Autobiography

23. “When I am raised up, I shall draw all men to myself.”

Suffering more and more, I went forward. I believed that everything would soon be consummated. Human impatience, how foolish your are in regard to the divine calm of the Eternal!

The third talk was on the “Fight against Tuberculosis,” as it had been the year before. No, that’s not right: the third one was on Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero, and the fourth, on the Anti-TB Day, coupled with Catholic University Day, since the two came very close together. Then the contest exams, with excellent results.

The members loved me very much. I was a “mother” to them, more than a teacher. They kept no secrets from me.

Indeed, even if they had kept some, it would have done no good. A gift of God made me aware of every novelty, and I would thus call a girl to me and ask, “What’s disturbing you?” On seeing herself found out, believing that I knew everything through a supernatural force, she would speak. But I did not know everything. I understood only, in general terms, if she was pained, restless, or tempted. And that’s all. Their trust, however, gave me an opportunity to care for their souls, to guide and comfort them.

I bless God for having allowed my fellows to seek solace in me with all their sorrows. I can therefore understand, sympathize with, and comfort the sufferings of others.

To understand hearts. What a difficult art! It is not learned in any human school. Only the light coming from nonhuman sources, which is helped to bear fruit by a deeply meditative spirit and goodness of heart, can teach this science offering such comfort.

Being understood in an hour of pain often means being saved. Saved from ugly surprises, saved from dangerous falls, and, finally, saved from moments of despair which cut off the soul, if they do not also kill it. At all ages it is necessary to be understood, but especially at that delicate age going from adolescence to the threshold of maturity. It is then that hearts are most prone to seductions, chimeras, and storms. Like tender young trees preparing for their first flowering, they are inclined to be uprootedby a brutal hand, broken by an excessively hard blow, burned by excessive heat, rotted by too much stagnant water, or denuded by an excessively stormy wind twisting them in its whirling vortex. Hearts should be made virile in their first blooming, instructed on what can harm them, supported if too weak so they will not bend, pruned if, too exuberant in leaves (and affections), they expand too fast in a prodigality which exhausts them before they bear fruit, fertilized if too dry, stripped if already invaded by parasites, and, above all, loved and loved.

A heart which feels loved speaks. And by speaking it provides the occasion for one who loves it and is more expert than it is to guide it. We ought always to have the heart of a father or mother for those who are younger than we, and at certain times it is also necessary to have such a heart for those who are older, for hearts have no age. They are eternal, like God, and there is ever a need for tenderness, counsel, and comfort at all of life’s ages.

In reality there are very few hearts that are able to love and by loving to understand. And then, most rare are those who, now elderly, can remember that they, too, were young. “In our time this was not done; in our time no one did that”—this is the scornful assertion which is always on the lips of adults as regards the young. It’s a lie! I won’t go into the big sins, for those have always existed as well—a proof of it are the foundling hospitals, the Rotas, and so on, in use since the Middle Ages, as witnessed to by the episode with Francesca da Rimini, by all the royal mistresses, and by all the—Aegerian nymphs of poets and chiefs of state, just to mention things familiar even to simpletons. But I’m referring to less serious things: having a boyfriend behind Father’s and Mother’s back, disturbing friendships and reading materials, including those produced illegally, frivolity in dyeing and curling one’s hair, and so forth. For goodness’ sake! I think that ever since Eve on all continents and at every meridian and parallel of the globe such things have been found.

Why thunder, then, like so many Savonarolas against the current generations when yesterday their dear mothers and the day before yesterday their dear grandmothers met and corresponded with their dear fathers and grandfathers, then daring youths, by way of—a wireless telephone and telegraph based on glances and matches lit and put out according to a conventional language, or sending little cards through the obligingness of a fine thread which, on the poorly illuminated streets of forty years ago, served as a go-between postman? Why, then, act like Lenten preachers against the permanent and rouge, if, in their time, they kept their heads covered with a whole architecture of hairpieces and coated themselves with powder like little fish ready to be fried? The pallor of the heroines of romanticism was fashionable then; now women like to appear as mulattoes or redskins. Well! The color has changed, but makeup exists now as then.

Instead of thundering and preaching by telling solemn lies and as a result leading our daughters to engage in double subterfuges and replace clandestine cards with receiving the young men themselves on a clandestine basis, with a serious danger of consequences, or go outside the home to put on makeup—who knows where—let us try to make our daughters reflect. Let us first become our children’s friends rather than mothers clothed in maternal authority; let us first become sisters rather than teachers of our younger members and open our hearts so that they will open theirs. This knowledge which the mother and teacher understands is so beautiful! It is so sweet to see that our little human or spiritual daughters have trust in us and conceal nothing from us and in their dreams seek our hearts to deposit the dream making them throb, or in their sufferings to weep upon them! How much more is obtained in this way, with this compassion, which knows how to direct without wounding!

My daughters come to me still—and I have been a recluse for eleven years—in happiness or in sorrow, to tell me about their thrills on being in love, their ecstasies as wives, and their bliss as mothers. They bring me all the fruits of their flesh on their first ventures out of the house and want me to kiss their treasures; they teach them my name as if it were that of a grandmother who loves them. They still come or write if an illness strikes them, if a misfortune grips them, or if death deprives them of a loved one. It is sweet to weep with me, for I always understand them...! They afterwards depart calmer, more serene, or, if distant, feel more serene and confident.... I remain with their pain in my heart and with my weariness as a sick person.... But my soul sings because it knows that there is a heart less desolate than before!

Sometimes, I confess, I could tell them all to go jump in the lake. Materially, I am so tired, run down, and aching...! But I recall that Jesus was so often tired, and yet He never turned anyone away. On the cross, in agony, He was still able to comfort the thief through hope, his Mother, the Apostle, and the faithful women....

The officers, too, except for the President, were all with me. The President, ever assisted by the Diocesan President, had attempted to transfer me into Catholic Women because I was over the age of thirty. But there was a revolt by the members: either I remained or the President as well had to go, for she, too, was thirty-three. And I remained. Heroism was needed to stay on! I was increasingly ill. And therefore more sensitive to the injustices which were being done me.

When I still enjoyed Jesus’ spiritual words, He had responded to a prayer of mine in which I begged Him to break me with his love to open to me the way to Heaven that I must break my self, shattering all my self-esteem, all the human delight closed in my heart, with the hammer of a love that was perfect, inasmuch as it was not supported by any supernatural comfort. Then I would be ready for Heaven.

Now I could say that I had touched that point. My self-esteem was trampled on by everyone, and by me more than by anyone else, since, out of love for God and for my neighbor, I had made myself like a grape in the tun which the vintager crushes and squashes under his feet. No comfort came from Heaven, and none from creatures. Only scoffing, satire, reproaches, betrayals, and labors not even noticed, or noticed to draw motives therefrom for new jests. Whether I prayed or did not, spoke or remained silent, was immobile or in motion, I was always at fault, according to the majority. Only the souls I had led to God remained grateful and faithful to me, which makes me think of what we read in the Gospel concerning the faith in and gratitude to Christ of those who were Gentiles....

Summer came. It was now really fatiguing to walk alone.... I shall always remember August 2, 1932. What pain going to St. Anthony’s for the Forgiveness of Assisi! I came back home arm-in-arm with Marta’s mother. With her already brushing with apoplexity and me broken by heart trouble, we were a magnificent couple. We went tottering along—they must have taken us for two drunks. As soon as I was back home, I felt ill. But I then felt ill nearly every day.

The Association reopened. I resumed my office as the “Voice.” Only the love of God could give me strength to continue.

Marta’s mother gave me the Life of Galgani, who came from her town, the great Life written by Passionist Fr. Germano of St. Stanislaus. She wanted me to give a talk on Gemma. I promised her I would. I confess that I was not at all attracted by Galgani. From the little I knew, she struck me as a fanatic, a person born in a time not her own, born several centuries too late. I always said, “Now sanctity is different! These things are medieval.” But after reading that life I changed my mind. Maria of the Cross could understand Gemma of Jesus, and Jesus’ little violet, the violet that was dying of longing for the eternal Sun, could join her faint scent and head veiled in penance to the mystical perfume and stellar corolla—which the emblems of the Passion decorate—of Christ’s passion flower.

