, driven mad by fear. They look like homicides who have been taken back into the presence of their victim.

XII. To Joachim and Mary of Bozrah. 26 «Mary! Mary! Joachim and Mary! Come outside.» The two, who are in a quiet room, illuminated by a lamp, one intent on sewing, the other on making up accounts, raise their heads, look at each other... Joachim, growing pale with fear, whispers: «The voice of the Rabbi! It comes from the other life...» The woman, frightened, presses against her husband. But the call is repeated and the two, holding on tightly to each other, to pluck up courage, dare to go out, in the direction of the voice. In the garden, illuminated by the crescent of the new moon, there is Jesus, shining in a light much stronger than many moons. The light surrounds Him and makes Him God. His very sweet smile and loving eyes make Him Man: «Go and tell those of Bozrah that you have seen Me, real and alive. And you, Joachim, say so at Tabor, to those who have gathered there.» He blesses them and disappears. «But it was He! It was not a dream! I... Tomorrow I will go to Galilee. He said at the Tabor, did He not?...»

XIII. To Mary of Jacob, at Ephraim. 27 The woman is kneading flour to make bread. She turns round, upon hearing that she is being called, and she sees Jesus. She throws herself on the floor, face and hands on the floor, in silent adoration, a little frightened. Jesus speaks: «You will tell everybody that you have seen Me and that I have spoken to you. The Lord is not subjected to the sepulchre. I rose on the third day as I had predicted. Do persevere, you who are on My way, and do not let yourselves be seduced by the words of those who crucified Me. My peace to you.»
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

The disciples of Christ change after the Resurrection. Now, their holy Faith has been strengthened immeasurably; even if the whole world should taunt them for their fidelity and loyalty to Christ, or persecute them even unto death, they are not afraid anymore - only because they know and have seen the Risen Lord Who conquered the grave, Gloriously Triumphant over all death itself and over all sin.

"XIV. To Syntyche, at Antioch. 28 Syntyche is preparing a travelling bag. It is evening, because a little lamp is lit, its faint light flickers, and it is placed on a table near the woman intent on folding some garments. The room is brightly lit up and Syntyche raises her head, surprised, to see what is happening, what is the source of such a bright light in that room which is completely closed. But before she can see, Jesus forestalls her: «It is I. Be not afraid. I have shown Myself to many people to confirm them in their faith. I am showing Myself also to you, My obedient faithful disciple. I have risen. See? I no longer suffer. Why are you weeping?» The woman, before the beauty of the Glorified Master, finds no words... Jesus smiles at her to encourage her and He adds: «I am the same Jesus Who gladly received you on the road near Caesarea. Although you were so timid then, you did speak to Me and you did not know Me. And now, can you not say one word to Me?» «O Lord! I was about to leave... To relieve my heart of so much anxiety and sorrow.» [color]«Why sorrow? Did they not tell you that I had risen?»[/color] «They told me and denied it. But I have not been upset by their contradictions. I knew that You could not rot in a sepulchre. I wept over Your martyrdom. I believed, even before they told me, in Your resurrection. And I continued to believe when others came to say that it was not true. But I wanted to come to Galilee. I was thinking: I can no longer do Him any harm. He is now more God than Man. I do not know whether what I say is right...» «I understand what you mean.»

«And I said: I will worship Him, and I shall see Mary. I was thinking that You would not remain long among us, and I was hastening my departure. I used to say: when He has gone back to His Father, as He said, His Mother will be somewhat sad in Her joy. Because She is a soul, but She is also a mother... And I will try to comfort Her, now that She is alone... I was proud!» «No. You were compassionate. I will inform My Mother of your thought. But do not come there. Remain where you are and continue to work for Me. Now more than previously. Your brothers, the disciples, need the work of everybody to propagate My doctrine. You have seen Me. Mary is entrusted to John. Do not worry any more. You will be able to fortify your spirit with the certainty of having seen Me and with the power of My blessing.» Syntyche is longing to kiss Him. But she dare not. Jesus says to her: «Come.» And she dares to drag herself on her knees close to Jesus and makes the gesture of kissing His feet. But she sees the two wounds and dare not. She takes the hem of His tunic and kisses it weeping. And she whispers: «What they have done to You!» Then she asks a question: «And John-Felix?» «He is happy. He remembers nothing but love and lives in it. Peace to you, Syntyche.» He disappears. The woman remains in her adoring attitude, on her knees, her face raised, her hands stretched out a little, tears on her face, a smile on her lips...

