The Master's words for today's world

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV

31.6 Mary then says:

«I know that you understand. But you will see Me crying more bitterly.

For the time being, I want to relieve your spirit by showing you Joseph’s holiness. He was a man, that is, he had no other help for his spirit, except his holiness. I had all the gifts of God, in My condition of Immaculate. I did not know I was such. But the gifts were active in My soul, and gave Me spiritual strength. But he was not immaculate. Humanity was in him with all its heavy weight and he had to rise towards perfection with all that burden, at the cost of continuous efforts of all his powers to reach perfection and be agreeable to God.

Oh! My holy spouse! Holy in everything, even in the most humble things in life. Holy for his angelical chastity. Holy for his human honesty. Holy for his patience, his activity, for his constant serenity, for his modesty, for everything.

His holiness shines also in this event. A priest says to him: ‘You ought to settle here’ and he replies, fully aware of the greater hardships he would have to face: ‘It is nothing for Me. I am concerned with Mary’s grief. If it was not for that, I would not be upset. Provided that it will help Jesus’. Jesus, Mary: his angelical loves. My holy spouse loved nothing else on earth. And he sacrificed himself to that love.

They elected him protector of Christian families, of workers and many other categories. But he should be appointed protector not only of dying people, of married couples, of workmen, but also of those consecrated to God. Who, of all the people in the world consecrated to the service of God, has consecrated himself as he did, to the service of his God, accepting everything, foregoing everything, bearing everything, fulfilling everything with quickness, with a cheerful mind, a constant humour? There is no one like him.

31.7 «And I wish to draw your attention to another point, or rather two points.

Zacharias is a priest. Joseph is not. But you must note how he, who is not a priest, has a more heavenly soul than the priest. Zacharias thinks in a human way, and in a human way he expounds the Scriptures because he allows himself to be led by his good human sense, and it is not the first time he does so. And he was punished for it. But he relapses, although less gravely. With regard to John’s birth he said: ‘How can that happen, if I am old, and my wife is barren?’ Now he says: ‘To smooth His way, Christ is to be brought up here.’ And with that subtle root of pride that persists also in the best people, he thinks that he can be useful to Jesus. Not useful in the sense that Joseph wanted to be, by serving Him, but by teaching Him… God forgave him, because of his good intention. But did the ‘Master’ need teachers?

I endeavoured to make him see the truth of the prophecies. But he felt he was more learned than I was and made use of such feeling in his own way. I could have insisted and outdone him. But — this is the other point I wanted to draw your attention to — I respected the priest because of his dignity, not because of his knowledge.

31.8 In general, a priest is always enlightened by God. I said: ‘in general’. He is enlightened when he is a real priest. It is not his robe that consecrates him: it is his soul. To judge whether one is a real priest, one must consider what comes out of his soul. As My Jesus said, the things that sanctify or contaminate come out from the soul, and they characterise the whole behaviour of a person. So, when one is a real priest, he is generally inspired by God. We must have a supernatural charity and pray for the others, who are not such.

But My Son has already placed you at the service of this redemption, so I will say no more. Be happy to suffer, so that the number of real priests may increase. And rely peacefully on the word of him who guides you. And believe and obey his advice.

31.9 Obedience always saves you, even if the advice given to you is not completely perfect .

As you know, we obeyed. And we were right to do so. It is true that Herod confined the slaughter of the children to Bethlehem and its surroundings. But could Satan not have spread and propagated such hatred much farther and wider and have induced all the mighty ones in Palestine to commit a similar crime in order to kill the future King of the Jews? He could have done that and it would have happened in Christ’s early days, when the repeated miracles had drawn the attention of both the crowds and of those in power. If such an event had taken place, how could we have crossed the whole of Palestine, to go from Nazareth to Egypt, the hospitable land for persecuted Jews, and make such a journey with a little child, and while persecution was raging? It was easier to flee from Bethlehem, even if the flight was equally painful.

Obedience always saves you. Remember that.

31.10 And respect for a priest is always a sign of a Christian education. Woe to those priests who lose their apostolic ardour! Also Jesus said that. But woe also to those who think that they are right in despising them! Because they consecrate and hand out the True Bread that descends from Heaven. And that contact makes them holy, just like a sacred chalice, even if they are not totally holy. They will answer to God for it. You must consider them as such and not worry about anything else. You must not be more strict than your Lord Jesus, Who, at their command, leaves Heaven and descends to be raised by their hands. You must learn from Him. And if they are blind, if they are deaf, if their souls are paralysed and their thoughts are unsound, if they are lepers full of faults in strong contrast with their mission, if they are like corpses in sepulchres, then call Jesus that He may heal them and revive them.

Call Him with your prayers, and your suffering, o victim souls. To save a soul is to predestine one’s own soul to Heaven. But to save the soul of a priest is to save a large number of souls, because every holy priest is a net that drags souls to God. And to save a priest, that is to sanctify: re-sanctify, is to create this mystical net. Each prey is a light to be added to your eternal crown.

Go in peace.»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV

Jesus says:

«Two teachings, applicable to everybody, derive from the description given by you.

The former: truth is not revealed to a priest engrossed in rites, but absent with his spirit, it is instead revealed to a simple believer.

The priest, always in contact with Divinity, devoted to what concerns God and to everything that is above the flesh, should have realised at once who the Child was Who was being offered that morning in the Temple. But it was necessary for him to have a living spirit, in order to realise it. A mere robe covering a drowsy spirit, if not a dead spirit, was not sufficient.

