Autobiography

21. “I want you to be a Victim of Divine Justice in addition to being a comfort for my Love.” – Jesus Christ to Sister Benigna

“My burning hunger to save souls spurs me to seek out victims whom I associate with my work of love,” Jesus had said to Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero.

I was still not familiar with this Sister at that time. But the need to offer myself to Justice as well, as I had offered myself to Love, was urgent in my heart. By pure chance I became aware of this little Secretary of Jesus.

For some time different people, both consecrated and lay, had been asking me if I had taken my thoughts from her writings, for they were the same as hers. I did not even know that Sister Benigna had lived! The wish to know her came to me. And Jesus, always courteous, had me find the way. A card written by her fell into my hands. I had the connection. I wrote to the Visitation Sisters in Como to receive the complete works of the Servant of God.

Last night I stopped because I was suffering too much to continue. And it was fortunate, for during the night it occurred to me that I had omitted facts.

The first is that I had some time before pronounced the vows of virginity, poverty, and obedience. I had then shifted my ring from my right hand, where it had been since 1915, intended as a reminder of poor Roberto, to my left, where it was meant to be a symbol of mystical marriage to Jesus.

For this reason I had had to undergo much talking-to. From the priest, first of all, who did not approve of my intention. I would have a lot to say in this respect and shall say it at once so as not to be left thinking it over. Perhaps my sincerity will be somewhat displeasing to you, but never mind.

In my life I have met holy priests, without a doubt, real Priests with abundant charity, unquestioned zeal, and a fruitful apostolate. Creatures who live convinced of their mission and consume themselves in body and soul in the care of souls, entirely concerned with bearing these souls to God, utterly busied with inflaming them and pushing them towards charity and generosity. I have not found a real Director among them. Confessors emeriti, but not directors. But this depends on me, not them. You have realized how reluctant I am to open myself—and if I am now with a person I judge to be like the one I dreamed of as a Spiritual Director of my soul, imagine how closed I was when I did not see in the priest I approached a certain something telling me, “Entrust the secrets of your heart to this priest.” But in the midst of holy priests I have found many who are not holy.

I shall explain my idea. When I see a priest who is not very zealous in looking after souls and more concerned about human interests—houses, income, classes to be given, visits to be received, and so on and so forth—impatient towards poor souls, who are also bothersome, I admit, with their scruples and pettiness, but who, precisely for this reason, ought to be made virile in faith, a priest who, instead of assisting the real impulses of hearts, holds them back, not out of prudence—this would be proper—but out of lukewarmness in his own heart, since he feels that what is done for the Lord is always too much and one must not exaggerate—I then say that such a priest is not holy. Note that I pass over other human failings which bring me to tears and spur me to expiate with special penitences, but which I omit out of pity for human weakness, always present, even under a cassock....

Well then, I see so many of these lukewarm priests! The saints are scattered like rare flowers in a vast, grassy meadow, too rare for the multitude’s immense need to be evangelized once again.

I admire the work of the Missionaries who go to non-Christian lands to take Christ to the idolaters.... But the blacks of Europe, the neopagans of the Old World, who, after having been the first to receive the light of Christ, have again lost it under a heap of pleasures, vice, the race for wealth and power—who will convert them anew? Who will save them by taking them to God with the fire of an apostle? These poor blacks of Europe, whose baptism is now just an empty formula; for whom the words of Faith are a dead letter; ecclesiastical ceremonies, useless functions; the Sacraments, the pettiness of silly women—these poor blacks of Europe, who remember God to curse Him, who live like beasts, anxious only to satisfy their bellies, their desires, and their pocketbooks, who die in even more beastlike fashion, falling headlong into the hereafter without a final return to God—who will evangelize them? Who, spending his life in a preaching involving his whole life, understood not as years, but as deeds, will take them back to the Fount of All, persuading them of a life of the spirit—much higher than the life of matter, which is the divinity of the modern era—the life of the spirit providing the “enduring life” sung by Catherine?

Oh, have mercy, have mercy on these poor European multitudes, flocks left with too few real shepherds, badly guided by the others, who are concerned with numberless material trivialities more than the flock! Speak again, you Missionaries, to these blacks of Europe, much more unfortunate than the African Zulus, who have a faith, whatever it may be—in the snake, in the sun, in the stone, but a faith, while the poor idolaters of Europe do not. They are not even idolaters, since idolatry presupposes faith in an idol. These no longer believe in anything, not even in the pleasure which disgusts them without satiating them.... Come back, come back, Missionaries, to re-Christianize this Europe, dying in the decay of its atheism; make the word of the Verbum, “through whom all things were made,” the power of the Creator, and the light of a Faith assuring us of our celestial origin and our celestial goal shine in the eyes of the degraded, debased Europeans. With the Cross halt the precipitous descent towards the infernal abyss of this humanity which despairs, kills, and curses. Lift up Christ Crucified once again against the works of human pride, which uses its God-given genius to create a progress that is deadly from every point of view.