But first I had to speak of St. Joan of Arc, Patroness of young women. It was fitting for me to speak of her. Among other things, it was the wish of my companions. I thus put her at the head of the list of the lectures to be delivered.

That year I had thought of speaking of Gemma, of the Maid of Orleans, and of the Blessed and Venerable members of the House of Savoy and of alternating these talks with others on good publications in which I planned on illustrating a certain author and afterwards drawing lots to distribute three of his books to those attending, which I had, of course, purchased myself at cost through the good offices of a dear woman friend, formerly an atheist, who was converted by my words. I said “atheist,” but “anti-Catholic” would be more exact.

But I was afraid to talk about Joan of Arc. Why? Because I felt that when I spoke of her, something irreparable would happen to me. I had thus put off the lecture for three years. Why such an idea? Heaven knows! One of the numerous warnings my soul received from other worlds. I wished to challenge that warning and set about preparing the talk. I would speak of Gemma afterwards.

On November 21, in three hours, Marta’s mother died. She was not in time to hear me speak of Gemma—and she went to heaven, for she was really a just woman, to hear the praises of the Seraph of Lucca sung by the magnificent angels. I was quite pained. Marta’s mother loved me as a true friend: maternal, fraternal, holy.

I love Marta so much because she is the daughter of such a mother.... I love her even more for this reason than for her own gifts, for I continue to love in her the soul of a saint who has returned to God but is not forgotten by me. I am certain of it.

I shall open a parenthesis to reply to your letter, which—has left me bewildered for several reasons.

I shall explain to you tomorrow orally, but at this moment I ask, Why? Why that surprise? Ah, don’t spoil me, Father, for later I’ll regret dying too much! But, all joking aside, thanks and thanks again. My hand says thank you and my mouth as well. My soul will express the best thanks by prayer. And this is for the gift.

I thank you also for understanding me so well in the moral and spiritual domains. And while you are still intent on your compassionate mission of consoling us sick people, to show you how grateful I am for your patient and good study of my soul I shall try to respond to your questions.

Preachers are needed and ought to be in perfect condition; we can otherwise bid farewell to the preaching of the Gospel! But preachers should be supported by penitents. A radio makes no sound if the electricity is not turned on. Penitents, the souls offered in holocaust are—the plug that connects the current of God to the souls of his “public criers” and of those listening. A bad comparison, but true.

In particular, I also think that when a minister of God consumes himself hour by hour in the exercise of his ministry, without impatience, weariness, repugnance, fear, or excessive concern for his body, but in faithfulness to all the demands of his priestly work, with a cheerful will to act, and with inflamed charity able to clasp to its heart a great sinner as well as a pure soul—since he sees God in all of them—he is a host-soul. God Himself takes charge of administering sacrifice to him hour by hour, and that is thus enough.

We, then, the—idlers who are not capable of anything but suffering and praying, supply all the rest each day to complete that measure of sacrifice which must be deposited in the bank of heaven and, with substantial interest, is changed into assistance to the workers in the vine of Christ. We are the Marys, and you, priestly souls, are the Marthas of Jesus, who, it is true, said that the better part was the one chosen by the worshiping Mary, but who was very grateful to Martha, the industrious and practical woman of the house who provided for the needs of his Humanity.

The priest, moreover, on ascending the steps of the altar every morning to celebrate the Sacrifice, is at once Martha and Mary, since he worships and works.

As for the things I have read—which, whatever they have been, have always brought me good lights—I feel that, even more than my good spirit, which projects itself upon everything, making the less good good, it is Jesus Himself who keeps anything evil from entering me. In what way? Oh, very simple! He fills everything to the brim with Himself, and that’s enough.

If you, Father, fill a glass to the brim and then try to add more ever so slowly from another, the excess overflows. Isn’t that so? Jesus has filled the cup of my heart to the brim. Nothing else can enter. It alights upon it for an instant and slips away—often purified by the contact it has had with my Jesus. There is no merit on my part. I am so bewitched by Jesus that I see “Jesus” written even where “devil” is written, hear Jesus speaking even where Lucifer speaks, and see Jesus on each and every single thing.

My love for Mario—who I believe, however, has been dead for years (I shall later explain why I think so)—is devoid of all human desire and regret. I love his soul, which I believe I have bought back with my pain. And I could not make a more beautiful gift to this creature that I have loved. Don’t you think so?

And now to explain the sentence which has struck you: “I have come to understand that the only real sorrows of a heart are those which come from God for our trial or our punishment.”

I shall respond to all your questions.

“How are you able to understand that a suffering comes directly from God?”

Answer: From what the soul experiences, for when suffering comes directly from God it is always distinguished from pains coming from any other source.

First of all, the pain which comes from God, no matter how harsh and penetrating it may be, is never separated from peace. This is the sign which is never lacking. Even if it sometimes seems not to be present, it is. As soon as the soul looks into its depth—and this always occurs, perhaps for an instant, but that’s sufficient—it sees that there is a great peace in its suffering. Peace does not mean resignation. No. It means much more. It means beatitude. And the pain which comes from God is always accompanied by superspiritual beatitude.

This is one of the words which come to be formed spontaneously on our uncertain lips to speak of the indescribable. “Superspiritual” to me—for I am creating this word—means ‘a beatitude in the spiritual part of the spirit’. It is not a play on words. It is a reality. I shall provide an example. A church is a building constructed for the worship of God. In a church there are, in turn, chapels; in the chapels, altars; on the altars, tabernacles; in the tabernacles, the ciboria with the Eucharistic Jesus. If I go into a church, I do not touch the Eucharistic Jesus, but if I ascend to an altar, open a tabernacle, and take the lid off a ciborium, I can say I am touching Jesus.

In the body is the soul, and in the soul, the spirit. There is a peace of the soul, and this may be present in every pain borne with resignation, and there is a peace which reigns over the spirit—i.e., superpeace. And this is always present when the pain comes from God to elevate our spirit to a higher degree by purifying it of shadows and strengthening it as regards the weaknesses still degrading it.

“What does ‘trial-pain’ consist of?”

Answer: From a growth of love exclusively on our own part while God seems to withdraw his love, leaving us alone. We call and He does not answer. We ask and He does not show He has heard the request—indeed, He often humiliates us by taking away precisely the possession which is dearest to us and which we thought we had already obtained. On saying this, it appears negligible, but undergoing it is very painful. In the notebook I gave you today I have already described what it means to suffer alone, without God to smile at us and respond to our moans....

And then “punishment-pain” is understood at once because our conscience advises us that we have deserved it. Oh, I feel it immediately! Even before it arrives, my conscience tells me, “You have erred. Now if God punishes you, be ready to bow your head under the scourge striking you, and thank Him, for you have deserved it and by atoning for it at once you won’t have to do so in the hereafter.”

But I repeat: whether it is a trial or a punishment, peace remains. You will never hear of a saint who because of the terrible trials he may have suffered—I am speaking of spiritual trials—lost hope. Where there is hope, there is peace; where there is peace, there is God.

“How are you able to grasp that a pain is a punishment?”

Answer: From the voice of conscience, which, as I told you, has already advised us that we have not acted properly, and also because, as we suffer it, we feel the soul becoming more lucid and lighter; from this we understand that the anguish He has made us undergo has been an expiation and cleansing for us.

“You speak to me of abandonment by God, which constitutes the greatest punishment. This is true. But such an absence of God may also be produced by a blameworthy sluggishness on the part of the creature. Do you find sufficient light in yourself to say that the void has sometimes been produced by God alone, even granting that it is for his merciful ends?”

Answer: When a soul is in blameworthy inactivity, it does not notice at all whether or not God is present. It is a stupefied, abulic soul that vegetates without reflecting or perceiving. Sin, or even lukewarmness, dulls it to the point that the faculty of perception, the need to see, and the desire to nourish itself with supernatural food are extinguished within it. God then punishes, since it is right for Him to punish and compassionate to do so, for under the blow the soul sometimes rouses itself and recovers its senses.

But I shall not deal with these souls now. I am speaking of the more or less awakened souls that try to work for the good Lord according to their capacity. They might perhaps be able to do more if they really put all their diligence into it, but they are certainly not inactive. They are thus souls wherein there is no absence of God on account of them, but by the will of God, who, as I said above, resorts to this potent arm either to call the soul to a more precise fulfillment of its filial duty or to improve it by way of the painful trial and train it for higher and higher flights. And the soul, which feels the justice of this pain God inflicts upon it, finds its joy and peace in pain.

