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

11 The woman obeys. But she speaks in a low voice, in fact they all press closer to hear her better. She seems to be speaking to herself, looking towards the river that flows babbling on her right hand side, with the last gleams of the water in the fading light of the day. And she seems to be addressing the river: "O Jordan, sacred river of our fathers, your water is sky-blue and wavy like precious byssus, and you reflect the pure stars and the pale moon in it, and you caress the willows on your banks, and you are the river of peace and yet you know so much sorrow; o Jordan, in stormy times with your swollen agitated waves you carry the sand of a thousand torrents and at times you tear away a tender shrub on which there is a nest and you carry it away vortically towards the deadly abyss of the Salt Sea, and you have no mercy on the pair of birds, which screeching with pain fly following their nest, destroyed by your robbery; thus, o sacred Jordan, you will see the people, that did not want the Messiah, go towards its ruin, struck by divine wrath, torn away from their homes and from the altar, and perish on the greatest death.

My people, save yourselves! Believe in your Lord! Follow your Messiah! Recognise Him for what He is. Not the king of peoples and armies. He is the King of souls, of your souls, of all souls. He descended to gather the just souls, He will ascend again to lead them to the eternal Kingdom. O you, who are still able to love, press round the Holy One! O you, who have the destiny of our Fatherland at heart, join the Saviour! Let not all the offspring of Abraham die! Shun the false prophets who with lying mouths and rapacious hearts want to tear you away from Salvation. Come out of the darkness rising around you. Listen to the voice of God!

In the decree of God, the mighty ones of whom you are now afraid, are already dust. One only is the Living Being. The places in which they reign and from which they oppress people, are already in ruin. One only is lasting. Jerusalem! Where are the proud sons of Zion of whom you boast? Where the rabbis and the priests with whom you adorn yourself and whom you regard with respect? Look at them! Oppressed, in chains, they are going towards their places of exile, among the ruins of your buildings, among and the dead bodies of those who were slaughtered or died of starvation. The fury of God is upon you, Jerusalem, who reject your Messiah and strike His face and heart. All your beauty has been destroyed. Every hope of yours is dead. The Temple and the altar are desecrated......because he no longer reigns. There is another, an eternal Pontiff, and He is holy, and has been sent by God: King and Priest for ever, sent by Him Who considers as given to Himself the offences given to the Christ and avenges them. Another Pontiff. The True Holy Pontiff, Anointed by God and by His Sacrifice, in the place of those on whose heads the tiara is a dishonour as it covers horrible thoughts!...»

He had come to bring you light. And you waged war against Him... Health. And you sneered at Him... Love. And you hated Him... Miracles. And you said He was a demon... His hands cured your sick people. And you pierced them. He brought you the Light. And you spat on His face and covered it with filth. He brought you Life. And you killed Him. Israel, grieve over your fault and do not curse the Lord, while you are going into the exile, that will not come to an end as the exiles of the past. You will roam all over the Earth, Israel, as a defeated cursed people, pursued by the voice of God with the same words spoken to Cain. And you will not be able to come back here and build a solid home, unless you acknowledge with the other peoples that this is Jesus, the Christ, the Lord Son of the Lord...» The woman's voice is thin with pain and fatigue, as tired as the voice of one who is dying. But she does not refrain from speaking, on the contrary, she takes courage again for a last command: « Lie down, people who do not yet know how to love. Roll in ashes, wrap yourself in sackcloth. The fury of God is hanging over us like a cloud laden with hailstones and lightning over a cursed field.» The woman collapses on her knees, her arms stretched out towards Jesus, and she shouts: « Peace, peace, o King of justice and of peace! Peace, o great and mighty Adonai, Whom not even the Father resists! Implore peace for us, in Your Name, o Jesus, Saviour and Messiah, Redeemer and King, and God, three times holy!» and shaken by sobs, she falls to the ground with her face on the grass ...

the prophetic spirit is not subject to orders, o scribe. It comes from God, and God cannot be bought over or frightened » says Jesus changing tone. It is the beginning of His counter-attack. « But this woman is not a prophetess. 13 It is no longer the time for prophets.» « It is no longer the time for prophets? Why not?» « Because we do not deserve them. We are too corrupt.»

« Really? And you say so? A short while ago you judged her to be worthy of punishment because she said the same thing?» The scribe is disconcerted. Another scribe comes to his rescue saying: « The time of prophets ended with John. They are of no use any more.» « Why?» « Because You are here to tell us the Law and to speak to us of God.» « Also in the days of the prophets there was the Law and Wisdom spoke of God. And yet they were there, too.» « But what did they prophesy? Your coming. Since You have come, they do not serve any more.»

« Hundreds of times I have heard you, the priests and the Pharisees ask Me whether I was the Christ or not, and because I affirmed it, I was said to be a blasphemer and a madman, and you picked up stones to throw them at Me ... you, exactly you, have always been the first, at Giscala and in the Temple, to stir up violence against Me. But I forgive you. I remind you only that you did so saying that I could not be the Christ, whereas now you maintain it. And I remind you also of the challenge I issued to you at Kedesh. You will shortly see part of it being fulfilled ... You will have the second when the corn, which is now sleeping in the earth, will shake its still green ears in the breeze of Nisan. But to those who say that the prophets are useless, I reply: "And who will put limits to the Most High Lord?"

I solemnly tell you that there will always be prophets as long as there are men. They are torches in the darkness of the world. They are the fireplaces among the ice of the world. They are the blares of trumpets that will awake drowsy people. They are the voices that remind men of God and of His truth, forgotten and neglected through time, and they bring the voice of God directly to man, arousing thrills of emotion in the forgetful listless children of man. They will have other names, but the same mission and the same destiny of human sorrow and superhuman enjoyment! Woe to men if there were no such spirits whom the world will hate and God will love dearly!

Woe to men if they did not exist to suffer and forgive, to love and work obeying the Lord! The world would perish in darkness, frozen in deadly drowsiness, in idiocy, in wild brutal ignorance. God will therefore give rise to them, and there will always be some of them. And who can order God not to do so? You, Sadoc? or you? or you? I solemnly tell you that not even the spirits of Abraham, Jacob and Moses, of Elijah and Elisha could impose such a limitation on God, and God only knows how holy they were and what eternal lights they are.»
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

St. Thomas concurs on prophecy, saying the Lord sends prophets with the prophetic Spirit in every age, not to make any new declaration of doctrine on faith, but for the direction of human acts: "The prophets who foretold the coming of Christ could not continue further than John, who with his finger pointed to Christ actually present. Nevertheless as Jerome says on this passage, "This does not mean that there were no more prophets after John. For we read in the Acts of the Apostles that Agabus and the four maidens, daughters of Philip, prophesied." John, too, wrote a prophetic book about the end of the Church; and at all times there have not been lacking persons having the spirit of prophecy, not indeed for the declaration of any new doctrine of faith, but for the direction of human acts. Thus Augustine says (De Civ. Dei v, 26) that "the emperor Theodosius sent to John who dwelt in the Egyptian desert, and whom he knew by his ever-increasing fame to be endowed with the prophetic spirit: and from him he received a message assuring him of victory." http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3174.htm

« God created Me when His purpose first unfolded ». (Prov. 8, 22.) Our Lord explains Wisdom in the Wisdom books, Sirach, Proverbs etc often refers to Mother Mary. At Pentecost, we meditate also on what St. Maximillian Maria Kolbe taught us, that Mary is like the visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit, She is Created Love as He is Uncreated Love, She is the Immaculate Conception as He is also.

"In the union of the Holy Spirit with her, not only does love bind these two beings, but the first of them [the Holy Spirit] is all the love of the Most Holy Trinity, while the second [the Blessed Virgin Mary] is all the love of creation, and thus in that union heaven is joined to earth, the whole heaven with the whole earth, the whole of Uncreated Love with the whole of created love: this is the vertex of love ... What kind of union is this? It is above all interior; it is the union of her very being with the being of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in her, lives in her, from the first instant of her existence, and he will do so always, throughout eternity... This uncreated Immaculate Conception conceives divine life immaculately in the soul of Mary, his Immaculate Conception. The virginal womb of her body, too, is reserved for him who conceives there in time—everything material comes about according to time—the divine life of the God-Man.7" https://saintmaximiliankolbe.com/who-are-you-o-immaculate-conception/ Please see also: https://saintmaximiliankolbe.com/the-immaculate-mediatrix-of-divine-love/ All that the Holy Spirit is and has in eternity, He has given in time to Mary, Mediatrix of Love and Grace.

1. Introduction. 22nd August 1944. Jesus orders me: « Take a completely new notebook. Write down on the first page what I dictated on August the 16th. She will be spoken of in this book. » I obey and I write. -----------------

16th August 1944. Jesus says: « Today write only this. Purity has such a value, that the womb of a creature can contain the Uncontainable One, because She possessed the greatest purity that a creature of God could have. The Most Holy Trinity descended with Its perfections, inhabited with Its Three Persons, enclosed Its infinity in a small space. But It did not debase Itself by doing so, because the love of the Virgin and the will of God widened this space until they rendered it a Heaven. And the Most Holy Trinity made Itself known by Its characteristics: The Father, being once again the Creator of the creature, as on the sixth day of Creation, had a real, worthy daughter fashioned to His perfect image.

The mark of God was impressed so completely and exactly on Mary, that only in the Firstborn was it greater. Mary can be called the Second-born of the Father because, owing to the perfection granted to Her and preserved by Her, and to Her dignity of Spouse and Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, She comes second after the Son of the Father and second in His eternal thought, which ab aeterno took delight in Her. The Son, being also "Her Son", did teach Her, by the mystery of Grace, His truth and wisdom, when He was but an Embryo, growing in Her womb.

The Holy Spirit appeared amongst men, for an anticipated prolonged Pentecost: Love for "Her Whom He loved", Consolation to men because of the Fruit of Her Womb, Sanctification on account of the Maternity of the Holy One. God, to reveal Himself to men in the new and complete form, which starts the Redemption era, did not select for His throne a star in the sky, nor the palace of a powerful man. Neither did He want the wings of angels as the base of His feet. He wanted a spotless womb. Also Eve had been created spotless. But she wanted to become corrupt of her own free will. Mary, Who lived in a corrupt world – Eve was in a pure world – did not wish to violate Her purity, not even with one thought remotely connected with sin. She knew that sin exists. She saw its various and horrible forms and implications. She saw them all, including the most hideous one: Deicide. But She knew them solely to expiate them and to be, forever, the Woman who has mercy on sinners and prays for their redemption. This thought will be the introduction to other holy things that I will give for your benefit and the welfare of many people. »


St. Maximillian says of the Immaculata: "We must constantly strengthen the love for the Immaculata in souls, tighten the bond of love that exists between her and souls, so that they may become one with her—become her herself; so that She herself may live and love (act) in them and through them. Just as she is of Jesus and of God, so each soul will become of Jesus and of God through her and in her, in a much more perfect way than either without her or not through her, if that were even possible.

Then souls will love the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as they have never loved Him before, because, like her, and in ways they have never experienced before, they will plunge into the mysteries of Love: the Cross and the Eucharist. Through her, God's Love shall kindle the world, set it on fire, and lead to the "assumption" of souls through Love.[22]"
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 Lord Jesus continues His post-Resurrection appearances to various people, strengthening them to bear witness to His Resurrection.

XVII. To some shepherds on the Great Hermon. 33 A group of herds and shepherds. They have stopped on some slopes with wonderful pastures. And they are speaking of the events of Jerusalem. And they are distressed, saying to one another: «We shall no longer have the friend of shepherds on the Earth», and they recall the many meetings they had with Him here or there... «Meetings» says an old man «that we shall never have again.» Jesus appears as if He were setting foot in that place from behind an entangled wood, where the tall trees are embraced by low bushes that conceal the sight of the path. They do not recognise Him in the solitary man, and seeing Him so enveloped in white garments, they whisper: «Who is it? An Essene? Here? A rich Pharisee?» They are puzzled. Jesus asks them: «Why do you say that you will never meet the Lord again? Because He, of Whom you are speaking, is the Lord.»

«We know. But do you not know what they have done to Him? Now some people say that He has risen, some say that He has not. But even if He has risen, which we prefer to believe, He will have gone away by now. How can He love and remain among people who have crucified Him? And we, who loved Him, even if not everyone had made His acquaintance, are sad because we have lost Him.» «There is still a way to have Him. He taught it.» «Oh! yes. By doing what He taught us. Then one has the Kingdom of God and is with Him. But one must first live and then die. And He is no longer among us to comfort us.» They shake their heads. «My dear children, for those who live what He taught, keeping His teachings in their hearts, it is just the same as if they had Jesus in their hearts. Because Word and Doctrine are one thing only. He was not a Master Who taught things that were not as He was. So, he who does what He said, has Jesus alive in himself and is not separated from Him.» «What you say is correct. But we are poor men and... we want to see also with our eyes to feel our joy properly... I have never seen Him, neither has my son, nor Jacob, nor Melkiah, nor James, nor Saul. See, only among us, how many have not seen Him? We have always looked for Him, but when we arrived, He had left.» «Were you in Jerusalem on that day?» «Oh! we were there! But when we heard what they wanted to do to Him, we ran away like madmen up the mountains, and we went back to town after the Sabbath. We are not guilty of His Blood, because we were not in town. But we did the wrong thing in being cowards. We would at least have seen Him and greeted Him. He would certainly have blessed us for our greetings... But we did not really have the courage to look at Him amid tortures...» «He blesses you now. Look at Him Whose face you wish to know.» He shows Himself, magnificently divine on the green of the meadow. While their amazement throws them on the ground, but glues their eyes to His divine Face, He disappears in a refulgent light.

XVIII. At Sidon, to the little boy born blind. 34 The little boy is playing all alone under a thick pergola. He hears someone call him and he finds himself in front of Jesus. Not in the least frightened, he asks Him: «But are You not the Rabbi Who gave me my eyes?» and he fixes his limpid eyes of a child, of the same blue hue as Jesus', on the divine sparkling eyes. «It is I, My child. Are you not afraid of Me?» He caresses his head.

«No, I am not afraid. But my mother and I have wept very much, when my father came back before the time and he told us that he had run away because they had taken the Rabbi to put Him to death. He did not celebrate Passover and now he has to leave again to celebrate it. So, did You not die?» «I died. Look at My wounds. I died on the cross. But I have risen again. Tell your father to remain for some time in Jerusalem, after the second Passover, and to stay near the Mount of Olives, at Bethphage. He will find there who will tell him what to do.» «My father was thinking of looking for You. At the Feast of the Tabernacles he did not succeed in speaking to You. He wanted to tell You that he loves You because of the eyes that You have given me. But he was not able to do so, neither then nor now...» «He will do so through his faith in Me. Goodbye, My dear child. Peace to you and to your family.»

XIX. To Johanan's peasants. 35 Johanan's fields kissed by the moon. Dead silence. The poor houses of the peasants, in a sultry night that compels people to keep at least a door open in order not to die stifled by the heat in the low rooms, where too many bodies are crammed in comparison with the capacity of the place. Jesus goes into one large room. The very moon seems to lengthen her beams to form a royal carpet for Him on the floor of beaten earth. He bends over a man who is sleeping, lying face downwards in the heavy sleep of fatigue. He calls him. He passes on to another one, to another one. He calls them all, His poor faithful friends. He passes as lightly and quickly as an angel in flight. He goes into other hovels... Then He goes to wait for them outside, near a group of trees. The peasants, half asleep, come out of their hovels. Two, three, one only, five together, some women. They are surprised that they have all been called like that, by a known voice, that said the same words to everybody: «Come to the apple-orchard». They go there, the men finishing to put on their poor clothes, the women to arrange their plaits, and they speak in low voices. «It sounded like the voice of Jesus of Nazareth to me.» «Perhaps His spirit. They killed Him. Did you hear that?» «I cannot believe it. He was God.» «And yet also Joel saw Him pass under the cross...» «I was told yesterday, while I was waiting for the bailiff to deal with his market business, that some disciples passed through Jezreel and they said that He has really risen.» «Be quiet! You know what the master says. Who says that, gets scourged.» «Is put to death, perhaps. But would it not be better, rather than suffer like this?» «And now He is no longer here!» «And they are even more wicked, now that they have succeeded in killing Him.» «They are wicked, because He has risen.» They speak in low voices while going to the place pointed out to them.

36 «The Lord!» shouts a woman, the first to fall on her knees. «His fantasm!» shout others, and some are afraid. «It is I. Be not afraid. Do not shout. Come forward. It is really I. I have come to confirm your faith, as I know that other people are laying snares for it. See? My Body casts a shadow because it is a real body. You are not dreaming. My voice is a real one. I am the same Jesus Who shared bread with you and gave you love. And also now I give you love. I will send My disciples to you. And it will be still I, because they will give you what I used to give you and what I have given them in order to be able to communicate with those who believe in Me. Bear your crosses, as I bore Mine. Be patient. Forgive. They will tell you how I died. Imitate Me. The way of sorrow is the way to Heaven. Follow it in peace and you will have My Kingdom. There is no other way beside that of resignation to the will of God, of generosity, of charity towards everybody. If there were another one, I should have pointed it out to you. I have come along this one, because it is the just way. Be faithful to the Law of Sinai, which is immutable in its ten commandments, and to My Doctrine. My disciples will come to teach you, so that you may not be abandoned to the intrigues of wicked people. I bless you. Always remember that I have loved you and that I have come to you before and after My glorification. I solemnly tell you that many people would like to see Me now, and they will not see Me. Many mighty people. But I show Myself to those whom I love and who love Me.» A man dares to say: «So... Does the Kingdom of Heaven really exist? Were You really the Messiah? They influence us...» «Do not listen to their words. Remember Mine, and receive those of My disciples who are known to you. They are words of truth. And those who receive them and put them into practice, even if he is a servant or a slave here, will be a citizen and coheir to My Kingdom.» He blesses them stretching out His arms and disappears.

«Oh! I.. I no longer fear anything!» «Neither do I. Did you hear that? There is a place also for us!» «It is necessary to be good!» «To forgive!» «To have patience!» «To be able to resist.» «To look for the disciples.» «He has come to us, poor servants.» «We will tell His apostles.» «If Johanan knew!» «And Doras!» «They would kill us so that we could not speak.» «But we will keep quiet. We will only tell the servants of the Lord.» «Micah, do you not have to go to Sephoris with that load? Why do you not go to Nazareth and tell...» «Whom?» «The Mother. The apostles. They may be with Her...» They go away, whispering their plans.

XX. To Daniel, a relative of Helkai, the Pharisee, with Simon, the member of the Sanhedrin. 37 Helkai, the Pharisee, is discussing with some of his peers what to do with Simon, the member of the Sanhedrin, who became insane on Good Friday and now speaks too much and says too many things. There are various proposals. Some say that he should be isolated in some desert place, where his shouting can be heard only by a very faithful servant, who is of their same mind, some, more benignly, feel sure, as it is a transient illness, that it is sufficient to leave him where he is. Helkai replies: «I brought him here, because I do not know any other place where I can take him. But you know that I mistrust my relative Daniel very much...» Others, who are even more wicked than Helkai, say: «He wants to run away, to go by sea. Why not please him?» «Because he is incapable of orderly actions. All alone at sea he would perish, and none of us is capable of steering a boat.»