The world must be saved, this so-called “civilized” world of ours, with cowl, cord, cross, and sacrifice. Only in these is salvation to be found. Everything else will be only the source of vaster ruins.

But where have I ended up? A bit distant.... Forgive me. I’ll go back to where I started.

I was saying, then, that the priest instructed me to do nothing, not to exaggerate.... What exaggeration! Have all those who out of love for God have placed the holy yoke of the three vows upon their necks, upon their souls, been exaggerators? Then it is necessary to reform the entire history of twenty centuries of Christianity, erase many Gospel pages, and greatly increase the psychiatric hospitals’ statistics on “religious manias”!

I changed priests by going to my aged pastor, now deceased. I would have preferred a confessor from a monastic order because I have observed that all the orders of monks yield zealous priests.

But St. Andrew and St. Anthony were too uncomfortable for me, who had to make confessions and receive Communion secretly.... The old parish priest understood me—may he be blessed for it—and permitted me to pronounce my vows and never, as long as he remained at St. Paolino’s, stood in the way of my progress towards perfection.

Other talkings-to came from Mother. Having eliminated those who, young and strong, would have been able to make me happy, but who would have taken me from her service, Mother started hunting for a very rich old man prepared to leave me close to my family: “A two-storey house,” she would say, “one floor for you and the other for us.” Ah! It would really have been a paradise for her! But not for me.

I won’t sell myself, Father, and won’t degrade myself in liaisons which appear in my sight to be not very different from those based on vice. I understand the sanctity of marriage, when it is undertaken to perpetuate the species, as God willed. But a marriage which, on account of the old age of one or both of the spouses, offers no hope of offspring strikes me as a market in human flesh, vice veiled by a label of virtue. I thus turned away the old man, forty-two years older than I—that’s right: forty-two.

Then—worse than ever it certainly was—came trying to catch a young, rich lawyer with the help of an acquaintance. He was even handsome and good, but—unfortunate. He was flawed by one of those physical imperfections which suffice for the Church to dissolve a marriage contracted by deceiving one of the parties.

After Mario, I did not want to hear marriage mentioned at all. I had renounced everything—first of all, to obtain the redemption of Mario; secondly, to be faithful; thirdly, out of disappointment over male constancy; and, finally, fourthly, because I had a woman’s heart and not the heart of a calf giving itself piece by piece to blackbirds and nightingales...! And then I had also consecrated myself to God. But even if I had still thought of marriage, could I ever have united myself to an unfortunate who could never have had children?

I had been informed by a trustworthy person about this misfortune of the young lawyer, a misfortune later confirmed by unhappy, sterile marriages. I thus rebelled against this projected wedding. I have already told you that I was thinking of the children who could come to me from a man more than the man himself—the only thing that made marriage desirable for me after the loss of Roberto. Just imagine whether I could agree to my mother’s wish for a union contrary to the laws of the Church, to my own way of thinking, and to good sense, in addition to morality.

So when I shifted my ring from my right hand to my left, Mother thought it was out of shame at being unmarried over age thirty and inundated me with statements like, “If only you had paid attention to me and married Tom,” “You should have listened and married Harry,” and so on. I let her talk and held on.

The other sermons came from people in general. But I have always disregarded what people say about me. A bit of a sting at first, if it’s a serious insinuation, and then it’s over!

Another thing I omitted telling you about is the habit I had acquired of making written meditations. I have received much spiritual benefit from it. Writing forces the mind to concentrate even more on the subject of meditation and, moreover, offers the advantage of allowing us to reread what we have written in moments of aridity in which we are incapable of spiritual elevation. If meditation is always useful, written meditation is, in my view, doubly useful. It sharpens meditative capacities tenfold and increases inner lights.

This, too, drew down Mother’s reproaches. What need did I have to shut myself in to pray, using up the light? Wasn’t what I consumed for the Circle enough? What was this exaltation? Did I perhaps regard myself as a St. Thomas Aquinas? And so on and so forth. I let her rant and went on with my system. I would write my meditations and the lessons for the girls’ contest, for all the intellectual work fell upon my shoulders.

I also performed the function of the Ecclesiastical Advisor, whom we lacked. Monsignor Lazzareschi, at that time the Diocesan Ecclesiastical Advisor, had authorized me to. I always conducted religious reflection on a Gospel passage. From my own experience I knew what spiritual strength comes from familiarity with the Gospel: like life-giving bread and wine, it nourishes and confirms our souls, giving them the capacity to progress swiftly in Goodness. I would like to convince everyone of this....

