The Notebooks 1943 by Maria Valtorta.
September 17, 1943.
Jesus says:
“What Wisdom said in chapter 16, verses 1-10, has already been explained by Me on more than one occasion166 since I have been your Master, in a broader way than is the explanation for many of your brothers and sisters. Let us not pause, then, to consider those words. True Wisdom explained them to you long before the Book opened for you at that page.
“And don’t be surprised if on different occasions you find feelings and words in the Book identical to the ones you have heard directly from Me. I am the Word of the Father. And the Word is one. It is thus the same now as it was at the time of the patriarchs and prophets. It is natural, then, that on reading the ancient words you should find them to be the same as the very new ones you hear from Me. It is I who am speaking to you, as it was I who spoke to those distant. And if your times and your thoughts have changed so much, and if you, little John, are so different from the solemn patriarchs and the vehement prophets, I am always that - the same, immutable in word and in doctrine.
“God does not change. He adapts to your changes, to your - let’s even call it - evolution, in the settings of his work, but the core of it, the true content of his teaching in what is not a matter of the passing life, but a question of the soul that does not die, remains and always will remain that, even if the Earth were still to remain the Earth for a thousand or ten thousand years and man were to reach such material evolution - note carefully - as would enable him to abolish the laws of space, gravity, and velocity and became nearly omnipresent through instruments annulling separation, towards which man is headed and which you designate with scientific names such as television, telephoto, and other similar ones, or, through other instruments, he were to abolish the impossibility of acting at a distance, creating radio controls which will unleash on earth the demoniacal vengeance of deflagrations at a distance, lethal rays, and similar creations with a Satanic mark.
“I can never tell you - even if you manage to become the assailants of other planets and the creators of rays as powerful as the ray of my sun and the interceptors of waves which abolish the most immense distances for hearing and sight - that it is licit to abolish the Law of Charity, Continence, Sincerity, Honesty, and Humility. No, I can never, ever tell you that. But, rather, now and always I tell you, and will tell you, ‘May you be blessed if you use the intellect for discoveries serving the common good. May you be accursed if you prostitute your intelligence by illicit commerce with Evil to give birth to works of wickedness and destruction.’
“And that is enough on this.167 I will speak to you, instead, for the sake of what can be a comfort and guide to you.
“It is stated in Ecclesiasticus 33:11-15 that there are different destinies for man.
“Who marks your destiny? This is a major point to establish so as not to fall into error. An error which may be the cause of blasphemous thought and even of the death of the soul. Man sometimes says, ‘Since God makes destiny, God was unjust and wicked to such-and-such because He struck that person with misfortunes.’
“No, daughter. God is never wicked and is never unjust. You are short-sighted and see only very poorly and only the things that are right before your eyes. How, then, can you know the reason - written in the Book of the Lord - for your destiny? How can you, from the Earth, a little speck of dust whirling in space, comprehend what the real truth about things, which is written in Heaven, is? How can you give a correct name to something which happens to you?
“The child to whom the mother offers medicine cries, calls his mother ugly and bad, and tries to push away that medicine, which appears useless and repugnant to him. But his mother knows she is doing this not out of wickedness, but out of goodness, and that in the authority she is exercising at that moment to make herself obeyed she is not ugly, but, rather, is clothed in a majesty which beautifies her; she knows that this medicine is useful for her child and with caresses or a severe tone she forces him to take it. If the mother could take it to heal her sick little boy, how much she would take!
“You, too, are children in regard to the good Father you have in the heavens. He sees your illnesses and does not want you to remain ill. He, your loving Father, wants you healthy and strong. And He gives you medicines to make your souls robust, to rectify them, heal them, and render them not only healthy, but also beautiful.
“If He could forego making you cry, do you believe He would do so - He whose heart is marked by the tears of his children? But each one in his or her time. He has done everything for you, to bring you to eternal salvation. He even exiled Himself from the Heavens; He even squeezed out his Blood to the last drop to give it to you, a most holy medicine which heals every wound, overcomes every illness, and provides fortitude in the face of every weakness.
