January 16, 1945prev home
next
6 a.m.
I am writing by the light of the little wax lamp and do not know how it will turn out. But I don’t want to go through what I went through yesterday. While saying the Veni Sancte Spiritus, I am presented with this vision, and it is so overwhelming that I grasp the futility of insisting on prayer. I thus follow it. And, seeing that it is complex, I shall write it as best I can in this light.
I am certainly in the catacombs. In which one? In which century? I don’t know. In short, it is a rectangle ..(sketch).. ending in a vast rounded hall at the center of which is the altar: a rectangular table separated from the wall and covered with a real altar cloth - that is, made of linen, with high borders on all four sides, but without lace and embroidery.
A Gospel scene is depicted on the wall in the apse: the Good Shepherd. It is surely not a masterpiece. A country road which seems to be yellow mud; a greenish stain beyond the road, on the left as one looks, must be a meadow; seven sheep that are so bunched together that they look like a single block - you can see the snout of only two of them, while the others appear to be bigbellied bundles walking along the road, coming towards the onlooker, at the edge of the meadow. The Good Shepherd is at their side, in the background, dressed in white, with a faded-red mantle. He is carrying a little sheep on his shoulders, held by its legs. The painter, or creator of the mosaic, has done his best - but Jesus certainly cannot be described as handsome. He has the inexpressive face - whose width surpasses its length, since it is viewed frontally - and the long, loosely hanging hair, excessively dark and opaque, typical of primitive Christian paintings and mosaics. He lacks even a beard. Yet, in spite of this uncomely appearance, his gaze is attractively wistful and loving, and there is a trace of a painful smile on his mouth which gives one pause for thought.
At the point marked by a small cross ..(in the sketch).. there is a low opening. But it is so low that only a child could pass through without bumping his head. Above, a tombstone as long as a man’s body marks a burial niche. The word Pax, used at that time, is written on the tombstone, and below is the Latin phrase “The bones of the blessed martyr Valente.” At the sides of the epigraph an ampulla and a palm leaf have been sketched.
In the back of the church, where the round sign is found, there is another low opening, and alongside it I see four robust gravediggers, armed with shovels and picks. There are near two heaps of sandstone which has been dug out. I deduce that it is a time of persecutions and that they are ready to make the wall cave in and conceal the church with it and with the heaps of sandstone which are already prepared.
In the church is the usual quivering yellow-red glow of small oil lamps. The light is brighter near the altar. In the background there is barely a faint radiance in which the outlines of the people, mostly wearing dark clothes, fade from sight.
On the altar is a still-covered chalice. But the Mass must already have begun. There is a venerable old man at the altar with an ascetic, very pale face which seems to have been sculpted in old ivory. His tonsure fades in the baldness leaving only a crown of soft white hair around his head down to a point above his ears. The rest is bare, and his forehead looks immense. Below it are two pale blue, gentle, sad eyes - as clear as a child’s, though. A long, thin nose, a mouth with the curve characteristic of the elderly, and markedly toothless jaws. The thin, austere face of a saint. I see him clearly because he is facing me, celebrating the rite from the other side of the altar. He is wearing the chasuble used at that time - that is, in the form of a cape - and on top of it the pallium over the stole.
In front of the altar three young men are kneeling (where I have placed the three points). The two on the sides are wearing the short cloak of deacons, with long sleeves extending below their elbows. The one in the center is wearing what is really a chasuble, with sleeves provided by a cape extending from his ribs to his shoulder blades, and a stole over his shoulder. On the seeing the stole, which, if I remember clearly, I did not see in the first Masses, I deduce that I am not viewing a scene from the early times. I think I am at the end of the second century or the beginning of the third. I might be wrong, though, for this is my own idea, and I am illiterate when it comes to Christian archeology and ceremonies proper to that period.
The Pontiff - that’s who it must be, in view of the pallium - passes in front of the altar and takes up a position facing the three young men who are kneeling. He lays his hands on the first and the third while reciting prayers in Latin. He then situates himself in front of the one in the center, the one with the stole over his shoulder, and lays his hands on his head, too; next, assisted by someone wearing a deacon’s vestments, he dips his finger into a silver vase and anoints the forehead and palms of the young man, breathes upon his face - or, rather, he first breathes and then anoints his hands - binds his hands together with the edge of the stole, which his assistant has untied from around his body, and passes the other edge over his neck like a yoke. He then has him get up and, holding him by his bound hands, takes him up the three steps leading to the altar and has him kiss it, along with what I assume is the Gospel - a voluminous scroll clasped by a red ribbon. He then kisses him in turn, takes him to the other side, and continues the Mass.