On the other hand, the pain coming from humans—or, worse, from the infernal domains—is always unjust and disturbs us, more or less. It is, however, a pain which does not touch the peak potency of pain—that is, it does not transfix the spirit in its highest summit and most living part. It will make us cry out, weep, even curse; it will drive us mad at times and at times make us die. But we shall die of illnesses of the flesh, go mad through mental derangement, curse as a result of moral convulsion, and sob out of general weakness.

But the pain which comes from God and pierces our spirit does not make us fly off the handle: it raises us up to a loftier peace, seriousness, and charity. We suffer intensely, very intensely. It is an insatiable hunger growing hour by hour which nothing can satisfy. We can then give all foods to our spirit to try to calm the languor emptying it out, but neither works of mercy nor sacraments nor prayers nor spiritual readings are able to fulfill its desire. It is God, God who is wanted, He alone. And He always keeps Himself hidden, withdraws higher and higher while we, with the arms of our desire upraised, agonize with love, invoking Him.... How many words one must write to state what we experience at every heartbeat!

“What is your conduct during these hours of darkness as regards God and your neighbor?”

Answer: The more God withdraws, the more I love Him with my whole self, in a spirit of humility, patience, and submission, recognizing that I deserve it, making continual acts of faith, because I know, even if I do not feel Him, that He is near me all the same, and I tell Him so; acts of hope, because I hope that in his goodness He will shorten the trial and that through it I may merit a higher good; acts of charity, because, to urge Him to return, I tell Him that I love Him at any cost and would love Him even if He were no longer concerned about me; and acts of contrition, because I acknowledge I have sinned and deserved his punishment. Then, as for my neighbor, I make use of this trial of mine by offering God my pain that other souls that do not seek Him or seek Him badly may be led to the fervent search for God. My hour of darkness thus becomes an hour of light.

“Do you feel agitated and spurred to manifest your restlessness externally?”

Answer: No. I get restless because I am flesh and blood in addition to possessing a soul, on account of what can vex the flesh. But I never manifest this. I have stated and repeat that the pain which comes from God is very sharp, and is the only kind which is really pure Pain—simple, perfect like God; but it is always joined to Peace. Where there is peace, there is no agitation. I never force God to show Himself with my tantrums. I entreat Him to grant that I may see his Face once again, which is the joy of our spirit. But then I patiently await that blessed moment.

You see: today, for instance, I am deprived of sensible union with God. The preceding days were a continuous darting of sparks between the two poles of God and the soul. Something ineffable. Today my soul alone casts sparks towards its Lord. And I am thus desolate. But, understand me: desolate like a mother or a daughter who has seen her son or father leaving. One is left with a great urge to weep and would like time to fly by to cut short the separation, for one knows that the son or father has not gone away forever, but for a certain time and for our good, to protect our interests. We are melancholy, but even more loving than before because we know this distance is a new proof of affection for us.

Today I love alone—and what about it? I am desolate, but not agitated. A holy certainty tells me that when I least expect it, God will come back; the more I am loving and patient, the quicker He will return. And what a torrent of joy will then flow into my spirit!

“As regards God, do you continue in everything as if He were present?”

Answer: Why, certainly! Indeed, I behave even better, for his disappearance acts as a rein on me and puts me back in the middle of the road, if I have turned aside to smell the flowers on either side, or gets me trotting if I have been obstinate about considering any trifle along the way. I am sure that if I act properly and promptly, looking only at the goal I must reach hour by hour, the good Lord will return more quickly to make Himself present.

“Do you experience temptations against the faith at such times?”

Answer: God forbid! A good daughter or a loving wife must know how to respect her father or husband at all times and not annoy them with complaints and silly questions when it seems to her that her father or husband no longer loves her as before. One must never be distrustful and selfish in love because distrustfulness and selfishness kill love. And with my Father and Spouse, why should I be inferior to a good daughter or a good wife? Why lose security, why entertain doubts concerning faith only because the Lord deems it fitting to withdraw? But if He is tired of speaking with me and dwelling with me and prefers to go to other souls more select than mine, I must leave Him free to act, without pouting and whimpering like a stubborn child or a neurotic wife. My Lord must be able to say, “I’m going back to Maria, who is not at all wearisome. I’m just fine there, for I can do what I think best.”

“Are these periods of abandonment frequent? Are they of short or long duration?”

Answer: I don’t think they are frequent. But I couldn’t answer you with mathematical precision because the joy of the return is such that it nullifies all memory of abandonment. For this reason the pain is so biting that on each occasion I feel I am being left for the first time, and the ecstasy of God’s return to me is so joyful that I feel every time that I have never before experienced it. It’s hard to say, then, if they are long or short. Every minute seems like a century of separation.... But I think I have had them of different lengths. Sometimes they last a few hours, sometimes several days. Afterwards, though, they suddenly cease, and I pass from desolation to a joy always greater than that experienced before, and to an ever-closer union and ever-clearer vision, nearly to the point of becoming real, sensible, and not just intellectual.

“Do they strike you as aimed at a special end, such as obtaining a grace requested, for example?”

Answer: I believe they are always aimed at a special end, an end willed by God for his little host, whom he denies his Face to give me in Heaven a longer kiss when everything is over for me here below and I am engulfed in the light of the Most Holy Trinity, which I have always loved and praised on earth. An end wanted by me for some grace requested. If I do not suffer, I do not obtain. Prayer is not enough. And what suffering is greater than this? What are the tortures of a whole sick body in comparison to a single hour of separation, of abandonment by God? It is I myself who say to God, “Have me suffer, but grant me this or that.” Not for me, it is understood. I have made a complete renunciation of all my desires. I ask only for Eternal Life. Aside from this, may the Lord do as He wills. But for others I am an insistent and never-satisfied mendicant. And especially when I ask for light for a soul in darkness, the darkness then comes over me. But I am so happy to be martyred by it!

“Are these [periods of abandonment] followed by a greater light on divine things?”

Answer: Always. As one who has been in the dark finds the light still radiant of another who has always remained in the light, so I, after the privation of my Sun, when He shines again upon my spirit find myself enveloped in an ocean of light—so brilliant that it gives me a celestial dizziness. It is as if the door to my jail were opened by a compassionate hand and I could see a sheaf of sunbeams penetrating through the crack. I say crack because if all the light of God rushed in upon me, I would be left dead.... In the light of those beams I see many things which were previously obscure to me and proceed securely, as if the Master were holding my hand, instructing me sweetly.

This is my response to interrogation. Quite inadequate, for to make you understand correctly I would have to be able to shut you in my heart for an hour. You would then see that this poor heart of mine does not live and does not die except for the Father, for the Son, and for the Holy Spirit. And so be it always, eternally.

We now go forward while Jesus rests. The Savior is so weary, so disheartened at seeing human blindness, which does not want to be healed, the spiritual chaos constantly growing!

You mentioned it to me this morning.... It must be a great sorrow for priests to be present at this languishing of spirits destroyed by the microbes of indifference, skepticism, illicit pleasure, and rebellion....

But if it is a sorrow for all those who are still with God, what can it be for Jesus? Ah, we are really making our Savior undergo a new Passion with this trampling on his love, this neglect of even his memory...!

The face of Jesus is very sad.... It is truly the face of one who is sad unto death before the collapse of his deepest hopes. Certain painful observations always cause much weariness, more than tiring work which is crowned with success. And Jesus is sleeping, with his divine, melancholy face bowed upon his folded arm. He had no word for me this morning. But I didn’t even ask Him for one. I placed my poverty regarding his word at his feet as a first flower to console Him a little, and I offer and suffer for Him and for souls, so weighed down by such materiality....

You asked me this morning if I had had any revelation concerning the current situation. It seems to me I told you—but I’m not sure—that the premonition I suffer from has different phases.

The first, and most confused, one is a dream in which I see things under special figures, shall we say, which are symbolic. For example, if I see someone fall into the water and the water cover him over to the point of causing his death, you can be sure that person will soon die. I have given you a random example from among many I could give you.

