The distress of his mother and her unshakable faith

(translated by Alessia Gioia, Napoli)

My sweet Jesus, I would like to rearrange my ideas before time effaces them, I’d like with

Your help to remember every Your single word, in order to reconstruct the plan that, for Your

goodness, you made me sense from the beginning, I’d like to tell everyone my painful but

marvellous adventure, that is not ended yet, but it unties and unravels, like a thread that seems

entangled, but that obeys the touch of Your Saint hand.

At the beginning of the disconcerting news: Nicola has a tumour, or rather before because

You, my Jesus, in Your provident love prepared the soul to the blow of the pain in order to

avoid it is submerged by the same one, You tell me: “If you could see the abyss that surrounds

yourself, you would be invaded by the terror, only I can make you cross that dark burrow and

bring you toward the light, if you will have as much faith as a grain of mustard.”

I ask my Jesus to take me by the hand, to cover my eyes so I don’t see that abyss and I am not

attracted by it, but feel only the hold of Your hand that drives me to the salvation. And He has

listened to my supplication.

The impact with such atrocious reality has been, I would say, by an irresponsible person, a

somnambulant that is preparing to cross the fire, but already knows to arrive unhurt to the

other bank. I had just one worry, to keep a staunch faith.

Jesus had warned me that many other souls would have seized on me, on my faith, but this

happened some time before, and, just later I understood to what He alluded.

A voice in my innermost part had revealed me that the hell was against me and my natural

disturbance, but another voice made echo: “But the whole Sky is with you”, and St. Michele:

“Who is more powerful than God if not the same God? “.

The struggle seemed terrible, but I felt strong in my faith. Jesus calls me back:

“Let your faith humble, because you would expose too much yourself to the attacks of the

enemy.”

The upsetting news followed one after the other, and also the decisions to be taken, the

urgency of the operation, to keep the truth from Nicola and Antonella, to verify if there was

metastasis; however, everything had taken as if an invisible hand drove every least action of

the tragedy, so the timeliness of the surgeon’s intervention and so many other favourable

circumstances.

My cry of pain and the invocation of help through friendly souls have been accepted and

propagated by many other generous souls; I could affirm that in a lot of regions of Italy

prayed for Nicola. It was an echo that propagated more and more far.

The communion of Saints was in action, with the power of its intercession; the help of nearer

souls to God supported me and comforted me: Maria Pia from Turin, Bianca from Florence,

Don Eugenio with his continuous Masses and, above all Don Gernio from Pescara:

“Madame will be the Madonna to drive the surgeon’s hand, everything will be all right, have

faith.”

But who supported my faith, who comforted me, who was really nearby me, was Jesus.

My sleepless nights were an inexpressible torment, because my spirit embraced a truth even

more vast of that contingent, so much painful.

The devastated garden of my house, to which Jesus mentioned, appeared to me in all its

desolating rawness. My humanity, wound fatally, revealed to me in its entirety, causing

moments of inexpressible discouragement. Who had killed inside me the ability to love with my flesh, with the throb of my blood as all

the other men?

Who had torn from my heart all my creatures, lacerating the most intimate fibre of my being?

The enemy, certainly the enemy!

My distress was at the height, I felt destroyed under a weight bigger than me, I loved my

children with a spiritual love that had reached high top of purification and offering, but my

flesh kept silent; was I a monster perhaps?

But my Jesus, my usual Jesus, was more and more close to me:

“Not to fear, you are not a monster, also I have been wounded in my flesh, they have torn my

children one by one; you can see also my humanity is wounded like yours, so you are a victim

like Me.”

My Jesus, was not satisfied to get me away from the distress and so He compared me to

himself, united my suffering to His, I was a victim with my children, with my Nicola that was

going to offer himself on the operating table in order to be free by evil.

“On that operating table there is not only Nicola, but all your children; the surgeon is only a

tool, there is the Father that recreates, his Child that redeems, the Spirit that operates, and

Maria that consoles, protects, and intercedes.”

Jesus doesn’t abandon me; for a long time He announced in advance the necessary suffering

to save souls that were particularly dear for me, and I told Him that I would have succeeded

only if He had been close to me.

Jesus: “You think that I could not support my little grain of dust? “.

And then: “Not to forget that I am not only merciful, I am the Powerful person too.”