156. Annaleah Devotes Herself to God as a Virgin.
6th May 1945.
Jesus with Peter, Andrew and John, knocks at the door of His house in
Nazareth. The door is opened at once by His Mother, Whose face brightens with
a beautiful smile on seeing Jesus.
« Welcome home, My Son! Since yesterday I have had with Me a pure dove
waiting for You. She came from far away. The person who brought her here
could not stay longer. As she asked for My advice, I told her what I could. But
only You, My Son, are the Wisdom. You are welcome, too » She says to the
disciples. « Come in and refresh yourselves. »
« Yes, stay here. I am going at once to see the girl who is waiting for Me. »
The three disciples are very curious, but show their curiosity in different ways.
Peter stares intently in all directions, almost hoping to see through the walls.
John looks as if he wanted to read on Mary's face the name of the unknown girl.
Andrew, who on the other hand has blushed, stares intently at Jesus and both his
eyes and his lips seem to be trembling with a silent entreaty.
Jesus pays no attention to any of them. While the three make up their minds
and go into the kitchen, where Mary offers them some food in the warmth of the
fireplace, Jesus draws the curtain that conceals the door opening on to the
kitchen garden and goes out into it.
The mild sunshine makes more airy and dream-like all the blooming branches of
the tall almond-tree. The only tree in blossom, the tallest in the kitchen garden,
looks splendid in its silk white-pink dress, compared with the poverty of all the
others: the pear-tree, the apple-tree, the fig-tree, the pomegranate, the vines
which are still all barren, stately in its soft bright veil, which contrasts with the
drab humility of the olive trees: it seems to have caught with its long branches a
wispy cloud, lost in the blue field of the sky, and to have adorned itself with it to
say to everybody: « The wedding of springtime is coming. Rejoice, plants and
animals. It is the time for kisses with the winds, the bees, the flowers. It is the
time for kisses under the tiles, or in the thick of woods, o little birds of God and
snow-white sheep. Kisses today, offspring tomorrow, to perpetuate the work of
our Creator God. »
Jesus with His arms folded on His chest, standing in the sun, smiles at the serene
gracefulness of His Mother's kitchen garden, with its bed of lilies recognizable
from their first leaves, its still bare rose-bushes and silvery olive leaves, and
many other families of flowers spread among the humble beds of legumes and
vegetables, which are just becoming green. Clean, tidy and unassuming, it also
seems to exhale the purity of perfect virginity.
« Son, come to My room. I will bring her to You, because she ran there when
she heard so many voices. »
Jesus enters His Mother's room, the chaste, the most chaste little room, which
heard the words of the angelical conversation and which exhales, even more
than the kitchen garden, the virginal, angelical, holy essence of Her Who has
lived in it for years and of the Archangel who venerated his Queen in it. Have
thirty years gone by or did the meeting take place only yesterday? Also today a
distaff holds its soft and almost silvery tuft of wool and the thread is on the
spindle, folded embroidery is on the shelf near the door, between a parchment
roll and a copper amphora in which there is a thick almond branch in bloom;
also today the striped curtain, lowered on the mystery of the virginal dwelling, is
moved by a gentle breeze, and the bed, neat in its comer, still has the genteel
look of the bed of a girl who has just reached the threshold of youth. What will
one dream or has dreamt of on the low pillow?...
The curtain is softly raised by Mary's hand; Jesus, Who was contemplating that
abode of purity, standing with His back to the door, turns round.
« Here, My Son. I have brought her to You. She is a little lamb. You are her
Shepherd » and Mary, Who has come in holding by the hand a slender brunette
young girl, who blushes vehemently when she appears in Jesus' presence,
quietly withdraws letting the curtain down.
« Peace to you, child. »
« Peace... Lord...» The girl, deeply moved, is speechless, but she kneels down
and bows her head.
« Stand up. What do you want from Me? Do not be afraid.. .»
« I am not afraid... but... now that I am in front of You... after longing so much...
what seemed easy and necessary to tell You... I cannot remember... it does not
seem what it was... I am silly... forgive me, my Lord...»
« Do you want a grace for this world? Do you need a miracle? Have you souls to
convert? No? What, then? Speak up! You had so much courage and now are
losing heart? Do you not know that I am the One Who increases strength? Yes?
You do? Well, then, speak as if I were a father for you. You are young. How old
are you? »
« Sixteen years, my Lord. »
« Where have you come from? »
« From Jerusalem. »
« What is your name? »
« Annaleah ...»
« The dear name of My grandmother and of many more holy women of Israel,
and joined to it, to make one only, the name of the good, faithful, loving, meek
wife of Jacob. It will be a good omen to you. You will be a model wife and
mother. No? You are shaking your head? You are weeping? Have you been
rejected? No? Your fiance perhaps died? Has no one proposed to you yet? »
The girl always shakes her head. Jesus takes a step forward, caresses her and
forces her to raise her head and look at Him... Jesus' smile overcomes the girl's
excitement. She takes heart: « My Lord, I could be a wife and a happy one,
thanks to You. Do You not recognise me, my Lord? I am the girl who suffered
from tuberculosis, the dying fiancee, whom You cured at Your John's request...
