TWENTY-FOURTH HOUR

My sorrowful Mother, I see that you are preparing for the final sacrifice, in which you must lay your deceased Son Jesus in the tomb. Completely surrendered to the Will of Heaven, you accompany Him and lay Him in the tomb with your own hands. As you arrange His limbs and say goodbye to Him for the last time, and give Him a final kiss, you feel your heart breaking with pain. Love binds you to those limbs, and because of such strong love and such strong pain, your life is almost extinguished along with your dead Son... Poor Mother, what will you do without Jesus? He is your Life, your Everything. And yet this is the Will of the Eternal God, who wants it this way. You will have to fight two insurmountable forces — Love and the Will of God. Love pins you down, and in such a way that you cannot part with Him. God's Will insists and wants sacrifice... Poor Mother, what will you do? How I sympathize with you! Oh, heavenly angels, come and tear Her away from Jesus' stiffened limbs, otherwise She will die!

 But strangely, while she seemed dead with Jesus, I hear her trembling and intermittent voice saying: Beloved Son, Son, it was the only consolation I had left and which lessened my pain — Your Most Holy Humanity, finding an outlet in these wounds, worshipping them and kissing them. Now even that is taken away from Me. God's will wants it, and I surrender. But know, Son, that I want to do it, but I am unable. At the very thought of having to do this, I lose my strength and my life... Oh, Son, so that I may receive the life and strength for this bitter separation, let me hide myself completely in You and take for myself Your Life, Your sufferings, Your expiations, and everything that You are. Ah, only the exchange of Life between You and Me can give Me the strength to bear the sacrifice of separation from You!

 My suffering Mother, I see that you are so determined, once again you look at these members and lay your head on Jesus' head. Kissing it, you enclose your thoughts in it, and you take for yourself His thorns, His sad and wounded thoughts, and everything He suffered in His Most Holy head... Oh, how you would like to revive the Mind of Jesus with your mind, so that you could give your life for His life! You feel that life is returning to you when you have accepted the thoughts and thorns of Jesus into your mind.

 Painful Mother, I see you kissing Jesus' dead eyes. And I feel deep pain seeing that Jesus no longer looks at you... How many times did His gaze fill you with paradise and bring you back to life from death. And now, when you see that He no longer looks at you, you feel that you are dying! So you place your eyes in Jesus' eyes and take for yourself His eyes, His tears, and His bitterness, which He felt at the sight of the insults of creatures, at the sight of so many insults and mockery...

 But I see, my deeply wounded Mother, that you kiss His Most Holy ears and call Him again and again, saying: My Son, is it possible that you no longer hear Me, you who heard Me at my slightest beckoning? And now I cry and call out to You, and You do not hear Me? Ah, love is the cruelest tyrant! You were more to Me than My own life, and now I am to continue living despite such great pain? Therefore, O Son, I leave My hearing in Yours, and I take for Myself what Your Most Holy ears have suffered, and the echo of all the insults that resounded in them. Only this can give me life — your sorrows and your sufferings...

 And as you say this, the pain and pressure in your heart is so great that you lose your voice and remain motionless. My poor Mother, my poor Mother, how I sympathize with you! How many cruel deaths you suffer!

 But God's Will prevails and revives you. You gaze upon His Most Holy Face, kiss it, and cry out: Glorified Son, how disfigured you are! Ah, if love did not tell me that you are my Son, my Life, my Everything, I would not recognize you, you have changed so much beyond recognition! Your beauty has turned into ugliness, your cheeks have turned blue, and the light and radiance of your Face, which was such that to look at you and become blessed was one and the same, has turned into a deadly pallor, O beloved Son. Son, to what state you have been brought! What a terrible work sin has done in Your Most Holy members! Oh, how much Your inseparable Mother would like to restore Your natural beauty! I want to penetrate Your face with mine and take upon myself Your face, along with the blows, the spitting, the contempt, and everything You suffered in Your Most Holy Face. Ah, Son, if You want me to live, give Me Your sufferings, otherwise I will die!

 Your pain is so great that it suffocates you and robs you of speech. You remain as if frozen before the Face of Jesus. Poor Mother, how I sympathize with you!… My angels, come and support my Mother. Her pain is immense, it overwhelms her and suffocates her. There is no life or strength left in her. But God's Will, breaking through these waves, brings her back to life...