XV. To Zacharias, the Levite. 29 He is in a small room. Zacharias, the Levite, is pensive. He is sitting, with his head reclined on one of his hands. «Do not be in doubt. Do not listen to the voices that upset you. I am the Truth and the Life. Look at Me. Touch Me.» The young man, who has looked up at the first words and has seen Jesus, and has fallen on his knees, shouts: «Forgive me, Lord. I have sinned. I received in me the doubt concerning Your truth.» «Those who try to seduce your spirit are more guilty than you are. Do not yield to their temptations. I am a real living body. Feel the weight and the warmth, the solidity and strength of My hand.» He takes him by the forearm and lifts him with His strength, saying: «Rise and walk in the ways of the Lord, out of doubt and fear. And you will be blessed if you can persevere till the end.» He blesses him and disappears. The young man, after a moment's dumbfounded amazement, runs out of the room shouting: «Mother! Father! I have seen the Master. It is not true what the others say! I was not mad. Do not persist in believing falsehood, but bless the Most High with me, as He has had mercy on His servant. I am going away. I am going to Galilee. I will find some of His disciples. I am going to tell them to believe that He has really risen.» He does not take a sack with food and garments. He puts on his mantle and runs away, without giving his parents time to recover from their amazement and to be able to intervene to hold him back.

XVI. To a woman of the Sharon plain. 30 A coast road. Perhaps the one that links Caesarea to Joppa, or another one. I do not know. I know that I see a country on one side and the sea on the opposite side, a deepblue sea beyond the yellowish line of the shore. The road is certainly a Roman thoroughfare, as is evidenced by its paving. A woman in tears is going along it in the early hours of a clear morning. The day has just dawned. The woman must be very tired, because now and again she stops and sits down on a milestone or on the road. Then she gets up and proceeds, as if something were urging her to go on, notwithstanding her great tiredness. Jesus, a wayfarer enveloped in a mantle, sets off beside her. The woman does not look at Him. She proceeds absorbed in her grief. Jesus asks her: «Why are you weeping, woman? Where are you coming from? And where are you going all alone?» «I am coming from Jerusalem and I am going back home.» «Far?» «Half way between Joppa and Caesarea.» «On foot?» «In the valley, before Modin, some highwaymen took my donkey and what was on it.» «It was unwise of you to go all alone. It is not customary to come by oneself at Passover.» «I did not come for Passover. I remained at home, because I have, and I hope I still have him, a boy who is ill. My husband had gone with other people. I let him go ahead and four days later I set off. Because I said: "He is certainly in Jerusalem for Passover. I will look for Him." I was somewhat afraid. But I said: "I am not doing anything wrong. God sees. I believe. I know that He is good. He will not reject me, because..."» She stops, as if she were frightened, and casts a quick glance at the man who is walking beside her, and who is so covered up that one can hardly see his eyes, the unmistakable eyes of Jesus.

31 «Why have you become silent? You are afraid of Me. Do you think that I am an enemy of Him Whom you were looking for? Because you were looking for the Master of Nazareth, to ask Him to come to your house and cure the boy while your husband was away...» «I see that you are a prophet. It is so. But when I arrived in town, the Master was dead.» Tears choke her... «He has risen. Do you not believe it?» «I know. I believe it. But I... But I... For some days I hoped to see Him myself... They say that He has shown Himself to some people. And I delayed my departure... every day a torture, because... my boy is so ill... my heart was divided... whether I should go to comfort him at his death... or stay looking for the Master... I did not expect Him to come to my house, but to promise to cure him.» «And would you have believed? Do you think that from afar?...» «I believe. Oh! if He had said to me: "Go in peace. Your son will recover", I should not have doubted. But I do not deserve it, because...» she weeps, pressing her veil against her lips, so as to be prevented from speaking. «Because your husband is one of the accusers and crucifiers of Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ is the Messiah. He is God. And God is just, woman. He does not punish an innocent person because of a guilty one. He does not torture a mother because a father is a sinner. Jesus Christ is Mercy alive...» «Oh! are you perhaps one of His apostles? Perhaps you know where He is? You... Perhaps He sent you to me to tell me this. He has heard, He has seen my grief, my faith, and He has sent you to me as the Most High sent the archangel Raphael to Tobias. Tell me whether it is so, and although I am so tired as to be feverish, I will retrace my steps to look for the Lord.» «I am not an apostle. But the apostles have remained in Jerusalem for many days after His Resurrection...» «That is true. I could have asked them.» «So. They continue the Master.» «I did not think they could work miracles.» «They have still worked them...» «But now... I was told that one only remained faithful, and I did not think...»