The Spirit of God can thunder if It wants, and rouse like a thunderbolt and shake like an earthquake the dullest spirit. It can. But generally, as It is an orderly Spirit, as God is Order in each Person and way of acting, It inspires and speaks, not where there is sufficient merit to deserve its effusion — in which case Its effusions would be most rare and not even you would know their light — but where It sees the ‘goodwill’ to deserve such effusion.

How is such will exerted? With a life devoted, as far as possible, entirely to God: in faith, obedience, purity, charity, generosity and in prayer. Not in practices: in prayer. There is less difference between night and day than there is between practices and prayer. The latter is communion of the spirit with God, from which you emerge with fresh strength and a decision to belong more and more to God. The former are common habit exerted for various purposes, which are always selfish, and they leave you exactly as you were, on the contrary, they aggravate your burden with the faults of falsehood and sluggishness.

32.8 Simeon had such goodwill. He had not been spared troubles and trials in his life. But he had not lost his goodwill. Age and misfortunes had not impaired or shaken his faith in the Lord and in His promises, neither did his goodwill to be more and more worthy of God tire or falter. And God sent Him the ray of the Spirit to guide him to the Temple, that he might see the Light that had come to the world, before his eyes of a faithful servant closed to the light of the sun, awaiting to be reopened to the Sun of God glowing in the Heavens, which I had reopened when I ascended after my Martyrdom.

‘Prompted by the Holy Spirit’ says the Gospel. Oh! If men only knew what a perfect Friend the Holy Spirit is! What Guide, what Teacher! If they only loved and invoked Him, this love of the Most Holy Trinity, this Light of Light, this Fire of Fire, this Intelligence, this Wisdom! How much more they would know of what is necessary to know!

Look, Mary; listen, My children. Simeon waited all his long life before ‘seeing the Light’ and before knowing that God’s promise was fulfilled. But he never doubted. He never said to himself: ‘It is useless to persevere in hoping and praying’. He just persevered. And he deserved ‘to see’ what neither the priest nor the proud and dull members of the Sanhedrin saw: the Son of God, the Messiah, the Saviour in the flesh of a Child Who warmed him and smiled at him. He received the smile of God from the lips of a Child, his first reward for an honest and pious life.

32.9 The other lesson: the words of Anna. She too, a prophetess, saw in Me, a new-born Baby, the Messiah. And this is quite natural, considering her prophetic prerogative. But listen to what she says to My Mother, moved by faith and charity. And use her words as a light for your souls that quiver in these days of darkness and in this Feast of Light. ‘He who gave a Saviour will not lack the power to send His angel to console Your tears’.

Consider that God gave Himself to obliterate Satan’s work in your souls. And will He not be able now to defeat the satans that torture you? Will He not be able to wipe your tears routing these satans and sending you once again the peace of His Christ? Why do you not ask Him with faith? A real overbearing faith, a faith before which the rigour of God, indignant at your many faults, may turn into a smile and He may grant you His forgiveness, which is relief, and His blessing which will be a rainbow in this world submerged in a deluge of blood which you wanted yourselves.

Remember: the Father, after punishing men with the storm, said to Himself and to His Patriarch: ‘Never again will I curse the earth because of man, because his heart contrives evil from his infancy. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done’. And He has been faithful to His word. He has not sent a storm again. But how many times have you said to yourselves and to God: ‘If we are spared this time, if You save us, we shall never make wars again, never again’, and after, you have always made more terrifying ones? How many times, o false men, who have no respect either for God or for your own word? And yet God would help you once again, only if the large mass of the faithful would invoke Him with faith and ardent love.

Lay your worries at the feet of God: you who are too few to counterbalance the many who keep God’s rigour alive, you who have remained devoted to Him, notwithstanding the dreadful times which are increasing from day to day. He will send you His angel, as He sent the Saviour to the world. Do not be afraid. Be united to the Cross. It has always defeated the snares of the demon, who with the cruelties of men and the sadness of life endeavours to drive to desperation, that is, to separation from God, the hearts he cannot conquer in any other way.»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV
• Presentation of Jesus Christ at the Temple (purification of the Virgin Mary at the Temple)
• Rosary

Consider that God gave Himself to obliterate Satan’s work in your souls. And will He not be able now to defeat the satans that torture you? Will He not be able to wipe your tears routing these satans and sending you once again the peace of His Christ? Why do you not ask Him with faith? A real overbearing faith, a faith before which the rigour of God, indignant at your many faults, may turn into a smile and He may grant you His forgiveness, which is relief, and His blessing which will be a rainbow in this world submerged in a deluge of blood which you wanted yourselves.

Remember: the Father, after punishing men with the storm, said to Himself and to His Patriarch: ‘Never again will I curse the earth because of man, because his heart contrives evil from his infancy. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done’. And He has been faithful to His word. He has not sent a storm again. But how many times have you said to yourselves and to God: ‘If we are spared this time, if You save us, we shall never make wars again, never again’, and after, you have always made more terrifying ones? How many times, o false men, who have no respect either for God or for your own word? And yet God would help you once again, only if the large mass of the faithful would invoke Him with faith and ardent love.

Lay your worries at the feet of God: you who are too few to counterbalance the many who keep God’s rigour alive, you who have remained devoted to Him, notwithstanding the dreadful times which are increasing from day to day. He will send you His angel, as He sent the Saviour to the world. Do not be afraid. Be united to the Cross. It has always defeated the snares of the demon, who with the cruelties of men and the sadness of life endeavours to drive to desperation, that is, to separation from God, the hearts he cannot conquer in any other way.