«And then! Even if we were! What would happen at the landing-stage, considering what he says? Let him choose the way... In the presence of everybody, also of your relative, let him say what he wants to do, and let it be done as he wishes.» This proposal is approved and Helkai calls a servant and orders him to bring Simon and to call Daniel. They both come and, if Daniel looks like a man who feels ill at ease in the company of certain people, the other looks just like an idiot. «Listen to us, Simon. You say that we are keeping you in prison because we want to kill you...» «You must. Because that is the order.» «You are raving, Simon. Be quiet and listen. Where do you think you would recover your health?» «At sea. At sea. Out in the open sea. Where no voice is heard. Where there are no sepulchres. Because sepulchres open and the dead come out and my mother says...» «Be silent! Listen. We love you. Like one of our blood. Do you really want to go there?» «I certainly do. Because the sepulchres here open up and my mother...» «You will go there. We will take you to the seaside, we will give a boat and you...» «But you are committing a homicide! He is mad! He cannot go by himself!» shouts honest Daniel. «God does not do violence to the will of man. Could we do what God does not do?» «But he is insane! He no longer has a will. He is more foolish than a new-born baby! You cannot!...» «Be silent. You are a farmer and nothing else. We know... Tomorrow we will leave for the sea. Cheer up, Simon. For the sea, do you understand?» «Ah! I shall no longer hear the voices of the Earth! No more the voices... 38 Ah!» a long cry, a delirious agitation, eyes and ears close. And another cry, of Daniel, who runs away terrorised. «Who is it? What is happening? Stop that madman and that fool! Are we all losing our wits?» shouts Helkai. But he whom Helkai calls a "fool", that is his relative Daniel, after running away a few metres, prostrates himself on the ground, whereas the other one froths at the mouth, where he is, in a frightful convulsion, and shouts, shouts: «Make Him be quiet! He is not dead and He shouts and shouts and shouts! More than my mother, more than my father, more than He did on Golgotha! There, there, can you not see there?» He points at the place where Daniel is, placid, smiling, with his face upwards, after being with his face downwards on the ground. Helkai reaches him and shakes him violently, furious as he is, without bothering about Simon, who rolls on the ground and foams, uttering beastly shouts amid all the others who look terrified as they surround him. Helkai says to Daniel: «You visionary idler, will you tell me what you are doing?» «Leave me. Now I know who you are. And I am going away from you. I have seen, benign to me, dreadful to you, Him Who you want me to believe is dead. I am going away. I want to protect my soul rather than money and wealth. Goodbye, you cursed one! And if you can, try to deserve God's forgiveness.» «But where are you going? Where? I do not want!» «Are you entitled to keep me prisoner? Who gave you that right? I leave you what you love and I will follow what I love. Goodbye» he turns his back on him and goes away, as fast as if he were drawn by a superhuman power, down the green slope of olive-trees and orchards. Helkai is livid with rage, and he is not the only one. Rage chokes them all. Helkai threatens to take vengeance upon his relative, upon all those who «with their frenzies», he says, maintain that the Galilean is alive. He wants to say, he wants to do... One, I do not know who it is, says: «We will do, we will do, but we shall not be able to close all the mouths, all the eyes, that speak, because they see. We are defeated! The crime is upon us. Now comes the expiation...» and he beats his breast, seized with such anguish, that he looks like one who is climbing the steps of the scaffold. «The revenge of Jehovah» he also says, and all the age-old terror of Israel resounds in his voice. In the meantime Simon, wounded, frothing at the mouth, frightened, raves shouting like a damned soul: «Parricide, He said to me! Make Him keep quiet! Quiet! Parricide! The same word as my mother's! So do all the dead speak the same words?!...»

XXI. To a Galilean woman. 39 The moon, which is almost on the point of setting, is about to conceal her still thin crescent of a new moon behind the summit of a mountain. And her light is, therefore, very faint, and before long she will no longer shine on the wide country. And yet a wayfarer is on the solitary road, a small road, a path among the fields, more than anything else. He is walking holding a very simple lantern hanging from a ring, one of those which, being as old as the world, I think are generally used by carters to have light at night. As glass was not a common thing – I think it was completely unknown, as I never happened to see any in any house, such as a drinking glass, or a vase, or as a shelter at windows – the flame was protected by something, that could be either mica or parchment. The light that filters is so faint, that it illuminates only a small space around the lantern. But as the moon is completely concealed, the light of the poor lantern seems to grow stronger, forming a clear dancing point in the darkness of the country. The wayfarer walks, walks... Dawn begins to appear in the sky at the extreme horizon. But it is so feeble, at present, that it does not illuminate anything, and the poor lantern is still needed. Another wayfarer, all enveloped in a mantle, is waiting or resting near a little bridge. The one with the lantern, who is making for that bridge, stops in a doubtful attitude. He is uncertain whether he should pass there or go back, where in the gravel-bed of a little torrent, there are large stones that can serve to cross over the little water at the bottom. The one sitting on the rustic parapet, made of the trunk of a tree with a white-green bark still on it, raises his head, watching the one who has stopped. He stands up and says: «Be not afraid of Me. Come forward. I am a good companion, not a highwayman.» It is Jesus. I recognise Him more by His voice than by His appearance, which is veiled by the deep twilight, that the light cannot penetrate as far as Jesus. But the person stops, still doubtful. «Come, woman. Do not be afraid. We shall go together for a stretch of the road and it will be a good thing for you.» The woman, now I know that it is a woman, comes forward, won over by the kindness of the voice or by a mysterious force and she shakes her head as she proceeds, whispering: «There is no more good for me.» 40 They now proceed side by side along the path, which is so wide as to allow only two pedestrians to pass. The advancing dawn shows, on one side of the path, a stiff forest in miniature of ripe corn awaiting the sickle. On the other side the corn has already been cut and is lying in sheaves in the field despoiled of its glory of a ripe harvest. «May they be cursed!» says the woman in a low voice, casting a glance at the sheaves lying in the field. Jesus is silent. The day is advancing. The woman puts out the poor lantern and, to do so, she uncovers her face disfigured by tears. And she raises her head to look eastwards, where a yellow pink line announces the rising of the sun. She shakes her fist eastwards and she says again: «May you be cursed, too!» «The day? God made it. As He made the corn. They are favours of God. They are not to be cursed...» says Jesus kindly.

«And I curse them. I curse the sun and the crops. And I have a reason for that.» «Have they not been good to you for so many years? Did the former not ripen your daily bread, the grapes that change into wine, the vegetables and the fruit of the kitchen garden, did it not make the pastures grow to feed sheep and lambs, on whose milk and meat you fed and with whose wool you wove your garments? And did the corn not give bread to you, to your children, to your father and to your mother, to your husband?» She bursts into tears and shouts: «I no longer have my husband! They have killed him! He went to work as a day-labourer, because we have seven children and the little we have of our own was not sufficient to appease the hunger of ten people. And yesterday evening he came and said: "I am tired and I feel out of sorts" and he threw himself on the little bed, burning with fever. His mother and I assisted him as best we could, as we intended to send for the doctor in town today... But after cock-crow he died. The sun killed him. Yes, I am going to town. To get what is necessary. I will inform his brothers when I come back. I left his mother to watch her son and my children... and I came away to do what is to be done... And should I not curse the burning sun and corn?» So reserved as she was previously, so much so that I would not have thought she was a woman, and above all a distressed one, she has now broken the barriers to her sorrow, which overflows violently. She says what she did not say at home «in order not to wake up the children sleeping in the next room», what weighed so much on her heart as to give her the sensation that it was about to burst. Recollections of love, dismay for the future, grief of a widow, pass confusedly like rubble carried away by the swollen waves of a river in spate... 41 Jesus lets her speak. Because Jesus knows how to pity sorrow, He allows it to give vent to its feelings, so that man may be relieved thereby, and the tiredness itself, that follows the impetuousness of sorrow, may make him capable of understanding who comforts him. He then says kindly: «At Nain and at Nazareth, and in the places between the former and the latter, there are the disciples of the Rabbi of Nazareth. Go to them...» «And what do You expect them to do? If He were still here!... But they? They are not saints! My husband was in Jerusalem on that day. And he knows... Oh! no! He knew! He knows nothing any more! He is dead!» «What did your husband do on that day?» «When the uproar of the street woke him, he ran up to the terrace of the house where he was with his brothers and he saw the Rabbi pass by, as He was taken to the Praetorium, and with other Galileans he followed Him until He died. They pelted him and the others with stones, when they found out that the were Galileans, up there on the mountain, and they repelled them farther down. But they were there until everything was accomplished. Then... they came away... And now he is dead. Oh! if at least I knew that he is at peace because of his compassion for the Rabbi!» Jesus does not reply to that wish. But He says: «He will then have seen that there were some disciples on Golgotha. Were all the Galileans perhaps like your husband?» «Oh! no. Many, also from Nazareth, abused Him. It is known. What a shame!» «So, if many people also from Nazareth showed no love for their Jesus, and yet He has forgiven them, and many will become holy in future, why do you want to judge all the disciples of Christ in the same way? Do you want to be more severe than God is? God grants much to those who forgive...» «The good Rabbi is no longer! here! He is no longer here! And my husband is dead.»

«The Rabbi has given His disciples the power to do what He did.» «I am prepared to believe that. But He alone could defeat death. He alone!» «And do we not read that Elijah gave the spirit back to the son of the widow of Zarephath? I solemnly tell you that Elijah was a great prophet, but the servants of the Saviour, Who died and has risen because He was the Son of the true God and became incarnate to redeem men, have even a greater power, because on the Cross He forgave them their sins, and they were the first to be forgiven, as He was aware, through divine wisdom, of the true sorrow of their contrite spirits, He sanctified them after His resurrection forgiving them again, and He infused the Holy Spirit into them, so that they could represent Me worthily both with their words and their deeds, and the world might not remain desolate after My departure from it.»

42 The woman steps back livelily, dumbfounded. She throws her veil back to look at her companion. But she does not recognise Him. She thinks that she has misunderstood. But she dare not speak any more... «Are you afraid of Me? First you thought that I was a highwayman ready to snatch the money you have in your breast and serves to buy what is necessary for the burial. And you were afraid. Are you now afraid to know that I am Jesus? And is Jesus not the One Who gives and does not take? He Who saves and does not ruin? Go back, woman. I am the Resurrection and the Life. Sudarium and spices are not necessary for him who is not dead, who is no longer dead, because I am He Who defeats death and rewards who has faith. Go! Go home! Your husband is alive. Not one faith in Me is left without reward.» He makes the gesture of blessing her and going away. The woman comes out of her petrification. She does not ask, she does not doubt...

Nothing. She falls on her knees, adoring. Then, at last, she opens her mouth and, searching in her breast, she pulls out a small purse, the poor purse of poor people, to whom misery forbids solemn honours for their dead relatives, and offering her purse she says: «I have nothing else... nothing else to tell You my gratitude, to honour You, to...» «I no longer need money, woman. You will take it to My apostles.» «Oh! yes. I will go to them with my husband... But what can I give You, my Lord? What? You appeared to me... this miracle... and I did not recognise You... and I so upset... yes, unjust even with things...» «Yes. And you did not think that they are because I am, and that everything that God made is good. If there had been no sun, if there had been no corn, you would not have had the present grace.» «But how much sorrow!...» The woman weeps remembering it. Jesus smiles and shows His hands saying: «This is the least part of My sorrow. And I consumed it all, without complaining, for your welfare.» The woman stoops to the ground to confess: «It is true. Forgive my lament.» 43 Jesus disappears in His light, and when she looks up she sees that she is alone. She stands up, looks round. Nothing can prevent her from seeing, because it is broad daylight, and there is nothing but fields of crops around. The woman says to herself: «And yet I have not dreamt!» Perhaps the demon tempts her to make her doubt, because she is in a state of uncertainty for a moment, while she weighs her purse in her hands. But then faith triumphs, and she turns her back to the place where she was going, retracing her steps, as fast as if the winds were carrying her without making her fatigue, her face shining with a joy which is greater than any human joy, so peaceful it is. Now and again she repeats: «How good is the Lord. He is really God! He is God! Blessed be the Most High and He Whom He sent.»

She cannot say anything else. And her litany mingles with the singing of birds. The woman is so absorbed that she does not hear the greetings of some reapers who see her pass by and ask her where is she coming from at that early hour... One joins her and says to her: «Is Mark better? Have you been for the doctor?» «Mark died at cock-crow and has risen from the dead. Because the Messiah of the Lord has done that» she replies, walking fast all the time. «Sorrow has made her insane!» whispers the man, and he shakes his head joining his companions, who have begun to cut the corn. The fields are filling with more and more people. But curiosity overwhelms many who decide to follow the woman, who quickens her steps more and more. She goes on. There is a very poor house, low, solitary, lost in the country. She directs her steps towards it, pressing her hands against her heart. She goes in. But as soon as she sets foot in it, an old woman throws herself in her arms shouting: «Oh! my daughter, what a grace of the Lord! Take heart, daughter, because what I have to tell you is so great, so happy, that...» «I know, mother. Mark is no longer dead. Where is he?» «You know... How?» «I met the Lord. I did not recognise Him, but He spoke to me and when it pleased Him, He said to me: "Your husband lives." But here... when?» «I had just opened the window, and I was looking at the first sunbeam on the fig-tree. Yes, just so. The first beam touched the fig-tree then, against the room... when I heard a deep sigh, like that of one who wakes up. I turned round frightened and I saw Mark sit up and throw behind him the sheet that I had laid on his face, and look up with a face, a face... Then he looked at me and said: "Mother! I am cured!" I... I almost died myself, and he assisted me, and he realised that he had been dead. He does not remember anything. He says that he remembers up to the moment we put him to bed, and then nothing else till he saw an angel, a kind of angel who looked like the Rabbi of Nazareth and who said to him: "Rise!" And he rose. Just when the sun had completely risen.» «Just when He said to me: "Your husband lives." Oh! mother, what a grace! How much God has loved us!» 44 Those who come in find them embraced, weeping. And they think that Mark is dead and that his wife, in a moment of clearness of mind, has realised her misfortune. But Mark, upon hearing the voices, appears, looking serene, with a child in his arms, and the others holding on his tunic, and he says in a loud voice: «Here I am. Let us bless the Lord!» The newcomers beset him with questions, and as is usual with human things, discrepancies arise. Some believe in a real resurrection, and some, the majority, say that he had only fallen into a torpor, but he had not died. Some admit that Christ has appeared to Rachel and some say that it is a lot of nonsense, because some say: «He is dead» and some: «He has risen, but He is so indignant, He must be, that He works no more miracles for His murderous people.» «You can say what you like» says the man losing his patience «and say it where you like. As long as you do not say it here, where the Lord has raised me from the dead. And go away, o unfortunate people! And may Heaven enlighten your heads so that you may believe. But go away now and leave us in peace.» He drives them out and closes the door. He presses his wife and mother to his heart and says:

«Nazareth is not far. I am going there to proclaim the miracle.» «That is what the Lord wants, Mark. We will take this money to His disciples. Let us go and bless the Lord. Just as we are. We are poor, but He also was poor, and His apostles will not despise us.» She busies herself tying the laces of the children's sandals, while her mother puts some provisions in a bag and closes doors and windows, and Mark goes to do I do not know what. They go out when they are ready and walk fast, the little ones in their arms, the others happy and somewhat bewildered, eastwards, towards Nazareth, obviously. Perhaps this place is still in the Esdraelon plain, but in a different part than that of Johanan's estate.
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

629. Jesus Appears on the Shores of the Lake. The Mission Conferred to Peter. 19th April 1947. 1 A calm sultry night. There is not a breath of wind. The stars, large and throbbing, crowd the clear sky. The lake, so calm and still, as to look like a very large basin sheltered from winds, reflects with its surface the glory of that sky that palpitates with stars. The trees along the shores form a block with no rustling. The lake is so calm that its surge on the shore is reduced to a very light lapping. Some boats off-shore, hardly visible as roaming forms, that at times place little stars at a short distance from the waves, with their tiny lights tied to the masts of the sails, to illuminate the interiors of the small hulls. I do not know which part of the lake it is. I should say the more southern one, where the lake is about to become a river again. At the outskirts of Tarichea, I should say, not because I can see the town, which is hidden by a group of trees, that stretch on the lake forming a little hilly promontory, but because I am led to think so by the little stars of the lights of the boats, that move away northwards, when they depart from the shores of the lake. I say outskirts, because there is a little group of poor houses gathered there at the foot of the little promontory, but they are so few that they cannot even be considered a village. They are poor houses, almost on the shore, certainly of fishermen. Some boats are beached on the little shore; others are already prepared to sail, in the water, near the shore, and they are so still as to seem fixed to the ground, instead of floating.

2 Peter puts his head out of a hovel. The flickering light of a fire lit in the smoky kitchen illuminates the sturdy figure of the apostle from behind, making it show up like a drawing. He looks at the sky, he looks at the lake... He comes forward, as far as the edge of the shore. Then – he is wearing a short tunic and is bare-footed – he paddles in the water up to half his thigh, and stretching out his brawny arm, he caresses the gunwale of a boat. Zebedee's sons join him. «Lovely night.» «It will soon be moonlight.» «Fishing night.» «But with oars.» «There is no wind.» «What shall we do?» They speak slowly, with detached sentences, like men accustomed to fishing and to the manoeuvres of sails and nets, for which attention is required and so, few words. «We ought to go. We could sell part of the catch.» Andrew, Thomas and Bartholomew come and join them on the shore. «What a warm night!» exclaims Bartholomew. «Will there be a storm? Do you remember that night?» asks Thomas. «Oh! no! Calm, fog perhaps, but no storm. I... I am going fishing. Who is coming with me?» «We are all coming. Perhaps it will be cooler out there» says Thomas, who is perspiring, and he adds: «The woman needed that fire, but it was like being at the hot baths...» «I am going to tell Simon. He is all alone over there» says John. 3 Peter is already preparing the boat with Andrew and James. «Shall we go as far as our house? A surprise for my mother...» asks James. «No. I do not know whether I can get Marjiam to come. Before... before... Well, yes! Before going to Jerusalem – we were still at Ephraim – the Lord told me that He wanted to celebrate the second Passover with Marjiam. But later He has not said anything to me.