You are now at Jesus„ lips. As you kiss them, you feel bitterness on your lips because of the bile that has filled His mouth with such bitterness. Sobbing, you continue: Son, say your last words to your Mother. Is it possible that I will never hear your voice again? All the words you spoke to Me during your lifetime, like so many arrows, pierce My Heart with pain and love, and now, when I see you silent, they speak again in My torn Heart, causing Me multiple deaths and wanting to force Your last word out of You. And because they do not receive it, they pierce Me and say to Me: ”So you will never hear Him again. You will never hear His sweet voice or the melody of His creative word again!" He created as many paradises in Me as there were words He spoke... Ah, my paradise is over, and I am left with nothing but bitterness! Ah, Son, I want to give You my tongue to revive Yours... Give Me what You suffered in Your Most Holy mouth, give Me the bitterness of bile, Your burning thirst, and Your reparations and prayers. In this way, when I hear Your voice through them, my pain will be easier to bear, and your Mother will be able to live through Your sufferings.

 Tired Mother, I see that you are in a hurry, because those standing around you want to close the tomb. In haste, you take Jesus' hands in yours, kiss them, hold them to your heart, and, placing your hands in them, you take upon yourself the pain and piercing of His Most Holy Hands... Then you look at Jesus' feet, gazing at the cruel torture that the nails have done to them. And as you place your feet in them, you take these wounds upon yourself and offer yourself to run after sinners in Jesus' place and snatch them from hell...

Tormented Mother, I see you saying goodbye to Jesus' pierced Heart for the last time... Here you pause for a moment. This is the final blow to your motherly Heart. You feel how, with the power of love and pain, it breaks free from your breast and flees to rest in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. And you, seeing that you have no Heart, rush to receive His Most Sacred Heart and His Love, rejected by so many creatures, His many ardent desires unfulfilled because of their ingratitude, as well as the sorrows and piercings of this Most Sacred Heart, which will cause you to be crucified throughout your life. Looking at the vast wound, you kiss it and collect the blood from it, and feeling the Life of Jesus within you, you have the strength to endure the bitter separation. Then you embrace Him and allow the tombstone to be placed over Him.

 My sorrowful Mother, crying, I beg you, do not allow Jesus to be taken from our sight for now. Wait, first I will enclose myself in Jesus to receive His Life within me. If you, who are without blemish, completely holy, full of grace, cannot live without Jesus, then how much more so I, who am full of weakness, misery, and sin. How could I live without Jesus? Sorrowful Mother, do not leave me alone, take me with you. But first, place me entirely in Jesus. Empty me of everything and put Jesus entirely in me, just as you placed Him in yourself. Begin your maternal office, which Jesus entrusted to you on the cross, with me. With your own hands, enclose me completely in Jesus, so that my great poverty may move your maternal Heart.

 Enclose Jesus' thoughts in my mind so that no other thought can penetrate me. Enclose Jesus' eyes in mine so that He can never escape my gaze. Enclose His hearing in mine so that I may always listen to Him and fulfill His Most Holy Will in everything. Put His Face in mine, so that by looking at this Face, so distorted out of love for me, I may love Him, sympathize with Him, and make reparation. Put His tongue in mine, so that I may speak, pray, and teach with the tongue of Jesus. Put His hands in mine, so that every movement I make and every work I do may take life from the works and deeds of Jesus. Put His feet in mine, so that every step I take may be life for other creatures, a life that will save them with power and zeal.

 And now, my suffering Mother, let me kiss His Heart and gather His most precious Blood. Enclose His Heart in mine and enable me to live His Love, His desires, and His suffering... Finally, lift Jesus' stiff right hand so that He may give me His final blessing.

The stone seals the tomb. You kiss Him, tormented. Crying, you say goodbye to Him for the last time and leave. But your pain is so great that at times you become petrified and frozen... My deeply wounded Mother, together with you I say goodbye to Jesus, and as I cry, I want to stand by your side so that with every sigh, every sorrow, and every pain, I can give you a word of comfort and a merciful glance. I will collect your tears and hold you in my arms if I see that you are fainting.

 But I see that you are forced to return to Jerusalem by the same route you came here... After taking a few steps, you stand under the Cross on which Jesus suffered so much and then died. You run up and embrace it. And when you see that it is stained with Blood, the sufferings that Jesus endured on it come alive in your Heart, one after another. And because you cannot contain the pain, you cry out, sobbing:

 Oh Cross, how could you be so cruel to my Son? Ah, you spared Him nothing! What evil did He do to you? You did not allow Me, His sorrowful Mother, to give Him even a sip of water when He asked for it, and You gave His parched lips gall and vinegar! I felt my pierced Heart melt, and I wanted to offer it to His lips to quench His thirst, but I felt pain at being rejected... O Cross, cruel but holy, because it is deified and sanctified by contact with my Son! Transform the cruelty you had for Him into mercy for unfortunate mortals. And for the pain He suffered on you, implore grace and strength for souls who suffer, so that none may be lost because of afflictions and crosses... Souls cost Me too much, they cost Me the life of My Son, God. And I, as Co-Redemptrix and Mother, bind them to you, O Cross.

