Christian prayer

41.11 Jesus says:

[…]

«Let us go back, far back. Let us go back to the Temple where I, a twelve year old boy, am disputing. Or rather, let us go back to the roads which take one to Jerusalem and from Jerusalem to the Temple.

See Mary’s distress when She realised, after the groups of men and women had gathered together, that I was not with Joseph.

She does not reproach Her spouse bitterly. Every woman would have done that. You do so for much less, forgetting that man is still the head of the family. But the pain that appears on Mary’s face pierces Joseph’s heart more than any bitter reproach. Mary does not give vent to dramatic outbursts. You do so for much less because you love to be noticed and pitied. But Her repressed sorrow is so obvious: She starts trembling, Her face turns pale, Her eyes are wide open and thus She arouses pity more than any outburst of tears and cries.

She is no longer tired or hungry. And yet the journey was a long one and She has not taken any food for so many hours! But She leaves everything: the bed She was preparing and the food which was ready to be handed out. And She goes back. It is night, it is dark. It does not matter. Every step takes Her back to Jerusalem. She stops the caravans and pilgrims and questions them. Joseph follows Her and helps Her. A long day’s walk back to Jerusalem and then the feverish search in town.

Where, where can Her Jesus be? And by God’s provision for many hours She will not know where to look for Me. To look for a child in the Temple does not make sense. What could a child be doing in the Temple? At the most, if he had got lost in town and his little steps had brought him back there, he would have cried for his mother and thus would have attracted the attention of people and of the priests, who would have taken the necessary steps to find the parents by means of announcements left at the gates. But there was no announcement. No one in town knew anything of this Child. Beautiful? Blond? Strong? There are so many like that! It is too little to enable anyone to say: ‘I saw Him. He was there or there’!

41.12 Then, after three days, the symbol of three other days of future anguish, Mary, exhausted, enters the Temple, walks along the yards and the halls. Nothing. She runs, the poor Mother, whenever She hears the voice of a child. Even the bleating of the lambs give Her the impression that She hears Her Creature weeping and looking for Her. But Jesus is not weeping. He is teaching. All of a sudden, from beyond the barrier of a large group of people, She hears His voice saying: ‘These stones will vibrate…’ She endeavours to make Her way through the crowd, and succeeds after much effort. There is Her Son, standing in the midst of the doctors with His arms stretched out.

Mary is the Prudent Virgin. But this time anxiety overcomes prudence. It is a hurricane that demolishes everything. She runs to Her Son, embraces Him, lifting Him off the stool and putting Him down on the ground and She exclaims: ‘Oh! Why have You done this to us? For three days we have been looking for You. Your Mummy is dying with pain, Son. Your father is exhausted with fatigue. Why, Jesus?’

You do not ask ‘why ‘ of Him Who knows. ‘Why’ He behaved in a certain way. You do not ask those with a vocation ‘why’ they leave everything to follow the voice of God. I was Wisdom and I knew. I was ‘called’ to a mission and I was fulfilling it. Above the earthly father and mother there is God, the Divine Father. His interests are above ours, His affections are superior to everything else. And I tell My Mother.

I finish teaching the doctors with the lesson to Mary, the Queen of doctors. And She has never forgotten it. The sun began to shine again in Her heart now that She had Me, humble and obedient, beside Her, but My words are deeply rooted in Her mind. There will be much sunshine and many clouds will gather in the sky during the next twenty-one years I will still be on the earth. And great joys and many tears will alternate in Her heart during the next twenty-one years. But never again will She ask: ‘My Son, why have You done this to us?’

Oh, insolent men, learn your lesson.

41.13 I directed and enlightened the vision, because you, little John, are not able to do anything further. […]»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV
• Holy Family
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• Recovering Jesus in the Temple
• Rosary
• Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary
• The Virgin Mary
• Why did you...?
• Words of the Virgin Mary

42.5 Then Jesus bending over the dying man, whispers a psalm[1]. I know it is a psalm, but just now I cannot tell which one. It begins thus:

«‘Look after me, o Lord, because I hoped in You…

In favour of his friends who live on his earth he has accomplished all my wishes in a wonderful way…

I will bless the Lord Who is my advisor…

The Lord is always before me. He is on my right-hand side that I may not fall.