Secondly, I dream things as they in fact take place. But I do not hear again on awakening that special notification saying, “Pay attention. It’s a warning,” and thus forget even the dream, except for recalling it when the event occurs exactly as it was dreamed.

Thirdly, I have a very clear dream and on awakening receive that warning quite distinctly: “Remember this.”

Fourthly, without any dream, I hear—I cannot explain how—that something painful or bad is about to happen. I perceive, for instance, that someone is betraying me or seeking to harm me or others.

Now, in the present circumstances, since 1931 I have been experiencing the fourth type very intensely, by which I knew that terrible things would soon be taking place, doing harm to poor mankind, and also the third type quite intensely in special predicaments, along with the first as well.

In this I remember having seen in a figurative form the occupation of Belgium, Holland, and Norway and Russia’s entry into the war. It was through a symbol in the form of swarms of black airplanes, completely black and with monstrous shapes, which fanned out from a point, Berlin or Moscow, reaching their pre-established destinations with the point of each stick comprising the fan. It was like this:

Forgive me for scribbling, but I’m a dolt when it comes to drawing, and the figure, though badly formed, helps me to convey the concept.

Later, in November 1941, came the notification that within a month the enemies would be in Bengasi. Three days afterwards the English offensive began, and by the end of the month they were in Bengasi.

In March 1942 the same voice in dreams said to me, “The defensive line is no longer at Palermo, but further up because Libya has been lost.” And, unfortunately...!

As regards the future of us city-dwellers, I have already received two or three not very clear notifications. But I could say that they give me food for thought, for, if I have not seen the point exactly, I really believe there must be a point.

This concerns the present. Before the heavy bombings of civilians began in the autumn, however, I saw them in a dream and told Marta.

When war had not yet broken out in Ethiopia—the night of May 23-24, 1935, to be exact—with marvelous clarity I saw the entry of our troops—specifically, the foreign and indigenous carabineers riding in trucks—into Addis Ababa, whose tuculs were burning. I said so in the family (being classified, as usual, as a nut) and to two friends who had come to see me on the afternoon of May 24. They are still alive and remember. A year later, on May 9, 1936, our troops—specifically, foreign and indigenous carabineers—in trucks victoriously entered the conquered Addis Ababa, which was burning. On account of that dream—so evident and accompanied by that concrete sign—during the nine months of the Ethiopian War I never doubted its outcome. I knew it would be won and quickly.

The same held for the Spanish War, all of whose foul and heroic deeds I saw. On this—I prefer to speak directly with you.

I have told you this just to make you understand what it’s about.

The first modality of premonition was the terror of the blameworthy members and officers of my Association.... They must have hated me for this as well. You will understand! I entered into the subject this way: “Girls, act properly, understand? Act properly with respect to me, for you must realize that your subterfuges to do me harm are not unknown to me. You are scheming in these days as well. But you won’t be successful in anything, except in staining your souls....”

I repeat, however, that I would gladly do without this gift, if such it may be called.

And now I shall continue with my account.

I set the lecture on St. Joan of Arc for December 18, 1932.

In the morning at church I felt a little ill. But afterwards, with timely medicines, I felt better. Indeed, I was happy because after an attack of angiospasm I usually enjoyed a few hours of truce. As a summer sky becomes cleared of clouds after a storm, so, after my—storm, my heart was more cleared of palpitations and cramps.

At ten I went to the Association office, where I found everyone in a muddle because the news had arrived that the elderly parish priest had been named Monsignor of the Lucca Cathedral and would thus be leaving the parish. News which did not cause me special sorrow because it was expected and because it meant a well-deserved reward for the long parish service of the excellent priest.

Back home at midday, I ate as usual: a small amount, but with relish.

At 3 p.m. I went to the St. Dorothy Institute, where I was to deliver the lecture. At 3:30 I started speaking.

I had uttered a few words when such a sudden, serious heart attack unleashed itself that I was on the verge of dying. At the first pang I stopped, smiling, as if to wait for some late-arriving ladies to take their seats at that moment. I was hoping that my heart would limit itself to that shooting pain, which had already covered me with icy sweat. I was smiling—but my face suddenly altered in such a way that the Superior approached me, asking if I felt ill. “It’s nothing,” I replied. “It’s passing now.”

I waited for a few minutes. Standing, heroically standing while feeling myself examining death over my head. Like Joan of Orleans, I was saying, “May Sire God be the first to be served!” But Sire God wanted to be served by the agony of his poor servant.

The attack grew and grew, and I had to yield and take a seat. I was a breathing corpse. It lasted two hours.... Do you know what it means to suffer two hours like that...? I was aided, taken into the air.... I looked at Our Lady, whose statue seemed to become animated, seen as I was seeing it, between convulsive jerks.... And I looked and kissed my Crucifix....

I did not want a doctor. He would have had me taken to the hospital.... In such a state there is nothing but the hospital, and I did not want to go there, thinking of Father and Mother. I beseeched God not to let me die like that for their sake, on account of the fright for them.

But as for me.... Oh, how joyfully I would have departed! I had also received Communion that morning—it was the Christmas Novena.... How beautiful to go celebrate Christmas in heaven! What enormous selfishness it would have been—I now say! Quite different from beauty: selfishness. To go to heaven at Christmas without undergoing my Passion! First the Cross was needed, a long, long agony on the cross...! And then the Glory of Paradise would come.

Finally, at 5:45, I started to be in condition to be able to go back home. And I returned, supported by two compassionate women.

“Why, how long you’ve taken! You come back later and later. It’s almost six, and we still haven’t had anything.” This was my mother’s greeting. Mother was conversing with a very elderly woman who came nearly every day to spend the afternoon with us. It was customary at 5 to offer tea, coffee, or chocolate. And, of course, it was I who had to prepare it. Hence the reproach because I had delayed.

You can imagine how hard it was for me to stand by the stove, whip the chocolate, pour it into cups, and carry the tray. I was at the limit of my strength. I sat down without speaking. I could not.

The woman asked, “A lot of people?”

“Quite a few.” The hall had in fact been utterly packed.

“Did they like the talk? Will you read it to me?”

“They did like it. But I’m very tired now. I’ll read it to you tomorrow.”

“Why, what’s wrong with you? You look like a mummy. Are you in a bad temper?” asked Mother.

“What’s wrong is that I’ve been feeling ill, very ill. Look at me—you’ll see.”

“In fact,” the old friend said, “I immediately saw that you were upset, but said nothing so as not to cause a stir....” The poor old lady was so good...!

What would you have done if you had been my mother? I am sure you would have cared for me, served me, loved me that evening. No, sir. She ended up dazing me with reproaches for my subterfuge (my remaining silent with the intention of saying things gradually so as not to frighten her was to her a subterfuge); she tormented me by accusing the Circle of all my troubles and calling me an outright dimwit for going there, and so on. But she was very careful not to spare me housework.

Having made their dinner—I never ate in the evening, not even then—and done all the washing up, I finally went to bed. A very high fever at night, choking, cramps, and a boundless melancholy....

I felt “that my voices had not deceived me,” as the Maid of Orleans said, and that if “my mission was from God,” Joan of Arc, the conference on whom I had put off for two years because my inner voice told me that on that day something irreparable would happen to me, had really maintained her commitment to be the Announcer of my imprisonment, my torment.

No more battles and victories, but only prison and pain. No more banner of Christ waved over the crowds, but only the cross to go up on. No more flames of public apostolate, but the flame at a stake of suffering which has been consuming me for eleven years and never reduces me to ashes. Now I was completely Maria of the Cross. The holy warrior, who had crowned the fearful Dauphin in Reims, was crowning me with the crown of thorns.

When our beloved work in the Lord’s vineyard is taken from us, we suffer acutely. I had defended at all costs this freedom of mine to work for my Lord. And now it was being taken away from me by none other than Him.... Afterwards we understand what an honor, what trust, and what love for us on God’s part this is. But at first we suffer greatly. It is one of the hours of Gethsemane which are the first to be lived through in our Passion! How much it costs us to say in the midst of our tears: “Thy will be done!”

In the night physical, moral, and spiritual agony, at the side of my mother, who was blissfully sleeping, lacking even the freedom to weep openly, I took refuge in Christ, and, as He had previously done with Catherine of Siena, He said to me, “You asked to sustain and be punished for the defects of others, taking them upon yourself, and you didn’t realize you were asking for love, light, and knowledge of the truth, for I had already told you that the greater love was, the more pain increased; hence in anyone where love grows pain grows.” And what greater growth in love could there be than this—of a God who was giving me his own bed, his own throne, his own altar: the cross?