Most practicing Catholics, however, rack their brains over books on asceticism which they do not understand and neglect the most lofty and simple Gospel, understandable even to the most unlearned. And they read and read, stuff their heads with big words, become elated, thinking themselves to be doctors of the Church, find the emotional thrill which delightfully tickles them on the surface and sets off some—fireworks, iridescent, but quite ephemeral, in whose light they admire themselves complacently and grant themselves degrees as “mystical, seraphic, holy souls....” And then, once the book is closed—it’s all over. There remains only the pride of believing themselves to be among the elect, already haloed with heavenly glory....

But the Gospel! The Gospel—so clear, so profound, so vast, and so sublime. The Gospel, which is the word addressed to all the children of God, the word of the Son of God for all his younger brothers and sisters, which is understood not according to the human science one possesses, but in conformity with supernatural science, which may be perfect in an illiterate person and scarcely formed in one who is learned. What a help the Gospel is for the believer who wants to remain in God and constantly come closer to God!

Even here there were struggles and obstacles. They did not come from priests. Rather, they encouraged me to continue. But the women holding diocesan and parish posts waged war on me. They were the “great mystics” who required the gigantic tomes of the giants of theology! Good for them!

The bad part was that they forgot about the words of one little book which said, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on the Word of God”; and “Woe to you, doctors of the Law, who have usurped the key to knowledge; you have not entered, but have placed impediments for those who would enter”; and “The one whom God has sent speaks the Word of God, for God gives him the Spirit without measure”; and “Whoever listens to my word and believes in the One who has sent me has eternal life; and “He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory: only he who seeks the glory of the One who has sent him is worthy of faith, and in him there is no injustice.”

They forgot about these words, written in the little book which they did not want to read, immersed as they were in the enormous tomes...! But if they had borne in mind those words of the Word, they would not have prevented me from giving this bread of real life to my daughters or my daughters from feeding on it.

Bread is the simplest, oldest, and most necessary food for man, and the Word of God, given by the Word of the Father Himself, is the staple to nourish souls hungry for spiritual food. Why wish to keep my daughters from hearing the Word which is life and which, if corroborated by faith, is the source of eternal life?

To obstruct me the pretext was advanced that since I was not a priest, I could not understand and explain the Gospel. But they did not bear in mind that the Spirit of God blows where He wills and that the Will of God can send whomever He wishes to take the place of the “salt which has lost its savor” so that creatures will not be left without his Word. As Maria Valtorta, the human creature, I was the least of all; but, when speaking by the will of God to those more ignorant than I, I was somebody, for God granted me the Spirit without measure, seeing my upright intention, which was to make known his Word and lead young hearts to Him. I was not, indeed, speaking for the sake of my human glory or to conquer a loftier power. I spoke only to give glory to God by increasing his flock and increasing awareness of the Shepherd within his flock.

I made no bid for posts, which seduce only those who live for base human glory. Like John in the desert, I was only a Voice, a Voice crying out, in the name of God, so that souls would wake up to true Life. And it was enough for me to be a Voice—that is, something entirely spiritual that is formed, rises up, and consumes itself with no human ambitions or second thoughts, ascending like the smoke of incense from a burning thurible to be consumed in blessedness by becoming a perfume of praise to the Eternal. But the “doctors” of the Diocese and the Association—those who lived inflated with pride over their posts—ah, like a sweet to their hearts!—were afraid that with my apostolate I might aim to deprive them of their authority, which was their treasure, the treasure where their hearts kept watch....

My heart kept watch over the little flock God had given me, which I took, as long as it was with me, to healthy pastures, without even one’s perishing, and which now, when the shepherd is sick, is still not lost, for I have offered my life for my sheep, and none of those that God has entrusted to me has perished, except for the daughter of perdition, since every master must be familiar with the bitterness of the Master, who saw a disciple perish.... But I still hope to save even this one, for I still have so much to suffer, I still have to die so much before being reborn eternally in God.

Of course, these “doctors,” who wanted to gag the Voice speaking of God, out of an entirely human fear, if they had understood and recalled the words of the Word, would not have placed obstacles in the way of my speaking.... But just as Mother’s rumblings no longer gagged or chained me, so the “vetoes” of the “officers” caused me no fear. The approval of my conscience and of the priests was enough for me.

I was not concerned about the rest, in spite of the fact that this “rest” was administered to me in the form of a shameful guerrilla consisting of slander, incivility, and pettiness of every kind.... But I thank God for it. The result of this was that no human sweetness was mixed with the supernatural sweetness of the apostolate conducted exclusively out of love for God, a sweetness of the spirit, which, while the apostle is vilified and tormented, exults because it recognizes in that persecution the sign consecrating it.... Struggle and persecution are the seal always marking those who are on the right path, for the world hates those who act properly more than anything else. Indeed, for the less good that acting in goodness is a silent, but powerful reproach—and one who reproaches is always hated.

And now that I have made up for the gaps, I shall go forward with this poor chapter, which right from its wellspring has lost its way in a thousand rivulets....