«I think He said that He would» says Andrew. «Yes. The second Passover, yes. But I do not know whether He wants the boy to come here first. I have made so many mistakes that... Oh! are you coming, too?» «Yes, Simon of Jonah. This fishing will remind me of many things...» «Eh! it will remind everybody of many things... Things that will never come back again... We used to go out on the lake with the Master in this boat... And I loved it as if it were a royal palace, and I thought I could not live without it. But now that He is no longer here, well, I am in the boat and I do not enjoy it» says Peter. «No one has the joy of past things. It no longer is the same life. And also in looking back... between the hours of the past and the present ones there is always that dreadful period of time...» says Bartholomew with a sigh. «We are ready. Come. You at the rudder and we at the oars. We are going towards the bend of Hippos. It is a good spot. Pull-ho! Pull-ho!» Peter sets the rate and the boat slides on the calm water, with Bartholomew at the rudder. Thomas and the Zealot act as servants ready to cast the net, which they have already spread out. The moon rises, that is, she is over the mountains of Gadara (if I am not mistaken) or Gamala, that is, the ones on the eastern shore towards the south of the lake, and the lake is illuminated by her rays that trace a road of diamonds on the still water. «She will be with us until morning.» «If there is no mist.» «The fish leave the bottom attracted by the moon.» «If we have a good catch, it will be a blessing, because we have no more money. We will buy bread and will take fish and bread to those who are up the mountain.» Words uttered slowly, with long pauses between one voice and the next one. «You row very well, Simon. You have not lost the stroke!...» says the Zealot admiring him. «Yes... 4 Damn!» «What is the matter with you?» the others ask him. «The... The matter is that the recollection of that man haunts me everywhere. I remember that day when in two boats we competed to see who was the best oarsman, and he...» «I instead was thinking that one of the first times that I had the vision of his abyss of wickedness, was when we met, or rather, we came into collision with the boats of the Romans. Do you remember?» says the Zealot. «Eh! we do remember! However!... He defended him... and we... what with the defensive attitude of the Master, what with the double-dealing of... of our companion, we never clearly understood...» says Thomas. «H'm! I more than once... But He would say: "Do not judge, Simon!"» «Thaddeus always suspected him.» «What I cannot believe is that this fellow here never knew anything about it» says James, poking his brother in the ribs. But John, bending his head, is silent. «Now he can speak...» says Thomas. «I am trying to forget. That is what I have been ordered. Why do you want me to disobey?» «You are right. Let us leave him alone» says the Zealot defending him. 5 «Cast the net. Slowly. Row. Row slowly. Turn to port, Bartholomew. Haul. Veer. Haul. Veer. Is the net spread? Is it? Oars up and let us wait» orders Peter. How beautiful is the placid lake in the peace of the night, kissed by the moon! So pure that it is paradisiac. The moon from the sky is fully reflected in it and gives it the appearance of diamonds, her phosphorescence quivers on the hills, it discloses them and makes the towns on the shores as white as snow... Now and again they haul the net. A cascade of diamonds playing arpeggios on the silver of the lake. It is empty. They cast it again. They change place. No luck... Hours go by. The moon sets, while the light of dawn begins to appear, uncertain, green-blue... A heat mist steams towards the shores, particularly towards the southern end of the lake. Tiberias is veiled with it, and Tarichea is also veiled with it. A low fog, not dense, that will melt in the early sun. In order to avoid it they prefer to go along the eastern side, where it is less dense, whilst to the west, as it comes from the marsh beyond Tarichea on the right bank of the Jordan, it thickens as if the marsh were steaming. They row carefully to avoid possible dangers of the depth, familiar as they are with the lake.

6 «You, on the boat! Have you anything to eat?» shouts a man's voice from the shore. A voice that makes them start. But they shrug their shoulders, replying in a loud voice: «No»; then they say to one another: «We always seem to be hearing Him!...» «Cast the net on the right-hand side of the boat and you will find them.»

The right-hand side is off-shore. They cast the net, rather perplexedly. Jerks, weight that makes the boat bend on the side where the net hangs. «But that is the Lord!» shouts John. «The Lord, are you sure?» asks Peter. «And do you doubt it? We thought it was His voice, but this is the proof of it. Look at the net! It is like that time! I tell you that it is He! Oh! my Jesus! Where are You?» They all open their eyes wide to see through the veils of fog, after fastening the net safely to drag it in the wake of the boat, as it would be a dangerous manoeuvre to try to hoist it and they row to go back to shore. But Thomas has to take the oar of Peter who, after hurriedly slipping on his short tunic over his very short trousers, the only garment he had on, like that of all the others, except Bartholomew, jumps into the water and swims with vigorous strokes in the calm water, preceding the boat. He is the first to set foot on the desert little beach, where on two stones sheltered by a thorny bush, a fire of dry twigs is gaily blazing. And near the fire, there is Jesus, smiling and benign. «Lord! Lord!» Peter is breathless because of his emotion and is unable to say anything else. Dripping wet, as he is, he dare not even touch the tunic of his Jesus, and prostrated on the sand with his tunic sticking to him, he adores.

7 The boat rubs on the shingly shore and stops. They are all standing, excited with joy... «Bring some of those fish here. The fire is ready. Come and have something to eat.» orders Jesus. Peter runs to the boat and helps the others to heave the net, and he gets hold of three big fish in the wriggling heap, he beats them on the gunwale of the boat to kill them and guts them with his knife. But his hands shake, oh! not with cold! He rinses the fish, he takes them where the fire is and puts them on it, and he watches them cooking. The others are worshipping the Lord, a little away from Him, timorous, as always, of Him Who has risen so divinely powerful. «Here you are. Here is the bread. You have worked all night and you are tired. Now you will take some refreshment. Is it ready, Peter?» «Yes, my Lord» says Peter in a voice that is more hoarse than usual, bent over the fire, and he wipes his eyes, which are wet with tears, as if the smoke made them weep, irritating them and his throat at the same time. But it is not the smoke that is the cause of that voice and of those tears... He takes the fish, which he has laid on a rough leaf, it looks like the leaf of a gourd, handed to him by Andrew after he had rinsed it in the lake. Jesus offers and blesses, He breaks the bread and the fish, making eight portions which He hands out, and He tastes some as well. They eat with the respect with which they would fulfill a rite.

Jesus looks at them and smiles. But He also is silent, until He asks: «Where are the others?» «On the mountain. Where You said. And we came to fish, because we have no more money and we do not want to take advantage of the disciples.» «You are doing the right thing. But from now on, you apostles will stay on the mountain in prayer, edifying the disciples with your example. Send them fishing. It is better for you to remain there in prayer and to listen to those who are in need of advice or may come to give you information. Keep the disciples in a very united group. I will come soon.» «We will do that, Lord.» «Is Marjiam not with you?» «You did not tell me to make him come so soon.» «Make him come. The time of his obedience is over.» «I will make him come, Lord.»

8 There is silence. Then Jesus, Who had been with His head bent a little, thinking, looks up and fixes His eyes on Peter. He looks at him with the glance of the moments when He worked the greatest miracles or was most authoritative. Peter is startled, almost frightened and he withdraws a little... But Jesus, laying a hand on Peter's shoulder, holds him firmly and while holding him so, He asks him: «Simon of Jonah, do you love Me?» «Certainly, Lord! You know that I love You» replies Peter decidedly. «Feed My lambs... Simon of Jonah, do you love Me?» «Yes, my Lord. And You know that I love You.» His voice is not so bold, and he is rather surprised at the repetition of the question. «Feed My lambs... Simon of Jonah, do you love Me?» «Lord... You know everything... You know whether I love You...» Peter's voice trembles, as he is sure of his love, but he is under the impression that Jesus is not sure.

«Feed My sheep. Your treble profession of love has cancelled your treble denial. You are completely pure, Simon of Jonah, and I say to you: put on the pontificals and take the Holiness of the Lord among My flock. Fasten your clothes at your waist and keep them fastened, until from Shepherd you also become lamb. I solemnly tell you that when you were young, you put on your own belt and you went where you liked, but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and somebody else will put a belt round you and will take you where you would rather not go. But now it is I Who say to you: "Gird yourself and follow Me on My own way." 9 Stand up and come.» Jesus stands up and Peter stands up going towards the shore, and the others begin to put out the fire smothering it under the sand. But John, after picking up the remains of the bread, follows Jesus. Peter hears the shuffling of steps and turns round. He sees John, and pointing him out to Jesus, he asks: «And what will happen to him?» «If I want him to stay until I come back, what does it matter to you? You are to follow Me.» They are on the shore. Peter would like to go on speaking, but Jesus' majesty and the words he has heard detain him. He kneels down, imitated by the others and adores. Jesus blesses them and dismisses them. They get on the boat and go away rowing. Jesus looks at them go.

Next Chapter:630. Jesus Appears on Mount Tabor to the Apostles and to about Five Hundred Believers. 20th April 1947.
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

630. Jesus Appears on Mount Tabor to the Apostles and to about Five Hundred Believers. 20th April 1947. 1 All the apostles are there, all the shepherd disciples, also Jonathan, whom Chuza has dismissed from his service. There is Marjiam and Manaen and many of the seventy two disciples and many more. They are in the shade of trees, which with their foliage mitigate light and heat. They are not up towards the summit, where the Transfiguration took place, but half-way up the hill, where a wood of oak-trees seems to be wanting to veil the summit and support the sides of the mountain with its powerful roots. Almost everybody is dozing, because of the hour and also because of the inactivity and the long wait. But the cry of a boy – I do not know who he is, because I cannot see him from where I am – is sufficient to make them all stand up, in a first impulsive movement, which soon changes into prostration with their faces among the grass. «Peace to all of you. Here I am among you. Peace to you. Peace to you.» Jesus passes amid them greeting and blessing. Many weep, many smile blissfully. But there is so much peace in everybody. Jesus goes and stops where the apostles and the shepherds form a thick group with Marjiam, Manaen, Stephen, Nicolaus, John of Ephesus, Hermas, and some of the more faithful disciples, whose names I do not remember. I see the man from Korazim who left off burying his father in order to follow Jesus, and another whom I have seen at other times. Jesus takes in His hands the head of Marjiam, who weeps looking at Him, He kisses his forehead and then presses him against His heart.

2 He then turns round towards the others and says: «Many and few. Where are the others? I know that many are My faithful disciples. Why here there are hardly five hundred people here, without taking into account the children of this one or that one among you?» Peter, who had remained kneeling on the grass, stands up and speaks on behalf of everybody: «Lord, between the thirteenth and twentieth day from Your death, many people have come here from many towns in Palestine, saying that You were among them. So many of us, in order to see You sooner, went some with this one, some with that one. Some have just left. Those who came here said that they had seen You and spoken to You in different places, and, what was wonderful, they all said that they had seen You on the twelfth day from Your death. We thought this was a deceit of some of those false prophets, that You said will rise to deceive the chosen ones. You said so, on the Mount of Olives, the evening before... before...» Peter, seized again with grief at that recollection, lowers his head and becomes silent. Two tears, followed by more, fall from his beard on the ground... Jesus lays His right hand on the shoulder of Peter, who quivers at that contact and, as he dare not touch that Hand with his own, he bends his neck, his face to caress that adorable Hand with his cheek, and touch it lightly with his lips. James of Alphaeus continues the narration: «And we discouraged people from believing those apparitions, that is those among us who got up to run towards the great sea, or towards Bozrah, or Caesarea Philippi, Pella or Kedesh, to the mountain near Jericho and to the plain, and also to the Esdraelon plain, to the great Hermon and to Beth-horon and Beth-shemesh, and to other places which have no names, as they are isolated houses in the plain near Japhia or Gilead. Too uncertain. Some people said: "We have seen Him and heard Him." Others sent word that they had seen You and had even a meal with You. Yes, we wanted to hold them back, because we thought that they were either snares of those who oppose us, or even phantasms seen by just people, who think of You so much that they end up by seeing You where You are not. But they wanted to go away. Some here, some there. And so we are reduced to less than one third.» «You were right in insisting to hold them back. Not because I have not really been where those, who came to tell you, said. But because I had ordered you to stay here, united in prayer awaiting Me. And because I want My words to be obeyed, particularly by those who are My servants. If My servants begin to be disobedient, what will the believers do?

3 Listen all of you who are around here. Remember that in an organism a hierarchy is required, so that it may be really active and wholesome, that is, someone who commands, someone who transmits orders, and those who obey. That is what happens in the courts of kings, as well as in religions. From our Hebrew religion to the others, even if they are so impure, there is always a chief, his ministers, the servants of the ministers, and lastly the believers. A pontiff cannot act by himself. A king cannot act by himself. And their dispositions concern only human contingencies, or the formalism of rites... Yes. Unfortunately, now, also in the Mosaic religion, there is nothing left but the formalism of rites, the continuation of the movements of a device that goes on making the same gestures, even now that the spirit of the gestures is dead. Dead forever. Their Divine Enlivener, He Who gave import to the rites, has withdrawn from them. And the rites are gestures, nothing else. Gestures that any histrion could mime on the stage of an amphitheatre. Woe, when a religion dies, and from a real living power becomes a clamorous exterior pantomime, an empty thing behind a painted scenery, behind pompous garments, the movements of devices performing certain actions, just as a key activates a spring, but neither key nor spring is conscious of what they do. Woe! Ponder! Remember this truth and tell your successors about it, so that it may be known throughout ages. The fall of a planet is less frightening than the fall of religion. If the sky should be depopulated of its stars and planets, it would not be for peoples as bad a misfortune as if they remained without religion. God would provide with provident power for the needs of men, because God can do everything for those who, in a wise way, or in the way that their ignorance knows, seek and love the Divinity in a right spirit. But if the day should come when men no longer loved God, because the priests of every religion had made only an empty pantomime of it, as they were the first not to believe in their religion, woe betide the Earth!

4 Now, if I say so for those religions that are impure, as some have come through partial revelation to a wise person, some derive from the instinctive need of man to create a faith for himself to nourish his soul to love a god – as this need is the strongest incentive of man, the permanent state of research for Him Who is, and Who is wanted by the spirit even if the proud intellect refuses to pay homage to any god, even if man, unaware of the soul, is unable to give a name to such need that stirs within him – what shall I say for this religion that I have given you, for this one that bears My Name, for this one of which I have created you pontiffs and priests, for this one that I order you to propagate all over the world? For this religion Unique, True, Perfect, Immutable in the Doctrine taught by Me, the Master, completed by the continuous teaching of Him Who will come, the Holy Spirit, the Most Holy Guide for My Pontiffs and for those who will help them, second chiefs in the various Churches created in the various regions where My Word will be asserted. These Churches, although various in number, will not be different in thought, but will be one thing only with the Church, as with their individual parts they will form the great building, greater and greater, the great new Temple, that with its pavilions will reach all the corners of the earth. Not different in thought, nor contrasting with one another, but united, brotherly to one another, all subjected to the Head of the Church, to Peter, and to his successors until the end of time. And those that for any reason should separate from the Mother Church, would be members cut off, no longer nourished with the mystic blood that is Grace coming from Me, the divine Head of the Church. Like prodigal sons, separated through their own will from the paternal house, in their short-lived wealth and constant and graver and graver misery, they would be blunting their spiritual intellects by means of too heavy foods and wines, and then they would languish eating the bitter acorns of unclean animals until they returned to the paternal house, saying with contrite hearts: "We have sinned. Father, forgive us and open the doors of your abode to us." Then, whether it is a member of a separated Church, or an entire Church – oh! if it were so, but where, when will so many imitators of Me arise, capable of redeeming these entire separated Churches, at the cost of their lives, to make, to remake only one Fold under only one shepherd, as I ardently wish? – then whether it is only one person or an assembly that comes back, open the doors to them.

5 Be fatherly. Consider that all of you, for one hour or for many, perhaps for years, were, individually, prodigal sons enveloped in concupiscence. Do not be hard on those who repent. Remember! Remember! Many of you ran away twenty two days ago. And was your running away perhaps not an abjuration of your love for Me? Therefore, as I received you as soon as you, repentant, came to Me, do the same yourselves. Do everything I did. That is My command. You lived with Me for three years. You know My deeds and My thoughts. When, in future, you will find yourselves in front of a case to be decided, look back to the time when you were with Me and behave as I behaved. You will never go wrong. I am the living perfect example of what you have to do. And remember also that I did not refuse Myself even to Judas of Kerioth... A priest must try to save, by all possible means. And let love always prevail, among the means used to save. Consider that I was not unaware of Judas' horror... But, overcoming all disgust, I treated the wretch as I treated John. You... you will often be spared the bitterness of knowing that nothing is of any use to save a beloved disciple... And you will therefore be able to work without the tiredness that affects one, when one knows that everything is useless... One must work even then... always... until everything is accomplished...»


6 «But You are suffering, Lord!?! Oh! I did not believe that You could suffer any more! You still suffer because of Judas! Forget him Lord!» shouts John, who does not turn his eyes away from his Lord for one moment. Jesus opens His arms, in His usual attitude of resigned confirmation of a painful fact, and He says: «It is so... Judas has been and is the deepest sorrow in the sea of My sorrows. It is the sorrow that remains... The other sorrows have come to an end with the end of the Sacrifice. But this one remains. I loved him. I consumed Myself in the effort to save him... I was able to open the doors of Limbo and bring out the just, I was able to open the doors of Purgatory, and bring out those who were being purified. But the place of horror was closed upon him. In vain I died for him.» «Do not suffer! Do not suffer! You are glorious, my Lord! Glory and joy to You. You have consumed Your sorrow!» implores John again. «No one really thought that He could still suffer!» they all say, amazed and moved, whispering to one another.

«And do you not think of how much sorrow My Heart will still have to suffer throughout ages, for every unrepentant sinner, for every heresy that denies Me, for every believer who abjures Me, for every – torture of all tortures – for every guilty priest, the cause of scandal and ruin? You do not know! You do not know as yet. You will never know fully, until you are with Me in the Light of Heaven. Then you will understand... In contemplating Judas, I contemplated the chosen ones whose election is changed into ruin through their wicked will... Oh! you who are faithful, you who will form the future priests, remember My sorrow, grow holier and holier to comfort My sorrow, make them holy so that, as far as possible, there may be no repetition of this sorrow, exhort, watch, teach, fight, be as heedful as mothers, as untiring as teachers, as vigilant as shepherds, as manlike as warriors, to support the priests that will be formed by you. Ensure, oh! do ensure that the sin of the twelfth apostle may not have too many repetitions in future... Be as I was with you, as I am with you. 7 I said to you: "Be as perfect as the Father in Heaven." And let your humanity tremble at that command, now even more than when I told you. Because now you are aware of your weakness. Well, to encourage you I will say to you: "Be like your Master." I am the Man. What I have done, you can do. Also miracles. Yes, also them. So that the world may know that it is I Who send you, and he who suffers may not weep, disheartened by this thought: "He is no longer among us to cure our sick people and to comfort our sorrows." During these days I have worked miracles to comfort hearts and convince them that the Christ is not destroyed because He was put to death, on the contrary, He is stronger, eternally strong and powerful. But when I am no longer among you, you will do what I have done so far, and what I will still do. But not so much out of the power or working miracles, but because through your holiness the love for the new Religion will grow greater. And it is over your holiness, not over the gift I transmit to you, that you must be jealously watchful. The holier you are, the dearer you will be to My Heart, and the Spirit of God will enlighten you, while the Goodness of God and His Power will fill your hands with the gifts of Heaven. A miracle is not a common and essential act for the life in faith. On the contrary, blessed are those who will be able to remain in the faith without extraordinary means to help them to believe! But neither is a miracle an act so exclusively reserved to special times, that it must cease when they cease. There will always be miracles in the world. Always. And the more numerous are the just in the world, the more numerous will the miracles be. When you see that the true miracles are becoming very rare, you can then say that faith and justice are languishing. Because I said: "If you have faith, you will be able to move mountains." Because I said: "The signs that will accompany those, who have true faith in Me, are the victories over demons and diseases, over elements and snares." God is with those who love Him. The sign of how My believers are in Me will be the number and the power of the miracles they will work in My name and to glorify God. To a world without true miracles, it will be possible to say, without slander: "You have lost faith and justice. You are a world without saints."