Therefore my heart exults and my tongue rejoices and also my body will rest in hope.

Because You will not abandon my soul in the dwelling place of the dead, neither will You allow Your friend to see corruption.

You will reveal the path of light to me and will fill me with joy showing me Your face’.»

Joseph cheers up a little and with a more lively look he smiles at Jesus and presses His fingers.

Jesus replies to the smile with a smile of His own and to the pressure on His fingers with a caress. And still bending over His putative father, He goes on softly:

«‘How I love your Tabernacles, o Lord.

My soul yearns and pines for the courts of the Lord.

Also the sparrow has found a home and the little dove a nest for its young. I am longing for your Altars, Lord.

Happy are those who live in Your house… happy is the man who finds his strength in You. He inspired into his heart the ascents from the valley of tears to the chosen place.

O Lord hear my prayer…

O God, turn Your eyes and look at the face of Your Anointed…’»

Joseph, sobbing, looks at Jesus and makes an effort to speak as if to bless Him. But he cannot. He obviously understands, but he is impeded in his speech. But he is happy and looks at his Jesus with liveliness and trust.

«‘Oh! Lord»’, goes on Jesus. «‘You have favoured Your own country, You brought back the captives of Jacob…

Show us, o Lord, Your mercy and bring us back Your Saviour.

I want to listen to what the Lord is saying to me. He will certainly speak of peace to His people for His friends and for those who convert their hearts to Him.

Yes, His saving help is near… and the glory will live in our country. Love and loyalty have now met, righteousness and peace have now embraced. Loyalty reaches up from the earth and righteousness leans down from Heaven.

Yes, the Lord Himself bestows happiness and our soil gives its harvest. Righteousness will always precede Him and will leave its footprints on the path’.

You have seen that hour, father and you have worked for it. You have co-operated in the formation of this hour and the Lord will reward you for it. I am telling you,» adds Jesus, wiping a tear of joy which slowly runs down Joseph’s cheek.

He then resumes:

«‘O Lord, remember David and all his kindness.

How he swore to the Lord: I will not enter my house, nor climb into the bed of my rest, nor allow my eyes to sleep, nor give rest to my eyelids, nor peace to my temples until I have found a place for the Lord, a home for the God of Jacob…

Rise, o Lord and come to Your resting place, You and Your Ark of holiness (Mary understands, and She bursts into tears).

May Your priests vest in virtue and Your devote shout for joy.

For the sake of Your servant David, do not deprive us of the face of Your Anointed.

The Lord swore to David and will remain true to His word: “I will put on your throne the fruit of your womb”.

The Lord has chosen His home…

I will make a horn sprout for David, I will prepare a lamp for My Anointed’.

42.6 Thank you, My father on My behalf and on behalf of My Mother. You have been a Just father to Me and the Eternal Father chose you as the guardian of His Christ and of His Ark. You have been the lamp lit for Him and for the Fruit of the holy womb you have had a loving heart. Go in peace, father. Your Widow will not be helpless. God has arranged that She must not be alone. Go peacefully to your rest. I tell You.»

Mary is crying with Her face bent down on the blankets (they look like mantles) stretched on Joseph’s body, which is now getting cold. Jesus hastens to comfort him because he is breathing with great difficulty and his eyes are growing dim once again.

«‘Happy is the man who fears the Lord and joyfully keeps His commandments…

His righteousness will last forever.

For the upright He shines like a lamp in the dark, He is merciful, tender-hearted, virtuous…

The just man will be remembered forever. His justice is eternal and his power will rise and become a glory…’

You, father, will have that glory. I will soon come to take you, with the Patriarchs who have preceded you, to the glory which is waiting for you. May your spirit rejoice in My word.

‘He who lives in the shelter of the Most High, lives under the protection of the God of Heaven’.

You live there, o father.