I wrote, then, to the Visitation Sisters in Como to obtain the writings of Sr. Benigna. They arrived in Lent, I think. It was certainly springtime.

On reading those writings, I recognized that I really had had the same thoughts, and, knowing that those sentences had been dictated by Jesus, I was moved to the point of tears. So I, a poor creature, had in my love been able to find phrases and thoughts similar to those of my Savior? Was He so present, so active in me that He had me say the same things He had said to Sr. Benigna to give souls a new means of sanctification and new proof of his love?

Even now, when, without realizing, I write a letter or speak, expressing my own thought, and then find that thought in nearly the same form in a sentence of the Visitation Sister’s vade-mecum, I tremble with joy. At times I refrain from reading those writings for months so as not to be influenced unwittingly—but then I give up, for even after months and months I always possess an intense likeness to these thoughts.

And from this I draw a conclusion. If three souls that have lived in different countries and manners such as Thérèse, Benigna, and I have the same expressions, it is a sign that when God totally occupies a heart with Himself, He gives it the same sentiments. Sparks of his Charity proceeding from a single fount, but issuing from three canals differing in merit—and of these three mine is the most rudimentary and defective—possess the same light. Notes of the same poem of love, they have the same sound, though one of the three instruments, my own, is played by a creature still so far from perfection.

Previously I had had one friend in the Little Flower. Now I had two, since Benigna has also become a heavenly friend for me. In between them, great victims, I safely proceed on my way, which is a Calvary. They encourage me and smile at me and indicate to me a Light which is ever closer.... My Jesus conceals Himself therein.

When, with the sacrifice consummated, He clearly shows his Face—which is now scarcely visible to me through the curtains of lightning veiling it—to his little host, I shall then die with a joyful start....

Following my method, I trusted to the Lord to tell me Himself when the propitious moment was for this more severe offering.

I don’t deny to you that the matter gave me contrasting thoughts. My heart was inclined to carry it out because I felt—and had felt for some time—by a holy inspiration that Justice, too, needed victims to be disarmed. This unfortunate world adds sins to sins, offenses to offenses. Those who reflect are amazed that a total punishment does not come to punish this human race, increasingly iniquitous and foolish. Hence the need for sacrifices to placate God. I had grasped this for years and understand it more and more. But if my “better part” longed to immolate itself to the Justice of the Father out of compassion for its unfortunate brothers and sisters, so arrogant and blasphemous, my humanity faltered. I bore in mind what St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus said, “...If you offer yourselves to Divine Justice, you ought to be afraid....”

Indeed, until that moment Merciful Love had shown me mercy and treated me gently, considering my weakness. It had not spared me pain, but had given it to me over those past five years—for my offering to Love had lasted that long—always accompanied by supernatural aids which had been most valuable in bearing it. It is true that love itself, when it reaches certain peaks, is painful. It is not for nothing that the act of offering says, “...I entreat You to consume me continuously by letting the waves of infinite tenderness which are contained in You overflow into my soul and thus enabling me to become a martyr to your love, O my God!” And I had been suffering this sweet martyrdom for years—with moments of such incandescence that I believe I do not err in stating they were one of the prime causes of the dilation of my heart and the internal lesion. Just as a vessel sealed too tightly and brought to boiling increases its volume by the physical law of the expansion of bodies, and since the volume is not sufficient to reduce the pressure, explodes, so my heart, after having expanded with the inflamed beats of love—oh, much more capable of bursting the walls of the heart than any natural myocarditis!—had exploded on the inside, where, according to the doctors, the bundles of nerves are all broken.

The good physicians have never been able to understand how this has happened in a creature with an orderly, healthy life like mine—but if they had looked on high, towards supernatural regions, they would have understood the reason for this special malady of mine, different from all the other forms of heart trouble, which they describe with a thousand names, because it has characteristics of all of them and at the same time lacks some of the essential traits of entirely natural cardiopathies in a proper sense....

If you only knew how hard it is for me to speak of such intimate matters, real acts of nuptial tenderness taking place between the soul and Christ in the secrecy of the most sacred marriage bed...! But let us go right ahead! I have told you all the evil done by poor Maria; now I must tell you all the good done by Jesus in Maria.

Face to face with the thought of this second offering, I wavered in my “inferior part.” I felt that the sternness of God would fall upon me, for I had already observed that the good Lord did entirely as He pleased, without sparing me, if He needed anything for souls.

Ah, what did I say? If some were to read it, they would say I have blasphemed.... “God’s having need of a creature! Why, she’s crazy!” they would say, at the very least. But that’s the way it is. God, who can do all, is such a Father, and such Goodness, and such Condescension that He wants to bend over and ask his little children to do Him the favor of helping Him.... Even fathers on the earth do so, though getting more trouble than help from it—but they say to their children, “Help me to carry this, to hold that....” How proud, then, is the little one, who has helped his father, because without his help he would have been able to do nothing...!