After the first hours of anguish, this thought descended upon my soul like a balm and made it willing to carry out the sacrifice. “Not whoever says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but whoever does the will of my Father,” and with a slight modification the words spoken to the Apostle Peter could also be spoken to me: “When you were young, you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go.” Trained and fortified by my Master, I was stretching out my hands to take the cross the Father was imposing upon me, and, suddenly aged by illness, I was becoming incapable of so many things and subject to everyone for my physical, moral, and spiritual needs.

Oh, if only we reflected on the way illness places us, disarmed, in the hands of all—we poor sick people who must always depend on the kindness of others...! Physical needs, with everything demoralizing they bring with them. Moral needs, with all the loneliness and melancholy accompanying them, which very few are able to make up for. Spiritual needs, with all the longing for ceremonies we shall no longer see, Sacraments given to us so stingily, and guidance we come to be deprived of—for so many, many things, while trials accumulate and illness creates new temptations and new weaknesses.... How many things would have to be said about illness! But they will come out a little at a time. I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

In the morning I tried to get up at the usual hour. Impossible! I remained in bed until nine and would still be there if Mother had not peremptorily called to have me go and buy the milk the milkwoman had not brought. I got up with the greatest difficulty. My heart was in a fearful state. My head was spinning, and my legs were trembling—I was utterly broken, as if I had been scourged. I went down to the ground floor breathing heavily, with my blood racing through all my veins. At each step it seemed to me that my heart, weighing so, was sagging, as if about to break loose.

I left the house, continually leaning against the walls. Fortunately, the dairy shop was four doors away, and there was no need to cross the street. I was so waxen and leaden that the milkwoman asked if I felt ill and helped me to get back home. On the way back there was a—kindly soul that said to me, “Now you’ll stop, eh? You won’t meddle in anything any more, will you? Don’t you see that you’re through?” Ah, I was more than convinced of the fact! Now I would be silent, but then I was not and replied, “I’ll do what I feel like doing!” And I said so quite unangelically.

On returning home with the help of the good milkwoman, I lay down for a while—but there was still need to go out. Mother gave me no peace. I took my dog with me, thinking that if I fell down in the street, at least he would guard me. I took a few steps from my house to the corner of Leonardo da Vinci Street. I could not stand. I went into the stationery store which was there at that time for a moment. “Do you feel ill? How you have changed!” Always the same question! Everyone saw that I had a face of agony, except for my mother. After I few minutes I seemed to feel better;

I went out of the shop and started to walk along Leonardo Street. I would have to go to Piave Square. I was staggering. After a few steps the terrible malady of the previous day appeared all over again. A lady and a gentleman intervened just in time to catch me before I collapsed to the ground. They took me back home.

Do you think Mother understood the seriousness of my condition, at least then? Not at all! When I was able to speak, I said, “I want the doctor. I feel I’m dying.” The family doctor—Armellini at that time—was across the street from our house. I had always gone to his office. But that day I would have wanted him to visit me. Mother, however, said, “Go yourself. It’s just a few steps away, and you can walk there without spending twice as much to have him come.”

Accursed money! Papini is completely right in terming it “excrement of the devil.” For five lire, a difference of five lire, I had to go out again and feel ill in the middle of the street. A woman accompanied me to the doctor’s, and after the examination the doctor himself saw to having me accompanied by his maid.

I was very ill. And the doctor said so openly, not just to me, but to Mother—she had not gone with me to the doctor’s, but the doctor came to her to explain. He perhaps hoped that I would afterwards be spared. Not in the least! I went on moving about the house, blowing like a bellows, falling every so often and suffering an ongoing agony. I did not go out—it was impossible. But at home it was as before. Now, if this is spoken of, my mother says quite the opposite, but there are many witnesses who assert that I am telling the truth and she is not. There are so very many like Mother Mary of Gonzaga, St. Thérèse’s Prioress! But at least she was not a natural mother! Mine is, however, the mother superior, not the natural one....

My father, the poor man, was very angry about seeing me like that.... I think he began to die at that time, for every time he saw me ill—and my heart now gave way at least once a day—he completely lost his head. Poor father—how many tears shed over his Maria, broken that way at age thirty-five! He was the only one who loved me. Jesus in heaven and Father on earth.

Few people came to our house then because few wanted to have dealings with Mother, and I was alone and sad. There was that old woman, but she was quite shy, and so as not to provoke Mother’s extreme touchiness she thus did not defend me in the least.

On Christmas Eve, I wanted to go to church, to midnight Mass. I could not resign myself to not going to church any more, to attending Mass no longer, to not receiving my Jesus now, especially now that I needed Him more than ever!

We went, that very foggy night, to the Sisters of St. Dorothy. We were a little group of six women. I had digitalis and brandy in my pocket. I sat down in the back of the little church. I was suffering enormously, for the short walk along the street in the cold had again brought about sharp pain in my heart. At Communion I got up and, tottering, clinging to the pews for support, went to the altar. On the way back to my seat, my heart began to beat more intensely. I drank the digitalis and brandy so as not to faint. As soon as I felt a respite, I wanted to go back home. Ah, I made no preparation or act of thanksgiving except that of boundless suffering! In the manger, where the newborn Christ wailed, I laid all the myrrh from which I was drinking deeply....

And that was the last Mass I attended. The last one! I suffered acutely on this account and then understood that now I was no longer to attend Mass, but say it continuously, with my sufferings, with my sacrifice. My blood was to be mixed forever with that of the God-Man in the chalice, and I myself had to raise that chalice to offer it to the Eternal; I was to consume myself as a little host together with the Great Host. And when I grasped this, I no longer regretted being cloistered by misfortune, being one of those women buried alive familiar to the Middle Ages who lived for decades enclosed in cells to suffer and pray for those who enjoy and do not pray.

A sharp hunger to nourish myself with Jesus remained—and for that you were needed to take pity on this hunger of my heart. You and Father Giosuè. Before it was my lot to undergo even 100’s—I mean a hundred days without the Eucharist’s ever being brought to me. I suffered this with a spirit of poverty—but it was so painful! Just think: I had to suffer alone all that misfortune or the devil prompted in me to disturb my spirit, without the aid of frequent Communion, which is more powerful than anything else in confirming a heart. Without Communion, which I would have wanted to receive several times a day! Without being able to see any longer the holy Host where my God, my King, and my Spouse is—I who, when I received it, had found a way to graze it with a kiss before opening my mouth.

What relic can compare to a consecrated Host? Here there is not a little piece of bone or clothing, a hair, a tooth, a drop of blood—here is Jesus, living, real, complete as He was in Mary’s womb, as He was in the house in Nazareth, in the streets of Palestine, on the Cross, as He is in Heaven. When I think of this, I would like to be the ciborium or monstrance containing Him in the species of Bread to be able to touch Him, hold Him in myself, make Him a precious cradle glittering with gold and gems. But then I think He, my sweet Jesus, prefers our hearts as his ciborium, especially if these hearts are rendered beautiful by purity or pure by love and precious by sacrifice. I try, then, to render my own heart so and live for that hour of joy in which Jesus comes to my house to unite Himself to me with his Body, his Blood, his Soul, and his Divinity. And while waiting, I adore Him in all the ciboria where He is present, in all the chalices where his innocent Blood is uplifted towards heaven, in all the tabernacles where He remains, awaiting his children....

Oh, mystical waits! Oh, secret adorations! Oh, holy immolations to prepare the abode of my King! Who can describe you with fitting precision? Who can repeat the fruits of joy, peace, and well-being brought by his coming? Not only spiritual well-being, but also physical. Often, when I have been dying and have desired the Eucharist immediately, I have risen to new life as soon as Jesus’ union with me has taken place. And I can state that after Communion I am always better than I was before. This morning, too, when you came, I was feeling very ill. Afterwards I felt better. Consequently, when you told me on Friday that you had felt better after saying Mass, I was not at all surprised. It’s the natural result of union with Jesus, the Physician of physicians, the Healer par excellence.

But let’s get back to my account.