“Your time is now. For, in spite of the Word that came down from Heaven to give you the guidance of Life and the Blood shed to redeem you, you have not managed to detach yourselves from sin and always fall back into it. He, the Eternal, who loves you, gives you a punishment of pain, greater or lesser according to the height to which He wants to take you and the extent to which He wants you to expiate here below your debt as deserting children.
“There are, it is true, creatures who have pain so as to become resplendent with a double light in the other life. But there are other creatures who must have pain to cleanse their stained stole and reach the light. They are the great majority. But - it is a contradiction, but it’s true - they are precisely the ones who rebel against pain and call God unjust and wicked because He has them drink pain. They are the sickest ones and believe they are the healthiest.
“The more one is in the Light, the more one accepts, loves, and desires pain.
“One accepts when one is in the Light once over.
“One loves when one is in the Light twice over.
“One desires and asks for pain when one is in the Light thrice over, immersed in it and living by it.
“While, on the other hand, the more one is in darkness, the more one flees from, hates, and rebels against pain.
“One flees. Weak souls lacking strength to commit major evil or good, but getting along in a poor spiritual life enveloped in the fog of tepidity and venial sins are unconstrainably afraid of all affliction, of whatever kind it may be. They are spineless spirits, without strength.
“One hates. The dissolute, for whom pain is an obstacle to pursuing vices of every sort, hate this great master of spiritual life.
“One rebels. The extreme sinner, totally sold to Satan, heaps spiritual crime upon crime, reaching the heights of rebelliousness, which are blasphemy and suicide or homicide, just to take revenge (at least, so he believes) on suffering. God’s paternal work upon them turns into the fermentation of evil, for those serious sinners are mixed with Evil like wheat mixed with yeast. And Evil, like yeast being worked upon by pain, swells up in them and makes them bread for Hell.
“Which of these three categories have you belonged to? Which do you belong to now? Which do you want to remain in? An answer is not necessary. I know it. That is why I am speaking to you and am with you.
“On other occasions man says, ‘If each has a destiny traced out, it is futile to get angry and struggle. Let’s allow things to take their course - everything’s already determined, anyway.
“Another pernicious error. Destiny is known by God, of course. But do you know it? No. You do not know it hour by hour.
“I’ll give you an example. Peter denied Me. In his destiny it was appointed that he should experience this error. But he repented of having denied me, and God forgave him and made him his Pontiff. If he had persisted in his error, could He have become my Vicar?
“Do not say, ‘It was destiny’ Never forget that God knows your destinies, but you make destiny. He does not violate your freedom of action. He gives you means and advice; He gives you warnings to get you back on the right path, but if you do not want to remain on that way, He does not force you to stay on it.
“You are free. He has created you as those who have come of age. The joy of God is when you remain in the Father’s house, but if you say, ‘I want to leave,’ He does not keep you there. He weeps over you and is afflicted over your destiny. And He does not want to do more, for in doing more He would take away from you that freedom which He has given you. The joy of God is when, under the sting of dearth, you understand that only in the Father’s house is there joy and come back to Him. God’s joy and thanksgiving is for those who, by their sacrifice and their prayers - these two things, above all - and also by their words, manage to restore a son or daughter to Me. But no more.
“But know that those who in my hand are like soft clay in the hand of the potter are the beloved of my Heart. My hand is upon them, as sweet as a caress. My caresses shape them, giving them my imprint and likeness of meekness, humility, charity, purity, and the loveliest of all likeness: my likeness as Redeemer.
“For these are the souls that continue my mission as Redeemer and to whom I constantly say, ‘Thank you,’ which is the blessing offering greatest protection. And if Veronica’s veil is sacred because it bears my effigy, what will these souls, who are my true effigy, be?
“Courage, Maria! My Peace is with you. I am with you. Fear not.”
166 For example, in the dictations of July 24, July 28, and August 25, among others.
167 Formerly, in the dictation of July 21, for example.