You kiss him again and again and walk away... Poor mother, how I sympathize with you! With every step and every thing or place you encounter, new sufferings intensify, becoming greater and more bitter. They overwhelm and drown you, and every moment you feel like you are dying...

 And so you arrive at the place where you met Him this morning, exhausted under the enormous weight of the cross, dripping with blood, with a crown of thorns on His head, which, pressed by the cross, dug deeper and deeper, causing Him mortal pain with every thrust. Jesus' gaze, meeting yours, begged for mercy. But the soldiers, to deny you this consolation, pushed Him and caused Him to fall and shed more blood. You see that the ground is soaked with it. You throw yourself to the ground, and as you kiss this Blood, I hear you say: My angels, come and guard this Blood, so that not a single drop may be trampled or profaned.

 Mother, full of sorrow, let me give you my hand to lift you up and bring you relief, for I see that you are fainting in the Blood of Jesus. As you continue on your way, you encounter new sufferings. Everywhere you see traces of Blood and you remember the sufferings of Jesus. So you quicken your pace and shut yourself in the Upper Room... I also shut myself in the Upper Room, but my Upper Room is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. From there, I want to come to you to keep you company in this hour of bitter loneliness. I do not have the heart to leave you alone in such great pain.

But I feel hurt when I see that when you move your head, you feel the thorns that you received from Jesus piercing you, the pricks of all our sins committed in thought, which penetrate your eyes and make you weep tears of Blood. And because you have the eyes of Jesus in your eyes, all the insults committed by creatures pass before your gaze. How embittered you are by them! How you understand what Jesus suffered, for you have His own pains within you! And one pain follows another... As you listen, you feel deafened by the echo of the voices of creatures and various insults that reach your Heart and pierce it. And you repeat: Son, how much you have suffered!

Abandoned Mother, how I sympathize with you! Let me wipe your face, covered with tears and blood. But I feel that I cannot bear to see your face, blue, unrecognizable, and deathly pale... I understand that these are the torments of Jesus that you have taken upon yourself and that cause you such great suffering that when you move your lips in prayer or when your burning chest sighs, you feel your breath is painful and your lips are parched with thirst for Jesus... Poor Mother, how I sympathize with you! Your pains are increasing more and more, and when I take your hands in mine, I see that they are pierced with nails. It is in your hands that you feel the pain and see the murders, betrayals, sacrileges, and all the evil deeds that renew the blows, widening your wounds and deepening them more and more... How I sympathize with you! You are truly a crucified Mother, so much so that even your feet are not spared from the nails. What is more, you feel that they are not only nailed, but also almost torn apart by so many wicked steps and by souls going to hell. And you run after them so that they do not fall into the flames of hell.

 But that is not all, deeply wounded Mother. All your sufferings, gathering together, echo in your Heart and pierce it, not with seven swords, but with a thousand swords. But this is more because you have within you the Divine Heart of Jesus, which contains all hearts and in which are found the beats of all hearts, and which, when it beats, says: souls! love! And so, when it beats, souls! you feel in its beating the flow of all sins, and you feel that you are dying. And when you beat love! you feel that life is returning to you. So you remain in a constant act of death and life.

 Crucified Mother, I look at you and sympathize with your suffering. It is indescribable. I would like to transform my being into language and voice to show you my sympathy, but in the face of such great pain, my sympathy is nothing. So I call upon the angels and the Holy Trinity themselves and ask them to surround you with their harmony, joy, and beauty, to show you compassion and ease your deep suffering. I ask them to hold you in their arms and repay you with love for all your sorrows.

And now, abandoned Mother, on behalf of everyone, I thank you for all you have suffered, and I ask you, for your bitter loneliness, to come and be with me at the moment of my death... When I am alone and abandoned by everyone, amid a thousand fears and anxieties, come then and reciprocate the companionship I have given you many times in my life. Come and help me. Stand by me and drive away the enemy. Wash my soul with your tears and cover me with the Blood of Jesus. Clothe me in His merits, beautify me and heal me with Your suffering and all the pains and deeds of Jesus. And by the power of His pains and His deeds, wipe away all my sins, giving me complete forgiveness. And with my last breath, take me into your arms, place me under your cloak, and hide me from the enemy's gaze. Carry me quickly to Heaven and lay me in the arms of Jesus. Let this be our agreement, my dear Mother!

Just as I have kept you company today, I ask you to keep company with all those who are dying. Be a mother to everyone. These are special moments and great help is needed. Therefore, do not refuse anyone the help of your maternal office.

 One last word. As I leave you, I ask you to enclose me in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. You, my sorrowful Mother, be my guardian, so that Jesus will not cast me out of His Heart and so that I cannot leave it, even if I wanted to. I kiss your motherly hand, and you give me your blessing.

Source: wolaboza.org
Edited by Father Pablo Martín – private manuscript.
Translation from Italian