• Flood
• Words of Jesus Christ for our time

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV
• Excerpts from the 1985 edition

34.10 Jesus says:

«And now what shall I tell you, o souls who feel your faith is dying? Those Wise Men from the East had nothing to assure them of the truth. Nothing supernatural. All they had was an astronomic calculation and their own considerations made perfect by a strictly honest life. And yet they had faith. Faith in everything: in science, in their own conscience, in God’s goodness.

Science made them believe in the sign of the new star, which could only be ‘the one’ expected by mankind for centuries: the Messiah. Because of their consciences they had faith in the voices of their consciences, which heard heavenly ‘voices’ saying to them: ‘That is the star announcing the advent of the Messiah’. Because of God’s goodness they believed that God would not deceive them, and since their intention was good, He would help them in every way to reach their aim.

And they were successful. Among so many people fond of studying signs, they were the only ones who understood that sign, because only their souls were anxious to know the words of God for an honest purpose, the main care of which was to praise and honour God immediately.

34.11 They did not seek any personal advantage. On the contrary, they have to face hardships and meet expenses but they do not ask for any human reward. They only ask God to remember them and save them for eternal life.

As they have no desire for any future human rewards, so they have no human worry, when they decide on their journey. You would have had hundreds of problems: ‘How will I be able to make such a long journey in countries and among peoples speaking different languages? Will they believe me or will they put me in prison as a spy? What help will they give me to cross deserts, rivers and mountains? And the heat? And the winds of the highlands? And the malarial fever along stagnant marshes? And the floods and heavy rains? And the different food? And the different languages? And… and… and…’ That is your way of thinking. But they do not think like that. With sincere, holy daring they say: ‘You, o God, can read our hearts and You see the purpose we are aiming at. We trust to Your hands. Grant us the superhuman joy of adoring Your Second Person, Who has become Flesh to save the world’.

That is all. And they set out from the far away Indies. From the Mongolian chains of mountains which are the dominion of eagles and vultures, where God speaks with roars of winds and torrents and writes words of mystery on the immense pages of glaciers. From the land where the Nile rises and then flows with its green blue waters to the azure heart of the Mediterranean, neither mountains, nor woods, nor sands, dry oceans more dangerous than the seas, can stop them from proceeding. And the star shines upon them at night, preventing them from sleeping. When one seeks God, natural habits must yield to superhuman considerations and necessities.

The star guides them from the north, the east and the south, and by a miracle of God, it proceeds for the three of them towards one point. And by another miracle of God, after many miles it gathers them at that point and by a further miracle, it anticipates the Pentecost Wisdom, bestowing on them the gift of understanding and making themselves understood, as it happens in Paradise, where only one language is spoken: God’s.

34.12 They are dismayed only for one moment, when the star disappears and since they are humble, because they are really great, they do not think it is due to the wickedness of other people, as the corrupted people of Jerusalem did not deserve to see the star of God. But they think they had failed to deserve God themselves and they examine themselves with trepidation and contrition ready to beg forgiveness.

But their consciences reassure them. Their souls were accustomed to meditation and each of them had a most sensitive conscience, refined by constant attention, and by sharp introspection, which made of their interior a mirror from which even the slightest faults of daily actions are reflected. Their conscience has become their teacher, a voice that warns and cries not at the least error, but at the least inclination towards errors, at everything human, at the satisfaction of one’s ‘ego’. Consequently, when they place themselves before that teacher and that severe clean mirror, they know that it will not lie. It reassures them and gives them heart.

‘Oh! How sweet it is to feel that there is nothing against God in us! To feel that He is kindly looking at the soul of His faithful son and blesses him. Faith, trust, hope, strength and patience are increased by such a feeling. The storm is raging just now. But it will pass, because God loves me and He knows that I love Him, and He will not fail to help me again’. That is how those speak who enjoy the peace that comes from an upright conscience, that is the queen of every action of theirs.

34.13 I said that they were ‘humble because they were really great.’ What happens, instead, in your lives? There a man is never humble not because he is great, but because he is more domineering and makes himself mighty by means of his arrogance and because of your silly idolatry. There are some wretched men who, simply because they are the butlers of some overbearing fellow, or ushers in some office, or officials in some small village, that is, servants of those who employed them, put on the airs of demigods. And they arouse pity!…

The three Wise Men were really great. Firstly, because of their supernatural virtues, secondly because of their science, last because of their wealth. But they feel that they are nothing: dust on the dust of the earth, in comparison with the Most High God, Who with a smile creates the worlds and scatters them like grains of corn to satisfy the eyes of the angels with the jewels of the stars.

They feel they are a mere nothing as compared to the Most High God Who created the planet on which they live and He made it most varied. An Infinite Sculptor of boundless works, with a touch of His thumb, He placed a ring of hills here, the bone structure of mountain ridges and peaks there, like vertebrae of the earth, of this enormous body, the veins of which are the rivers, its basins the lakes, its hearts the oceans, its dresses the forests, its veils the clouds, its decorations the crystal glaciers, its gems the turquoises and the emeralds, the opals and the beryls of all the waters that sing, with the woods and the winds, the great chorus of praise to their Lord.

But they feel they are nothing with regard to their wisdom as compared to the Most High God, from Whom their wisdom comes and Who gave them more powerful eyes than those two pupils by means of which they see things: the eyes of their souls, which know how to read in things the word not written by human hands, but engraved by God’s thought.

And they feel they are nothing with regard to their wealth: an atom as compared to the wealth of the Owner of the universe, Who scatters metals and gems in the stars and planets and grants supernatural, unexhausted riches to the hearts of those who love Him.