«Yes. Your husband told you so, sneering at you in his frenzy of false triumpher. But I tell you that man can sin, because God alone is perfect. And he can repent. And if he does repent, his strength grows, and God increases His graces in him for his contrition. Did the Most High Lord not forgive David?» 32 «But who are you? Who are you who speak so gently and wisely, if you are not an apostle? An angel perhaps? The angel of my child. He has perhaps breathed his last and you have come to prepare me...»

Jesus lets His mantle fall off His head and face, and passing from the humble aspect of a common pilgrim to His magnificence of God-Man, risen from the dead, with kind solemnity He says: «It is I. The Messiah crucified in vain. I am the Resurrection and the Life. Go, woman. Your son lives, because I have rewarded your faith. Your son is cured. Because, if the Rabbi of Nazareth has finished His mission, the Immanuel continues His until the end of time for all those who have faith, hope and charity in the One and Trine God, of Whom the incarnate Word is one Person, Who through divine love left Heaven to come to teach, to suffer, to die in order to give the Life to men. Go in peace, woman. And be strong in faith, because the time has come when in a family the husband will be against his wife, the father against his sons, and these against him, out of hatred or love for Me. But blessed are those whom persecution will not tear away from My Way.» He blesses her and disappears.
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Xavier

About a year before His death, Jesus had inspired many prophets and prophetesses to warn the people of Israel about what was to come, and try to save them.

One such was Sabea, a daughter of Aaron, the priestly class in Israel. From Volume 4, Vision 523, Sabea of Bethlechi: ..."Her voice becomes loud again and imperious like a command: « Look at your King, o people of God! Become acquainted with His Face! The Beauty of God is before you! The Wisdom of God has taken a mouth to teach you. It is no longer the prophets, o people of Israel, who speak to you of the Unnamable One. It is He Himself. He, Who knows the mystery that is God, speaks to you of God. He Who knows the thought of God Who presses you to His bosom, o people who are still a baby after so many centuries, and nourishes you with the milk of God's Wisdom to make you an adult in God. To do that He has become incarnate in a womb. In the womb of an Israelite woman, greater in the eyes of God and of men than any other woman.

She stole the heart of God with one only of Her throbs of a dove. The beauty of Her spirit fascinated the Most High and of Her He made His throne. Miriam of Aaron sinned because sin was in her. Deborah decided what was to be done, but she did not act with her own hands. Jael was strong, but she soiled her hands with blood. Judith was just and she feared the Lord, and God was in her words and allowed her the deed that Israel might be saved, but for the love of her country she made use of murderous cunning. But the Woman Who generated Him exceeds those women because She is the perfect Maid of God and serves Him without sinning. Entirely pure, innocent and beautiful, She is the beautiful Star of God, from its rising to its setting. Entirely beautiful, shining and pure to be Star and Moon, Light to men to find God. She does not precede and does not follow the holy Ark as Miriam of Aaron did, because She is the Ark Herself.

On the muddy water of the Earth covered with the flood of sins, She sails and saves, because those who enter in Her find the Lord. Spotless dove She goes out and brings the olive-branch, the branch of peace to men, because She is the beautiful Olive-tree. She is silent and in Her silence She speaks and acts more than Deborah, Jael and Judith and She does not advise to fight, She does not urge to slaughter, She sheds no blood but Her own most chosen blood, with which She made Her Son. Unhappy Mother! Sublime Mother ...

this woman says that God descended into Her!...» says another scandalised scribe and his accomplices aid and abet him. Jesus says, without looking at anybody in the face, He seems to be speaking to Himself: « "The Woman will crush the head of the Serpent... The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son Who will be called Immanuel... A shoot will spring from the stock of Jesse, a flower will come up from this root and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him". That Woman. My Mother. Scribe, out of respect for your knowledge, remember and understand the words of the Book.» The scribes do not know what to reply. They have read those words thousands of times and said that they were true. Can they now deny it? They keep quiet ...

Then she becomes silent all of a sudden. She looks round, for the first time since she began to speak, at those surrounding Jesus, and she stares at the scribes as if it were the first time she saw them, and without any apparent reason tears well up in her large eyes and her face becomes sad and dull. She speaks slowly now and in a deep voice like one relating sorrowful things: « No. There is who resists You! O people, listen! After my grief, o people of Bethlechi, you have heard me speak. After years of silence and grief I heard and I said what I had heard. Now I am no longer in the green woods of Bethlechi, a virgin widow who finds her only peace in the Lord. I have not around me only my fellow-citizens to say to them: "Let us fear the Lord because the hour has come when we must be ready for His call. Let us clothe our hearts with beautiful garments in order not to be unworthy of being in His presence. Let us gird ourselves with strength because the hour of the Christ is an hour of trial. Let us purify ourselves like victims for the altar, so that we may be received by Him who sends the Christ. Let those who are good become better. Let those who are proud become humble. Let thus who suffer from lust divest themselves of their flesh to be able to follow the Lamb. Let the miser become a benefactor because God assists us through His Messiah, and let everybody practise justice in order to belong to the people of the Blessed One Who is coming". Now I am speaking before Him and before those who believe in Him, and also before those who do not believe and scoff at the Holy One and at those who speak and believe in His Name and in Him. But I am not afraid.