‘He rescued me from the snares of fowlers and from rough words.

He will cover you with His wings and under His feathers you will find shelter.

His truth will protect you like a shield and you need not fear the terrors of night…

No evil will come near you because He ordered His angels to guard you wherever you go.

They will carry you with their hands so that you may not hurt your foot against stones.

You will tread on lions and adders, you will trample on savage lions and dragons.

Because you have hoped in the Lord, He says to you, o father, that He will free you and protect you.

Because you have lifted your voice to Him, He will hear you, He will be with you in your last affliction, He will glorify you after this life, showing you His Salvation even now’. And in future life, He will let you enter, because of the Saviour Who is now comforting you and Who very soon, oh! I repeat it, He will come very soon and hold you in His divine embrace and take you, at the head of all the Patriarchs, where the dwelling place has been prepared for the Just man of God who was My blessed father.

Go before Me and tell the Patriarchs that the Saviour is in the world and the Kingdom of Heaven will soon be opened to them. Go, father. May My blessing accompany you.»

42.7 Jesus has raised His voice to reach the heart of Joseph, who is sinking into the mists of death. His end is near. He is panting very painfully. Mary caresses him, Jesus sits on the edge of the little bed, embraces him and draws to Himself the dying man, who collapses, and passes away peacefully.

The scene is full of a solemn peace. Jesus lays the Patriarch down again and embraces Mary, Who at the last moment, broken-hearted, had gone near Jesus.

• Bible - Psalms
• Prayer for the deceased (with the Psalms)

43.6 I do not promise you human gifts or human comfort. I promise you the same consolations as Joseph had: supernatural ones. Because, everybody should know, the gifts of the Wise Men, in the dire necessities of poor refugees, vanished as fast as lightning when we purchased a home and the bare essential household implements necessary for life, and the food which is also essential for life and could be procured only out of that source of income, until such time as we found work.

Jewish communities have always helped one another. But the community gathered in Egypt was formed almost exclusively of persecuted refugees, who therefore were almost as poor as we, who had come to join them. And a little share of that wealth, which we were anxious to keep for our Jesus when adult, and we had spared out of the expenses for settling in Egypt, was most useful for our return and just sufficient to reorganise our house and the workshop in Nazareth upon our return. Because times change, but human greed is always the same and it takes advantage of other people’s necessities to suck its part in the most exorbitant way.

No. The fact that we had Jesus with us did not procure us any material wealth. Many amongst you expect that, when they are hardly united to Jesus. They forget what He said[1]: ‘Set your hearts on things of the spirit’. All the rest is unnecessary. God provides also food. For men as well as for birds. Because He knows that you need food while your flesh is the tabernacle of your soul. But first of all ask for His grace. First of all ask for things for your spirit. The rest will be given to you in addition.

• Escape to Egypt
• Gold
• Holy Family
• Incense
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• Myrrh
• Rosary
• The Virgin Mary
• Three Kings (Epiphany)

Say with Me: ‘Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit’. Let it always be your cry, until you will repeat it in Heaven. May the grace of the Lord always be with you.

• Gloria

44.3 Jesus is speaking to Mary. At first I do not understand the words which are just whispered, and Mary nods Her head in assent. Then I hear: «And get Your relatives to come. Don’t stay here alone. I will be happier, Mother, and You know how I need peace of mind to fulfil My mission. You will not lack My love. I will come quite often and I will inform You in case I cannot come home when I am back in Galilee. Then You will come to Me, Mother. This hour was to come. It began when the Angel appeared to You; it is now striking, and we must live it, Mother, must we not? After we have overcome the trial, we shall have peace and joy. First, we must cross this desert as our Ancestors did, before entering the Promised Land. But the Lord God will help us as He helped them. And He will grant us His help as a spiritual manna to nourish our souls in the difficult moment of the trial. Let us say the Our Father together…» Jesus and Mary stand up and they look up to Heaven: two living victims shining in the darkness.