34.14 And when they arrive before the poor house, in the poorest town in Judah, they do not shake their heads saying: ‘Impossible’, but they bend their backs, their knees, and above all their hearts and they adore. There, behind that poor wall, there is God. The God they have always invoked, but never had the least hope of seeing. And they invoke Him for the welfare of all mankind, and ‘their’ eternal welfare. Oh! that was their only wish. To see Him, know Him, possess Him in the life where there are no more dawns and sunsets!

He is there, behind that poor wall. Will His heart of a Child, which is still the heart of a God, perceive those three hearts, which prostrated in the dust of the road are crying: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Blessed the Lord Our God. Glory to Him in the Highest Heaven and peace to His servants. Glory, glory, glory and blessings.’?

They are wondering with loving tremor. And during the whole night and the following morning they prepare with the most ardent prayer their souls for the communion with the Child-God.

They do not go to that altar, which is the virginal lap holding the Divine Host, with their souls full of human worries, as you do. They forget to eat and to sleep, and if they wear the most beautiful robes, it is not for human ostentation, but to honour the King of kings. In royal palaces the dignitaries wear the most beautiful clothes. And should the Magi not go to that King in their best garments? Which greater opportunity is there for them?

Oh! In their far away countries, many a time they had to adorn themselves for men like themselves. To welcome and honour them. It is only fair, therefore, that they should prostrate purples and jewels, silks and precious feathers at the feet of the Supreme King. It is fair to put at His sweet little feet the fibres of the earth, the gems of the earth, the feathers of the earth, the metals of the earth — they are all His work — so that all these things of the earth may adore their Creator. And they would be happy if the Little Creature should order them to lie down on the ground and become a living carpet for His little baby steps, and if He trampled on them, since He left the stars to come down to them, who are but dust.

34.15 They were humble, generous and obedient to the ‘voices’ from Above. They tell them to take gifts to the New-Born King. And they take gifts. They do not say: ‘He is rich and does not need them. He is God and will not die’. They obey. And they are the first to help the Saviour in His poverty. How useful that gold will be for Him Who is about to be a fugitive! How meaningful that myrrh is for Him Who will soon be killed! How pious that incense is for Him Who will have to smell the stench of human lewdness raging round His infinite purity!

They were humble, generous, obedient and respectful to one another. Virtues always generate other virtues. From the virtues directed to God, derive the virtues regarding our neighbours. Respect, which is charity. The oldest is entrusted with the task of speaking on behalf of them all, he is the first to receive the Saviour’s kiss and to hold Him by His little hand. The others will be able to see Him again. He will not, because he is old and the day for his return to God is not far away. He will see Christ after His heart-rending death and will follow Him, together with the other blessed souls, in His return to Heaven. But he will never see Him again in this world. May, therefore, the warmth of His little hand entrusted to his wrinkled one, be a viaticum for him.

There is no envy in the others. On the contrary, their veneration for the old Wise Man increases. He certainly deserved more than they did, and for a longer period of time. The God-Infant knows. The Word of the Father does not speak yet, but every action of His is a word. And may His innocent word be blessed, because it designated him as His favourite.

34.16 But, My dear children, there are two more lessons in this vision.

The behaviour of Joseph who knows how to keep ‘his’ place. He is present as the guardian of Purity and Holiness. But not as the usurper of their rights. It is Mary with Jesus who receives the homage and the words. Joseph rejoices because of Her and does not grieve because he is a secondary figure. Joseph is a just man: he is the Just Man. And he is always just. Also at the present moment. The fumes of the feast do not go to his head. He remains humble and just.

He is happy for the gifts. Not for himself, but because he thinks that with them he will be able to make his Spouse’s and the sweet Child’s lives more comfortable. There is no greed in Joseph. He is a workman and will continue to work. But he is anxious that ‘They’, his two loves, should be comfortable. Neither he nor the Magi know that those gifts will be needed for an escape and a life in exile, when riches vanish like clouds scattered by winds, as well as for their return to their country, where they have lost everything, customers and household furnishings, and where only the walls of their house have been saved, protected as they were by God, because there He was united to the Virgin and became Flesh.

Joseph is humble, in fact, although he is the guardian of God and of the Mother of God and Spouse of the Most High, he holds the stirrups of these vassals of God. He is a poor carpenter, because sustained human pressures have deprived David’s heirs of their royal wealth. But he is always the offspring of a king, and has the manners of a king. Also of him it must he said: ‘He was humble, because he was really great’.

34.17 A last, kind, important lesson.

It is Mary who takes the hand of Jesus, Who does not yet know how to bless, and She guides it in the holy gesture.

It is always Mary who takes Jesus’ hand and guides it. Even now. Now Jesus knows how to bless. But sometimes His pierced hand falls down tired and disheartened, because He knows that it is useless to bless. You destroy My blessing. It falls also indignant, because you curse Me. It is Mary then Who removes the disdain from My hand with Her kisses. Oh! the kiss of My Mother! Who can resist that kiss? And then, with Her slender, but lovingly irresistible fingers, She takes My wrist and forces Me to bless.

I cannot reject My Mother, but you must go to Her, and make Her your Advocate. She is My Queen, before being yours, and Her love for you makes such allowances that no one can possibly imagine or understand. And even without any word, but only with Her tears, and the memory of My Cross, the sign of which She makes Me trace in the air, She pleads your cause and exhorts Me: ‘You are the Saviour. Therefore save’.