You say that I am mad, you say that a demon speaks in me. I am aware that you could have me stoned as a blasphemer. I know that what I am going to tell you will sound like an insult and blasphemy, and that you will hate me. But I am not afraid. Being perhaps the last of the voices that speak of Him before His Manifestation, I may follow the lot of many more voices, and I am not afraid. The exile in the cold and solitude of the Earth is too long for those who think of the bosom of Abraham, of the Kingdom of God that the Christ opens to us and is holier than the holy bosom of Abraham. Sabea of Carmel of the stock of Aaron is not afraid of death. But she fears the Lord. And she speaks when He makes her speak in order not to disobey His will. And she speaks the truth because she speaks of God with the words given to her by God. I do not fear death, even if you call me a demon and you have me stoned as a blasphemer, even if my father, mother and brothers should die because of such disgrace, I shall not tremble with fear or pain. I know that the demon is not in me, because all wicked incentives are inert in me, and the whole of Bethlechi knows that. I know that the interruption that stones may cause to my song will be shorter than a sigh, and afterwards more breath will be given to my song in the freedom beyond the Earth. I know that the grief of my kinsfolk will be comforted by God, and it will be short, whereas their joy of martyr relatives of a martyr will be eternal. I am not afraid of your death, but of that which would come to me from God, if I did not obey. And I speak. And I say what I have been told. O people, listen, and you too, o scribes of Israel, listen.»

9 She raises her sorrowful voice again and says: « A voice, a voice comes from high above and shouts in my heart. It says: "The ancient People of God cannot sing the new hymn, because it does not love its Saviour. The new hymn will be sung by those saved in every country, those of the new People of the Christ Lord, not those who hate My Word"... Horror! (she really utters a cry that makes one shudder). The voice gives light, the light gives sight! Horror! I see!» Her shout is almost a howl. She writhes as if she were held firm before a dreadful sight torturing her heart, and she were trying to put an end to it by running away. Her mantle slips off her shoulders, and she is left in her white dress against the huge dark trunk. In the light fading slowly in the reflected green of the wood and in the reddish dancing reflection of the flames, her face becomes tremendously tragic. Shadows appear under her eyes, around her nostrils, under her lip. It seems a face disfigured by grief. She wrings her hands repeating in a lower voice: « I see! I see!» and she drinks her tears while she continues: « I see the crimes of this people of mine. And I am powerless to stop them. I see the hearts of my fellow-citizens and I am unable to change them. Horror! Horror! ...

« Your face on the ground, in the mud, o Israel, who still know how to love the Lord. Cover yourself with ashes, wrap yourself in sackcloth. For yourself! For them! Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Save yourself! I can see a town rioting and requesting a crime. I hear, I can hear the shouts of those who with hatred invoke blood upon themselves. I can see the Victim being raised in the Passover of Blood and I can see that Blood flowing, and I can hear that Blood cry louder than the blood of Abel, while heaven opens and the earth quakes and the sun grows dark. And that Blood does not cry out for vengeance, but it implores mercy on its murderous People and on us!

Jerusalem!!! Be converted! That Blood! That Blood! A stream! A stream that washes the world curing all evils, cancelling all sins... But for us, for us of Israel, that Blood is fire, for us it is a chisel that engraves the name of deicides and the curse of God on the sons of Jacob. Jerusalem! Have mercy on yourself and on us!...» 

10 « Tell her to be quiet, it's an order!» shout the scribes while the woman sobs covering her face ... No, I will not order her to be silent! On the contrary, that these few people may hear her, and you also may hear her and mend your ways I say to her: "Speak! Speak up, I tell you, in the name of the Lord!" » Jesus is now majestic, He is the powerful Christ of the moments of miracles, with His large magnetic eyes shining like blue stars, made even brighter by the flames of a bonfire which is burning between Him and the woman. The woman instead, overwhelmed by grief, is less regal looking, with her head lowered, her face covered with her hands, and with her dark hair, which has become loose, falling over her shoulders and in front of her, like a mourning veil over her white dress. « Speak up, I tell you. Your sorrowful words are not fruitless. Sabea, of the stock of Aaron, speak up!»
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)