8 So, to go back to what I was saying at the beginning, you did the right thing in trying to detain those who, like children seduced by the noise of music or by something glittering strangely, run away absent-mindedly from what is certain. But, see? They have their punishment, because they lose My word. But you have been wrong as well. You did remember that I told you not to run here and there at every rumour saying that I was in a certain place. But you did not remember that I also said that, in His second coming, the Christ will be like lightning striking in the east and flashing into the west, in a time shorter than the blinking of an eye. Now this second coming began at the moment of My Resurrection. It will culminate in the apparition of the Christ Judge to all the risen. But before that, how many times I will appear to convert, to cure, to console, to teach, to give orders! I solemnly tell you: I am about to go back to My Father. But the Earth will not lose My Presence. I shall be watchful and friendly, Master and Doctor, where bodies or souls, sinners or saints, will need Me or will be elected by Me to transmit My words to other people. Because, and this also is true, Mankind will be in need of a continuous act of love from Me because it is so hard to bend, so easy to wane, ready to forget, eager to descend instead of ascending, that if I did not detain it with supernatural means, the law, the Gospel, the divine assistance administered by My Church would be of no avail to keep Humanity in the knowledge of the Truth and in the will to reach Heaven. And I am speaking of the Humanity that believes in Me... Always little when compared to the great mass of the inhabitants of the Earth.

9 I will come. Let those who will have Me remain humble. Let those who will not have Me, not be eager to have Me, to be praised thereby. Let no one wish what is uncommon. God knows when and where to give you it. It is not necessary to have extraordinary things to enter Heaven. On the contrary, they are a weapon, that, when it is badly used, may open hell instead of Heaven. And now I will tell you how. Because pride may arise. Because a state of the spirit may intervene, contemptible in the eyes of God, as it is like a torpor in which one may relax to caress the treasure received, considering oneself already in Heaven having been granted that gift. No. In that case, instead of flame and wing, it becomes ice and boulder, and the soul falls and dies. And also: a gift badly used may give rise to the eagerness to have even more, in order to be more praised. Then, in that case, the Spirit of Evil might replace the Lord to seduce the imprudent believers by means of impure prodigies. Always keep away from all kinds of enticements. Avoid them. Be happy with what God grants you. He knows what is useful to you and in what manner. And always consider that every gift is also a trial, in addition to being a gift, a trial of your justice and will. I have given everyone of you the same things. But what improved you, ruined Judas. Was it therefore a bad gift? No. But wicked was the will of that spirit...

10 The same now. I have appeared to many people. Not only to console and assist, but also to make you happy. You have begged Me to convince the people that I have risen, because the members of the Sanhedrin are trying to convince them of what they think. I have appeared to children and to adults, on the same day, in places so distant from one another, that it would take many days walk to reach them. But I am no longer subjected to distances. And My simultaneous appearances have puzzled you as well. You have said to one another: "These people have seen phantasms." So you have forgotten part of My words, that is, that from now on I shall be east and west, north and south, wherever I think it is just that I should be, without anything preventing Me from doing so, and as fast as lightning flashing across the sky. I am a real Man. Here are My limbs, My solid warm Body, capable of moving, breathing, speaking, as you do. But I am true God. And if for thirty three years My Divinity, for a supreme purpose, was concealed in My Humanity, now the Divinity, although joined to the Humanity, has overwhelmed the latter, and My Humanity enjoys the perfect freedom of glorified bodies. Queen with the Divinity no longer subjected to what is limitation for Humanity. Here I am. I am here with you and I could be, if I wanted, in a moment at the end of the world to draw to Myself a spirit seeking Me.

11 And what effect will have the fact that I have been near Caesarea on the Sea and at the high Caesarea, and at the Cherith, and at Engedi, and near Pella and Juttah, and in other places in Judaea, and at Bozrah, and on the Great Hermon, and at Sidon and at the borders of Galilee? And that I cured a boy, and I brought back to life one who had breathed his last shortly before, and I consoled an anguished person, and I called to My service one who had mortified himself with hard penance, and to God a just man who had begged Me to do so, and I gave My message to some innocents and My orders to a faithful heart? Will that convince the world? No, it will not. Those who believe, will continue to believe, with greater peace, but not with greater strength, because they already really believed. Those who did not believe with true faith will remain doubtful, and the wicked will say that My apparitions are frenzy and falsehood, and that the dead man was not dead, but was sleeping... Do you remember when I told you the parable of Dives? I said that Abraham replied to the damned soul: "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not believe even one who rises from the dead to tell them what they have to do." Did they perhaps believe Me, the Master, and My miracles? What did Lazarus' miracle achieve? My hurried death sentence. And My Resurrection? An increase of their hatred. Even My miracles of these last days among you will not convince the world, but only those who no longer belong to the world, as they have chosen the Kingdom of God with its present fatigue and pains and its future glory. But I am glad that you have been confirmed in the faith and that you have been faithful to My order, by remaining upon this mountain waiting, without being in a hurry to enjoy things that are also good, but are different from the ones I mentioned to you. Disobedience gives one tenth and takes away nine tenths. They went away and will hear words of men, always those. You have remained and you have heard My Word which, even if it repeats things already said, is always good and useful. The lesson will serve as an example for all of you, and also for them, for the future.»
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

12 Jesus looks around at those faces gathered there and calls: «Elisha of Engedi, come here. I have something to tell you.» I had not recognised the ex-leper, the son of old Abraham. Then he was a ghastly skeleton, now he is a buxom man in the prime of life. He goes near, prostrating himself at the feet of Jesus, Who says to him: «A question is trembling on your lips since you heard that I have been to Engedi. And it is this: "Have You comforted my father?" I say to you: "I have more than consoled him! I have taken him with Me."» «With You, my Lord? And where is he, since I do not see him?» «Elisha, I am still here for a short time. Then I will go to My Father...» «Lord!... You mean... My father is dead!» «He died peacefully on My Heart. Sorrow is over also for him. He consumed it all, and by remaining always faithful to the Lord. Do not weep. Had you not left him to follow Me?» «Yes, my Lord...» «Well. Your father is with Me. Therefore, by following Me, you still come near your father.» «But when? And how?» «In his vineyard, where he heard Me speak for the first time. He reminded Me of his prayer of last year. I said to him: "Come." He died a happy death, because you left everything to follow Me.»

«Forgive me if I weep... He was my father...» «I do appreciate grief.» He lays His hand on his head to comfort him and says to the disciples: «Here is a new companion. Love him, because I took him from his sepulchre, so that he may serve Me.»

13 He then calls: «Elias. Come to Me. Do not be shy like one who is a stranger among brothers. All the past is destroyed. And you come, too, Zacharias, who left father and mother for Me, go among the seventy-two with Joseph of Cintium. You deserve it, as you have defied the ways of the mighty ones for My sake. And you, Philip, and you, his companion, who do not want to be called with your name any more, as it sounds horrible to you, so take that of your father, who is a just man, even if he is not yet among those who follow Me openly. Can you all see? I do not exclude anybody of good will. Neither those who followed Me already as disciples, nor those who performed good deeds in My name, even if they did not belong to the groups of My disciples, nor those who belonged to sects, that not everybody loves, as they can always take the right road and are not to be rejected. Do, as I do. I join these to the old disciples. Because the Kingdom of Heaven is open to all those of good will. And, although they are not present, I tell you not to reject the Gentiles either. I have not repelled them, when I knew that they were anxious to know the Truth. Do what I have done. And you, Daniel, who have really come out, not of the pit of the lions, but of the jackals, come and join these. And you, Benjamin. I join you to these (he points to the group of the seventy-two which is almost complete) because the harvest of the Lord will be very rich and many labourers are required. Now let us be united here for a short time, while the day wears on. In the evening you will depart from the mountain and at dawn you apostles and you two, whom I have mentioned separately, will come with Me, with all those who are here of the seventy-two (He points at Zacharias and at this Joseph of Cintium, who is not new to me). The others will remain here, waiting for those who have run away here and there like idle wasps, to tell them in My name that one cannot find the Lord by imitating unwilling disobedient children, and that they all have to be at Bethany twenty days before Pentecost, because later they would look for Me in vain. Sit down now, and rest.

14 You, come with Me a little aside.»
He sets out, holding Marjiam by the hand all the time, followed by the eleven apostles. He sits down in the thickest part of a thick wood of oak-trees, and draws to Himself Marjiam, who is very sad. So sad that Peter says: «Comfort him, Lord. He was already sad, now he is even more so.» «Why, child? Are you not with Me? Should you not be happy to know that I have overcome sorrow?» Marjiam's only answer is to burst into tears. «I do not know what the matter is with him. I have asked him in vain. And today I was not expecting these tears!» grumbles Peter, somewhat annoyed. «But I know» says John. «So much the better for you! So why is he weeping?» «He did not begin to weep today. He has been weeping for days...» «Eh! I have noticed that! But why?» «The Lord knows, I am sure. And I know that He alone has the word that can comfort him» says John smiling. «That is true. I know. And I know that Marjiam, a good disciple, is really a little boy just now, a little boy who does not see the reality of things. But, My beloved one among all the disciples, do you not consider that I went to corroborate wavering faiths, to absolve, to receive lives that had come to an end, to annul poisonous doubts with which the weaker ones had been imbued, to reply with pity or severity to those who still want to fight against Me, to testify with My presence that I have risen from the dead, where they were more eager to say that I was dead? Was there any need for Me to come to you, a child, whose faith, hope, charity, whose good will and obedience are known to Me? Should I have come to you for a moment, when I shall have you with Me, as now, much more often? Who will celebrate Passover with Me, except you alone among all the other disciples? Can you see all these? They have celebrated their Passover, and the flavour of the lamb and of the caroset, of the unleavened bread and of the wine became completely like ashes and gall and vinegar for their palates immediately afterwards. But you and I, My dear boy, will consume our Passover joyfully, and it will be like honey that trickles and remains such. Who wept then, will rejoice now. Who rejoiced then, cannot expect to rejoice again.»

15 «Really... We were not very cheerful that day...» whispers Thomas. «Yes. Our hearts trembled...» says Matthew. «And we were boiling over with suspicion and indignation, at least I was» says Thaddeus. «And so you all say that you would like to celebrate the supplementary Passover...» «It is so, Lord» says Peter. «One day you complained because the women disciples and your son were not taking part in the Passover banquet. Now you complain because who did not rejoice then, must do so now.» «That is true. I am a sinner.» «And I am He Who is compassionate. I want you all to be around Me, and not you only, but also the women disciples. Lazarus will give us hospitality once again. I did not want your daughter, Philip, or your wives, I did not want Myrtha, Naomi, and the young girl who is with them, and this boy. Jerusalem, in those days, was not a place for everybody!» «True! It is a good thing that they were not there» says Philip with a sigh. «Yes. They would have seen our cowardice.» «Be quiet, Peter. It has been forgiven.» «Yes. But I confessed it to my son and I thought that that was why he was so sad. I confessed it, because every time I confess it, it is a relief. It is as if I removed a big stone from my heart. I feel more absolved every time I humiliate myself. But if Marjiam is sad because You have shown Yourself to other people...» «For that and for nothing else, father.» «Then, cheer up! He loved you and He loves you. You can see that. But I informed you of the second Passover...» «I thought that I had done the obedience that Porphirea had given me in Your name not too willingly, Lord. And that, therefore, You were punishing me. And I also thought that You did not show Yourself to me because I hated Judas and those who crucified You» confesses Marjiam. «Do not hate anybody. I have forgiven.» «Yes, my Lord. I will not hate my more.» «And do not be sad any longer.» «I will not be so any more, Lord.» Marjiam, like all very young people, is not so timid with Jesus as the others are, and he relaxes confidently in Jesus' arms, now that he is sure that Jesus is not angry with him. And even more, like a chick under its mother's wing, he takes shelter in the arms of Jesus, Who presses Him against Himself, and as the anxiety that had made him sad and upset for so many days ceases, he blissfully falls asleep. «He is still a boy» remarks the Zealot. «Yes. But how much he has suffered! Porphirea told me when, informed by Joseph of Tiberias, she brought him to me» Peter replies to him. 16 Then he says to the Master: «Porphirea also at Jerusalem?» How much eagerness there is in Peter's voice! «All the women. I want to bless them before I ascend to My Father. They have served as well, and very often better than men.»

«And to Your Mother? Are You not going?» asks Thaddeus. «We are together.» «Together When?» «Judas, Judas, and do you think that I, Who have always found joy near Her, should not stay with Her now?» «But Mary is all alone in Her house. My mother told me yesterday.» Jesus smiles and replies: «Only the High Priest goes behind the Holy of Holies.» «So? What do You mean?» «That there are beatitudes that cannot be described and known. That is what I mean.» He gently moves Marjiam away from Himself and entrusts him to the arms of John, who is the one closest to Him. He stands up. He blesses them. And while they all, with their heads lowered, on their knees, with the exception of John, who has Marjiam's head in his lap, receive His blessing, He disappears. «He is really like the lightning of which He speaks» says Bartholomew. They remain meditating, awaiting sunset.-----------

Next Chapter: 631. The Last Teachings before Ascension-Day.
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

22nd April 1947.

2 They are up on another mountain, which is even more covered with woods, not far from Nazareth, to which a road leads running along the foot of the mountain. Jesus makes them sit down in a circle, the apostles closer to Him, behind them the disciples (those of the seventy-two who did not go away here and there) with Zacharias and Joseph. Marjiam is at His feet in a privileged position. Jesus speaks as soon as they are all sitting and quiet, paying attention to His words. He says: «Pay attention to Me, because I will tell you things of the greatest importance. You will not understand them all, neither will you understand them all well. But He Who comes after Me, will make you understand them. So, listen to Me.

3 Nobody is more convinced than you are, that without the help of God man sins easily, as his very weak constitution was debilitated by the Sin. So I should be an imprudent Redeemer, if after giving you so much to redeem you, I did not give you also the means of retaining you in the effects of My Sacrifice. You know that all the easiness to commit sin derives from the Sin that, by depriving men of Grace, despoils them of their strength: of the union with Grace. You have said: "But You have given Grace to us". No. It was given to the just up to My Death. To give it to future people a means is required. A means that will not be only a ritual figure, but on those who receive it will really impress the real character of children of God, as Adam and Eve were, whose souls vivified by Grace, possessed sublime gifts, given by God to His beloved creatures. You are aware of what man had and what man lost. Now, through My Sacrifice, the gates of Grace have been reopened and its river can descend on all those who ask it out of their love for Me. Men will therefore have the character of children of God through the merits of the First-Born among men, of Him Who is speaking to you, your Redeemer, your eternal Pontiff, your Brother in the Father, your Master. It will be by Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ that present and future men will be able to possess Heaven and enjoy God, the last purpose of man. Up to the present time, even the most just among the just, although circumcised as children of the chosen people, were not able to attain that purpose. Although their virtues were taken into consideration by God, and their places were ready in Heaven, the latter was closed and the enjoyment of God was denied to them, because on their souls, blessed flower-beds blooming with every virtue, there was also the cursed tree of Original Sin, and no action, no matter how holy it might be, could destroy it; neither is it possible to enter Heaven with the roots and foliage of so evil a tree.

4 On Preparation Day the sighs of the patriarchs and prophets, and of all the just of Israel, appeased in the joy of the accomplished Redemption, and their souls, whiter than mountain snow, such was their virtue, lost the only Stain that segregated them from Heaven. But the world continues. Generations and generations arise and will arise. Peoples and peoples will come to the Christ. Can the Christ die with each new generation to save it, or for each people that comes to Him? No. He cannot. The Christ died once, and He will never die again, forever. Then, must these generations, these peoples, become wise through My Word, but not possess Heaven and enjoy God, because they are injured by Original Sin? No. It would not be just, neither for them, because their love for Me would be useless, nor for Me, because I would have died for too few. So? How can the different things be conciliated? Which new miracle will the Christ work, and He has already worked so many, before leaving the world for Heaven, after loving men to the extent of dying for them?

5 He has already worked one, by leaving you His Body and His Blood as a fortifying and sanctifying food and as a remembrance of His love, by giving you the order to do what I have done in memory of Me and as a sanctifying means for the disciples, for the disciples of the disciples, until the end of time. But that evening, when you were already purified exteriorly, do you remember what I did? I girded Myself with a towel and I washed your feet, and to one of you, who was scandalised at that too humiliating gesture, I said: "If I do not wash you, you will have no part in common with Me." You did not understand what I meant, of which part I was speaking, which symbol I performed. Well, I will tell you. Besides teaching you humility and the necessity of being pure, in order to enter and take part in My Kingdom, in addition to bringing benignly to your notice that from a man, who is just, and therefore pure in his spirit and intellect, God exacts only a last wash of the part that is necessarily easier to become contaminated also in just people, even only with the dust that the necessary cohabitation among men lays also on clean limbs, on bodies, I have taught you another thing. I washed your feet, the lowest part of body, the one that goes among mud and dust, at times among dirty things, to signify the flesh, the material part of man, which part always has some imperfections, with the exception of those who are without the Original Sin, either through the deed of God or by the Nature of God, and such imperfections are at times so slight that only God can see them, but really, one must watch them, so that they may not grow stronger and turn into natural habits, and fight them to extirpate them.

6 So I washed your feet. When? Before breaking the bread and wine and transubstantiating them into My Body and My Blood. Because I am the Lamb of God, and I cannot descend where Satan has his mark. So, I washed you first. Then I gave Myself to you. You also will wash with Baptism those who will come to Me, so that they may not receive My Body unworthily and it may not change for them into a dreadful death sentence. You are dismayed. You are looking at one another. With your eyes you are asking: "And Judas, then?" I say to you: "Judas ate his death". The supreme act of love did not touch his heart. The last attempt of his Master knocked against the stone of his heart, and on that stone, in the place of the Tau, was engraved the horrible initial of Satan, the sign of the Beast. So I washed you before admitting you to the Eucharistic banquet, before listening to the confession of your sins, before infusing the Holy Spirit into you and consequently the character of both true Christians reconfirmed in Grace, and of My Priests.

Let the same be done to the others whom you will have to prepare for the Christian life.

7 Baptise with water in the Name of the God One and Trine and in My Name and through My infinite Merits, so that the Original Sin may be cancelled from hearts, sins may be remitted, Grace and the Holy Virtues may be infused, and the Holy Spirit may descend to dwell in consecrated temples, that is, in the bodies of men living in the Grace of the Lord. Was water necessary to cancel the Sin? Water does not touch the soul. But neither does the immaterial sign touch the sight of man, who is so material in all his actions. I could very well have infused Life also without a visible means. But who would have believed it? How many are the men who can firmly believe if they do not see? So take the lustral water of the ancient Mosaic Law, the water that was used to purify unclean people and admit them again to the camps, after they had become contaminated by a corpse. In actual fact, every man who is born is contaminated, by having contact with a soul dead to Grace. So let it be purified of the unclean contact by the lustral water and made worthy of entering the eternal Temple. And let water be a dear thing to you... After expiating and redeeming through thirty-three years of laborious life, which culminated in the Passion, after giving all My Blood for the sins of men, then the wholesome waters to wash the Original Sin were drawn from the bloodless consumed Body of the Martyr. By means of the consumed Sacrifice I redeemed you from that stain. If on the point of death a divine miracle of Mine had made Me descend from the cross, I solemnly tell you that with the blood I had shed I would have redeemed the sins, but not the Sin. The full consummation was required for it. Really, the wholesome water of which Ezekiel speaks came out of this Side of Mine. Immerse souls into it, so that they may come out of it spotless, to receive the Holy Spirit Who, in recollection of that breath which the Creator breathed on Adam to give him the spirit and thus the image and likeness of Himself, will come to breathe and dwell in the hearts of men who have been redeemed. Baptise with My Baptism, but in the Name of the God Trine, because, really, if the Father had not wanted and the Spirit had not acted, the Word would have not become incarnate and you would have had no Redemption. So it is just and fair that every man should receive the Life through Those Who joined together in wanting to give it to him, mentioning the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the act of Baptism, which takes the name of Christian after Me, to distinguish it from the others past and future, which will be rites, but not indelible signs on the immortal part.