The next day was Christmas. As a good Franciscan, I was accustomed to taking a lot of birdseed to the birds in the pinewood every year so that they, too, would praise the Creator on the holy day of Christ’s birth. I wanted to go there that year as well.

Between all creation and myself there has always been wonderful harmony. I cannot understand the believers in the Triune Godhead who do not love the things created by Him. And much less do I understand certain saints. Among them are athletes of what I may term an ascetic rigorism which makes them blind to everything around us that, blossoming, singing, living, and shining, night and day celebrates the Power which made it. In the eyes of God this renunciation pushed to the limit will have a certain merit as well. But I really couldn’t imitate it.

It would seem to me that I was being ungrateful to my Creator, who has granted me the opportunity to see peaceful nights in which the sky looks like an immense curtain of dark velvet completely embroidered with stars writing mysterious words of the creative poem in the firmament. Ungrateful for the virginal moon robing in whiteness even the humble cobblestone of a sylvan road. Ungrateful for the ever-new miracle of the light, which returns with every dawn to console man after the dark night, for daybreaks strewing over the light clouds’ curls delicate shades of pastel and transforming forests and fields into a vast coffer of sparkling gems hanging from branches, corollas, and sun-kissed steles. Ungrateful for all the silk lavished upon creation’s thousands and thousands of flowers, whose clothing is more beautiful than Solomon’s, for all the fruits of the earth, from waving crops to the juicy grapes, velvety peaches, and painted apples, for all the waters singing with laughing voices in brooks, rumbling in streams, sighing in rivers, and sounding on shores and reefs a powerful, tireless hosanna to God. Ungrateful for the thousand-voiced and thousand-scented winds lost in their swift course, ungrateful for the merry tribes of birds that chirp, whistle, call out, and sing, filling the reign of fronds with life, and for all the animals that offer their toil or their love to man for his comfort, and also for those wild ones in virgin forests that also bear witness to how great the Force that made them is.

How much I have meditated adoringly before the humble daisy with its golden heart in the midst of the snow-white halo, before the growth of the stalk being changed into ears of grain and future bread, before the nest full of little eggs amidst the down and woolen threads snatched from the threshing floors to turn them into a bed for the tender offspring, before the small eggs now resembling pebbles in which there is already a life and which tomorrow will be a warm little mass of bodies, a throbbing desire for food, the imminent joy of flights and songs.... How much I have meditated before the boundless horizons of the sea and gazing at the even more limitless horizons of the heavens, the two most beautiful altars, which have the angels as ministers, the waters and the winds as organs, and the stars as candles.... Oh, the living words of our “I believe” in the existence of God, words which no deceit of the devil and no pride of man can erase, eternal words that have seen the first awakening of Adam and will witness the sleep of the last man, faithful words, words singing hosanna, how you have always been light for me, how you have always spoken to me of my King, “through whom all things were made”!

Now I no longer see you with my mortal eyes. I shall never again see you, O beautiful things made by my God. To make reparation for his pain at being blindfolded and mocked by the knavish, sacrilegous soldiery, I have accepted never seeing you again. And, worse than a blind woman, who at least still sees through smell and touch, I can never, ever again perceive you, scents of forests and hay, rustling of woods and crops, the movement of waters, and the caresses of stars. Never again. Never again, you trees that blossom in the spring, forests dressing yourselves in purple in the autumn, threshing floors adorning yourselves with golden cobs under the continuous fluttering of doves, and peaceful flocks that resemble a sea of wool, billowing and foamy like the crest of a wave. Never again, golden broods of chicks that a clucking mother assembles under her timorous wings. Never again. I am sometimes seized by such a deep desire to see you again, O limitless space of the sky, O boundless expanse of the sea, that tears come to my eyes. Oh, longing for the infinite created by God which will no longer be appeased except when I am joined to the Infinite Himself!

But I have gazed at you so much, things made by God, that I see you still—and I have loved you so much, O God, who have made these things, that I willingly accept this, which is also a martyrdom among my varied martyrdoms....

I went to the pinewood, supported by Father. But I had to scatter my gift for the little birds of God right there, where the wood began. I could not walk.

I did not go out any more until January 4. But that day Mother wanted to go calling and, with the bad habit she had, thus expected my help as a—lady companion. Just getting dressed was an effort.... Two steps and a pause, another two and another pause.... People looked at me.... Then—even my mother had to yield to the evidence that the poor little donkey could no longer walk.... And since January 4, 1933 I have never gone out again.

I really should have observed complete rest even at home.... But I was not at rest. I would get up at seven and work all morning. Then, after eating—or, rather, watching the others eat, to be more exact—I would lie down until 5 p.m., when I would rise to prepare dinner for them. On Mondays the girls participating in the competition would come, and I would give them lessons. And I finished killing myself that way. Every so often I was on the verge of dying from heart attacks and would then recover again. But I was sicker and sicker.

I did not see a priest again until Easter, when the President—perhaps stung by remorse over having tormented me so and prevented Barelli and others from the Central Council from coming to me, in spite of the fact that they had asked to—brought me the Lenten preacher from St. Paolino’s. I don’t know his name. I only know that he was a parish priest at Montelupo. He was very good to me and counseled me to invoke insistently the angel who comforted Jesus in his agony.

That was what was needed, for when I had my agonies, I confess to you that I was afraid. Yes, I have already felt death to be quite close—it has come to me with all its harshness. I have felt horror of it with my lower part. That should cause no astonishment. I have asked to be a victim not for Love alone, which would have had me die in a very gentle languor of love, but have asked Justice to immolate me; and, like Jesus, the first Victim of eternal Justice, I shall have a painful death, as my endless agonies have always been painful.

From then on I always called upon the angel of Jesus in agony, and when I later learned that he is believed to be the Archangel Gabriel, I did so with even greater devotion. I was baptized on the feast day of St. Gabriel the Archangel and feel he is a bit of a godfather in my birth to the Church; he will also be in my birth to Heaven.

In May my daughters went to Montenero as a reward for their examinations. And there they prayed according to my intention—that is, for my immolation.

I have never asked for anything else for myself: to be consumed and to obtain eternal life. I have never asked or had anyone ask for anything else. It would have been inconsistent. If we are serious persons, we don’t ask to be given back what we have donated. It would be an offense. With the good Lord we ought to do the same. To offer oneself and then withdraw in terror at his first request strikes me as acting like those who, “having set their hands to the plough, turn back and thus render themselves unfit for the Kingdom of God.” And I want to be fit for this Kingdom.

I have renounced everything in life: health, happiness, wealth, the licit joys of friendship, walks, views of nature, but I have renounced in order to have everything in the other life. Nor is my presumption foolish, since my Master (who is awakening after two and a half days of sleep...) tells me the words which are twenty centuries old and ever new: “In truth, I tell you: no one has abandoned home, father, mother, brothers and sisters, and fields out of love for me and for the sake of the Gospel without receiving a hundred times as much in this age...together with persecutions, and in the age to come, eternal life.”

I have abandoned everything; I have given man’s greatest treasure, health and life, for I am near death; I have abandoned father and mother since it was denied to me by illness to assist him in his death and I can no longer serve my mother and increasingly feel that I am a burden to her—hence I am abandoned by her; I have renounced the daughters of my soul, over whose blossoming I stooped with such love; I have renounced even my house since I live only amidst the walls of a room like a cloistered cell from which nothing can cause me to leave as long as I live; I no longer possess even my own things, such as my dear books, my piano—I have abandoned everything out of love for God and have received a hundredfold from his love, which is voice, caress, and presence. I have had persecutions, for the world always persecutes when encountering us, even if misfortune leaves us among the dead; and our own relatives are in the world, for whom we are burden, and they tell us so; and the friends who deride us as crazy people; and the doctors who torment us in a thousand ways; and the strangers who, knowing nothing, want to blather with unmerciful criticisms.... I am, then, sure I shall possess eternal life one day. Since God does not lie, since Christ cannot have been mistaken in stating things, since the Most Holy Trinity cannot break its word.