The good Lord does likewise. He calls and says, “Listen, my child, I need you for that sinner; help me to make the preaching of this minister of mine bear fruit; join yourself to me to give hope to this despairing man; come, come, that together we may tear this person in agony away from the devil.” Oh, what an agreeable satisfaction, what holy pride then descends into us on realizing that we have helped the divine Father, who says “thank you” to us from the heavens....

I have reached the point that I am at ease only when I feel that God is continuously drawing upon me for the sake of poor souls that I shall meet only in Paradise. And my well fills up only thanks to ever greater pain. The more I suffer, the more I feel full to the brim and the more God can draw, draw to water languishing souls. My life is used up in this way, for this fount of supernatural water at the service of God and my neighbor feeds on my earthly life and drinks it in drop by drop.... But what is there more beautiful for a dewdrop to desire than to shine for an hour under the dazzling sunbeams, slaking the thirst of a parched flower, and then to ascend to the Sun itself, breathed in by its burning heat?

A poor, humble dewdrop, I let myself be sprinkled over thristy souls by Him who regulates the rains, the tides, the winds, and the stars; I shine under his Ray, through his Ray, and then die.... Or, rather, I then ascend to Him, to my Sun, who from the heavens’ deep abyss breathes in his poor droplet sprinkled over the earthly abyss, in love with Him, desirous of covering the distance separating the two abysses in a supreme flight, casting forth, as the final labor of her life, a mystical bridge between earth and heaven and asking her Sun to grant that over this bridge, fruit of the supreme holocaust, vast multitudes of souls my rise to populate lovely Paradise....

I thus turned to God, praying, “You that commanded the winds and the waves, command me when the time comes....”

In the meantime, I prepared myself with an increasingly pure and mortified life. Penances now held a great attraction for me. I completed those I had to suffer on account of others—and you can be sure that they were not lacking: my mother and the officers sufficed to keep the bread of penance continually upon my table—with spontaneous penances.

I know that certain directors do not approve of them. They say it is more meritorious to accept joyfully—or submissively, if we are not advanced enough to suffer with joy—whatever painful things come to us hour by hour. It is true. That is great enough. But when God wants more, you must give Him more, for God is a divine bully, as I have already told you. From me He wanted more. And I gave it to Him.

In September there were elections for the Association. I had been advised that, according to the wishes of churchmen, I was to become the president. I was not at all enthusiastic about it. I preferred to remain simply the “Voice” speaking of God, the songbird singing the praises of her Creator. But I resigned myself, thinking that my being president could be of more benefit to my little daughters, very badly directed by officers in whom pride was the only perfection.

But—there’s nothing new under the sun! The elections of the Association were similar, in miniature, to the elections on a large scale of the nations.... They took place by corrupting simple souls and imposing a name in overbearing fashion instead of respecting the freedom to vote, and so on. I later learned of all these underhanded dealings—not honorable for those who had carried them out, but quite acceptable to me, for, I repeat, being president did not seduce me in the least.

The then Diocesan President, one of the most relentless adversaries of the humble “Voice” asking only to repeat the words of the Word, one of the most envious, because she foolishly thought that I aspired to become a Diocesan Officer, had joined forces with one, or, rather, two officers of the Association, the two most eager to become “President.” You understand: Presidents of an Association! You say nothing? We are on the road of the—“leader of the people!” The result: the presidency for one of the two acolytes and the vice-presidency for the other; for me, only because I was wanted in that mission by the priests, the—favor of continuing to be the “Voice.” Afterwards, the members narrated to me all the arts used in the attempt to exclude me by deceit and disgust me, if possible. They certainly did manage to cause me pain, for human baseness has always caused me pain, but something quite different was needed to disgust me to the point of driving me away!

I was not working for myself, but out of love for Him who had sent me to that little flock. And when one knows for Whom he is working, in this knowledge he already has his reward, his reward here below. He then awaits the perfect reward in the wonderful Kingdom of Heaven, for if Jesus has promised the Kingdom to those who give food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, dress the naked, and visit the sick and prisoners in his Name, what will the heavenly King give to those who have broken the bread of his Word for those whose souls were hungry, who have freed prisoners—not just visiting them, but freeing them—placing in their hands the key which opens all the locks of sin, dressed the naked spirits in the light of the knowledge of God, and looked after them, if sick at heart, with the sublime medicine of the Law, and, finally, given themselves as drink, offering themselves as a holocaust for their unfortunate brothers and sisters? Oh, how sweetly his words of welcome will resound then for those who have labored for Him: “Come, O blessed ones—possess the Kingdom!”

How I long to hear these words! But how I would tremble in thinking of death, if, having acted hypocritically, I felt the truth about me were about to be discovered and that the thundering voice of Christ might repeat the tremendous “Woe to you, hypo-crites, similar to whitewashed tombs, who appear just in the eyes of men, but within are full of iniquity!”

