Jesus says:
“It should not cause astonishment that a soul experiences temptations. Indeed, the more the creature has advanced on my Way, the more violent temptation is.
“Satan is envious and cunning. He therefore unfolds his intelligence where more effort is needed to snatch a soul away from Heaven. There is no need to tempt a man of the world who lives for the flesh. Satan knows that he is already working on his own to kill his soul and lets him act. But a soul that wants to be God’s attracts all of his spite.
“But souls must not tremble. They must not lose heart. To be tempted is not an evil. It is an evil to yield to temptation.
“There are big temptations. In the face of them upright souls place themselves at once in a state of defense. But there are little temptations which can make you fall without your realizing. They are the Enemy’s refined weapons. He uses them when he sees the soul is wary and alert regarding the big ones. He then overlooks the major instruments and resorts to these, so subtle that they enter you from anywhere.
“Why do I allow this? Where would the merit be if there were no struggle? Could you call yourselves mine if you did not drink from my chalice?
“What do you think? That my chalice was only that of pain? No, creatures who love Me. Christ - He tells you so to give you courage - experienced temptation before you.
“Do you think it was only the one in the desert? No. Then Satan was defeated by major means opposed to his major attempts. But in truth I tell you that I, the Christ, was tempted on other occasions. The Gospel does not say so. But, as my Beloved Disciple states, ‘If all the miracles worked by Jesus were to be narrated, the earth would not suffice to hold the books.’
“Reflect, dear disciples. How often must Satan have tempted the Son of Man to persuade Him to desist from his evangelization? What do you know of the exhaustion of the flesh wearied in continual wandering about, and of the exhaustion of the soul, which saw and felt itself to be surrounded by enemies and by souls that followed Him out of curiosity or the hope of human gain? How often, in times of solitude, the Tempter encircled Me with prostration! And in the night of Gethsemane, can’t you imagine the refinement with which he tried to win the last battle between the Savior of the human race and hell?
“It is not granted to the human mind to know and penetrate into the secret of that struggle between the divine and the demoniac. Only I, who have lived through it, am familiar with it, and I thus tell you that I am wherever anyone suffering for the sake of Good is. I am wherever a follower of Mine is. I am wherever a little Christ is. I am wherever sacrifice is consummated.
“And I tell you, souls that expiate for everyone, I tell you: Fear not. I am with you until the end. I, the Christ, have overcome the world, death, and the devil at the price of my Blood. But I give you, victim souls, my Blood against the venom of Lucifer.”
Jesus says:
“To know the mystery of God’s nature is not granted to your very limited intellectual capacities, to your embryonic spirituality. But the mystery becomes more knowable for the spiritual, amidst the mass of the so-called spiritual. The mystery is revealed with greater clarity to the lovers of the Son, to those who are truly marked by my Blood, because my Blood is Knowledge, and my Predilection is a School.
“Today73 is a great feast in Heaven because all Heaven is today singing the Sanctus to the Lamb whose Blood was shed for the Redemption of man. You are one of the few, too few, creatures who venerate my Blood as it should be venerated; since it was shed that blood has been speaking with words of eternal life and supersensible knowledge. If my Blood were more loved and venerated, more invoked and believed in, much of the evil which leads you into the abyss would be dispelled.
“This Blood spoke when it was not yet represented by the Mosaic lamb, behind the veil of the prophetic words under the sign of the preserving Tau; it spoke, after it was shed, through the mouths of the Apostles; it cries out its power in the Apocalypse; it invites from the mouths of the mystics with its calling. But it is not loved. It is not remembered. It is not invoked. It is not venerated. My Church has so many feasts. But a most solemn feast for my Blood is lacking. And salvation is in my Blood!
“Today, the feast of my Blood, I shall clarify a mystery for you. Say, ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,’ for it is about Us that I want to speak. Figures have been necessary for your human dullness to conceive the Father and the Spirit, incorporeal beings of infinite beauty, whom you, however, do not conceive with your human senses. To the point that you do not readily turn to Them, with all the fullness of thought, to invoke Them as you invoke Me, whom you conceive of as the God-Man. You thus do not understand even distantly the incomparable mystery of our Trinity.
“To conceive of God comparisons to created beings must not be made. God is not to be compared. He is. In being there is everything. But being has no body, and the eternal Being has no body.
“Look: God is light. This is the only thing that can still represent God without being antithetical to his spiritual Essence. The light exists, and yet it is incorporeal. You see it, but you cannot touch it. It exists.
“Our Trinity is light. An unbounded light. The Source of Itself, living by Itself, and acting in Itself. The universe’s greatness does not equal its Infinity. Its essence fills the Heavens, glides over Creation, and holds sway over the infernal caverns. It does not penetrate you - that would be the end of Hell - but it overwhelms them with its glowing, which is beatific in Heaven, comforting on earth, and terrifying in Hell. Everything is threefold in Us. Forms, effects, and powers.