When I remember the scribe’s dialogue with the Master (“Which is the greatest of the Commandments?” “Love your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” “Master, you have spoken well.... And loving God and one’s neighbor in this way is worth more than all holocausts and sacrifices”), I feel a boundless trust descending into me. Yes, I have loved God with all my strength, with even more than my strength, for I have loved Him to the point of dying. I have loved my neighbor more than myself, for I pray and suffer for him, abandoning to the goodness of God concern about my eternal future, without accumulating selfish treasures for myself. I thus hear the divine, dear Voice saying to me, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”

Come, come, O Kingdom of peace, after so much suffering and restore to me—oh, then do!—all that I have donated.... Give me back stars and flowers; give me back singing of birds and waters and the brightness of the sun; give me back all, for all is in God, and when I am one with All, I shall have all again, and eternally. Come, come, divine Beauty, to which I cling so as to suffer better and better. May the veils be removed which still conceal your Perfection from me, O sweet Love, and after the cross let the joy come of being with You.

You will perhaps observe, “Why, you always say the same things!” That may also be true. “Friar Masseo, when asked by Friar Jacopo of Fallerone why he remained inalterable in his rejoicing, replied with great happiness that when every good is found in something, one must not change one’s course,” we read in the Fioretti of St. Francis. I remain inalterable in my song of love.

And so the months passed.... I thought it would be months.... It’s been years.

Something inconceivable then occurred. I had walked the streets until December, and no one had ever sought me out. I was not attractive because I dressed badly, like an old woman, seldom spoke, and was a gray, inconspicuous nonentity. Not even my speaking in public had attracted friendship. Only souls had gone to God. Nothing had come to me, a poor voice that spoke of God. And, furthermore, I had not wished for it since I worked for Him alone. The series of strangers who came looking for me made its appearance when I was confined to my home. It has not yet ended, but rather steadily increases, imposing on me hard toil in patience and speech....

A short time ago I nearly started to cry on this account. I have such a need for silence and tranquillity. And I am always disturbed. I almost come to faint from the labor of hearing so many voices and having to respond to so many words.... But—never mind...! A young lady, an older woman from the aristocracy, still others.... Who sent them? Heaven knows! None of my acquaintances. They had not heard me. They came because they said they wanted to know me. And this little apostolate commenced which still continues and costs me so much in words and writings.

In the middle of July the new parish priest arrived. I had had the outgoing parish priest enthrone the Sacred Heart. I really needed to live as if in a church since I could no longer go to church. I at once had the new priest notified, and he came and brought me Communion on July 28. Since Easter I had gone without it.

On the feast of St. Lawrence I was quite ill. An erroneous treatment had augmented my malady. From that day on I quickly got worse. In spite of all my good intentions to act, I now dragged myself along, thus using up my final reserves.

But I still had the chance to drink from the chalice of human wickedness through the unworthy act of the ever-hostile President.... It’s a good thing I was a convinced Franciscan! My Seraphic Father sang me the hymn of forgiveness out of love for God. “Blessed are those who forgive out of love for You and suffer afflictions and tribulations.”

I had asked for suffering. And Suffering came from everywhere. I felt like a reservoir in which the waters of many canals were being gathered. There was the canal of illness, that of slander, that of indifference, that of need, that of envy. All of them, all of them. “Write, Brother Leo, little lamb of God: ‘More than all the works and gifts with which the Holy Spirit adorns our souls, it is great to suffer afflictions and tribulations out of love for Christ. In this is found perfect joy.’ ” In spirit, I was, and am, in perfect joy, for Jesus, treating me as his friend, gives me the joy of willingly suffering afflictions, crosses, and every sorrow out of love for Him.

In December, on account of another treatment—even more mistaken than the others, based on doses of bromide fit for a horse and serums—I had been reduced to trembling as if from palsy. I could not even write any more and, though having always been endowed with a such a steady mind, suffered from frightful amnesia. Analysis revealed that I was losing seventy percent of phosphates.... It was, then, to be remedied with other, increasingly—barbarous treatments. I had to swallow heavy doses of cardiazole, as is done with lunatics.

In the meantime a young friend of ours who had assisted me on August 10 during the fearful crisis had graduated. He, too, wanted to examine me and suspended all the treatments as deadly. But he departed and I remained, and the family doctor insisted. Let’s proceed, then. There were even two crises a day. A constant agony.

I was now in bed much of the time, getting up only to do housework, which was never spared me as long as I could stand. Until what happened on April 1, 1934. A fine April Fools’ joke, wasn’t it?

But I must tell you—who are my spiritual Father—what I told no one. The treatments were—asinine and would have made anyone worse. But I had something else which was making me die and live in spite of the doctors.... And it was Love.

Glancing through a diary I kept then to find the dates with greater precision, I come across burning phrases bringing back to me a reflection of the ardor of those days. I experienced a period of such an intense transport of love that it seemed I was living outside myself, outside my poor, quite defective being. A seraph had taken possession of me and was inflaming me with his blazes of love. I felt I was suffocating—my heart was swelling so in the incandescence. I would sing, with words created by me for spontaneous rhythms in order to give vent to my torment. I had even composed music for the Song of Brother Sun and many poems by St. Thérèse and repeated sacred songs. I needed an outlet so as not to explode....

On the evening of February 10 I wrote my Song of Love.

“O my Beloved, how my soul thirsts for You, how she goes searching for You everywhere with loving anxiety!

“Oh! Where are You? Oh, who can comfort me in the anxious search for my Good?

“I would like to speak of the love troubling and oppressing me; I would like to find other hearts into which I may pour the flood of sweetness swelling my heart. But, alas! The world is deaf and unresponsive to the great voice of love!

“This is one of the biggest crosses of lovers: to have their hearts, minds, and words full of the Beloved and to feel the indifference and obtuseness surrounding and gagging them.

“Alone with the Alone, ever eager for You, Love, these souls live in the midst of men and are in a desert because men cannot understand them.

“And then they turn to You, distant and present in the adoring soul, who alone can comprehend and satisfy them in their great hunger.

“Oh, satisfy this insatiable hunger, You who alone can! Spread out, overflow into them, turned towards You like eager mouths, like glasses waiting to be filled.

“Submerge them in the wave of your love, burn them in the heat of your flame, annihilate them in the splendor of your power.

“They ask only to be immolated by You, at a spiritual stake elevating them in martyrdom.

“Come, Beloved, come. Wait no more. My soul is thirsty for You!

“My soul asks You for love, an ever-renewed fire of love. This soul of mine suffers for You and feels its pain growing with the growth of its love.

“And yet while at times asking You for mercy because the flame piercing its heart is too hot and for a truce because love assails it too violently, it cries to You: ‘Come, come to the one who adores You!’

“And what can love be in heaven if on earth it is so sweet?

“And what will the encounter with You be like if at such a distance the soul melts at your fleeting passing?

“And, Eternal Love, what will knowledge of You, perfect Love, and embracing You eternally be like if my poor love as a creature is so great, powerful, sweet, and deep?

“My Beloved for me and I for Him!

“Oh, do not try, creatures, to tear me away from Him. Do not try to come between my Beloved and me. Even if He should abandon me and conceal his Face from me, I will not for this reason cease to await and love Him.

“Turning to Him like a flower towards the sun, I shall remain in peace waiting for the end of the trial, and the moment of his return will be sweeter when He again directs his divine laughter towards his slave.

“Nothing on earth can turn me away from Him because He is sweetness, He is goodness, He is light, He is warmth, He is life, He is comfort, He is blessedness—the sweet Christ who has borne off my heart.

“Through Him and in Him every torment becomes sweet; in Him every anguish abates; from Him every weakness draws strength.

“He is the Beloved! He is my Love!”

As you see, after nine years I am repeating the same things. It is a question of these things, and they cannot change. I would have to go mad or fall prey to the devil to change. But I hope Jesus will never permit it. I place my trust in Him.

The ardor went on increasing. Glancing through my diary after so many years, I observe the hymn of joy in pain becoming more and more elevated.

Lent, Passion Week, and Holy Week came. Jesus Crucified came to Maria, who could never again go to Jesus Crucified.

A sculptor brought a large cross of black marble with a magnificent Christ in Carrara marble. It was a real work of art of powerful expressiveness. He wanted to sell it because he needed money for ophthalmic treatment. He was going blind. He had turned to us so that we would show it to friends of ours, including Countess Melzi d’Eril, in the hope of finding a buyer.