My mother, half-pagan as she is—and she is not the only one—told me, “Why, just quit entirely. They don’t deserve you!” But I was not working to receive an earthly merit or human affections. My goal was in heaven, and I worked for heaven.

I thus continued my cultural activity and, indeed, increased it, for I persuaded the parish priest to let me give talks for whoever wished to come. Talks with no entrance fee, of course, for if people are touched in their pocketbooks, oh what pain! Especially if it is money requested for good works. If it were cloth, rouge, pastry, or a show—phew, it hurts less! But to spend for the soul? Now then!

I reasoned as follows: “Those who are already more or less on the path of God are the only ones who always go to church, to the sermons. But those who live apart from this path and thus need to be led more than anyone else never go to church. Why not address these and, under the appearance of entertainment with the rare merit of being offered free, make a spark of the divine light flash before their eyes?” The old vocation to become a “Pauline” was still alive in my heart. So I began.

Bear in mind that I was and am very shy, though I do not seem to be. At school I wrote the academic essays, but another girl read them. At the hospital I spoke only to the wounded, who struck me as children. If more or less illustrious visitors came, I would run to hide in the “Isolation Ward,” where no one came. At the hotel I was always with Memmo, shunning conversations as much as possible. Shyness has been a painful illness for me, real suffering.

But for Jesus’ sake I even became self-possessed, to the point of speaking in public. From my table I would speak looking at my Crucifix, the one which is now over my bed, or a Sacred Heart in front of me. I spoke to Him, saw nothing but Him—people had disappeared for me....

The first time the subject was “Catholic Action: Its Goals and Achievements.” I spoke to five people. Could there be fewer...! All but two of the members and officers were absent.

The second time the subject was “The Nordic and the Christian Christmas.” Twelve guests and ten members plus a priest.

The third time the subject was “Amidst Roses and Lilies in Imperial Rome.” Twenty-three guests and thirty-three members plus a priest, who discovered a trick by the President, who was turning away people who wanted to enter at the door of the premises.... The incorrigible President spent an ugly quarter of an hour...!

The fourth was “Outstanding Women in the Light of the Church: Catherine of Siena, Stefana Quinzani, and Bartolomea Capitanio.” Forty guests, two priests, a professor from Pisa, almost all our members, and many from other Association circles in the city.

The fifth was “For the Centennial of the Council of Ephesus.” The hall was filled, including the gallery.

I am not telling you this for the sake of human glory. I say so only to show you that the need to hear about God is intense even among those who are not practicing. For my audience was made up almost entirely of these, and with gratitude to God I can state that I have seen many later return to the Church after having abandoned it for years.

But what a guerrilla I had to withstand! And what work! I had to write the invitations, put up the placards on the church doors, and prepare the hall. All by myself. And then, I of course had to prepare the talks. But for Jesus’ sake one does this and more.

During the 1930-1931 social year the contest was on Christian morality. An excellent competition! How much there was to be said! How good it was for people to know what morality was, and particularly Christian morality! I occupied myself with it intensely. The exams were a real success. Those from Diocesan Catholic Action did not know who to choose for the diocese’s exams because the maximum grades were numerous in all the sections. They had to draw those destined for the Diocesan examination by lot.

I rewarded the top scorers with a trip to Pisa for visits to monuments. At the cost of a thousand sacrifices, during the year I had set aside the sum for this excursion by my daughters. It was a magnificent day which they still remember, and all the more so because I had never spoken about it and the surprise was thus limitless. Human beings must do their duty for the sake of duty, and then the person responsible must reward them. Don’t you think so?

While I worked that way, a strange agitation grew in my heart. At the beginning of 1931 I got a feeling as if something was warning me that a danger was threatening. What danger? Concerning what exactly? Heaven knows! Not my own, personally, and not for my family. A general danger, I was convinced. And with this conviction came a desire to work to halt it. But how can one block a danger proceeding from things much greater than we? Only with the help of God. And since I felt that it was a great, very great danger which was approaching, I also felt it was necessary to offer God a great, very great harvest of works. Prayer was not enough. Sacrifice was needed.

In the Catholic Action movement, I have always noted a great tendency towards so-called “crusades.” A purity crusade, a charity crusade, a humility crusade, and so on—all quite beautiful, though, in order for them to yield a good harvest, it is not enough to publicize them for a few months. “One does not reach excellence all at once,” says St. Bernard. Acquiring a virtue is not like adding two and two, I say. It is necessary to insist for a long time on that virtue before passing on to another. Otherwise confusion is created, as in the case of someone playing the farmer who sows a bit of everything at random, mixing together early and late plants, leafy plants and slight little ones, with the result that he sees the latter die strangled and must root up the former, pulling from the ground those already complete. Order is also needed in goodness, for every haste, every disorder is already in itself an evil.