34.18 That is, My dear children, the ‘Gospel of faith’ in the vision of the scene of the Magi. Meditate on it and imitate it. For your own good.»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV
• Three Kings (Epiphany)

35.7 Jesus says:

«And also this series of visions ends in this way. With the permission of “the exacting doctors” we have been showing you the scenes which preceded, accompanied and followed My coming. And we did so, not for their own sake, as they are well known, although they have been distorted by elements superimposed throughout the centuries, always as a consequence of the mentality of men, who in order to give greater praise to God — and are therefore forgiven — make unreal what would be so lovely to leave real. Such way of seeing things in their reality does not diminish My Humanity or Mary’s, neither does it offend My Divinity or the Majesty of the Father or the Love of the Most Holy Trinity. On the contrary, the merits of My Mother and My perfect humility shine brightly and so does the omnipotent kindness of the Eternal Lord. But we have shown you these scenes in order to be able to apply the supernatural meaning deriving from them to you and to other people and give it to you as a rule of life.

The Decalogue is the Law; and My Gospel is the Doctrine that makes the Law clearer for you and more loving to follow. The Law and My Doctrine would be sufficient to make saints of men.

But you are so hampered by your humanity — it really overwhelms your souls too much — that you cannot follow My ways and you fall; or you stop disheartened. You go on saying to yourselves and to those who would like to assist you, quoting the examples of the Gospel for you: ‘But Jesus, but Mary, but Joseph (and so on for all the saints) were not like us. They were strong, they were immediately comforted in their sorrow, also in the little sorrow which they experienced, they did not feel passion. They were already beings out of this world’.

35.8 That little sorrow! They did not feel passion!

Sorrow has been our faithful friend and it had all the most varied forms and names.

Passion… do not use a word wrongly, by calling passion the vices which mislead you. Be honest and call them ‘vices’, and capital ones in addition. It is not true that we did not know them. We had eyes to see and ears to hear, and Satan caused those vices to dance in front of us and around us, showing them to us with their heap of filth in action, or tempting us with his insinuations. But, since we firmly wanted to please God, his filth and insinuations, instead of achieving the purpose intended by Satan, obtained the very opposite. And the more he worked, the more we took shelter in the light of God, disgusted as we were with the muddy darkness he showed to the eyes of our bodies and of our souls.

But we did not ignore passions in our hearts, in their philosophical setting. We loved our country, and in our country we loved our little Nazareth above every other town in Palestine. We were fond of our house, of our relatives and friends. Why should we not? We did not become slaves to our feelings because nothing is to be our master except God. But our feelings were made good companions.

My Mother uttered a cry of joy when, after about four years, She went back to Nazareth and entered Her house, and kissed the walls where Her ‘yes’ had opened Her bosom to receive the Son of God. Joseph joyfully greeted his relatives and his little nephews, who had grown in numbers and in years, and he rejoiced when he saw that his fellow citizens remembered him and they sought him because of his ability. I Myself appreciated friendship and because of Judas’ betrayal, I suffered as for a moral crucifixion. And why not? Neither My Mother nor Joseph ever placed more love for their home or their relatives before the will of God.

35.9 And I never spared a word, if it was to be said, capable of drawing upon Me the hatred of the Jews and the animosity of Judas. I knew, and I could have brought it about, that some money would be sufficient to subject him to Me. But not to Me, a Redeemer: to Me, a rich man. I had multiplied the loaves of bread and if I wanted, I could multiply money as well. But I did not come for human satisfactions. Least of all to the ones I had called. I had preached sacrifice, detachment, a pure life, humble positions. What kind of a Master would I have been and what Just man, if I had given money to one of them for his mental and physical satisfaction, only because that was the means to keep him?

Those who make themselves ‘small’ are great in My Kingdom. Those who wish to be ‘great’ in the eyes of the world are not suitable to reign in My Kingdom. They are straw for the beds of the demons. Because the greatness of the world is the antithesis of the Law of God.

The world calls ‘great’ those who, by means which almost are always illicit, know how to get the best positions and to do so, they use their neighbour as a stool on which they then climb, crushing him. The world calls ‘great’ those who know how to kill in order to reign, and they kill materially or morally, and they usurp positions and countries and fatten themselves, bleeding both individuals and communities. The world often calls ‘great’ criminals. No. ‘Greatness’ is not to be found in criminality. It is in goodness, in honesty, in love, in justice. You can see which poisonous fruit your ‘great ones’ offer you, fruit which they have picked in the wicked devilish garden inside them!

35.10 I only wish to speak about the last vision, and omit the rest, because in any case, it is useless, as the world does not want to hear the truth concerning it. The last vision clarifies a detail quoted twice in the Gospel by Matthew, a sentence which is repeated twice: ‘Get up, take the Child and His Mother with you, and escape into Egypt’; ‘Get up, take the Child and His Mother with you and go back to the land of Israel’. And you saw that Mary was by Herself in Her room with the Child.

Mary’s virginity after Her delivery and Joseph’s chastity have been strongly denied by those who being putrid mud themselves, are not prepared to admit that one like them can be as pure and clear as light. They are wretched people whose souls are so corrupted and their minds so prostituted to the flesh, that they are incapable of thinking that one like them can respect a woman seeing in her not her flesh but her soul, neither can they elevate themselves to live in a supernatural atmosphere, craving not for what is flesh, but only for what is God.

Well, I wish to tell those deniers of the most beautiful things, those worms incapable of becoming butterflies, those reptiles covered with the slavery of their own lewdness, incapable of understanding the beauty of a lily, I wish to tell them that Mary was and remained a virgin, and that only Her soul was married to Joseph, exactly as Her spirit was united only to the Spirit of God by Whose deed She conceived Her Only Son: I, Jesus Christ, the Only Begotton Son of the Father and of Mary.