I had the Christ set down on the sofa, which is now Marta’s bed. The room was still a parlor then. It remained there throughout Lent and until the day after Easter, if I am not mistaken. I went to Him constantly, with the excuse of withdrawing to the silent room, where the smell of coal did not arrive. I really went to love Him. How many kisses on that cold marble which represented my God! I would kneel alongside the sofa and speak to Him for hours and hours, listening to the Voice responding to me, coming from the depth of the heavens to sound in my heart.

If I had been very rich, I would have bought that work. That Face furrowed by pain and hollowed out by death was so natural—that abandon of the members and that chest expanded by the last gasp after the final cry! His left hand was closed over the nail, as if the final cramp had contracted it that way, but the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger were, however, opened out, almost to bless still.

Love grew as I contemplated my dying God—to such a point that it brought me a physical torment which culminated on Good Friday. Oh, love was so intense I thought I would die with my chest torn apart! I felt something lacerating me within, as if a lance were poking into my chest. Something must really have been lacerated, though, for even the wise Aesculapii mused upon a lesion which was intuitively felt to be in the mediastinum or between it and the heart and for which they could provide no explanation.

I believe that only the hand of Him who had wounded me dressed the wound itself in such a way that it would remain without killing. I believe so because that pain, superior to all that can be borne by a human creature, is felt by me again, especially in the hours of highest fusion with my Lord. I believe so because no human remedy is capable of soothing it. I believe so because it is never lacking when I reach such an absolute power in prayer as to wring a grace from heaven. I believe so because it suddenly disappears once a grace has been obtained, to return only in the hours of more intense love and more intense prayer, on a larger and larger scale.... If it were a human pain, it would drive one mad...!

A few days before undergoing that most gentle and cruel agony I had composed a prayer which, following St. Francis’, stated, “My Lord Jesus Christ, I ask You to grant me two things before I die: first, to feel in my soul and body as far as possible the pain You, sweet Jesus, bore in the hour of your most bitter Passion; second, to feel in my heart as far as possible that extraordinary love by which You, Son of God, were inflamed to the point of willingly bearing such a great passion for us sinners.”

Mine, to the Seraphic Father, read as follows: “O my Father, St. Francis, by that love with which Christ loved you and you loved Him, give me, I pray, the suffering and love you insistently requested for yourself. I do not ask you for the visible glory of the stigmata, of which I am not worthy, but for an intimate sharing in the afflictions and love of Jesus and yourself so that, in imitation of the two of you, I may die of love for God and souls.”

The good Lord gave me all I asked for. The inner wound, which was affliction and love, the wound which would lead me to death after a sea of pain crossed so willingly for the Lord and souls.

Oh, I can rightly say so! My Lord has never refused me what I have asked Him for. Having mercy on my insignificance, taking pity on my life devoid of any comfort from acts of kindness by my relatives, and manifesting condescension towards my good will, which was all I could give Him, He has always showered upon me signs of tenderness, gifts, and delicate attentions as only a loving father and a most loving spouse can provide. He has given me much more than I myself asked Him for. He has always bent over attentively to listen not only to my questions, but also to my unexpressed wishes and has made them come true.

I loved flowers and could not buy them. Well, my little yard was a real basketful of them, overflowing with flowers found along the way: bulbs of irises, violets, and geraniums, whose cuttings had been thrown aside by heaven knows who, took root at once, yielding flowers upon flowers. I had found the shoot of a passion flower, one of my favorites, and it had become a luxuriant plant. Roses, lilies of the valley, freesias, violets, geraniums of all kinds, pelargoniums, white and purple irises, carnations—I had everything and in every month of the year. Those who came were amazed. My more than forty vases were all in flower. My plants were always filled with corollas for an eternal spring. Now—since I’ve been bedridden—they are all dead.

I loved doves and had managed to have some of the loveliest breeds that loved me with human—more than human—tenderness. Now they have become wild and nearly all of them have died.

I desired birds, and Jesus always supplied me with them and did so in such a way that Mother could not impose her “no.”

My dog had died, and I suffered because, sick as I am, I have a desire for a faithful companion in the long nights and the hours when I am alone during the day—and there was someone who gave me a dog.

And on and on and on. In the little material joys and the great spiritual things the good Jesus always places his gifts in the hand of his little slave of love. Graces for those who ask me to pray and spiritual graces for me. And unending comforts. Perhaps He does so because He alone knows what I am suffering—He and I know precisely. All the others are quite far removed from the reality of my suffering.

In always giving me everything I asked Him for, He also gave me the inner wound, which is not visible, but which hurts like a hooked, red-hot lance, wrenching and burning the most vital flesh.

If on Good Friday 1930 I had my first hour of agony together with Jesus, in 1934 on Good Friday I was pierced by love on contemplating my Jesus on the cross. When I was able to get up, I wrote this page, which I often repeat, especially in the hours of greatest suffering or during Lent:

“He is the Man of Sorrows, the Beloved of my heart. To resemble God, I, too, must suffer.

“To me, then, to me come, O dear thorns, O sweet nails; strike me, for the bride wishes to adorn herself with the jewels of her King.

“See how languishing his gaze is, how dry his mouth is as He prays on the cross for guilty mankind.

“My heart, do you hear the voice murmuring the words of love amidst the sobs?

“He is dying for us and forgives and promises paradise and, inclining his sweet face, says, ‘I am thirsty!’ and awaits mercy from us.

“ ‘What care can I offer for your blessed lips, your suffering heart to soothe your last breath? With what balm can I give relief to your breast, O Redeemer?’

“ ‘With your faithful affection and generous suffering.’

“Oh, to me, to me come, sweet thorns and dear nails! Encircle me, strike me, nail me to the hard wood. May the head of my King rest on my breast and over my heart.

“With my affection and my love I want to wipe away his tears, quench his feverish thirst, comfort his agony.

“Blessed be the pain which renders me like unto You! Blessed be the cross that raises me up to heaven! Blessed be the love which gives wings to my suffering!

“Blessed be the day that your gaze enchanted me! More blessed be the moment which consecrated me to You!

“But seraphic is the torment which joins me, O Redeemer, to the cross, to pain, for your glory, O God!

“Oh, to me, to me come, sweet thorns, dear nails; adorn me, engrave upon me the semblance of my King.

“Come, come, hard, blood-stained wood of the cross; I want to seek you alone for support here below.

“Above, in heaven, among the splendors, the Redeemer awaits me, no longer languid and moaning, but eternal and radiant.

“One day, adorned with the cross, my head encircled by his thorns, consumed by his love, I shall fly to Him. And in the midst of angels singing hosannas and seraphic brilliance He will change the torments and pains into as many jewels.

“Blessed be pain, blessed be the cross, blessed be the love which will be completed in heaven!”

Writing like this, writing alone, would not be at all praiseworthy, but rather a vain exercise in words. But I bore out those words—and bear them out—with my pain, which I love much more than myself. And this gives value to that cry written in a moment of deep union with my crucified King.

The afflictions have progressively increased in both number and depth, but I have not changed my song and always say, “Blessed be pain, the cross, and love.” And my constant appeal is “For me, the thorns, nails, and scourges, since what the world flees constitutes my repose, for the more the grip of suffering tightens, the more peace and blessedness increase, and for every fiber that is broken and every strength that is annulled I feel that a cell is being added to my new self, which will live in heaven, because heaven belongs to those who succeeded in dying to the flesh before the flesh died to us.”

I suffer with Christ and with Him shall be glorified. May his life and his passion be manifested in me, who ask only to remain nailed on the cross, on that cross which is madness for the children of perdition, but is divine strength for those who have entered upon the way of salvation, as the Apostle with incisive words and a burning heart states.

Two days after that moment of ecstasy and that cry of desire, which rent my chest, I was nailed to the Cross. Christ was coming down from it, in the glory of his Resurrection, and I was ascending to it, out of love for my dearest friends: Jesus and souls.

I had strained myself so as not to cause Father sadness by staying in bed precisely on that day. But I was too weak to stand. From a nearby radio I heard the papal blessing imparted after the canonization of Don Bosco. With this viaticum I went to bed. We had by now turned the parlor into a bedroom, and I took possession of it—and am still there.

Nine years. How many shall I still have to pass? I seem to be close to the end. But what person abandons herself to such a hope when she has been disappointed so often now?

Alright: may your will be done once more!