Among the numberless crusades, though, I have always noted that one was omitted—that of sacrifice. Why are souls never told about the power, in addition to the beauty, of sacrifice? We Christians have as our God one who sacrificed Himself and said, “No disciple is more than his Master. If you do what I have done before you, then you will be my friends.” So why this dark fear of pain among us Christians? Why do we demand that Jesus alone should be sacrificed and we be exempted from sacrifice?

Closely observe, Father, ninety percent of Catholics. And I am speaking of practicing Catholics. They follow religion to the point of frequenting Sacraments, Masses, rosaries, the observance of fasting and abstinence (much less practiced), and then—that’s all. The prayer of prayers, transformed into action, is not to be found. People stop at “Thy Kingdom come,” and then resume with “Give us this day our daily bread” (thinking to themselves, “And also give us quite a bit to go with it,” which is left unsaid, but is felt more than is admitted), “forgive us our trespasses, and lead us not into temptation.” The Will of God is not named except in a mumble. You never know! If you make certain requests! And then, if some will painful to us should occur to the Father? And the debts of our neighbor? No, no, let him pay them. Something quite different is needed! And the same holds for the matter of well-being: Certainly not bread alone! Many, many things to go along with it. Great, great well-being: the best of health, prosperous affairs, a full purse—oh, things are just fine that way! Is or is this not so? It is, unfortunately.

The Christian, redeemed by a God who died on the cross, kicks at pain, of whatever kind. He does not see the beauty of pain, the power of pain, the deification pain gives us. Personally, I have noted that if I pray for a month like a machine, fatiguing my head and my stomach, I quite frequently obtain nothing. But if I suffer an hour and offer my suffering for a given purpose, I obtain all. Sacrifice is the salvation of the world and of souls. Souls and the world are always saved by the sacrifice of the generous.

These thoughts beleaguered me to the point that I understood the time had come to carry out the severe offering to Divine Justice. But since I grasped my nothingness, I wanted to receive the help of many, many others. A real treasury of sacrifices was needed to prevent what was already taking shape on the threshold of the future.

I then wrote to my friend in Cremona Catholic Action to convey what I felt and ended as follows: “As you are so influential and in contact with Catholics who have real power to act, serve as a channel for this desire of mine, which comes from God. Let our press, passing over other less important things, speak of the beauty of sacrifice and the fruits it can yield. I trust that our youth, always open to impulses towards goodness, will feel enthusiasm for this potent weapon, which Jesus was the first to use, giving us an example, and a flowering of secret holocausts will cleanse the corrupt world of pernicious germs, as the blood of the martyrs washed away the ignominy of paganism from the soil of Rome, turning the City of Caesar into the City of God.”

She replied with a beautiful letter—beautiful for both style and diplomacy. Oh, that document was quite diplomatic indeed! A masterpiece! But under the velvet of diplomacy there escaped a certification of—madness. For me, you understand! “I admire your way of thinking, but point out to you that prudence is the virtue of the saints, and your proposal goes beyond prudence. Ishall thus take care not to present it to the Central Council. Do as you wish, if you feel you can attempt so much, but I think you’re exaggerating because....”

A way of seeing? A way of acting, she should have said. For I did not propose: I acted. I replied, “If prudence is the virtue of the saints, holy boldness is the virtue of the martyrs, who have a double crown because they are both saints and martyrs. If in the early centuries the Church had not been brimful of these saints, imprudent, but audacious, it would still be in the catacombs. On the other hand, I do not see where the imprudence is in speaking of sacrifice. We speak even of the crucifixion of Christ! And shouldn’t we incite the lay militia of the Church to imitate Christ? Why, then, permit the reading of certain books on asceticism and saints’ lives which go to the heads of our members with ephemeral enthusiasms? Don’t you think it is worse to allow them to meditate on books that are so lofty as to be abstruse to nontheologians, with the result of their putting wrong ideas into their heads, if not real mystical paranoias as well? Be careful, Gina, in saying there is nothing to justify an intensification of immolations because all is calm, and the Church has never triumphed as at present [it was 1931—two years after the Lateran Pact]. Be careful, that you may not shortly have to change your mind bitterly!”

I wrote this at the beginning of May 1931. On May 31 the suppression of the Catholic Action Youth Circles took place. The first act of the current tragedy, for if you observe, the obscuration of intellectual light in the one leading us—poor unfortunates—began with this....

The day before, Sunday, I had spoken of the Virgin, celebrating the Seventeenth Centennial of the Council of Ephesus, and had concluded by invoking Mary’s protection of the multitudes at the mercy of selfishness and the excessive power of the leaders....

Ah, but I shall now narrate some fine sketches, sketches making me see with my own eyes that at the moment of danger the disciples are always the same as they were twenty centuries ago.

I was at home that morning and was vigorously polishing the furniture, in spite of the fact that my heart trouble was getting worse and worse.