This is not a tradition embellished afterwards, out of loving respect for the Blessed Virgin Who was My Mother. It is the truth and has been known since early times.

Matthew was not born after centuries. He was a contemporary of Mary. Matthew was not a poor ignorant man brought up in a forest and likely to believe any idle story. He was a clerk in the taxation office, as you would say nowadays, he was an excise man, as we said then. He could see, hear, understand, and distinguish truth from lies. Matthew did not hear things reported by third parties. He heard them directly from Mary’s lips to Whom he turned for information, prompted by his love for his Master and for the truth.

I do not believe that those repudiators of Mary’s inviolability will dare think that She may have lied. My own relatives could have given Her the lie, had there been other children: James, Judas, Simon and Joseph were disciples together with Matthew. Therefore Matthew could have easily compared their versions, had there been more than one. But Matthew does not say: ‘Get up and take your wife’. He says: ‘Take His Mother’. Before he says: ‘A virgin betrothed to Joseph’; ‘Joseph Her spouse’.

35.11 Neither those repudiators of Purity should tell Me that it was a way of speaking particular to the Jews, as if to say ‘wife’ was a disgrace. No, deniers of Purity. At the very beginning of the Bible we read: ‘And he will join himself to his wife’. She is called ‘companion’ up to the moment of the sensual consummation of the marriage, and afterwards she is called ‘wife’ in various circumstances and in different chapters. And these are the expressions referred to the wives of the sons of Adam. And so Sarah is called the ‘wife’ of Abraham: ‘Sarah your wife’. And: ‘Take your wife and your two daughters’ is said of Lot. And in the book of Ruth states: ‘The Moabitess, the wife of Mahalon’. And the first book of the Kings says: ‘Elkanah had two wives’. And further on: ‘Elkanah then had intercourse with his wife Hannah’; and again: ‘Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife’. And again the Book of the Kings says: ‘Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, became the wife of David and bore him a son’. And what do you read in the blue book of Tobias, what the Church sings to you at your wedding, to advise you to be holy in your marriage? You read: ‘Now when Tobias arrived with his wife and his son…’; and again: ‘Tobias succeeded in escaping with his son and with his wife’.

And in the Gospels, that is in times contemporary with Christ, when therefore they wrote in a modern style of language, as compared to the ancient kind, and therefore no error of transcription could be suspected, Matthew wrote in Chapter 22: ‘… and the first, after marrying his wife died and left his wife to his brother’. And Mark in Chapter 10: ‘The man who divorces his wife…’. And Luke called Elizabeth the wife of Zacharias for four times running, and in the eighth Chapter of his Gospel he says: ‘Johanna, the wife of Chuza’.

As you can see, this name was not a word banished by those who walked in the ways of the Lord, it was not an impure word not worthy of being uttered and least of all written when there was a mention of God and of His wonderful work. And the angel, saying: ‘The Child and His Mother’, proves to you that Mary was His real Mother. But She was not a wife of Joseph. She remained forever: ‘The virgin betrothed to Joseph’.

And this is the last teaching of the vision. And it is a halo which shines on the heads of Mary and Joseph. The Inviolate Virgin. The just and chaste man. The two lilies amongst whom I grew up, receiving only the perfume of purity.

35.12 I could speak to you, little John, about Mary’s grief at being torn away from Her house and Her fatherland. But there is no need for words. You understand and you die of grief. Give Me your sorrow. That is all I want. It is greater than anything else you could give Me. It is Friday today, Mary. Think of My grief and of My Mother’s on Golgotha in order to be able to bear your cross.

Our peace and love remain with you.

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV

36.7 Jesus says:

«The things you see teach you and others the lesson. It is a lesson of humility, resignation and good harmony. A lesson given as an example to all Christian families, and particularly to the Christian families in this particularly sorrowful age.

36.8 You have seen a poor house. And what is more saddening, a poor house in a foreign country.

Many people, only because they are fairly good Catholics who pray and receive Me in the Holy Eucharist, and they pray and receive Me for ‘their’ needs, not for the needs of their souls and for the Glory of God — because only seldom those who pray are not selfish — many people would expect to have a prosperous, happy, easy material life, well-protected even from the least pain.

Joseph and Mary had Me, True God, as their Son, yet they did not even have the meagre satisfaction of being poor in their own country, where they were known, where at least there was their ‘own’ little house and the problem of a dwelling did not add a harassing thought to their many problems, in the country where, as they were known, it was easier for them to find work and provide for the needs of their lives. They are two refugees just because they had Me. A different climate, a different country, so sad in comparison with the sweet countryside of Galilee, a different language, different habits, living amongst people who did not know them, and who generally distrusted refugees and people they did not know.

They are deprived of those comfortable and dear pieces of furniture of ‘their’ little house, of so many humble and necessary things they had there, and which did not seem to be so necessary, whereas here, in the void that surrounds them, seem even beautiful like the luxurious things that make the houses of rich people so charming. And they felt nostalgia both for their country and for their home, they worried about the poor things they had left behind, about the little kitchen garden where probably no one would take care of their vines and their figs, and the other useful plants. And they had to provide everyday as well as for food clothes, fire, and for Me, a Child, Whom they could not feed with the same food they took themselves. And they were sad at heart: because of their homesickness, because of the uncertainty of the future, and the lack of trust of people who are reluctant, particularly at first, to accept the offer of work of two unknown people.