8 Take the Bread and the Wine as I did, and bless them, break them and hand them out in My Name; and let Christians feed on Me. And of the Bread and Wine make an offering to the Father of Heavens, consuming it then in memory of the Sacrifice that I offered and consumed on the Cross for your salvation. I, Priest and Victim, by Myself offered and consumed Myself, as no one, if I had not wanted, could do that of Me.

You, My Priests, do that in memory of Me and so that the infinite treasures of My Sacrifice may ascend imploringly to God, and descend propitiously on all those who invoke them with firm faith. Firm faith, I said. No science is called for to avail oneself of the Eucharistic Food and of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, but faith. Faith that in that bread and in that wine, that one authorised by Me and by those who will come after Me – you Peter, the new Pontiff of the new Church, you James of Alphaeus, you John, you Andrew, you Simon, you Philip, you Bartholomew, you Thomas, you Judas Thaddeus, you Matthew, you James of Zebedee – will consecrate in My Name, is My true Body, My true Blood, and he who feeds on it receives Me in Flesh, Blood, Soul and Divinity and he who offers Me really, offers Jesus Christ, as He offered Himself for the sins of the world. A child or an ignorant person can receive Me, just like a learned man and an adult. And a child and an ignorant person will receive the same advantages from the Sacrifice offered, as those that anyone among you will have. It is sufficient that faith and the grace of the Lord are in them. 9 But you are about to receive a new Baptism, that of the Holy Spirit. I promised it to you and it will be given to you. The very Holy Spirit will descend upon you. I will tell you when. And you will be replete with It, in the fullness of sacerdotal gifts. You will be able, therefore, as I did with you, to infuse the Spirit with which you are replete, to confirm the Christians in grace and instill the gifts of the Paraclete into them. As a regal Sacrament, little inferior to the Priesthood, it must have the solemnity of Mosaic consecrations with the imposition of hands and the unction with scented oil, which was once used to consecrate Priests. No. Do not look at one another so frightened! I am not speaking sacrilegious words! I am not teaching you sacrilegious acts! The dignity of a Christian is such, I repeat it, that it is little inferior to a priesthood. Where do priests live? In the Temple. And a Christian will be a living temple. What do priests do? They serve God with prayers, sacrifices and taking care of the believers. That is what they should have done... And a Christian will serve God with prayer and sacrifice and with brotherly love.
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

10 And you will listen to the confession of sins, as I listened to yours and to those of many and I forgave where I saw true repentance. Are you becoming upset? Why? Are you afraid that you may not be able to distinguish? On other occasions I have already spoken of sin and of the judgement of sin. But remember, when judging, to ponder on the seven conditions whereby an action may or may not be sinful and of different gravity. I will recall them. When one sinned and how many times, who sinned, with whom, with what, which is the matter of the sin, which is the cause, why did one sin. But be not afraid. The Holy Spirit will assist you.

What I implore you with all My Heart to observe is a holy life. It will increase the supernatural lights in you to such an extent, that you will succeed in reading the hearts of men without mistaking, and you will be able, with love or with authority, to tell sinners, who fear to disclose their sin or refuse to confess it, the state of their hearts, helping the timid and humiliating the unrepentant. Bear in mind that the Earth is about to lose its Absolver and that you must be what I was: just, patient, merciful, but not weak. I said to you: what you will loose on Earth will be loosed in Heaven and what you bind here will be bound in Heaven. So with measured deliberation judge every man without allowing yourselves to be corrupted by likes or dislikes, by gifts or threats, being impartial in everything and with everybody as is God, bearing in mind the weakness of man and the snares of his enemies. I remind you that at times God allows also His chosen ones to fall, not because He likes to see them fall, but because a greater future advantage may come from a fall. So offer your hands to those who fall, because you do not know whether that fall is the resolutive crisis of an illness that dies forever, leaving in the blood a purification that brings about health. In our case: that brings about holiness. Be instead severe with those who have no respect for My Blood, and with their souls just cleansed by the divine bath, throw themselves into filth one and one hundred times. Do not curse them, but be severe, exhort them, reproach them seventy times seven, and have recourse to the extreme punishment of cutting them off from the chosen people, only when their obstinacy in a fault that scandalises the brothers, compels you to take action in order not to become accomplices of their deeds. Remember what I said: "If your brother has sinned, correct him between your two selves. If he does not listen to you, correct him in the presence of two or three witnesses. If that is not sufficient, inform the Church. If he does not listen even to the Church, consider him as a Gentile and a publican."

11 In the Mosaic religion matrimony is a contract. In the new Christian religion let it be a sacred indissoluble act, on which may the grace of the Lord descend to make of husband and wife two ministers of His in the propagation of the human race. From the very first moments try to advise the consort belonging to the new religion to convert the consort, who is still out of the number of the believers, to enter and become part of it, to avoid those painful divisions of thought, and consequently of peace, that we have noticed also among ourselves. But when it is a question of believers in the Lord, for no reason whatsoever what God united is to be dissolved. And when a consort is Christian and is united to a heathen, I advice that consort to bear his/her cross with patience, meekness and also with strength, to the extent of dying to defend his/her faith, but without leaving the consort whom he/she married with full consent. This is My advice for a more perfect life in the matrimonial state, until it will be possible, with the diffusion of Christianity, to have marriages between believers. Then let the bond be sacred and indissoluble, and the love holy.

It would be bad, if owing to the hardness of hearts, what happened in the old faith should happen also in the new one: the authorization of repudiation and dissolution to avoid scandal created by the lust of man. I solemnly tell you that everybody must bear his cross in every state, also in the matrimonial one. And I also solemnly tell you that no pressure is to subdue your authority in saying: "It is against the law" to those who want to marry for the second time before one of the consorts is dead. It is better, I tell you, that a putrid part breaks off, by itself or followed by others, rather than to keep it in the Body of the Church, grant it something contrary to the holiness of marriage, scandalising the humble and making them express thoughts unfavourable to sacerdotal integrity and on the value of wealth and power. Marriage is a grave and holy act. And to prove that, I took part at a wedding and I worked My first miracle there. But woe if it degenerates into lust and whim. Let marriage, the natural contract between man and woman, be elevated to a spiritual contract, by which the souls of two people who love each other swear to serve the Lord in reciprocal love, offered to the Lord in obedience to His order of procreation to give children to the Lord.

12 And also... James, do you remember the conversation on Mount Carmel? Since that time I have spoken to you about this. But the others do not know... You saw Mary of Lazarus spread ointment on My limbs at the supper of the Sabbath at Bethany. I then said to you: "She has prepared Me for My burial". In actual fact she did. Not for My burial, because she thought that that sorrow was still far away, but to purify and embalm My limbs from all the impurities of the road, so that I might ascend the throne scented with balsamic oil. The life of man is a road. The entry of man into the next life ought to be an entry into the Kingdom. Every king is anointed and perfumed before ascending his throne and showing himself to his people. Also the Christian is the son of a king, and he goes along his road, directing his steps towards the kingdom where the Father calls him. The death of a Christian is nothing but the entry into the Kingdom to ascend the throne that the Father has prepared for him. Death is not frightful for him who is not afraid of God, knowing that he is in His grace. But let the garment of him who is to ascend the throne be purified of all rubbish, so that it may be preserved beautiful for the resurrection, and let his spirit be purified, so that it may shine on the throne that the Father has prepared for him and he may appear in the dignity befitting a son of such a great king. Let the unction given to dying Christians, or rather, to Christians being born, because I solemnly tell you that he who dies in the Lord is born to the eternal life, let that unction be an increase of Grace, the annulment of sins of which the man is fully repentant, the exciter of fervent yearning for Good, the giver of strength for the supreme struggle. Repeat the gesture of Mary on the bodies of the chosen ones. And let no one deem it unworthy of him. I accepted that balsamic oil from a woman. Every Christian should consider himself honoured by it, as a supreme grace of the Church whose son he is, and should accept it from the priest to be cleansed of the last stains. And every priest ought to be happy to repeat on the body of his dying brother, the gesture of love that Mary made on the suffering Christ. I truly tell you that what you did not do to Me then, letting a woman exceed you, and now you think of it with so much regret, you can do in future and for as many times as you will bend over one who is dying to prepare him to his meeting with God. I am in beggars and in dying people, in pilgrims, in orphans, in widows, in prisoners, in those who are hungry, thirsty or cold, in who is grieved or tired. I am in all the members of My mystic Body, which is the union of all My believers. Love Me in them and you will make amends for your indifference on so many occasions, giving great joy to Me and so much glory to yourselves.

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

Consider what is a Priest. The good he can do. The evil he can do. You have had the example of what can be done by a priest who has lapsed from his sacred character. I truly tell you that this country will be dispersed because of the sins of the Temple. But I also truly tell you that also the Earth will be destroyed when the abomination of desolation will affect the new Priesthood, by leading men to apostasy in order to embrace the doctrines of hell. Then the son of Satan will arise and peoples will moan in dreadful fright, as only few will remain faithful to the Lord, and also then, after horrible convulsions, the end will come after the victory of God and of His few Chosen ones, and the wrath of God on all the cursed ones. Woe, three times woe if for those few there will still be no saints, the last pavilions of the Temple of Christ! Woe, three times woe, if to comfort the last Christians, there will be no true Priests, as there will be for the first ones. Really the last persecution will be horrible, as it will not be the persecution of men but of the son of Satan and of his followers.

Priests? Those of the last hour will have to be more than priests, so wild will be the persecution of the hordes of the Antichrist. Like the man dressed in linen, who is so holy as to be beside the Lord, in the vision of Ezekiel, they will have to be untiring in marking a Tau with their perfection on the spirits of the few faithful ones, so that the flames of many do not cancel that sign. Priests? Angels. Angels swinging the thurible of the incenses of their virtues to purify the air of the miasmata of Satan. Angels? More than angels: other Christs, others Myself, so that the believers of the last times may be able to persevere until the end. That is what they will have to be.

14 But future good and evil have roots in the present. Avalanches begin with a snowflake. A priest who is unworthy, impure, heretic, unfaithful, incredulous, tepid or cold, dull, insipid, lustful, does ten times as much harm as a believer guilty of the same sins, and he drags many more to commit sin. Laxity in the Priesthood, the reception of impure doctrines, selfishness, greed, concupiscence in the Priesthood, you are aware of the result of all that: deicide. Now, in future ages, the Son of God can no longer be killed, but the faith in God, the idea of God, can. So a deicide will be accomplished, which is even more irreparable, because it is without resurrection. Oh! it can be accomplished, yes. I see... It will be possible to accomplish it, because of the too many Judases of Kerioth of future ages. How horrible! My Church demolished by its own ministers! While I support it with the help of victims. And they, the Priests, who will have only the garment and not the soul of a Priest, who help the ebullition of the waves agitated by the infernal Snake against your boat, Peter. Stand up! Rise! Transmit this order to your successors: "Hands on the rudder, the lash on the shipwrecked people who wanted to be shipwrecked, and try to founder the boat of God." Strike, but save and proceed. Be severe, because just is the punishment for marauders. Defend the treasure of the faith, Hold the lamp aloft, like a lighthouse above the rough sea, so that those who follow your boat may see and not perish. Shepherd and pilot for the dreadful times, gather, guide, hold My Gospel high, because safety is found in it and in no other science. The days will come when, as it happened to us in Israel, but even more deeply, the Priesthood will think it is a chosen class, because it knows the superfluous and does not know the indispensable any longer, or is aware of it in the deaf form in which the Priests now know the Law: in its garment, exaggeratedly overburdened with fringes, but not in its spirit.

15 The days will come when all the books will replace the Book, and this will be used only as one, who must use an object by force, handles it mechanically, as a peasant ploughs, sows, harvests, without meditating on the wonderful providence which is that multiplication of seeds that is renewed each year: a seed is thrown into turned soil and it becomes stalk, ear of corn, then flour and then bread through God's paternal love. Who, putting a mouthful of bread in his mouth, raises his spirit to Him Who created the first seed and for ages has made it spring up again and grow, giving the right quantity of rain and heat, so that it may open and grow and ripen without rotting or getting burnt? Likewise the time will come when the Gospel will be taught scientifically well, spiritually badly. Now, what is science if it lacks wisdom? It is straw. Straw that swells and does not nourish. And I truly tell you that the time will come in which too many among the Priests will be like swollen straw-stacks, proud straw-stacks, that will stand up straight in the pride of being so swollen, as if they had given themselves all those ears of wheat that crowned the straw, as if the ears were still on the summits of the straw, and will think that they are everything because, instead of the handful of wheat, the true nourishment that is the spirit of the Gospel, they will have all that straw: a heap! A heap! But can straw be enough? It is not even sufficient for the stomach of a beast of burden, and if its master does not strengthen the animal with fodder and fresh herbs, the beast of burden nourished only with straw wastes away and may even die.

And yet I tell you that the time will come when the Priests, forgetting that with few ears of wheat I taught spirits the Truth, and forgetting also what it cost their Lord that true bread of the spirit, drawn completely and only from the Divine Wisdom, spoken by the Divine Word, dignified in its doctrinal form, indefatigable in its repetitions, so that the truth spoken should not get lost, humble in its form, without the false glitter of human sciences, without historical or geographical completions, will not take care of its soul, but of the garment to be thrown on it, to show the crowds how many things they know, and the spirit of the Gospel will get lost in them, under avalanches of human science. And if they do not possess it, how can they transmit it? What will these swollen strawstacks give the believers? Straw. What nourishment will the spirits of the believers get from it? Enough to lead a wretched languishing life. Which fruit will ripen from such teaching and from this imperfect knowledge of the Gospel? The coolness of hearts, the replacement of the only true doctrine with heretical doctrines, with doctrines and ideas that are more than heretical, the preparation of the ground in favour of the Beast for his transient icy dark horrible kingdom. I truly tell you that, as the Father and Creator multiplies the stars so that the sky may not become depopulated because of those that perish, when their lives end, likewise I shall have to evangelize thousands of times the disciples that I will scatter among men in future ages. And I also truly tell you that the destiny of these disciples will be the same as Mine: the synagogue and proud people will persecute them as they persecuted Me. But both they and I have our reward: that of doing the Will of God and serving Him even to death on a cross, so that His glory may shine and the knowledge of Him may not perish.

16 But you, Pontiff, and you, Shepherds, watch that the spirit of the Gospel may not get lost in you and in your successors, and pray the Holy Spirit untiringly that the Pentecost may be continually renewed in you – you do not understand what I mean, but you will soon know – so that you may understand all the languages and choose and distinguish My voices from those of the Monkey of God: Satan. And do not allow My future voices to become void. And each of them is an act of mercy of Mine to assist you, and the more are the reasons by which I see that Christianity needs them to get through the storms of times, the more numerous they will be. Shepherd and pilot, Peter! Shepherd and pilot. It will not be sufficient for you one day to be shepherd if you are not pilot, and to be pilot if you are not shepherd. You will have to be both to keep the lambs gathered together, as hellish tentacles and fierce claws will try to snatch them from you, or music of false impossible promises will seduce you, and to proceed with the boat caught in all the winds blowing from the north, south, east and west, lashed and tossed by the powers of the depths, hit by the arrows shot by the archers of the Beast, burnt by the breath of the dragon, with its edges swept by its tail, so that the imprudent ones will be burnt and will perish, falling into the stormy sea. Shepherd and pilot in dreadful times.

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

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


«Are You leaving us now? Upon this mountain?» They are all desolate.
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 Christ lays so much emphasis on His disciples preserving and persevering in the Catholic Faith till the end, since it is the Priceless Treasure and the Necessary Token without which no one can enter the gates of Heaven. And knowing well in advance that the Pharisees and others would lay snares for the Faith of His disciples, in His Infinite Goodness, He takes and has taken many means to protect His flock. In the below incident, well known to us from the Gospel, Jesus comes to confirm the Faith of St. Martha and St. Mary Magdalene. He had promised earlier that He would come to help Lazarus, yet He deliberately waited till Lazarus had died, before coming to raise Him.

Just think how difficult it would have been in those days for His Faithful to preserve and persevere in their holy Catholic Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in those 3 days - as we saw it was for Mother Mary especially, the holy women and the Apostles in the 3 days after the Lord's own death - when Lazarus was dead and all the enemies of Jesus Christ seemingly triumphant, and the Faithful mocked and scorned.

Jesus Christ Himself explains how it was for us to reflect on, meditate, contemplate and understand further the importance of Faithfulness to the end.

The Raising of Lazarus: ..."The Master!" exclaim the first to see Him, and the word flies from group to group like the rustling of the wind; it spreads, like a wave that comes from afar and breaks on the shore as far as the walls of the house and enters it, certainly carried by the many Judaeans present, or by some Pharisees, rabbis or scribes or Sadducees, scattered here and there.

Martha comes out of the house with a group of Judaean visitors among whom there are Helkai and Sadoc. With her hand, she shades her eyes, tired of weeping, from the sun, as the light hurts them, so that she may see where is Jesus. She sees Him. She departs from those accompaning her and she runs towards Jesus. Who is at a few steps from the fountain shining in the sunshine. She throws herself at Jesus' feet, after bowing to Him, and kisses them, while bursting into tears she says: "Peace to You, Master!"

Jesus also, as soon as she is close to Him, says to her: "Peace to you!", and He raises His hand to bless her. releasing the hand of the boy, who is taken by Bartholomew, and held a little back.

Martha goes on: "But there is no more peace for Your servant." Still on her knees she looks up at Jesus and with a cry of grief that is clearly heard in the prevailing silence she exclaims: "Lazarus is dead! If You had been here, he would not have died. Why did You not come sooner, Master?" There is an unintentional tone of reproach in her question. She then reverts to the depressed tone of one who no longer has the strength to reproach and whose only comfort is to recollect the last acts and wishes of a relative to whom one has tried to give what he wanted, and there is therefore no remorse in one's heart, and she says: "Lazarus, our brother, has called You so much! ... Now, see! I am grieved and Mary is weeping and she cannot set her mind at rest. And he is no longer here! You know how much we loved him! We were hoping everything from You! ..."

Martha, after wiping her face, resumes: "But even now I hope because I know that whatever You ask of God, He will grant You." A sorrowful heroic profession of faith uttered in a trembling weeping voice, with her eyes full of anxiety and her heart throbbing with the last hope.

"Your brother will rise again. Stand up, Martha."

Martha stands up, stooping out of respect before Jesus to Whom she replies: "I know, Master. He will rise again at the resurrection on the last day."

"I am the Resurrection and Life. Whoever believes in Me, even if he dies, will live. And whoever believes and lives in Me will never die. Do you believe all that?" Jesus, Who had previously spoken in a rather low voice, addressing Martha only, raises His voice when saying these sentences in which He proclaims His power of God, and its perfect timbre resounds like a golden blare in the vast garden. The people present quiver with an emotion resembling fear. Then some sneer shaking their heads.

The Judaeans are watching Him. They have involuntarily divided into clearly distinct groups. On one side, in front of Jesus, all those who are hostile to Him, usually separated from one another by sectarian spirit, but now concordant in opposing Jesus.

With her usual cry: "Rabboni!" Mary runs out of the house with her arms stretched out towards Jesus and throws herself at His feet, which she kisses sobbing deeply.