Jesus, slowly but with a clear voice, says the Lord’s Prayer, Stressing the words. He emphasizes the words: «Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done» spacing the two sentences from the others. He prays with His arms stretched out, not exactly crosswise, but as priests do when they say: «The Lord be with you». Mary’s hands are joined.

• Kinship of Jesus Christ
• The Lord's Prayer

44.11 Mary was aware of the moods of Her relatives and was able to foresee their future tempers — they were not all like James, Judas and Simon or their mother Mary of Clopas — but although She knew what Her destiny was going to be during the three years of My public life, and was aware of Her destiny and Mine at the end of the three years, She did not fight back, as you do. She cried. And which mother would not have cried because of the separation from a son who loved her as I loved Mine, or because of the prospect of long days devoid of My presence in a solitary house, or because of the dreary outlook of a Son doomed to butt against the malice of guilty people who took vengeance for their guilt by offending the Blameless One to the extent of killing Him?

She cried because She was the Co-Redeemer, and because She was the Mother of mankind who were being born once again to God. And She had to cry for all the mothers who are not able to turn their motherly sorrows into a crown of eternal glory.

How many mothers there are in the world from whose arms death snatches their creatures! How many mothers there are whose sons are torn away from their sides by a supernatural will! As the Mother of all Christians, Mary cried for all Her daughters, and in Her sorrow of a bereft Mother, She cried for all Her sisters.

44.12 My Blood and My Mother’s tears are the mixture that fortifies those destined to a heroic fate, obliterates their imperfections and the sins they committed because of their weakness and, in addition to martyrdom, in whatever way suffered, it grants them the peace of God and then the glory of Heaven, if they suffered for God.

The missionary fathers find that mixture to be a flame that warms them in the regions covered with perpetual snow, and they find it to be a dew when the sun is scorching. Mary’s tears originate from Her charity, and they gush out from Her heart of a lily. They therefore possess the fire of virginal Charity, the Spouse of Love, and the scented freshness of virginal Purity, like the drops of water which gather in the chalice of a lily on a dewy night.

Our mixture is found by those consecrated in the desert of a well understood monastic life: it is a desert because it only lives in communion with God, whilst all other affections fade away and become pure supernatural charity: towards relatives, friends, superiors and inferiors.

It is found by those consecrated to God in the world, in the world that neither understands nor loves them, a desert also for them, as they live in it as if they were alone, so much are they misunderstood and mocked for My sake.

Our mixture is found by My dear “victims”, because Mary is the first victim for Jesus’ love, and with Her hands of a Mother and a Doctor, She gives Her followers Her tears which refreshen and urge to a greater sacrifice.

Holy tears of My Mother!

• Blood of Jesus Christ
• Suffering and pain of the Virgin Mary
• Tears of the Virgin Mary
• The Virgin Mary - Co-Redemptrix

44.13 Mary prays. She does not object to praying because God had given Her sorrows. Remember that. She prays together with Jesus: She prays the Father: Ours and yours.

The first “Our Father” was said in the kitchen garden in Nazareth to console Mary’s pain, to offer “our” wills to the Eternal Father, when a period of greater and greater sacrifices was about to begin for us, culminating with the sacrifice of My life and My Mother’s acceptance of the death of Her Son.

And although we had nothing for which the Father should forgive us, just out of humbleness, we, the Faultless Ones, begged the Father’s pardon so that we might proceed worthily in our mission, after being forgiven and absolved of even a sigh. Because we wanted to teach you that the more you are in the grace of God, the more your mission is blessed and fruitful. We also wanted to teach you to respect God and be humble. Before God the Father, although a perfect Man and a perfect Woman, we felt we were nothing and we begged forgiveness. Exactly as we asked for our “daily bread”.

Which was our bread? Oh! Not the bread made by the pure hands of Mary and baked in our little oven, for which I had so often prepared bundles of sticks and brushwood. Also that bread is necessary while man is on the earth. But “our” daily bread was to fulfil, day by day, our part of the mission: we begged God to grant us that everyday, because to fulfil the mission that God gives us is the joy of “our” day, isn’t it, My little John? You also say that a day is lost, as if it did not exist, if the Lord’s bounty gives you a day without your mission of sorrow.

