(...)The hours pass in the whispering shade of the airy forest. Who sleeps, who speaks in a low voice, who watches. John moves away from his companions and goes to the highest possible point, to see more. Jesus moves away, entering a leafy area to pray and meditate. The women, in turn, have withdrawn behind a curtain of waving honeysuckle all in bloom; there they have refreshed themselves, in a tiny spring that, reduced to a trickle of water, forms a puddle on the ground that does not manage to become a stream. Then the older ones, tired, fell asleep; while Mary Most Holy, together with Martha and Susanna, were talking about their house, already far away, and Mary said that she would like to have that beautiful bush all in bloom as the lining of her grotto.
The Magdalene, who had let down her hair because she could not bear the weight of it, pulls it up again and says: "I am going to John, now that he is with Simon, to look with them at the sea.
-I'm going too," Mary replied.
Martha and Susanna stay with the other companions, who are sleeping.
To reach the two apostles, they must pass near the bush that Jesus has chosen to withdraw in prayer.
-My Son rests in prayer," Mary says in a low voice.
The Magdalene answers her:
-I think that it will be indispensable for Him to withdraw in order to maintain that marvelous dominion that He has and that the world is putting to a hard test.
You know, Mother, I have done as you told me. I have done as you told me. Every evening I withdraw for a more or less long time in order to be able to re-establish in myself that calm which is disturbed by many things; afterwards I feel much stronger. -For now, strong; later on you will feel blessed. Believe it, Mary: in joy as well as in sorrow, in peace as well as in
in peace as in struggle, our spirit needs to dive entirely into the ocean of meditation to rebuild that which the world and the various vicissitudes demolish, and to create new forces to rise higher and higher. In Israel, vocal prayer is used and abused. I do not mean to say that it is useless, nor that God hates it; but I do say that it is always much more useful for the spirit the mental elevation to God, meditation, in which, contemplating his divine perfection and our misery, or the misery of so many poor souls - no longer to criticize them, but to sympathize with them and understand them, and to show ourselves pleasing to the Lord, who has sustained us so that we do not sin, or has forgiven us so that we do not fall - we really come to pray, that is to say, to love. For prayer, to be truly prayer, must be love. Otherwise, it is a mumbling of lips from which the soul is absent.
-But is it licit to speak to God when one's lips are still dirty with many profane words? In my hours of recollection, as you taught me, my sweetest apostle, I do violence to my heart, which would like to say to God: "I love you"?
-No! No, not that! Why?
-Because it seems to me that it would be a sacrilegious offering on my part to offer my heart....
-Don't do that, my child, don't do it! Your heart, first of all, has been consecrated anew by the forgiveness of the Son, and the Father
sees only this forgiveness. But even if Jesus had not yet forgiven you, and you, in ignorant loneliness - which can be both material and moral - cried out to God: "I love you, Father. Forgive my miseries, for they pain me because of the sorrow they cause you," believe, Mary, that God the Father on his part would absolve you, and your cry of love would be pleasing to him. Abandon yourself, abandon yourself to love without opposing violence to it; on the contrary, let love acquire the violence of a devouring fire. Fire consumes everything material, but destroys nothing of air, because air is incorporeal (on the contrary: it purifies it of the minuscule detritus that the wind scatters in it, it makes it lighter). So is love for the spirit: it first consumes the matter of man, if God permits it, but it does not destroy the spirit, but increases its vitality and makes it pure and agile so that it may ascend to God. Do you see John there? He is only a boy, and yet he is an eagle; he is the strongest of all the apostles; for he has understood the secret of strength, of spiritual formation: loving meditation.
-But he is pure, I am... he is a boy, I am....
-Well then, look at the Zealot, who is not a boy. He has lived, he has fought, he has hated; he confesses it with sincerity. But he has learned to meditate. And believe me, he's also very high up. See? They're looking for each other. Because they feel the same. They have reached the same perfect age of the spirit, and with the same means: mental prayer: by it, the boy has become virile in spirit; by it, the other, already old and tired, has returned to a strong virility. And, do you know another who, without being an apostle, will advance much - indeed, is already far ahead - by his natural tendency to meditation, which since he has been a friend of Jesus has become in him a spiritual necessity? Well, your brother.
-Oh, Mother, you who know so many things, because God shows them to you, tell me how Lazarus will treat me the first time he sees me? Before, he was silent with disdain. But I did it because I would not allow them to make remarks to me. I have been very cruel to my brothers..... Now I understand. Now that you know you can speak, what will you say to me? I fear an open recrimination from you. He will certainly remind me of all the sorrows I have caused. I would like to present myself to him immediately. But I am afraid. I used to go, and I was not troubled even by the memory of our dead mother, nor by her tears, still alive on the objects she wore, tears shed by me, because of me. My heart was cynical, haughty, closed to any voice that was not "evil". But now I no longer have the evil force of Evil, and I tremble.... What will Lazarus do to me?
-He will open his arms to you and call you, more with his heart than with his lips, "beloved sister". He is so formed in God, that he cannot use other ways. Do not be afraid. He will say nothing to you that refers to the past. He is - it is as if he were seeing you - there, in Bethany, and the days of his waiting are very long for him. He is waiting for you, to hold you close to his heart, to satisfy his brotherly love. If you want to taste the sweetness of having been born from the same womb, you need do nothing more than love him as he loves you.
-I would love him even if he scolded me. I deserve it.
-No. He will love you and nothing else. He will only love you.
By now they have reached Juan and Simon, who are talking about future trips. They both stand up, as a sign of reverence, when the Mother of the
They both stand up in a sign of reverence when the Mother of the Lord arrives.
-We too have come to glorify the Lord for the beautiful works of his creation.
-Have you ever seen the sea, Mother?
-Yes, I have. Then the sea, in spite of the storm, was less troubled than my heart, and its waters less salty than my weeping, while I was crying.
salty than my weeping, as I fled along the coast from Gaza to the Red Sea, with my Child in my arms and the fear of Herod behind me. I saw him also on my return. Then it was spring in the land and in my heart. The spring of the return to the homeland. Jesus was clapping his little hands, happy to see new things.... I and Joseph also felt happy. In any case, the goodness of the Lord, in a thousand ways, had lightened our exile in Matarea.
Their conversation continues while my ability to see and hear ceases.