"Peace to you, Mary. Stand up! Look at Me! Why weep thus, like one who has no hope?" Jesus stoops to say these words in a low voice, His eyes staring at Mary's, who on her knees, relaxing on her heels, stretches her hands towards Him imploringly and is unable to speak, so deep is her sobbing: "Did I not tell you to hope beyond what is credible in order to see the glory of God? Has your Master perhaps changed, that you are so depressed?"

... at last, she shouts: "Oh! Lord! Why did You not come sooner? Why did You go away from us? You knew that Lazarus was ill! If You had been here my brother would not have died. Why did You not come?

Oh! Jesus! Jesus! My Master! My Saviour! My hope!" and she collapses again, her forehead on Jesus' feet, which are washed once again by her tears, and she moans: "Why have you done that, Lord?! Also on account of those who hate You and are now rejoicing at what has happened ... Why have You done that, Jesus?!"

Jesus, Who has bent very low to hear those words whispered with her face near the ground, stands up and says in a loud voice: "Mary, do not weep! Also your Master is suffering for the death of His faithful friend ... for having had to let him die ..."

Oh! How sneering and radiant with hateful joy are the faces of the enemies of Christ! They feel that He is defeated and rejoice, whilst His friends are becoming sadder and sadder.
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 says in an even louder voice: "But I tell you: do not weep. Stand up! Look at Me! Do you think that I, Who loved you so much, have done this without a reason? Can you believe that I have grieved you thus in vain? Come. Let us go to Lazarus. Where have you put him?"

Martha, beside Jesus Who has forced Mary to stand up and is now guiding her, as she is blinded by her copious tears, points out to Jesus where Lazarus is, and when they are near the place she also says: "It is there, Master, that Your friend is buried" and she points at the stone placed across the entrance of the sepulchre.

Jesus, followed by everybody, has to pass in front of Gamaliel, in order to go there. But neither He nor Gamaliel greet each other. Gamaliel then joins the others stopping with all the more rigid Pharisees a few metres from the sepulchre, while Jesus goes on, very close to it.

Jesus looks at the heavy stone placed as a door against the sepulchre, a heavy obstacle between Him and His dead friend, and He weeps. The wailing of the sisters grows louder, as well as that of intimate friends and relatives.

"Remove that stone" shouts Jesus all of a sudden, after wiping His tears.

Everybody is surprised and a murmur runs through the crowd that has become larger as some people of Bethany have entered the garden and have followed the guests. I can see some Pharisees touch their foreheads and shake their heads meaning: "He is mad!". No one carries out the order. Even the most faithful ones are hesitant and feel repugnance to do it.

Jesus repeats His order in a louder voice astonishing even more the people, who urged by opposed feelings react at first as if they wanted to run away, but immediately afterwards they wish to draw closer, to see, defying the stench of the sepulchre that Jesus wants opened.

"Master, it is not possible" says Martha striving to restrain her tears to be able to speak. "He has been down there for four days. And You know of what disease he died! Only our love made it possible for us to cure him ... By now he will certainly smell notwithstanding the ointments ... What do You want to see? His rottenness? ... It is not possible ... also because of the uncleannes of putrefaction and ..."

"Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God? Remove that stone. I want it!" It is the cry of Divine Will ...

A subdued "oh!" is uttered by every mouth. Faces grow pale. Some people shiver as if an icy wind of death had blown over everybody.

The servants run away and come back with picks and sturdy levers. And they work inserting the points of the shining picks between the rock and the stone, and then replacing the picks with the sturdy levers and finally lifting the stone carefully, letting it slide to one side and dragging it cautiously against the rocky wall. An infected stench comes out of the dark hole making everyone withdraw.

Martha asks in a low voice: "Master, do You want to go down there? If You do, torches will be required ..." But she is wan at the thought of having to go down.

Jesus does not reply to her. He raises His eyes to the sky, He stretches out His arms crosswise and prays in a very loud voice syllabising the words: "Father! I thank You for hearing Me. I knew that You always hear Me. But I said so for those who are present here, for the people surrounding Me, that they may believe in You, in Me, and that You have sent Me!"

He remains thus for a moment and He becomes so transfigured that He seems to be enraptured, while without uttering any sound He says more secret words of prayer or adoration. I do not know. What I know is that He is so transhumanised that it is not possible to look at Him without feeling one's heart quiver. His body seems to become light, spiritualised, rising in height and also from the earth. Although the shades of His hair, eyes, complexion, garments remain unchanged -- contrary to what happened during the transfiguration on mount Tabor when everything became light and dazzling brightness -- He seems to shed light and that His whole body becomes light. Light seems to form a halo around Him, particularly round His face raised to the sky, certainly enraptured in the contemplation of His Father.

He remains thus for some time, then He becomes Himself, the Man, but powerfully majestic. He proceeds as far as the threshold of the sepulchre. He moves His arms forward -- so far He had held them crosswise, the palms turned upwards -- now with palms turned downwards, so that His hands are already inside the hole of the sepulchre and their whiteness is outstanding in the darkness of the hole. His blue eyes are blazing and their flash forecasting a miracle is today unsustainable, in the silent darkness, and in a powerful voice and with a cry louder than the one He uttered on the lake when He ordered the wind to abate, in a voice that I never heard in any other miracle, He shouts: "Lazarus! Come out!"

His voice is echoed by the sepulchral cave and coming out of it, it spreads all over the garden, it is repeated by the undulations of the ground of Bethany, I think it travels as far as the first hills beyond the fields and then comes back, repeated and subdued, like an order that cannot fail. It is certain that from numberless directions one can hear again: "out! out! out!"

Everybody is thrilled with emotion and if curiosity rivets everyone in his place, faces grow pale and eyes are opened wide while mouths are closed involuntarily with cries of surprise already on their lips.

Martha, a little behind and to one side, seems fascinated looking at Jesus. Mary, who has never moved away from the Master, falls on her knees at the entrance of the sepulchre, one hand on her breast to check her throbbing heart, the other holding the edge of Jesus' mantle unconsciously and convulsively, and one realises that she is trembling because the mantle is shaken lightly by the hand holding it.

"Something white seems to emerge from the deep end of the sepulchre. At first it is just a short convex line, then it becomes oval-shaped, then wider and longer lines appear. And the dead body, enveloped in its bandages, comes slowly forward, becoming more visible, more mysterious and more awful.

Jesus draws back, imperceptibly, but continuously, as the other moves forward. Thus the distance between the two is always the same.

Mary is compelled to drop the edge of the mantle, but she does not move from where she is. Joy, emotion, everything, nail her to the place where she is.

An "oh!" is uttered more and more clearly by the lips previously closed by the anxiety of suspense: from a whisper hardly distinguishable it changes into a voice, from a voice into a powerful cry.

Lazarus is by now on the threshold of the sepulchre and he remains there rigid and silent, like a plaster statue just rough-hewed, thus shapeless, a long thing, thin at the head and legs, thicker at the trunk, as macabre as death itself, ghost-like in the white bandages against the dark background of the sepulchre. As the sun shines on him, putrid matter can be seen dripping already here and there from the bandages.

Jesus shouts out in a loud voice: "Unbind him and let him go. Give him clothes and food."

"Master! ..." says Martha, and perhaps she would like to say more, but Jesus stares at her subduing her with His bright eyes and He says: "Here! At once! Bring a garment. Dress him in the presence of all the people and give him something to eat." He orders and never turns round to look at those who are behind and around Him. He looks only at Lazarus, at Mary who is near her resurrected brother, heedless of the disgust caused to everybody by the putrid bandages, and at Martha who is panting as if she felt her heart break and does not know whether she should shout for joy or weep ...

... The shroud placed round his body falls off slowly as the bandages are removed, freeing the trunk that they had enveloped for days, restoring a human figure to what they had previously transformed into something like a huge chrysalid. The bony shoulders, the emaciated arms, the ribs just covered with skin, the sunken stomach begin to appear slowly. And as the bandages fall off, the sisters, Maximinus, the servants busy themselves removing the first layer of dirt and balms and they insist continuously changing the water made detergent with spices, until the skin appears clean.

... Martha thinks that he wishes to say something but has no voice yet and she asks: "What are you saying to me, my Lazarus?"

"Nothing, Martha. I was thanking the Most High." His pronunciation is steady, his voice loud. The crowds utter an "oh!" of amazement once again.

... Jesus goes personally towards a servant who is carrying a tray on which there is some food and He takes a honey-cake, an apple, a goblet of wine, and He offers them to Lazarus, after offering and blessing them, so that he may nourish himself. And Lazarus eats with the healthy appetite of one who is well. A further "oh!" of amazement is uttered by the crowd.

Jesus seems to see no one but Lazarus, but in actual fact He observes everything and everybody and when He sees with what furious gestures Sadoc, Helkai, Hananiah, Felix, Doras and Cornelius and others are about to go away, He says in a loud voice: "Wait a moment, Sadoc. I want to have a word with you, with you and your friends."

They stop with the sinister look of criminals.

Joseph of Arimathea makes a gesture as if he were frightened and beckons to the Zealot to restrain Jesus. But He is already going towards the rancorous group and is already saying loud:

"Sadoc, is what you have seen enough for you? One day you told Me that in order to believe, you and your peers needed to see a decomposed dead body be recomposed and in good health. Are you satisfied with the rottenness you have seen? Can you admit that Lazarus was dead and that now he is alive and healthy, as he has never been for many years? I know. You came here to tempt these people, to increase their grief and their doubt.

You came here looking for Me, hoping to find Me hiding in the room of the dying man. You did not come with feelings of love and with the desire to honour the deceased man, but to ensure that Lazarus was really dead, and you have continued to come rejoicing all the more as time went by. If the situation had evolved as you were hoping, as you believed it would evolve, you would have been right in exulting."

"The Friend Who cures everybody, but does not cure His friend. The Master Who rewards everybody's faith, but not the Faith of His friends in Bethany. The Messiah powerless against the reality of death. That is what was making you exult. Then God gave you His reply. No prophet had ever been able to put together what was decomposed, in addition to being dead. God did it. That is the living witness of what I am. One day it was God Who took some dust and made it into a form and He breathed the vital spirit into it and man was. I was there to say: "Let man be made in Our own Image and Likeness". Because I am the Word of the Father. Today, I, the Word, said to what is even less than dust, I said to rottenness: "Live", and decomposition was recomposed into flesh, into wholesome, living, breathing flesh. There it is looking at you. And to the flesh I joined the spirit that had been lying for days in Abraham's bosom. I called him with My will, because I can do everything, as I am the Living Being, the King of kings to Whom all creatures and things are subject. What are you going to reply to Me now?"

He is in front of them, tall, ablaze with majesty, really Judge and God. They do not reply. He insists: "Is it not yet enough for you to believe, to accept what is ineluctable?"


"You have kept but one part of Your promise. This is not the sign of Jonah ..." says Sadoc harshly.

"You shall have that one as well. I promised it and I will keep My Promise" says the Lord. "And another person, who is present here, and is waiting for another sign, shall have it. And as he is a just man, he will accept it. You will not. You will remain what you are."

He turns round and sees Simon, the member of the Sanhedrin, the son of Elianna. He gazes at him. He leaves the previous group and when He is face to face with him, He says in a low but incisive voice: "You are fortunate that Lazarus does not remember his stay among the dead! What have you done with your father, oh Cain?"

Simon runs away with a cry of fear that he changes into a howl of malediction: "May You be cursed, Nazarene!" to which Jesus replies: "Your curse is rising to Heaven and from Heaven the Most High throws it back at you. You are marked with the sign, you wretch!"

He goes back to the groups that are astonished, almost frightened. He meets Gamaliel who is going towards the road. He looks at Gamaliel, who looks at Him. Jesus says to him without stopping: "Be ready, Rabbi. The sign will come soon. I never lie."

The garden slowly becomes empty. The Judaeans are dumbfounded, but most of them are bursting with wrath. If glances could reduce one to ashes, Jesus would have been pulverised a long time ago. They speak and discuss among themselves while going away, and they are so upset by their defeat that they are unable to conceal the purpose of their presence here under the hypocritical appearance of friendship. They go away without saying goodbye to Lazarus or to the sisters.
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

What the glorious Resurrection of Christ and the amazing Power of His Holy Spirit - manifested and demonstrated especially in Pentecost and the visible transformation of the lives of the Apostles - does is that it gives us the strength never to despair and to know the Lord our God is always in control and can heal the most desperate cases, can transform the most despondent of situations, can triumph over anything, over Death itself, as He conquered the grave; over even weak disciples, or lax members of the first Hierarchy, by transforming them after the Holy Spirit's coming and Mary's prayers, and making them Saints and heroes for Christ and the foundations of His Church.

Jesus is still waiting for us to turn to Him fully and consecrate ourselves unreservedly to His Sacred Heart for Him to do as great things - or, if such is His Will, even greater still! - in our lives and in the world today. What is our answer to Him?

In an important work called sighs from the Heart of the Divine Redeemer, the Lord Jesus, the Man-God, has revealed He prayed to the Eternal Father in this way during His life on earth, "Jesus? vocation as the Man-God was one of being the Bringer of Divine Light and Redemption. (...) At a given point of time I am drawn into Jesus? Heart while He is looking at the sunset, and I am allowed to read His following sigh: "Oh My Father, I kiss the Light from Your Heart, which is setting in this world, in order that it may never die. Into My Divine Heart I draw the power of all sins, for the world to see that the Kingdom of the Light is soon going to rise" ... Oh Father, I pray that all souls of all times may receive the grace of understanding that the quest for their vocation, for the meaning and purpose of their life on earth, is essentially a quest for gaining knowledge of Our infallible Will, which wants to lift them up in true sanctity. The seed to know her vocation is hidden in every soul, because this seed is the bearer of that which We expect of her as her contribution to Our great Plan of Salvation for all human souls. The soul can open up this seed by deeply and persistently desiring to know Our Will regarding her life. Nothing else but Love is able to breathe life into this desire and to make this seed blossom into a flower. This flower is the knowledge of that which We expect of her in life. The scent from this flower will prepare the soul for the experience of true inner Peace". In uttering this sigh Jesus is reflecting on the legacy He Himself is set on leaving to the souls, as this is His true vocation as the Redeemer, a legacy of which every individual soul is to open up the effects in her own life." Let us co-operate with Jesus in our lives.

To continue, the Lord tells them the time has not yet come for them, but it will be coming very soon. He prepares them for their mission.

"«No. Not yet. But time flies and it will soon be that moment.» «Oh! do not leave me on the Earth without You, Lord. I have loved You from Your birth to Your Death, from Your Death to Your Resurrection, and always. But it would be too sad to know that You are no longer among us! You heard the prayer of Elisha's father. You have satisfied so many. Hear mine, Lord!» implores Isaac on his knees with his hands stretched out. «The life you could still have would be a sermon on Me, perhaps the glory of martyrdom. You have been a martyr out of love for Me, a baby, are you now afraid of being one for Me glorious?» «It would be my glory to follow You, Lord. I am poor and foolish. What I could give, I gave with a good will. Now this is what I would like: to follow You. But let it be done as You wish, now and always.»

18 Jesus lays His hand on Isaac's head, and leaves it there on a long caress, while He addresses them all saying: «Have you no questions to ask Me? These are the last lessons. Speak to your Master... See how the little ones are on familiar terms with Me?»

In fact also today Marjiam leans his head on Jesus' body, pressing himself against Him, and Isaac did not show any shyness in expressing his wish. «Really... Yes... We have something to ask...» says Peter. «Ask then.» «Well... Yesterday evening, after You left us, we were talking among ourselves of what You had said. Now other words are urging us with regard to what You have said. Yesterday and also today, if one considers them properly, You have spoken as if heresies and separations were to arise, and soon. This makes us think that we shall have to be very prudent with those who will want to come among us. Because the seed of heresy and separation will certainly be in them.» «Do you think so? And is Israel not already divided in coming to Me? You mean this: that the Israel, that loved Me, will never be heretical and divided. Is that right? But has she ever been united for ages, even in the ancient formation? And has she been united in following Me? I truly tell you that the root of heresy is in her.» «But...» «But she has been idolatrous and heretical for ages under the outer appearance of faithfulness. You know her idols. And her heresies. The Gentiles will be better than she is. That is why I have not excluded them, and I tell you to do what I have done. That will be one of the most difficult things for you. I know. But remember the prophets. They prophesy the vocation of the Gentiles and the hardness of the Judaeans. Why would you like to close the gates of the Kingdom to those who love Me and come to the Light that their souls were seeking? Do you think that they are bigger sinners than you, because they have not known God as yet, because they have followed their religion and they will follow it until they are attracted by ours? You must not. I say that many a time they are better than you because, while they have a religion that is not holy, they know how to be just. There is no lack of just people in any country and religion. God observes the deeds of men, not their words. And if He sees that a Gentile, out of the justice of his heart, according to nature does what the Law of Sinai prescribes, why should He consider him contemptible? Is it not more meritorious that a man, who does not know God's command not to do this or that because it is evil, should take upon himself not to do what his reason tells him is not good and should follow it faithfully, than the very relative merit of him who, knowing God, the scope of man and the Law that enables him to attain it, comes to continuous compromises and designs, in order to adapt the perfect order to a corrupt will? What do you think? That God appreciates the ways out of obedience devised by Israel in order not to sacrifice her concupiscence too much? What do you think? That when a Gentile departs from this world, and is just in the eyes of God as he has followed the right law that his conscience imposed on itself, God will consider him a demon? I tell you: God will judge the actions of men, and the Christ, the Judge of all peoples, will reward those to whom the desire of their souls was a voice of an intimate law to attain the final scope of man, which is to be reunited to his Creator, to the God unknown to the heathens, but to the God Who they feel is True and Holy, beyond the painted scenery of any false Olympus.

19 Even more, pay attention not to be the cause of scandal to the Gentiles. Too often the name of God has already been derided among the Gentiles because of the deeds of the children of the people of God. Do not consider yourselves the absolute treasurers of My gifts and of My merits. I died for the Judaeans and for the Gentiles. My Kingdom will belong to all peoples. Do not take advantage of the patience with which God has treated you so far, by saying: "We are allowed everything." No. I tell you. There is no longer this or that people. There is My People.

And in it the vases used up in the service of the Temple and those that are now being laid on the tables of God have the same value. And more than that, many vases used up in the service of the Temple, but not of God, will be thrown into a corner, and in their stead on the altar will be placed those that do not yet know incense, oil, wine or balm, but are anxious to be filled with them and to be used for the glory of the Lord. Do not demand too much of the Gentiles. It is enough for them to have faith and to obey My Word. A new circumcision replaces the old one. Man is to be circumcised in his heart, from now on; in his spirit, even better than in his heart, because the blood of the circumcised, symbolising the purification from the concupiscence that excluded Adam from the divine filiation, has been replaced by My most pure Blood.

It is valid both for those who are circumcised and for those who are uncircumcised in their bodies, providing the latter have received My Baptism and they renounce Satan, the world, the flesh, out of love for Me. Do not despise the uncircumcised. God did not despise Abraham. Because of his justice God chose him as the head of His People even before circumcision had bitten his flesh. If God approached Abraham uncircumcised, to give him His orders, you can approach the uncircumcised to teach them the Law of the Lord. Consider to how many sins and to what sin the circumcised have come. So do not be inexorable towards the Gentiles.»