• Jesus Christ - New Adam
• Taskless
• The Lord's Prayer
• The Virgin Mary - New Eve

44.14 Mary prays together with Jesus. It is Jesus Who justifies you, My children. It is I Who makes your prayers fruitful and agreeable to the Father. I said: “Anything you ask for from the Father, He will grant in My name”, and the Church enhances her prayers saying: “Through Jesus Christ Our Lord”.

When you pray, be always united to Me. I will pray for you in a loud voice, drowning your human voices with My voice of Man-God. I will take your prayers in My pierced hands and I will raise them to the Father. They will thus become victims of infinite value. My voice, mingled with yours, will rise like a filial kiss to the Father and the purple of My wounds will make your prayers valuable ones. Be in Me if you want to have the Father in you, with you, for you.

• Prayer
• Union with God and Jesus - Living with God

45.1 I see a bare, flat country, without any villages or vegetation. There are no cultivated fields, but a few odd plants are growing here and there in clusters, like vegetable families, where the deep soil is less parched. Imagine that the arid waste land is on my right-hand side, with my back turned to the north, and the harsh area stretches southwards.

On my left instead, I can see a river with very low banks, flowing slowly from north to south. The very slow flowing water leads me to believe that there are no falls in the level of the riverbed and that it flows in such a flat country as to form a depression. The movement of the water is just enough to avoid the formation of marshes. The river is so shallow that the bottom can be seen: I would say the water is a metre deep, or a metre and a half, at the most. It is as wide as the river Arno in the S. Miniato-Empoli area: about twenty metres. However, I am not good at estimating. And yet its colour is blue with a light green hue near the banks, where on the humid soil, there is a strip of thick green vegetation, very pleasant to look at: the sight of the stony, sandy bleakness of the ground lying before it, is instead, a very monotonous one indeed.

The internal voice, which I told you I hear and tells me what I must take note of and know, is now warning me that I am looking at the Jordan valley. I call it a valley, because that is the name used to indicate the place where a river flows, but here it is incorrect to call it so, because a valley presumes the presence of mountains, but I do not see any mountains in the neighbourhood. In any case, I am near the Jordan, and the waste land on my right is the desert of Judah.

If it is correct to call a desert a place where there are no houses or man’s works, it is not so according to our idea of a desert. There are none of the undulating sands of the desert, as we understand it, but only bare ground strewn with stones and rubble, like alluvial grounds after a flood. There are hills in the distance.

And yet, near the Jordan there is great peace, something special and unusual, as one often feels on the shores of lake Trasimeno. It is a place that seems to be full of memories of angels’ flights and celestial voices. I cannot describe exactly what I feel. But I feel that I am in a place that communicates with my soul.

45.2 While I am watching these things, I notice that the right bank of the Jordan (according to my position) is becoming crowded with people. There are many men dressed in different fashions. Some seem ordinary people, some rich, and there are some who appear to be Pharisees, because their tunics are adorned with fringes and braids.

In the midst of them, standing on a rock, there is a man whom I recognise at once to be the Baptist, although it is the first time I see him. He is speaking to the crowds, and I can assure you that his sermon is not a sweet one. Jesus called James and John «the sons of thunder». Well then, what should we call this impetuous orator? John the Baptist deserves the names of thunderbolt, avalanche, earthquake, so impetuous and severe he is in his speech and gestures.

He is announcing the Messiah and exhorting the people to prepare their hearts for His coming, eradicating all obstructions and rectifying their thoughts. But it is a violent and harsh speech. The Precursor does not possess the light hand Jesus used to cure the wounds of hearts. He is a doctor who lays the wound bare, scrutinises it and cuts it mercilessly.

45.3 While I am listening — I am not repeating the words, because they are related by the Evangelists, but here they are amplified in impetuosity — I see my Jesus proceeding along a path, which is at the edge of the grassy shady strip coasting the Jordan. This rustic road (it is more a path than a road) seems to have been opened by the caravans and the people who throughout years and centuries passed along it to reach a point where it is easy to wade, because the water is very shallow. The path continues on the other side of the river and disappears from sight in the green strip of the other bank.

