*Along a narrow path between scorched fields—only stubble and crickets—Jesus walks between Levi and John. Behind, in a group, go Joseph, Jude, and Simon.*
*It is night, yet no relief is felt. The earth is fire that continues to burn even after the heat of the day. The dew can do nothing against this scorching heat: so strong is the flare coming from the furrows and cracks in the ground, that I think it dries up even before touching the soil.*
*Everyone is silent, exhausted and sweating. But I see Jesus smile. The night is clear, even though the waning Moon barely appears now, to the east, on the horizon.*
*-"Do you think he will be there?" Jesus asks Levi.*
*-"He will certainly be there. By now the harvest is gathered and the fruit picking has not yet begun; therefore, the farmers spend their time watching over the vineyards and orchards against predators, and they do not wander far, especially when the masters are as hateful as the one Jonah has. Samaria is near, and whenever those renegades can... they are always ready to harm us, those of Israel. Don't they know that the servants are beaten afterward? They do know. But the thing is, they hate us."*
*-"Do not hold a grudge, Levi," says Jesus.*
*-"But you will see how Jonah was wounded five years ago because of them. Since then, he lives by night because he stays on guard, for flogging is a cruel torment..."*
*-"Is there still far to go?"*
*-"No, Master. Do you see over there, where this desolation ends and that dark patch is glimpsed? There lie the orchards of Doras, the ruthless Pharisee. If you let me, I will go ahead so that Jonah can see me."*
*-"Go."*
*-"Are all Pharisees like this, my Lord?" asks John. "I wouldn't want to be in their service! I prefer my boat."*
*-"Is the boat your favorite?" asks Jesus, half-seriously.*
*-"No, You are! The boat was when I did not yet know that Love had come to Earth," John replies quickly.*
*Jesus laughs at seeing this vehemence.*
*-"Didn't you know there was love on Earth? And then, how were you born, if your father did not love your mother?" asks Jesus as a joke.*
*-"That love is beautiful, but it does not allure me. You are my love, You are Love upon the Earth for poor John."*
*Jesus presses him against Himself and says:*
*-"I wanted to hear you say it. Love is longing for love, and man gives and will always give to its eagerness imperceptible drops, like these falling from the sky, so insignificant that they are consumed as they fall in the wave of summer heat, just as men's drops of love will be consumed halfway, eliminated by the flames of too many things. The heart will continue to distill them, but interests, loves, business, greed... many, many human things will make them evaporate. And what will rise to Jesus? Oh, too little! The leftovers. Among all human heartbeats, those that remain—the self-serving heartbeats of humans asking, asking, asking while the need is urgent. Loving Me for love's sake, unmixed with anything else, will be the virtue of few: of the Johns... Look at that rebirth of a wheat ear. It is, perhaps, a seed dropped during the harvest. It knew how to be born, resist the sun and drought, grow, sprout its first shoots, yield an ear... Look: it is already formed. It alone lives in these desolate fields. Soon the ripe grains will fall to the ground, breaking the smooth husk holding them to the stalk, and they will be charity for the little birds, or, giving a hundredfold, will be born once more; before winter brings the plow back to the clods, they will be ripe again and feed many birds, oppressed by the hunger of the saddest seasons... Do you see, my John, what an intrepid seed can do? So will be the few who love Me out of love. A single one will serve the hunger of many; one will suffice to beautify the area where the only thing there is—was—is the ugliness of nothingness; a single one will suffice to create life where before there was death; the hungry will draw near to it, eat a grain of its laborious love, and then, selfish and scattered, fly away. But even without knowing it, that grain will deposit vital germs in their blood, in their spirit... and they will return... And today, and tomorrow, and the next day, as Isaac used to say, hearts will grow in the knowledge of Love. The stalk, bare, will be nothing anymore—a burnt strand of straw—but its sacrifice, how much good it will produce! Its sacrifice, how greatly it will be rewarded!"*
*Jesus—who had paused a moment before a frail ear of wheat born on the edge of the path, in a ditch that in rainy times was perhaps a stream—continues on His way. John, meanwhile, listens to Him spellbound.*
*The others, talking among themselves, do not notice the sweet conversation. They arrive at the orchard, stop, and gather together. The heat is such that they sweat despite not wearing cloaks. They are silent and wait.*
*From the thickest, darkest part, now barely lit by the moon, the light silhouette of Levi stands out, and behind him, another darker shadow.*
*-"Master, here is Jonah."*
*-"Receive my peace!" greets Jesus, when Jonah has not yet reached Him.*
*But Jonah does not answer; he runs forward, weeping, throws himself at His feet, and kisses them. When he can speak, he says:*
*-"How much I have waited for You!, how much! What heartbreak to feel life passing, death coming, and to have to say: 'And I have not seen Him!' And yet, no, not all hope was dying, not even once I stood at death's door. I said: 'She said it: "You will yet serve Him," and She cannot have said anything that is not true. She is the Mother of Emmanuel; therefore, none has God with her more than She, and whoever has God knows the things of God.'"*