I heard the doorbell ring. I went to open. All the officers came rushing into my house. They looked like a flock of frightened, squawking chickens: “They’re arresting us!” “Persecution!” “The police!” “They’ll kill us!” “Heavens!” “Mercy!” “I’m leaving!” “I’m going to bed!” I didn’t understand a thing and shouted, “Silence! Speak one at a time because I can’t understand a word!”

They then told me that they had come to call the President (who was there, livid as a cholera patient) because there were policemen at the Circle. The circles had been dissolved that morning, and everything had to be handed over. They told me to go and do something.

Aha! At that moment I was the one who had to do everything! The “President,” who had played the role of Judas to become president, the one who in every way had obstructed me throughout the year and had mocked, denigrated, and crushed me as a worm is squashed, now busied herself in saying, “I was really nothing in there. She was the one who spoke, the one who ran things. If there is anyone who ought to answer to the police [read: “If there is anyone who ought to go to jail”], it’s her. I’m going to bed now. I’m having a liver attack.”

“Alright,” I replied. “You can even go to the moon. I’ll go to the Circle. I’m not afraid.” And since a bit of Latin in certain cases is helpful, I nailed her to the wall with a touch of the latinorum which got on Renzo Tramaglino’s nerves so.

Out of the entire group of officers, thirteen people plus myself, four of us remained. Like the Garden of Gethsemane!

The police were quite courteous at the Circle. They told me they would not remove anything, but by evening I should take the records and banner to the police office. My lectures were not needed. They had been heard by people who had judged them to be free from all fault. Oh, the poor President, who wanted to make me the scapegoat and was instead herself made the butt!

In the evening, together with two of the faithful disciples, I went to the police office. One carried the box with the banner, the other, the records. I carried nothing. The—general carries only his own brain!

A policeman came to meet us while many others, both police officers and those who were not, looked at us as rare birds. He wanted me to hand over everything.

“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’ll hand everything only to the delegate, and after having first been given a proper receipt.” In certain cases, and when people’s blood starts to boil, a lot of propriety is required.... You never know!

“But the delegate is occupied.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Go up.”

We went up. The officer first, then I, and lastly my—two squires. A long wait. Finally, the officer, tired of waiting, seeing that I would not give in, knocked at the superintendent’s door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s the lady of Lourdes, who wants to hand over a banner, but needs the receipt.”

The lady of Lourdes! I bowed to myself! My—squires looked at me with eyes rounder than a glass.

“Come in.”

I went in.

“Are you the lady of Lourdes?”

“That’s right.” I had felt like saying, “That’s me!” in imitation of Ferravilla.

“Leave everything here.”

My—squires placed everything on his desk. The delegate had begun to write, “I hereby declare I have received a banner and six files of records from—please tell me your first name.”

“Maria,” I said imperturbably.

“—records from Maria of Lourdes. Signed—”

I went out gloriously and triumphantly. You will understand: I had gone in as a poor woman by the name of Maria Valtorta and was coming out as Maria of Lourdes....

My companions were laughing. But at bottom I was not. Aside from the more than honorary title, which was virtually a caress by Mary for the servant of her Son, though it had been applied to me by someone ignorant of the subject, I was quite pained. Less superficial than many, I saw the real face of the sudden revolt against the “meek flock of Christ” and trembled. Not for my sake, but for everyone’s. Woe when people start to take a false step! And that day the first, very big one was being taken....

I decided to shorten the timespan. I had established September 8 as the date for making my offering to Divine Justice so as to have the Blessed Virgin as my Patron in that vow of suffering. But now it was no longer something to be put off. The sign had come. I asked God to inspire me with the formula Himself.

After a few days it was the first Friday of the month of June. At Mass, amidst the Circle members, I experienced an hour of real mortal agony.... Intellectually, I saw all that was to come in the future: wars, famine, deaths, massacres—and endless despair. What suffering! I, who never weep in public, wept so copiously that I was as if blinded. When Mass was over, they had to help me to leave because I saw nothing, so abundant were my tears.... My companions, the best ones, asked me what was wrong.... I told them what it was, though veiling it, with a modest reserve concerning certain details.

A few days later I felt the act of offering blossom in my heart, just as I had written and pronounced it on July 1, the Feast of the Most Precious Blood. What lovelier day could I choose to unite myself to the Victim whose Divine Blood flowed forth entirely to placate the Father’s justice? And what name could I choose for myself from that moment on more beautiful than “Maria of the Cross”?

The woman whom an ignorant man had called Maria of Lourdes could also call herself Maria of the Cross. The Cross was my love, and I wanted it as my altar. The cross had been my life’s companion since childhood, and now, spurred on by a supernatural goad, I was asking for the great Cross to be immolated upon it. I thus had the name which suited me and which will be mine in the sight of God as long as I live and thereafter....