Jesus is alone. He is walking slowly, coming forward, behind the Baptist. He approaches noiselessly and listens to the thundering voice of the Penitent of the desert, as if He also were one of the many who came to John to be baptised and purified for the coming of the Messiah. There is nothing to distinguish Jesus from the others. His clothes are those of common people, but He has the appearance and handsomeness of a gentleman. There is no divine sign discriminating Him from the crowd.

But it would appear that John perceives a special spirituality emanate from Him. He turns around, and at once identifies the source of the emanation. He descends impulsively from the rocky pulpit and moves quickly towards Jesus, Who has stopped a few yards away from the crowd and is leaning against the trunk of a tree.

45.4 Jesus and John stare at each other for a moment: Jesus, with His very sweet blue eyes; John with his very severe black flashing ones. Seen from nearby, one is the antithesis of the other. They are both tall — their only resemblance — for all the rest, they differ immensely. Jesus is fair haired. His hair is long and tidy, His face is white ivory, His eyes blue, His garment simple, but majestic. John is hairy: his straight, black hair falls unevenly onto his shoulders, his sparse dark beard covers his face almost completely, but his cheeks, hollowed by fasting, are still noticeable, his feverish eyes are black, his complexion is dark, tanned by the sun and weather-beaten, his body is covered with hairs, he is half-naked in his camel-hair garment, which is tied to his waist by a leather belt and covers his trunk, reaching down to his thin sides, whilst his right side is uncovered and bare, completely weather-beaten. They look like a savage and an angel, seen close together.

John, after scrutinising Him with his piercing eyes, exclaims: «Here is the Lamb of God. How is it that my Lord comes to

me?»

Jesus replies calmly: «To fulfil the penitential rite.»

«Never, my Lord. I must come to You to be sanctified, and You are coming to me?»

And Jesus, laying His hand on the head of John, who had bowed down in front of Him, replies: «Let it be done as I wish, that all justice may be fulfilled and your rite may become the beginning of a higher mystery and men may be informed that the Victim is in the world.»

45.5 John looks at Him with his eyes sweetened by tears and precedes Jesus towards the bank of the river. Jesus takes off His mantle and tunic, and is left with loin cloth. He then descends into the water, where there is John, who baptises Him, pouring on His head some water taken from the river by means of a cup, tied to his belt. It looks like a shell or a half pumpkin dried and emptied.

Jesus is really the Lamb. A Lamb in the whiteness of His flesh, in the modesty of His gestures, in the meekness of His appearance.

While Jesus climbs onto the bank and after putting on His clothes concentrates on praying, John points Him out to the crowd and testifies that he recognised Him by the sign that the Spirit of God had shown him as an infallible means to identify the Redeemer.

But I am enraptured in watching Jesus pray, and I can only see His bright figure against the green of the river bank.

• Baptism of Jesus Christ
• Bible - Gospel of John
• Bible - Gospel of Luke
• Bible - Gospel of Mark
• Bible - Gospel of Matthew
• Rosary

(...) John, My cousin John, had been purified from fault when the Full of Grace lovingly embraced Elizabeth who, after being barren, had become pregnant. The little child had leapt out of joy in her womb because he felt the scales of sin falling from his soul, as a scab falls off a wound when the latter is healed. The Holy Spirit, Who had made Mary the Mother of the Saviour, started His mission of salvation on that child about to be born, through Mary, the living Tabernacle of Incarnate Salvation: the child was destined to be united to Me not so much by his blood, as by the mission by which we were like the lips that express a word. John was the lips, I the Word. He was the Precursor both in the Gospel and in martyrdom; I, by means of My divine perfection, made perfect both the Gospel which John had started, and martyrdom, suffered to defend the Law of God.

• Holy Spirit
• Rosary
• Taskless
• The Virgin Mary - Mother of God
• Visitation