*-"Rise. She greets you. You have had Her near you and near you have Her still; She resides in Nazareth."*
*-"You! Her! In Nazareth? Oh, if I had known...! At night, in the cold months of ice, when the fields sleep and the malicious cannot harm the growers, I would have run to kiss your feet, and returned with my treasure of certainty. Why haven't You revealed Yourself, Lord?"*
*-"Because it was not the hour. Now it is. One must know how to wait. You said it yourself: 'In the months of ice, when the fields sleep'—and they have already been sown, haven't they?—Well, I too was like the sown grain. You had seen Me at the time of sowing. Then I had disappeared, buried under a necessary silence, to grow and reach the time of harvest and shine before the eyes of the one who had seen Me Newborn, and also before the eyes of the world. That time has come. Now the Newborn is prepared to be Bread of the world, and first of all, I seek My faithful and say to them: 'Come. Satisfy your hunger with Me.'"*
*The man listens to Him smiling joyfully, while saying, as if to himself: "Oh! It is true, You live! It is You, it is true!"*
*-"Were you near death? When?"*
*-"When they beat me to near death because clusters of grapes were stolen from the vines. Look at how many wounds!"—he pulls down his tunic and shows his shoulders completely marked by jagged scars—"With an iron whip he struck me. He counted the stolen clusters—you could see where the stem had been ripped—and gave me one blow for every cluster. Then he left me there half-dead. Mary, the young wife of a companion of mine, helped me. She has always held me in high regard. Her father was the overseer before me. When I came here I grew fond of the girl because her name was Mary. She cared for me and I healed, though it took months because the sores in the heat turned very bad and brought high fevers. I said to the God of Israel: 'It matters not. Grant me to see Your Messiah again and this evil will not matter to me; take it as a sacrifice. I can never offer You a sacrifice. I am the servant of a cruel man, You know it. Not even during Passover does he allow me to go to Your altar. Take me as a host. But give me Jesus!'"*
*-"And the Most High has fulfilled your desire. Jonah, do you wish to serve Me, as your companions already do?"*
*-"Oh! How could I do so?"*
*-"As they do. Levi knows how. He will tell you how simple it is to serve Me. I ask only for your goodwill."*
*-"Goodwill I offered You even when, newly born, You wept. Through it I have overcome everything, both moments of desolation and hatred. It's... that here one can speak little. The master once kicked me because I insisted on saying that You existed. But when he was far away, and with those I could trust, I would recount the wonder of that night."*
*-"Well then, now recount the wonder of meeting Me. I have found almost all of you, and all faithful; is this not a wonder? By the simple fact of having contemplated Me with faith and love, you have become righteous before God and before men."*
*-"Oh, now indeed I will have courage..., courage...! Now I know You live and I can say: 'He is there. Go to Him!...' But where, my Lord?"*
*-"Throughout all Israel. Until September I will be in Galilee; frequently in Nazareth or Capernaum, there I can be found. Afterward... I will be everywhere; I have come to gather the sheep of Israel."*
*-"Ah, my Lord, You will find many goats! Distrust the powerful of Israel!"*
*-"If it is not the hour, no harm will they do Me. You—to the dead, to those who sleep, to the living—tell them: 'The Messiah is among us.'"*
*-"To the dead, Lord?"*
*-"To the dead in spirit. The others, the righteous dead in the Lord, already rejoice with joy for the liberation from Limbo, which is now near. Tell the dead that I am the Life, tell those who sleep that I am the Sun that rises and awakens from sleep, tell the living that I am the Truth they seek."*
*-"Do You also heal the sick? Levi told me about Isaac. Is the miracle only for him, because he is Your shepherd, or for everyone?"*
*-"To the good, the miracle as a just reward; to the less good, to spur them toward true goodness; to the wicked, too, on occasion, to shake them from their state and persuade them that I AM and that God is with Me. A miracle is a gift. The gift is for the good. But He who is Mercy and sees human heaviness, unremovable except by an extraordinary act, resorts to this as well to be able to say: 'I have done everything with you and it was of no use. Say then yourselves what more I should do for you.'"*
*-"Lord, do You not feel revulsion coming into my home? If You assure me that thieves will not come to the property, I would like to host You, and call the few who know You through my word to gather around You. The master has bent and broken us like worthless stalks. We have left only the hope of an eternal reward. But if You manifest Yourself to oppressed hearts, they will gain new vigor."*
*-"I am coming. Fear not for the trees nor for the vines. Can you believe that the angels will watch over them faithfully in your place?"*
*-"Oh! Lord! I have seen Your heavenly servants. I believe. I go securely with You. Blessed are these trees and these vines that possess wind and song of wings and angelic voices! Blessed is this sleep that You sanctify with Your step! Come, Lord Jesus! Hear, trees and vines, hear, clods lifted by the plow: That Name which I entrusted to you for my peace, now I direct to Him! Jesus is here! Listen! Through branches and shoots let the sap flow in torrents, the Messiah is with us!"*
*Everything ends with these joyful words.*