After Your grace I... I have had another body: this healthy one in the place of the
dying one I had before; and I have had another soul... I do not know. I did not
feel the same... The joy of being cured, and consequently the certainty I could
get married - my regret in dying was that I could not get married - they only
lasted for a few hours. And then...» The girl becomes franker and franker, she
finds the words and the ideas that she had lost in the excitement of being alone
with the Master... « ...And then I felt that I should not be only selfish, and say
only: "Now I will be happy", but that I should think of something else,
something that came to You and to God, Your Father and mine. Something that,
although small, should express my gratitude. I gave the matter a lot of thought
and when the following Sabbath I saw my fiance I said to him: "Listen, Samuel.
Without the miracle I would have died in a few months' time and you would
have lost me forever. Now I would like to offer a sacrifice to God, with you, to
say to God that I praise Him and thank Him." And Samuel, because he loves me,
said at once: "Let us go to the Temple together and offer a sacrifice." But that
was not what I wanted. I am a poor and common girl, my Lord. I know very
little and I can do much less. But through Your hand, which You laid on my
diseased breast, something had come not only into my corroded lungs, but also
into my heart. It was health to my lungs, and wisdom to my heart. And I realised
that the sacrifice of a lamb was not the sacrifice wanted by my soul that... that
loved You. » The girl becomes silent, blushing after her profession of love.
« Go on without any fear. What did your soul want? »
« To sacrifice something worthy of You, the Son of God! And so... so I thought
it should be something spiritual like what comes from God, that is, the sacrifice
of postponing my wedding, for Your sake, my Saviour. A wedding, You know,
is a great joy. When one is in love it is a great thing! One longs to... is anxious
to celebrate it!... But I was no longer the same person as a few days previously. I
no longer wanted my wedding as the dearest thing... I told Samuel... and he
understood me. He also wanted to be a nazirite for one year, starting on the day
which was to be the day of our wedding, that is the day after the calends of
Adar. In the meantime he has been looking for You, because he wanted to love
and know Him Who had given him back his fiancee: You. And he found You,
after many months, at the Clear Water. I came too... and Your word completed
the change of my heart.
Now my previous vow is no longer sufficient for me...
Like that almond- tree out there, which in the warmer and warmer sunshine has
revived after being dead for months and has blossomed and will leaf and then
bear fruit, so I have continuously grown in the knowledge of what is better. The
last time, when I was already sure of myself and of what I wanted - 1 have
pondered on the matter all these past months - the last time I went to the Clear
Water, You were no longer there... They had driven You away. I wept and
prayed so much that the Most High heard me and persuaded my mother to send
me here with a relative who was going to Tiberias to speak to the courtiers of
the Tetrarch. The steward told me that I would find You here. I found Your
Mother... and Her words, only listening to Her and being beside Her these two
days, have completely matured the fruit of Your grace. » The girl has knelt
down as if she were in front of an altar, her arms folded on her breast.
« All right. But what do you want exactly? What can I do for you? »
« Lord, I would like... I would like a great thing. And only You, the Donor of
life and health, can give it to me, because I think that what You can give, You
can also take away... I would like You to take the life You gave me, during the
year of my vow, before it ends...»
« Why? Are you not grateful to God for the life you received? »
« So grateful! Infinitely! But for one thing only: because by living by His grace
and by Your miracle I have understood what is best. »
« Which is? »
« Which is to live like angels. As Your Mother, my Lord... as You live... as
Your John lives... The three lilies, the three white flames, the three beatitudes of
the earth, my Lord. Yes. Because I think that it is a beatitude to possess God and
God is possessed by the pure. I believe that who is pure is a Heaven with God in
its centre and the angels around... Oh! My Lord! That is what I would like...
Little have I heard of what You, Your Mother, the disciple and Isaac have said.
Neither have I approached anyone else who could tell me Your words. But I feel
as if my soul heard You all the time and You were its Master... I have told You
everything, my Lord...»
« Annaleah, you are asking for very much and are giving very much...
Daughter: you have understood God and the perfection to which a creature may
rise to be like the Most Pure and to please the Most Pure. »
Jesus has laid His hands on the sides of the head of the dark-haired girl, who is
kneeling in front of Him and speaks bending over her: « He Who was born of a
Virgin - because He could but build His nest on a pile of lilies - is nauseated,
My dear daughter, by the triple lechery of the world and He would be crushed
by so much nausea if His Father, Who knows on what His Son lives, did not
intervene with loving help to support My soul in anguish. The pure are My joy.
You are giving Me what the world takes from Me through its unexhausted
baseness. May the Father and you, dear girl, be blessed for that. Go happily.
Something will intervene to make your vow an eternal one. Be one of the lilies
scattered on the blood-stained ways of Christ. »
« Oh! my Lord... there is still one thing I would like...»
« Which? »
« Not to be present at Your death... I could not see Him die, Who is my Life. »
« Do not weep. Lilies are never in mourning. You shall smile
with all the pearls of your angelical crown when you see the crowned King enter
His Kingdom. Go. May the Spirit of the Lord teach you while I am away. I bless
you with the fire of Eternal Love. »
Jesus looks out on to the kitchen garden and calls: « Mother! Here is a little
daughter, she is all Yours. She is now happy. But immerse her in Your purity
every time we go to the Holy City, that she may become snow of celestial petals
spread on the throne of the Lamb. » And Jesus goes back to His disciples, while
Mary caresses the girl and stays with her.