And yet, as you have seen yourself, that house is pervaded with serenity, smiles, harmony, and by mutual consent they endeavour to make it more beautiful, even in its scanty little kitchen garden, that it may be more like the more comfortable one they had to leave behind. They have only one thought: that the land may be less hostile and less unpleasant for Me, since I come from God. It is the love of believers and relatives which reveals itself in many ways: from the little goat they purchased with many hours of extra work, to the little toys carved in scraps of wood, to the fruit purchased only for Me, while they denied themselves a morsel of food.

O beloved father of mine on the earth, how loved you have been by God, by God the Father in the Most High Heavens, by God the Son, Who became the Saviour on the earth!

In that house there is no quick temper, no sulkiness, no grim faces, neither is there any reproach against each other, and least of all against the God Who has not loaded them with material wealth. Joseph does not reproach Mary as being the cause of his discomfort, neither does Mary reproach Joseph because he is incapable of procuring greater worldly goods. They love each other in a holy way, that is all. And therefore they do not worry about their own comfort, but only about the comfort of their consort. True love is not selfish. And true love is always chaste, even if it is not perfect in chastity as the love of the two virgin spouses. Chastity united with charity yields a suite of other virtues and therefore two people who love each other chastely become perfect.

The love of Mary and Joseph was perfect. Therefore it was an incentive to every other virtue and in particular to charity towards God, blessed every hour, notwithstanding His holy will is painful for the flesh and the heart, blessed because, above the flesh and above the heart, the spirit was more lively and stronger in the two saints, and they exalted the Lord with gratitude because they had been chosen as guardians of His Eternal Son.

36.9 In that house they prayed. You pray too little in your homes, nowadays. The sun rises and sets, you start your work, and you sit at the table without a thought for the Lord, Who has allowed you to see a new day, and then to live and see a new night, Who has blessed your work and has made it the means for you to purchase the food, the fire, the clothes, the house which are so necessary for your human lives. Whatever comes from Good God is ‘good’. Even if it is poor and meagre, love gives it flavour and body, the love that allows you to see, in the Eternal Creator, the Father Who loves you.

In that house there is frugality and it would be there even if there was plenty of money. They eat to live. They do not eat to satisfy their gluttony, with the insatiability of gluttons and the whims of epicures who fill themselves to the extent of being sick and squander fortunes on expensive food, without giving one thought to those who are without or with little food, without considering that if they were moderate, many people could be relieved of the pangs of hunger.

In that house they love work, and they would love it even if there was plenty of money, because the working man obeys the command of God and frees himself from vice, which like tenacious ivy clenches and suffocates idle people, who are like immovable rocks. Food is good, rest is serene, hearts are happy, when you have worked well and you enjoy the resting time between one job and the next one. Neither in the houses nor in the minds of those who love work, can various vices arise. And, in its absence, love, esteem, mutual respect prosper and tender children grow in a pure atmosphere and they thus become the origin of future holy families.

Humility reigns in that house. What a lesson of humility for the proud. Mary, from a human point of view, had a thousand reasons to be proud and to be adored by Her spouse. Many women are proud only because they are a little better educated, or of nobler birth, or of a wealthier family than their husbands. Mary is the Spouse and the Mother of God, and yet She serves — and does not expect to be served — Her consort, and She is full of love for him. Joseph is the head of the family, judged by God so worthy of being the head of a family, as to be entrusted by God with the guardianship of the Word Incarnate and the Spouse of the Eternal Spirit. And yet he is anxious to relieve Mary of Her work, and he takes care of the most humble jobs in the house so that Mary may not get tired, not only, but whenever he can he does his best to please Her and make Her house more comfortable and Her little garden more beautiful.

In that house order is respected: supernatural, moral, material. God is the Supreme Head and He is worshipped and loved: supernatural order. Joseph is the head of the family and he is loved, respected and obeyed: moral order. The house is a gift of God as well as the clothes and the furnishings. The Providence of God is shown in everything, of God Who supplied wool to sheep, feathers to birds, grass to meadows, hay to animals, grains and branches to birds, Who weaves the dress of the lily of the valley. The house, the dresses, the furnishings are accepted with gratitude, blessing the divine hand that supplies them, looking after them with respect as gifts of the Lord, without any bad humour because they are poor, without ill use, without abusing Divine Providence: material order.

36.10 You did not understand the words they exchanged in the dialect of Nazareth, neither did you understand the words of the prayer. But the things you saw are a great lesson. Meditate on it, you all who now suffer so much because you failed in so many things towards God, also in those things in which the holy Spouses never failed, the Spouses who were my Mother and father.

And you, rejoice remembering little Jesus, smile thinking of His little steps of a child. In a short time you will see Him walking under the Cross. And then it will be a vision of tears.»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV
• Escape to Egypt
• Family
• Holy Family
• Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary

Jesus says:

«I have consoled you, My dear soul, with a vision of My childhood, which was happy in its poverty, because it was surrounded by the love of two saints, the greatest the world ever had.

37.5 They say that Joseph was My foster-father. Oh! If, being a man, he could not feed Me with milk, as My Mother Mary did, he worked very hard indeed, to give Me bread and comfort and he had the loving kindness of a real mother. From him I learned — and never had a pupil a kinder teacher — I learned everything that makes a man of a child, and a man who is to earn his own bread.

If My intelligence, that of the Son of God was perfect, you must consider and believe that I did not want to deviate from the attributes and attainments of My own age group ostentatiously. Therefore, by lowering My divine intellectual perfection to that of a human intellectual perfection, I submitted Myself to having a man as My teacher, and to the need of a teacher. If I learned quickly and willingly, that does not deprive Me of the merit of submitting Myself to man, neither does it deprive the just man of the merit of being the person who nourished My young mind with the ideas which are necessary to life.