20 «But shall we have to tell them what You taught us? They will not understand anything, because they do not know the Law.» «You say so. But did Israel, who knew the Law and the Prophets, understand?» «That is true.» «But be careful. You will say what the Spirit advises you to say, verbally, without any fear, without wanting to do it by yourselves. When false prophets arise among the believers, and they profess their ideas as if they were inspired, and they are the heretics, then you will have to fight their heretical doctrines with means firmer than words. But do not worry. The Holy Spirit will guide you. I never say anything that may not happen.» «And what shall we do with heretics?» «Fight the heresy itself with all your strength, but with every means try to convert the heretics to the Lord. Never get tired in looking for the sheep that have gone astray in order to take them back to the Fold. Pray, suffer, get people to pray, to suffer, go around begging the pure, the good, the generous believers for sacrifices and sufferings, because these are the means to convert your brothers. The Passion of Christ continues in Christians. I have not excluded you from this great work, which is the Redemption of the world. You are all members of one single body. Help one another, and let those who are strong and healthy work for the weaker ones, and those who are united stretch out their hands and call their brothers who are far away.» «But will there be any, after they have been brothers in one house?» «There will be some.» «Why?»

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

21 «And shall we tell them or write all your actions?» «I have told you. The Holy Spirit will advise you what it is right to say or be quiet about, according to the times. You can see it! What I have done is believed or denied, and at times is used as a weapon against Me, manipulated as it is by hands that hate Me. They have called Me Beelzebub when, as the Master, I worked miracles in the presence of everybody. And what will they say now, when they learn that I have acted in such a supernatural manner? They will curse Me even more. And you would be persecuted before the time. So be silent until it is the time to speak.» «But if that hour should come when we, the witnesses, are dead?» «In My Church there will always be priests, doctors, prophets, exorcizers, confessors, people who work miracles or are inspired, as is necessary so that peoples may have from the Church what is necessary. Heaven: the Church Triumphant will not leave the Church Teaching all alone, and the latter will assist the Church Militant. They are not three bodies. They are only one Body. There is no division among them, but communion of love and of purpose: to love Charity and enjoy it in Heaven, its Kingdom. And for this reason the Church Militant will have to provide with love for the suffrages on behalf of that part of it which, already destined to the Church Triumphant, is still excluded from it, because of the satisfactory expiation of faults absolved but not entirely expiated with regard to the Perfect Divine Justice. In the mystic Body everything is to be done in love and through love. Because love is the blood that circulates in it. Assist your brothers who are being purified. As I said that the works of corporal mercy achieve a reward for you, in Heaven, so I told you that also the spiritual ones achieve it for you.

And I truly tell you that a prayer for the souls of the dead, that they may enter into peace, is a great work of mercy, for which God will bless you and the souls for whom you have prayed will be grateful. When, at the resurrection of the bodies, you are all gathered before Christ Judge, among those whom I will bless, there will be also those who showed love for their brothers who were being purified, making offerings and praying for their peace. I tell you. Not one of the good actions will be left without fruit, and many will shine brightly in Heaven, without having preached, administered, made apostolic journeys, embraced special states, but only because they prayed and suffered to give peace to the souls that were being purified, to lead men to conversion. They also, priests unknown to the world, unknown apostles, victims whom God alone sees, will receive the reward of the workers of the Lord, as of their lives they made a perpetual sacrifice of love for their brothers and for the glory of God. I truly tell you that one can arrive at eternal life along many ways, and this is one of them, and it is so dear to My Heart. 22 Have you anything else to ask? 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)

Xavier

«Lord, yesterday and not only yesterday, we were thinking that You said: "You will sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel." But now we are eleven...» «Elect the twelfth. It is your duty, Peter, to do so.» «Mine? Not mine, Lord! I ask You to choose him.»

«I elected My Twelve once and I formed them. Then I appointed their chief. Then I gave them Grace and I infused the Holy Spirit into them. It is their turn now to walk, because they are no longer babies unweaned unable to do so.» «But at least tell us where we are to lay our eyes...»

«Here you are. This is the chosen part of the herd» says Jesus, making a circular gesture on those of the seventy-two who are present. «Not us, Lord. Not us. The place of the traitor frightens us» they say imploringly. «Let us take Lazarus. Do You agree, Lord?» Jesus is silent. «Joseph of Arimathea?... Nicodemus?...» Jesus is silent. «Yes! Let us take Lazarus.» «And do you want to give the perfect friend that place that you do not want?» asks Jesus. «Lord, I should like to say something» says the Zealot. «Speak.» «I am sure that Lazarus for Your sake would accept also that place and would hold it in such a perfect manner as to make people forget whose place that was. But I do not think it is befitting to do so for other reasons. Lazarus' spiritual virtues can be found in many among the humble people of Your flock. And I think that it would be better to give them the preference, so that the believers may not say that we sought only power and wealth, as the Pharisees do, instead of virtue only.» «You are right, Simon. And what you said is so much more true, as you have spoken with justice, without letting Lazarus' friendship prevent you from speaking.» «Then let us appoint Marjiam as twelfth apostle. He is a boy.»

«In order to cancel that horrible empty space, I would accept it, but I am not worthy of it. How could I, a boy, speak to an adult? Lord, You must say whether I am right.» «You are right. But do not be in a hurry. The time will come and you will be surprised at all being of the same opinion. Pray, in the meantime. I am going away. Withdraw to pray. I dismiss you for the time being. Ensure that you are all at Bethany on the fourteenth of Civ.» He stands up, while they all kneel down prostrating themselves with their faces on the grass. He blesses them and the light, the maid who announces Him and precedes Him when He comes as she receives Him when He departs, embraces Him and hides Him, absorbing Him once again.

Next Chapter: 632. The Supplementary Passover. 23rd April 1947.
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 Christ points out the shepherds - little souls, they seem to be, yet they were shepherds to the Shepherds in the Hour of the Passion!, and even subsequently, excelling them, because of their devotion to the Infant Jesus, and to His Blessed Sacrament, as Eucharistic souls - as models of the devotion we should have to Him in His Eucharist. We know that in many miracles, the Holy Eucharist often appears as the very Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. At other times, it has pleased God to manifest Baby Jesus in the Eucharist; making a daily Holy Hour before Baby Jesus is like having the magic of Christmas before us every day, and visiting Him in the very Manger of Bethlehem. The root word for manger also means Eating, and Bethlehem literally means, "House of Bread". The meaning is evident. In Bethlehem, the Eternal God became Incarnate, Who is to be Eternal Food of every soul, that alone confers Everlasting Life. For both Christmas, and on the eve of Corpus Christi, Jesus Christ revealed the following to Mary Valtorta:

Chapter 29: The Birth of Our Lord Jesus:

...Yes. When the light becomes endurable once again to my eyes, I see Mary with the new-born Son in Her arms. A little Baby, rosy and plump, bustling with His little hands as big as rose buds and kicking with His tiny feet that could be contained in the hollow of the heart of a rose: and is crying with a thin trembling voice, just like a new-born little lamb, opening His pretty little mouth that resembles a wild strawberry, and showing a tiny tongue that trembles against the rosy roof of His mouth. And He moves His little head that is so blond that it seems without any hair, a little round head that His Mummy holds in the hollow of Her hand, while She looks at Her Baby and adores Him weeping and smiling at the same time, and She bends down to kiss Him not on His innocent head, but on the centre of His chest, where underneath there is His little heart beating for us... where one day there will be the Wound. And His Mother is doctoring that wound in advance, with Her immaculate kiss.

The ox, woken up by the dazzling light, gets up with a great noise of hooves and bellows, the donkey turns its head round and brays. It is the light that rouses them but I love to think that they wanted to greet their Creator, both for themselves and on behalf of all the animals. Also Joseph, who almost enraptured, was praying so ardently as to be isolated from what was around him, now rouses and he sees a strange light filter through the fingers of his hands pressed against his face. He removes his hands, lifts his head and turns round. The ox, standing as it is, hides Mary. But She calls him: « Joseph, come. » Joseph rushes. And when he sees, he stops, struck by reverence, and he is about to fall on his knees where he is. But Mary insists: « Come, Joseph » and She leans on the hay with Her left hand and, holding the Child close to Her heart with Her right one, She gets up and moves towards Joseph, who is walking embarrassed, because of a conflict in him between his desire to go and his fear of being irreverent. They meet at the foot of the straw bed and they look at each other, weeping blissfully.

« Come, let us offer Jesus to the Father » says Mary. And while Joseph kneels down, She stands up between two trunks supporting the vault, She lifts up Her Creature in Her arms and says: « Here I am. On His behalf, O God, I speak these words to You: here I am to do Your will. And I, Mary, and My spouse, Joseph, with Him. Here are Your servants, O Lord. May Your will always be done by us, in every hour, in every event, for Your glory and Your love. » Then Mary bends down and says: « Here, Joseph, take Him », and offers him the Child. « What! I?... Me?... Oh, no! I am not worthy! » Joseph is utterly dumbfounded at the idea of having to touch God. But Mary insists smiling: « You are well worthy. No one is more worthy than you are, and that is why the Most High chose you. Take Him, Joseph, and hold Him while I look for the linens. » Joseph, blushing almost purple, stretches his arms out and takes the Baby, Who is screaming because of the cold and when he has Him in his arms, he no longer persists in the intention of holding Him far from himself, out of respect, but he presses Him to his heart and bursts into tears exclaiming:

« Oh! Lord! My God! » And he bends down to kiss His tiny feet and feels them cold. He then sits on the ground, and holds Him close to his chest and with his brown tunic and his hands he tries to cover Him, and warm Him, defending Him from the bitterly cold wind of the night. He would like to go near the fire, but there is a cold draft there coming in from the door. It is better to stay where he is. No, it is better to go between the two animals which serve as a protection against the air and give out warmth. Thus, he goes between the ox and the donkey, with his back to the door, bending over the New-Born to form with his body a shelter, the two sides of which are a grey head with long ears, and a huge white muzzle with a steaming nose and two gentle soft eyes. Mary has opened the trunk and has pulled out the linens and swaddling clothes. She has been near the fire warming them. She now moves towards Joseph and envelops the Baby with lukewarm linen and then with Her veil to protect His little head. « Where shall we put Him now? » She asks.

Joseph looks round, thinking... « Wait » he says. « Let us move the animals and their hay over here, we will then pull down that hay up there and arrange it in here. The wood on the side will protect Him from the air, the hay will serve as a pillow and the ox will warm Him a little with its breath. The ox is better than the donkey. It is more patient and quiet. » And he bustles about, while Mary is lulling the Baby, holding Him close to Her heart, and laying Her cheek on His tiny head to warm it. Joseph makes up the fire, without economy this time, to have a good blaze, and he warms the hay and as it dries up, he keeps it near his chest, so that it will not get cold. Then, when he has gathered enough to make a little mattress for the Child, he goes to the manger and sorts it out as if it were a cradle. « It is ready » he says. « Now we would need a blanket, because the hay stings, and also to cover Him. » « Take My mantle » says Mary. « You will be cold. » « Oh! It does not matter! The blanket is too coarse. The mantle is soft and warm. I am not cold at all. Don't let Him suffer any longer! » Joseph takes the wide mantle of soft dark blue wool, he double folds it and lays it on the hay, leaving a strip hanging out of the manger.

The first bed for the Saviour is ready. And the Mother, with Her sweet, graceful gait, moves to the manger, lays Him in it, and covers Him with the strip of Her mantle. She arranges it also around His bare head, almost completely covered by the hay, from which it is protected only by Mary's thin veil. Only His little face, the size of a man's fist, is left uncovered. Mary and Joseph, bending over the manger, are blissfully happy watching Him sleep His first sleep, because the warmth of the clothes and of the hay has appeased His crying, and made Him sleepy. -------------------

Mary says: « I promised you that He would come to bring you His peace. Do you remember the peace you enjoyed at Christmas! When you saw Me with My Child? Then it was your time of peace. Now it is your time of pain. But you know by now. It is by means of pain that we achieve peace and every grace for ourselves and our neighbors. Jesus-Man became Jesus-God again, after the tremendous suffering of His Passion. He became Peace, once more. Peace from Heaven, from where He had come and from where He now pours out His peace for those who love Him in the world. But in the hours of His Passion, He, Peace of the world, was deprived of that peace. He would not have suffered if He had had it. And He had to suffer: and to suffer excruciatingly, to the very end.

I, Mary, redeemed woman by means of My divine Maternity. But that was only the beginning of woman's redemption. By refusing a human marriage in accordance with My vow of virginity, I had rejected all lustful satisfactions, deserving thus grace from God. But it was not yet sufficient, because Eve's sin was a four branched tree: pride, avarice, gluttony and lust. And all four were to be cut off, before making the roots of the tree sterile. By deeply humiliating Myself, I defeated pride. I abased Myself before everybody. I am not referring to My humility towards God. Such humility is due to the Most High by every creature. Even His Word had it. It was necessary for Me, a woman, to have it. But have you ever considered what humiliation I had to suffer from men, without defending Myself in any way?

Even Joseph, who was a just man, had accused Me in his heart. The others, who were not just, had committed a sin of disparagement with regard to My condition, and the rumor of their words had come like a bitter wave to break up against My humanity. And they were the first of the infinite humiliations I was to suffer in My life as Mother of Jesus and of mankind. Humiliations of poverty, of a refugee, humiliations for reproaches of relatives and friends who, being unaware of the truth, judged Me a weak woman with regard to My behavior as a Mother towards Jesus, when He was a young man, humiliations during the three years of His public life, cruel humiliations in the hour of Calvary, humiliation in having to admit that I could not afford to buy a place and the perfumes for the burial of my Son. I overcame the avarice of the First Parents renouncing My Creature before the time. A mother never renounces her creature unless she is forced to. Whether her heart is asked to renounce her creature by her country or by the love of a spouse or even by God Himself, she will resent and struggle against the separation. It is natural. A son grows in our womb and the tie that links him to us can never be completely broken. Even if the umbilical cord is cut, there is a nerve that always remains: it departs from the mother's heart and is grafted into the son's heart: it is a spiritual nerve, more lively and sensitive than a physical one. And a mother feels it stretching even to exceedingly severe pangs if the love of God or of a creature or the need of the country take her son away from her. And it breaks, tearing her heart, if death snatches her son from her. And I renounced My Son from the very moment I had Him. I gave Him to God. I gave Him to you. I deprived Myself of the Fruit of My womb to make amends for Eve's theft of God's fruit.

I defeated gluttony, both of knowledge and of enjoyment, by agreeing to know only what God wanted Me to know, without asking Myself or Him more than what I was told. I believed unquestioningly. I overcame the innate personal delight of enjoyment because I denied Myself every sensual pleasure. I confined flesh, the instrument of Satan, together with Satan, under My heel and made of them a step to rise towards Heaven. Heaven! My aim. Where God was. My only hunger. A hunger which is not gluttony, but a necessity blessed by God, Who wants us to crave for Him.

I defeated lust, which is gluttony carried to the extreme of greed. Because every unrestrained vice leads to a bigger vice. And Eve's gluttony, which was already blameworthy, led her to lust. It was no longer enough for her to enjoy pleasure by herself. She wanted to take her crime to a refined intensity and thus she became acquainted with lust and was a mistress of lust for her companion. I reversed the terms and instead of descending I have always ascended. Instead of causing other people to descend, I have always attracted them towards Heaven: of My honest companion, I made an angel. Now that I possessed God and His infinite wealth with Him, I hastened to divest Myself of it saying: "Here I am: may Your will be done for Him and by Him."

He is chaste who chastises not only his flesh but also his affections and his thoughts. I had to be the Chaste One in order to annul the One who had been Unchaste in her flesh, her heart and her mind. And I never abandoned My reservedness, not even by saying of My Son: "He is Mine, I want Him", since He belonged only to Me on earth, as He belonged only to God in Heaven. And yet all this was not sufficient to achieve for woman the peace lost by Eve. I obtained that for you at the foot of the Cross: when I saw Him dying, Whom you saw being born. When I felt My bowels being torn apart by the cry of My dying Creature, I became void of all femininity. I was no longer flesh, but an angel.

Mary, the Virgin Spouse of the Spirit, died that moment. The Mother of Grace remained, Who gave you the Grace She generated from Her torture. The female reconsecrated "woman" by me on Christmas night, achieved at the foot of the Cross the means to become a creature of Heaven. This I did for you, depriving Myself of all satisfactions, even of holy ones. And whereas you had been reduced by Eve to females not superior to the mates of animals, I made of you, if you only wish so, saints of God. I ascended for you. As I had done for Joseph, I lifted you higher up. The 'rock of Calvary is My Mount of Olives.

From there I took My leap to carry to Heaven the re-sanctified soul of woman together with My flesh, now glorified because it had borne the Word of God and had destroyed in Me the very last trace of Eve. It had destroyed the last root of that tree with four poisonous branches, a root stuck in the sensuality that had dragged mankind to fall and that will go on biting at your intestines until the end of time and to the last woman.

From there, where I now shine in the ray of Love, I call you and I show you the Medicine to control yourselves: the Grace of My Lord and the Blood of My Son.

And you, My voice, rest your soul in the light of this dawn of Jesus, to gain strength for the future crucifixions which will not be spared you, because we want you here and one comes here through pain, because we want you here and the higher one comes the more one has suffered to obtain Grace for the world. Go in peace. I am with 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

Chapter 30: The Adoration of the Shepherds: 7th June 1944. The Eve of Corpus Christi. 

...« No. I see something like a body » says one whom I recognise to be the shepherd who gave the milk to Mary. « It is... it is an angel! » shouts the boy. « Here he is, he is coming down, he is coming near... Down! On your knees before the Angel of God! » A long and venerable « Oh! » comes from the group of shepherds, who fall down face to the ground and the older they are, the more they appear to be crushed by the refulgent apparition. The young ones are on their knees, looking at the Angel who is coming nearer and nearer, and then he stops mid-air above the enclosure wall, waving his large wings, a pearly brightness in the white moonlight surrounding him. « Do not fear. I am not bringing you misfortune. I announce you a great joy for the people of Israel and for all the people of the world. » The Angelic voice is the harmony of a harp and of singing nightingales.

« Today, in the City of David, the Saviour has been born! » In saying so, the Angel spreads out his wings wider and wider, moving them as a sign of overwhelming joy, and a stream of golden sparks and precious stones seem to fall from them: a real rainbow describing a triumphal arch above the poor shed.

« ... the Saviour, Who is Christ. » The angel shines with a brighter light. His two wings, now motionless, pointed upright towards the sky like two still sails on the sapphire of the sea, seem two bright flames ascending to Heaven.

« ... Christ, the Lord! » The angel gathers his sparkling wings and covers himself with them as if they were a coat of diamonds on a dress of pearls, he bows down in adoration, with his arms crossed over his heart, while his head bent down as it is, disappears in the shade of the tops of the folded wings. Only an oblong bright motionless form can be seen for a few moments. But now he stirs. He spreads out his wings, lifts his head, bright with a heavenly smile, and says:

« You will recognise Him from the following signs: in a poor stable, behind Bethlehem, you will find a baby in swaddling clothes, in a manger for animals, because no roof was found for the Messiah in the city of David. » The angel becomes grave, almost sad, in saying that.

But from the Heavens many angels – oh! how many! – come down, all like him – a ladder of angels descending and rejoicing and dimming the moonlight with their heavenly brightness. They all gather round the announcing angel, fluttering their wings, exhaling perfumes, playing notes in which the most beautiful voices of creation find a recollection, but elevated to uniform perfection. If painting is the expression of matter to become light, here melody is the expression of music to give men a hint of the beauty of God. To hear this melody is to know Paradise, where everything is harmony of love which emanates from God to make the blessed souls happy, and then from them returns to God to say to Him: « We love You! » The angelical « Glory » spreads throughout the quiet country in wider and wider circles and the bright light with it. And the birds join their singing to greet the early light, and the sheep add their bleatings for the early sun. But, as previously in, the grotto for the ox and the donkey, I love to believe that the animals are greeting their Creator, Who has come down among them to love them both as a Man and as God. The singing slowly fades away, as well as the light, and the angels ascend to Heaven...