“God is light. A vast, majestic, and peaceful light is given by the Father. An infinite circle which has embraced all Creation since the moment when ‘Let there be light’ was said until forever and ever, for God, who existed eternally, has been embracing the Creation since it existed and will continue to embrace all that - in the final form, the eternal one, after the Judgment - will remain of Creation. He will embrace those who are eternal with Him in Heaven.
“Within the eternal circle of the Father there is a second circle, begotten by the Father, working differently and yet not working in contrary fashion, for the Essence is one. It is the Son. His light, more vibrant, not only gives life to bodies, but gives Life to souls that had lost it by means of his Sacrifice. It is a flood of powerful, gentle rays which nourish your humanity and instruct your mind.
“Within the second circle, produced by the two workings of the first circles, there is a third circle with even more vibrant, inflamed light. It is the Holy Spirit. He is the Love produced by the relations of the Father with the Son, the intermediary between the Two, and a consequence of the Two, the wonder of wonders.
“Thought created the Word, and Thought and the Word love one another. Love is the Paraclete. He acts upon your spirit, your soul, and your flesh. For He consecrates the whole temple of your person, created by the Father and redeemed by the Son, created in the image and likeness of the Triune God. The Holy Spirit is the chrism upon the creation of your person, made by the Father; He is grace to benefit from the Sacrifice of the Son; He is Knowledge and Light to understand the Word of God. A more concentrated Light, not because it is limited in comparison to the others, but because it is the spirit of the spirit of God, and because, in its condensation, it is most powerful, as it is most powerful in its effects.
“That is why I said, ‘When the Paraclete comes, He will instruct you.’ Not even I, who am the Father’s Thought that has become the Word, can make you understand what the Holy Spirit can make you understand with a single flash.
“If every knee must bend before the Son, before the Paraclete every spirit must bend, for the Spirit gives life to the spirit. It is Love that created the Universe, taught the first Servants of God, spurred the Father to give the Commandments, enlightened the Prophets, conceived the Redeemer with Mary, placed Me on the Cross, sustained the Martyrs, governed the Church, and works wonders of grace.
“A white fire, unbearable for human sight and nature, He concentrates in Himself the Father and the Son and is the incomprehensible Gem, who cannot be gazed upon, of our eternal Beauty. Fixed in the abyss of Heaven, He draws to Himself all the spirits of my triumphant Church and breathes into Himself those who are able to live by the spirit in the militant Church.
“Our Trinity, our threefold and single nature is set in a single splendor in that point from which all that is is generated in an eternal being.
“Say, ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.’ ”
He further states:
“On saying ‘ten just men’74 I did not intend to suggest that the place where there are ten just men will be saved. But it may be understood without error that if ten just and generous souls gather together in prayer, with a holy purpose, to request mercy for a place, I will not reject their prayer. Didn’t I say that I will hear the prayers offered by several persons in my Name? My words and my promises are unfailing.
“But will the persons now gathering together to pray for this purpose be constant in faith, sacrifice, spiritual purity, and purity of intention? If there are some and they are as they should be - true priests (those who pray for their brothers and sisters and immolate themselves are priests) - I will bless them and grant what is asked for in my Name.”
I am writing this morning as I wait for you,75 since I was too exhausted yesterday to make additions. The Reality I have seen cannot be described. Words are lacking. While Jesus was speaking, I was seeing - but I cannot express it in such a way that another can see what my mind saw. I could sketch out the figure of this, although I am a bumbler when it comes to drawing. It would suffice to draw three concentric circles with a point in the middle. But it would convey nothing. The Light would be lacking, as would the insight into the relations among the three circles and the point which centralizes them. It would thus become a lifeless sign, whereas it is so alive, active, and beatific.
Of course, even if I should live a thousand years, I will never forget the beauty of this intellectual vision. It will be aid, comfort, strength, defense – everything - for me in all circumstances. And it is an ultrapowerful magnet drawing me to itself and giving me an indescribable longing to reach it. I seem to be living in the sun. But, what am I saying - the sun? The sun is a burnt-out, cold star compared to the Divine Fire set in the depths of the Empyrean, so distant and so near...
Yes. I have the impression of its boundless distance, through which it traverses the whole Universe, which is bathed in and lives by its Light, and at the same time I feel that every being - my own, especially, by the goodness of God, who has allowed me to receive this incomparable joy - is close to this Point of Life that is God and under its ray, which keeps it gathered in, protected, and vital, like a glass bell over a most delicate plant. (And with this trivial comparison I ruin everything, but I can find nothing better.)
In short, I feel myself to be under the Eye of God. And it is a feeling of joy, warmth, strength, infinite peace - indescribable, producing happiness. To live this way, under the incomprehensible Gem (as my Master rightly said!) of divine Beauty, a Gem that brings together in a single unbearable Splendor the Three Divine Persons and renders Them a Unity of Divine Light, is a great blessedness by which all I have suffered and what I am to suffer is canceled out...
Now I truly understand what it means to say “Paradise.” It means to live in the continuous vision of that Triune Sun.
73 July 1, Feast of the Most Precious Blood.
74 See June 11.
75 Father Migliorini.