Not even now that I am in Heaven can I forget the happy hours I spent beside Joseph, who, as if he were playing with Me, guided Me to the point of being capable of working. And when I look at My putative father, I see once again the little kitchen garden and the smoky workshop, and I still appear to see Mother peep in with Her beautiful smile which turned the place into Paradise and made us so happy.

37.6 How much families should learn from the perfection of this couple who loved each other as nobody else ever loved!

Joseph was the head of the family, and as such, his authority was undisputed and indisputable: before it the Spouse and Mother of God bent reverently and the Son of God submitted Himself willingly. Whatever Joseph decided to do, was well done: there were no discussions, no obstinacy, no oppositions. His word was our little law. And yet, how much humility there was in him! There never was any abuse of power, or any decision against reason only because he was the head of the family. His Spouse was his sweet adviser. And if in Her deep humility She considered Herself the servant of Her consort, he drew from Her wisdom of Full of Grace light to guide him in all events.

And I grew like a flower protected by vigorous trees, between those two loves that interlaced above Me, to protect Me, and love Me.

No. As long as I was able to ignore the world because of My age, I did not regret being absent from Paradise. God the Father and the Holy Spirit were not absent, because Mary was full of Them. And the angels dwelled there, because nothing drove them away from that house. And one of them, I might say, had become flesh and was Joseph, an angelical soul freed from the burden of the flesh, intent only on serving God and His cause and loving Him as the seraphim love Him. Joseph’s look! It was as placid and pure as the brightness of a star unaware of worldly concupiscence. It was our peace, and our strength.

37.7 Many think that I did not suffer as a human being when the holy glance of the guardian of our home was extinguished by death. If I was God, and as such I was aware of the happy destiny of Joseph, and consequently I was not sorry for his death, because after a short time in Limbo, I was going to open Heaven to him, as a Man I cried bitterly in the house now empty and deprived of his presence. I cried over My dead friend, and should I not have cried over My holy friend, on whose chest I had slept when I was a little boy, and from whom I had received so much love in so many years?

37.8 Finally I would like to draw the attention of parents to how Joseph made a clever workman of Me, without any help of pedagogical learning. As soon as I was old enough to handle tools, he did not let Me lead a life of idleness, but he made Me work and he made use of My love for Mary as the means to spur Me to work. I was to make useful things for Mother. That is how he inculcated the respect which every son should have for his mother and the teaching for the future carpenter was based on that respectful and loving incentive.

Where are now the families in which the little ones are taught to love work as a means of pleasing their parents? Children, nowadays, are the tyrants of the house. They grow hard, indifferent, ill-mannered towards their parents. They consider their parents as their servants, their slaves. They do not love their parents and they are scarcely loved by them. The reason is that, while you allow your children to become objectionable, overbearing fellows, you become detached from them with shameful indifference.

They are everybody’s children, except yours, o parents of the twentieth century. They are the children of the nurse, of the governess, of the boarding schools, if you are rich people. They belong to their companions, they are the children of the streets, of the schools, if you are poor. But they are not yours. You, mothers, give birth to them and that is all. And you, fathers, do exactly the same. But a son is not only flesh. He has a mind, a heart, a soul. Believe Me, no one is more entitled and more obliged than a father and a mother to form that mind, that heart, that soul.

37.9 A family is necessary: it exists and must exist. There is no theory or progress capable of destroying this truth without causing ruin. A shattered family can but yield men and women who in the future will be more perverted, and will cause greater and greater ruin. And I tell you most solemnly that it would be better if there were no more marriages and no more children on the earth, rather than have families less united than the tribes of monkeys, families which are not schools of virtue, of work, of love, of religion, but a babel in which everyone lives on his own like disengaged gears, which end up by breaking.

Broken families. You break up the most holy way of social living and you see and suffer the consequences. You may continue thus, if you so wish. But do not complain if this world is becoming a deeper and deeper hell, a dwelling place of monsters who devour families and nations. You want it. Let it be so.»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV

37.8 Finally I would like to draw the attention of parents to how Joseph made a clever workman of Me, without any help of pedagogical learning. As soon as I was old enough to handle tools, he did not let Me lead a life of idleness, but he made Me work and he made use of My love for Mary as the means to spur Me to work. I was to make useful things for Mother. That is how he inculcated the respect which every son should have for his mother and the teaching for the future carpenter was based on that respectful and loving incentive.

Where are now the families in which the little ones are taught to love work as a means of pleasing their parents? Children, nowadays, are the tyrants of the house. They grow hard, indifferent, ill-mannered towards their parents. They consider their parents as their servants, their slaves. They do not love their parents and they are scarcely loved by them. The reason is that, while you allow your children to become objectionable, overbearing fellows, you become detached from them with shameful indifference.

They are everybody’s children, except yours, o parents of the twentieth century. They are the children of the nurse, of the governess, of the boarding schools, if you are rich people. They belong to their companions, they are the children of the streets, of the schools, if you are poor. But they are not yours. You, mothers, give birth to them and that is all. And you, fathers, do exactly the same. But a son is not only flesh. He has a mind, a heart, a soul. Believe Me, no one is more entitled and more obliged than a father and a mother to form that mind, that heart, that soul.

• Family
• Jesus as a child
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• Laziness - Idleness
• Parents and children
• Words of Jesus Christ for our time
• Work