« You, Levi, who saw the angel first, obviously because you are better than we are, look in. » Before they said he was mad... but now it suits them if he dare what they do not. The boy hesitates, but then he makes up his mind. He goes near the hole, pulls the mantle a little to one side, looks... and remains enraptured. « What can you see? » they ask him anxiously in low voices. « I can see a beautiful young woman and a man bending over a manger and I can hear... I can hear a little baby crying, and the woman is speaking to Him in a voice... oh! what a voice! »

« What is She saying? » « She is saying: "Jesus, little one! Jesus, love of Your Mummy! Don't cry, little Son..".. She is saying: "Oh! If I could only say to You: 'Take some milk, little one'. But I have not got any yet..".. She says: "You are so cold, My love! And the hay is stinging You! How painful it is for Your Mummy to hear You crying so, without being able to help You!.".. She says: "Sleep, soul of Mine! Because it breaks My heart to hear You crying and see Your tears!" and She kisses Him, and She must be warming His little feet with Her hands, because She is bent with Her arms in the manger. » « Call Her! Let them hear you. » « I won't. You should call Her, because you brought us here and you know Her! » The shepherd opens his mouth, but he only utters a faint moaning noise.

Joseph turns round and comes to the door. « Who are you? » « Shepherds. We brought you some food and some wool. We have come to worship the Saviour. » « Come in. » They go in, and the stable becomes brighter because of the light of the torches. The older men push the young ones in front of them. Mary turns round and smiles. « Come » She says. « Come! », and She invites them with Her hand and Her smile, and She takes the boy who saw the angel and She draws him to Herself, against the manger. And the boy looks, and is happy. The others, invited also by Joseph, move forward with their gifts and they place them at Mary's feet with few deep-felt words. They then look at the Baby Who is weeping a little and they smile moved and happy. And one of them, somewhat bolder than the rest, says: « Mother, take this wool. It's soft and clean. I prepared it for my child who is about to be born. But I offer it to You. Lay your Son in this wool. It will be soft and warm. »

And he offers the sheep hide, a beautiful hide, well covered with white soft wool. Mary lifts Jesus, and puts it round Him. And She shows Him to the shepherds, who, kneeling on the hay on the ground, look at Him ecstatically! They become bolder, and one suggests: « He should be given a mouthful of milk, better still, some water and honey. But we have no honey. We give it to little babies. I have seven children, and I know... » « There is some milk here. Take it, Woman. » « But it is cold. It should be warm. Where is Elias? He has the sheep. » Elias must be the shepherd who gave the milk. But he is not there. He remained outside and is looking from the hole, but he cannot be seen in the dark night. « Who led you here? » « An Angel told us to come, and Elias showed us the way. But where is he now? » The sheep declares his presence with a bleat. « Come in. You are wanted. »

He enters with his sheep, embarrassed because they all look at him. « It's you! » says Joseph, who recognizes him, and Mary smiles at him saying: « You are good. » They milk the sheep and with the hem of a piece of linen dipped into the warm creamy milk, Mary moistens the lips of the Baby Who sucks the sweet cream. They all smile, and even more so, when Jesus falls asleep in the warmth of the wool, with the little bit of linen still between His lips. « But You can't stay here. It's cold and damp. And... there is too strong a smell of animals. It's not good... it's not good for the Saviour. » « I know » replies Mary with a deep sigh. « But there is no room for us in Bethlehem. » « Take heart, Woman. We will look for a house for You. » « I will tell my mistress » says Elias. « She is good. She will receive You, even if she had to give You her own room. As soon as it is daylight, I will tell her. Her house is full of people. But she will find room for You. » « For My Child, at least. Joseph and I can lie also on the floor. But for the Little One... »

« Don't worry, Woman. I will see to it. And we will tell many people what we were told. You will lack nothing. For the time being, take what our poverty can give You. We are shepherds... » « We are poor, too. And we cannot reward you » says Joseph. « Oh! We don't want it. Even if You could afford it, we would not want it. The Lord has already rewarded us. He promised peace to everybody. The angels said: "Peace to men of good will." But He has already given it to us, because the angel said that this Child is the Saviour, Who is Christ, the Lord. We are poor and ignorant, but we know that the Prophets say that the Saviour will be the Prince of Peace. And he told us to come and adore Him. That is why He gave us His peace. Glory be to God in the Most High Heaven and glory to His Christ here, and You are blessed, Woman, Who gave birth to Him: You are holy, because You deserved to bear Him! Give us orders as our Queen, because we will be happy to serve You. What can we do for You? » « You can love My Son, and always cherish the same thoughts as you have now. » « But what about You? Is there anything You wish? Have You no relatives whom You would like to inform that He has been born? » « Yes, I have them. But they are far away. They are at Hebron... » « I will go » says Elias. « Who are they? » « Zacharias, the priest, and My cousin Elizabeth. » « Zacharias? Oh! I know him well. In summer I go up those mountains because the pastures are rich and beautiful, and I am a friend of his shepherd. When I know you are settled, I will go to Zacharias. » « Thank you, Elias. » « You need not thank me. It is a great honour for me, a poor shepherd, to go and speak to the priest and say to him: "The Saviour has been born." » « No. You must say to him: "Your cousin, Mary of Nazareth, has said that Jesus has been born, and that you should come to Bethlehem." » « I will say that. »

« May God reward You. I will remember you, Elias, and every one of you. » « Will You tell Your Baby about us? » « I certainly will. » « I am Elias. », « And I am Levi. », « And I am Samuel. », « And I Jonah. », « And I Isaac. », « And I Tobias. », « And I Jonathan. », « And I Daniel. », « And I Simeon. », « My name is John. », « I am Joseph and my brother Benjamin, we are twins.»

« I will remember your names. » « We must go... But we will come back... And we will bring others to worship Him. » « How can we go back to the sheep-fold, leaving the Child? » « Glory be to God Who has shown Him to us! » « Will You let us kiss His dress? » asks Levi, with an angelic smile. And Mary lifts Jesus slowly, and sitting on the hay, envelops the tiny little feet in a linen, and offers them to be kissed. And the shepherds bow down to the ground and kiss the tiny feet, veiled by the linen. Those with a beard clean it first; almost everyone is crying, and when they have to go, they walk out backwards, leaving their hearts there... The vision ends thus, with Mary sitting on the straw with the Child on Her lap and Joseph who, leaning with his elbow on the manger, looks and adores. -----------------

Jesus says: « I will speak today. You are very tired, but have a little more patience. It is the eve of Corpus Christi. I could speak to you about the Eucharist and the saints who became apostles of Its cult, as I spoke to you of the saints who were apostles of the Sacred Heart. But I want to speak to you of something else and of a class of worshippers of My Body who are the forerunners of Its cult. That is: the shepherds. They were the first worshippers of My Body of the Word, Who had become Man. Once I told you and also My Church says this, the Holy Innocents are the protomartyrs of Christ. Now I tell you that the shepherds are the first worshippers of the Body of God. And they have all the qualifications to be the worshippers of My Body, o Eucharistic souls.

Firm faith: they believe the angel promptly and unquestioningly.

Generosity: they give all their wealth to their Lord. Humility: they approach people, who from the human point of view, are poorer than they, and they do so with a modest attitude that does not humiliate them, and they profess themselves their servants.

Desire: what they are unable to offer, they endeavor to obtain by means of charitable work.

Prompt obedience: Mary wishes to inform Zacharias and Elias goes at once. He does not postpone the matter.

Love finally: they suffer in departing from the grotto and you say: "They leave their hearts there." And you are right. But should the same not happen with My Sacrament?

And there is another point, and it is entirely for you: note to whom the angel reveals himself first and who deserves to hear Mary's love effusions. Levi: the boy. God shows Himself to those who have a child's soul and He shows them also His mysteries and allows them to hear His divine words and Mary's. And those with a child's soul have also Levi's holy daring and they say: "Let us kiss Jesus' dress." They say that to Mary. Because it is always Mary Who gives you Jesus. She is the Bearer of the Eucharist. She is the Living Pyx. Who goes to Mary, finds Me. Who asks Her for Me receives Me from Her. When a creature says to Mary: "Give me Your Jesus that I may love Him", My Mother's smile causes Heaven's colors to change into a more lively brightness because of its greater delight. Say, therefore, to Her: "Let me kiss Jesus' dress, let me kiss His wounds." And dare even more: "Let me rest my head on Your Jesus' Heart, that I may delight in It." Come. And rest. Like Jesus in His cradle, between Joseph and Mary. »
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

632. The Supplementary Passover. 23rd April 1947.

1 Jesus' order has been carried out to the letter, this time, and Bethany is crowded with disciples. Meadows, paths, orchards, Lazarus' olive-groves are full of them and as they are not sufficient to hold so many people, who do not want to damage the property of Jesus' friend, many of them have spread out also among the olive-groves that are between Bethany and Jerusalem along the roads of the Mount of Olives. Closer to the house are the disciples of early days, many others are farther away. Faces not well known or completely unknown. But who can now recognise so many faces and mention their names? I think there are hundreds of them. Now and again, in the medley, a face or a name reminds me of faces seen among those helped and converted by Jesus, even at the last hour. But it is beyond my capability to remember so many faces and names, and to recognise them all. It would be the same as if one expected me to recognise who was among the people that crowded the streets in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday or on Good Friday, or covered Calvary with a carpet of faces, most of which were drawn with hatred. The apostles go in and out from Simon's house, moving around the people to keep them quiet or to reply to their questions. Also Lazarus and Maximinus help them. At the upper-floor balcony windows of Simon's house one can see all the faces of the women disciples appear and disappear: grey-haired or brown-haired heads, among which shine the fair-haired heads of Mary of Lazarus and of Aurea. Now and again one comes out, looks and withdraws. They are all there, really all of them, the young ones and the old ones, also those who had never come, such as Sarah of Aphek. On the terrace many children are playing, those gathered by Sarah, the grandchildren of Anne of Merom, Mary and Matthias, the little boy Shalem, who was crippled and was the grandchild of Nahum and who is now happy and healthy, and some more. A flock of happy little birds, watched over by Marjiam and by other young disciples, such as the little shepherd of Enon and Jaia of Pella. Among the children I now see also the little boy of Sidon, who was blind. It is obvious that he was brought by his father.

2 The sun is beginning to set in a very bright clear sky. Peter consults with Lazarus and with his companions. «I think that it is better to dismiss the people. What do you say? He will not come today either. And many of these people have to consume the little Passover this evening» says Peter. «Yes. It is better to dismiss them. Perhaps the Lord has wisely decided not to come today. All those of the Temple have gathered in Jerusalem. I do not know how they heard that He was coming and...» says Lazarus. «And even so? What can they do to Him any more?» says Thaddeus vehemently. «You are forgetting that they are they. And these words of mine say everything. Even if they can do Him no harm, they can do a lot of harm to these people who have come to worship Him. And the Lord does not want to damage His believers. And then! Do you think that they, blinded by their sin and their thought, which is always the same one, among the contrasting ideas in their heads, do not also have the idea that the Lord has risen, that is, that He never died and He came out from there like one who awakes by himself or with the complicity of many? You do not know what wild confusion of thoughts, what entanglement, what storm of suppositions is in their minds. They have created it all in order not to admit the truth. We can really say that those who were accomplices yesterday are divided today, for the same cause that previously kept them joined together. And some people have been seduced by their ideas. See? Some are no longer among the disciples...» says Lazarus. «And let them go! Other better ones have come. Certainly, those who have informed the Sanhedrin that the Lord will be here on the fourteenth day of the second month, are to be looked for among those who have gone away. And after the delation they no longer have the courage to come. Come on! Stop it! Enough of traitors!» says Bartholomew.

«We shall always have some, my dear friend! Man!... He yields too easily to impressions and to pressures. But we must not be afraid. The Lord said that we must not be afraid» says the Zealot. «And we are not afraid. A few days ago we were still frightened. Do you remember? I, as far as I am concerned, was afraid when I thought of coming back here. Now I no longer seem to be so frightened. But I do not trust myself too much, and you as well ought not to trust your Cephas too much. I have already proved once that I am made of clay that crumbles, instead of being of solid granite.

3 Well, let us dismiss these people. It is your duty, Lazarus.» «No, Simon Peter. It is yours. You are the chief...» says Lazarus kindly, embracing Peter's shoulder with his arm and pushing him thus towards the staircase and up it, as far as the terrace surrounding Simon's house. Peter makes a gesture meaning that he wants to speak and the people nearby become silent and those farther away move towards him. Peter waits until most of them are near him, then he says: «Men from every part of Israel, listen. I exhort you to go back to town. The sun has already begun to set. So, go. If He comes, we will let you know at all costs. God be with you.» He withdraws, going into an airy room where, around the Blessed Virgin, there are all the more faithful women disciples and also the other women who loved the Lord as their Master, although they never followed Him on His pilgrimages. And Peter goes and sits in a corner, looking at Mary Who smiles at him. The people, outside, slowly part into two groups: that of those who remain and that of those who go back to town. Voices of adults calling the children, the shrill voices of children replying to them. Then the buzzing noise subsides. «And now» says Peter «we will go as well...» «Father, but the Lord said that He would come!...» «Eh! I know! But, as you can see, He has not come. And this is the day He prescribed...»

4 «Yes, and my brother has already prepared everything for you, and here is Mark of Jonas, who has come to take you there and open the gate to you. But I am coming as well. We are all coming. Lazarus has provided for everybody» says Mary of Magdala. «And where can we consume the supper with so many people?» «Gethsemane itself will be the Supper room. Inside the house, the room for those who Jesus said. Outside, near the house, the tables for the others. That is what He wanted.» «Who? Lazarus?» «The Lord.» «The Lord? But when did He come?» «He came... What does it matter to you when? He came and He spoke to Lazarus.» «I think that He will come, and even more, that He has come to each of us, even if none of us say so, keeping that joy as his dearest pearl, that he is even afraid to show, fearing it may lose its most beautiful light. The secrets of the King!» says Bartholomew, and he looks at the group of the virgin disciples, whose faces blush as if the beams of the setting sun set them aflame. But it is a spiritual flame of intense joy that lights them. Mary, the Virgin of the virgins, all white in Her linen dress, a lily dressed in white, lowers Her head smiling, without speaking.

How much She resembles, at this moment, the young Virgin of the Annunciation! «Certainly... He will not leave us all alone, even if He does not appear visibly. I say that it is He Who puts certain thoughts in my poor heart and even more in my poor mind...» admits Matthew. The others do not speak... They look at one another while they put on their mantles, scrutinising one another. But the very care with which some cover their faces as much as possible, to keep concealed the wave of spiritual joy enlivened by the recollection of the divine secret meetings, reveal them as the most favoured ones. «Well, say so!» exclaim the others. «We are not jealous! We are not so intrusive as to want to know. But we shall be comforted by the hope that we shall not be deprived of His sight for good! Remember the words of Raphael to Tobias: "It is certainly right to keep the secret of the king, but it is more honourable to reveal and publish the works of God." The angel of God is right! Keep the secret of the words He has given you, but disclose His continuous love for us.» James of Alphaeus looks at Mary, as if he wished to be enlightened by Her, and realising by Her smile that She agrees, He says: «It is true. I have seen the Lord.» Nothing else. And he is the only one to say so. The other two, who have covered themselves carefully, do not utter one word.

5 They all go out and in groups, the eleven ahead, then Lazarus with his sisters and the women disciples around Mary, last the shepherds and many of the seventy-two disciples. They set out towards Jerusalem along the upper road that takes one to the Mount of Olives. The children who have stayed run backwards and forwards happily. Mark shows them a path that avoids the Field of the Galileans and the busier areas and goes directly to the new enclosure of the Garden of Gethsemane. He opens, lets them pass, and closes. Many disciples whisper to one another and some go to ask the apostles, and John in particular, questions. But they make a gesture to wait, as it is not yet the time to do what they ask, and they all remain quiet. How much peace in the vast olive-grove, still kissed by the last sunbeams in the upper part, whereas the lower ones are already in the shade! A light rustling of the wind among the silver-green leaves and the cheerful chirping of birds greeting the dying day.

Here is the little house of the keeper. On the terrace, which is its roof, Lazarus has had a number of tents put up, so that the terrace has changed into an aerial supper room for the disciples who were not able to consume the Passover the previous month. Downstairs, on the very clean threshing-floor, there are more tables. In the house, in the best room, is the table for the women disciples. The roasted lambs, lettuce, unleavened bread and the reddish sauce are brought to the various tables of those who have not celebrated the Passover, and the ritual chalice is placed on the tables. But on the table of the women there is no chalice, but as many cups as the people sitting at the table. The women were obviously exempted from that part of the ceremony. On the table of those who have consumed the Passover at the proper time there is the lamb, but there is no unleavened bread and no lettuce with reddish sauce.

6 Lazarus and Maximinus supervise everything. And Lazarus bends over Peter to tell him something that makes the chief Apostle shake his head violently in obstinate denial. «And yet... it is your duty» says Philip, who is beside him. But Peter points at James of Alphaeus: «It is his duty.» While they are discussing so, the Lord appears at the beginning of the threshing-floor and says greeting:

«Peace to you.» They all stand up and the noise warns the women of what is happening. They are on the point of going out, but Jesus enters the house greeting them as well. Mary says: «Son!» and She worships Him more deeply than the others, teaching them by such a gesture that, no matter how Jesus may be a friend, such a friend and relative as to be even Her Son, He is always God, and is to be worshipped as God. Always worshipped, with an adoring spirit, even if His love for us is so full as to urge Him to give Himself with full confidence, as our Brother and Spouse.

«Peace to You, Mother. Sit down and eat. I am going upstairs, where Marjiam is awaiting his reward.» He goes out to climb the little staircase and He calls in a loud voice: «Simon Peter and James of Alphaeus. Come.» The two He has called go up behind Him and Jesus sits at the central table, where Marjiam is, and says to the two Apostles: «You will do what I tell you» and to Matthias, who is at the head of the table, He says: «Begin the Passover banquet.» This evening Jesus has Marjiam beside Him, where John was the last time. Peter and James are behind the Lord awaiting His orders.

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

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

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

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

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

«Hand out the morsels of bread and offer the brotherly chalice. Every time you do this, you shall do it in memory of Me.» The two Apostles obey, full of veneration... While the distribution of the Species takes place, Jesus goes down to the women. I think, but I cannot see, because I do not go in where they are, that Jesus administers Holy Communion to His Mother with His own hands. This is what I think, but I do not know whether it is true. But I cannot understand why He should go there, if it were not to do that.

8 Then He goes back up to the terrace. He does not sit down any more. The supper is about to end. He asks: «Is it all consumed?» «It is all consumed, Lord.» «As I did on the Cross. Stand up. Let us pray.»

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

«Go. And may the Grace of the Lord be in all of you and may His peace accompany you»

Jesus says dismissing them. And He disappears in a bright light that by far exceeds the moonlight, as the moon is now full and high over the silent Garden, and the light of the lamps placed on the tables. Not a voice. Tears on faces, adoration in hearts... and nothing else. The night watches and knows, with the angels, the throbs of those blessed hearts.
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)