I now understand, however, that the Mass has only just begun, since shortly afterwards (it is almost the same as ours, and this, too, brings me to grasp that we are at least at the end of the second century) they come to the Gospel. The new priest sings it (I think there has been a priestly ordination). He comes in front of the altar again, and the two who were still kneeling get up. One takes a small lamp, and the other, the Gospel scroll, held out to him by the one who was previously serving at the altar. The deacon unrolls the scroll and holds it open at the right spot, standing in front of the newly-ordained priest, at whose side is the one with the lamp. The priest, who is tall, with dark, rather wavy hair, about thirty, and with a typically Roman face, with a beautiful voice is singing the Gospel of Jesus and the young man who asks him what he must do to follow Him.6 His voice is sure, hearty, and quite melodious. It fills the church. He is singing firmly, with a luminous smile on his face, and when he comes to Vade, quaecumque habes vende et da pauperibus et habebis thesaurum in coelo et veni sequere Me, his voice is a peal of joy and love.
He kisses the Gospel and goes back alongside the Pontiff, who has been standing listening to the Gospel, facing the people, with his hands joined in prayer. The new priest now kneels, while the Pontiff delivers his homily.
“Having been baptized on the birthday of the martyr Valente, this new son of the Apostolic Roman Church and brother of ours has wished to take the name of the blessed martyr, but with the modification which the humility drawn from the Gospel - humility, one of the roots of sanctity - dictated to him. And he wanted to be called, not Valente, but Valentine.
“Oh, but he really is Valente - ‘capable’! See how far the pagan whose religion was vice and overbearance has come. You know him as he is now, within the Church. Some of you - and especially those who have been his fathers and mothers in a true engendering, as those who by their word and example caused him to be conceived by the Holy Mother Church and born to her for the altar and for Heaven - know what he was like, not as the Christian Valente, but as the pagan before, whose name both he and we along with him do not wish even to remember.
“The pagan is dead. And from the holy water the Christian has risen. He is now your priest. What a long way! How far! From orgies to fasts; from triclinia to the church; from hardness, impurity, and greed to love, chastity, and complete generosity.
“He was the rich young man, and one day, brought to Christ by the heart of the saints, who even without words portray Him, he encountered Jesus, our blessed Lord. The gentle eyes of the Master focused on the face of the pagan. And the pagan experienced a seduction which no pleasure had yet given him, a new emotion, with an unknown name, with an indescribable sensation. A kind of softness like a mother’s caress, wholesomeness like the smell of just-baked bread, pureness like a spring dawn, loftiness like a heavenly dream.
“You shadows of the world and the pagan Olympus fall down when Jesus the Sun kisses someone He has called. You dissolve like mist. You flee like demoniacal nightmares. What is left of you - you that seemed to be so splendid? A filthy heap of inadequately burned debris still stinking with corruption.
“ ‘Good Master, what must I do to follow You and receive eternal life?’ he asked. And the gentle, divine Master in a few words conveyed to him the Life-giving teaching: ‘Observe these commandments.’ Oh, He could not say, ‘Follow the Law!’ The pagan was not familiar with it. He thus said, ‘Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not be lustful. Honor your relatives and love God and your neighbor as you love yourself.’ New words! Goals never before conceived of! Infinite horizons filled with light. With his light.
“The pagan could not reply as the rich young man did. He could not. For all sins are in paganism, and he had all of them in his heart. But he wanted to be able to reply. And he came to a poor old man, the persecuted Pontiff, and said, ‘Give me Light; give me Knowledge; give me Life! Give me a soul, in this beastly body of mine!’ And he wept.
“And the poor old man that I am took the Gospel and found Light, Knowledge, and Life therein for the weeping beggar. I found everything for him in the Gospel of Jesus, our Lord. And I was able to give him a soul. To summon forth the dead soul to life and say, ‘Here is your soul. Preserve it for eternal life.’
“Then, white with the bath of baptism, he devoted himself to seeking the good Master and found Him again and said to Him, ‘Now I can tell You that I am doing what You told me to. What else is needed to follow You?’ And the good Master replied, ‘Go, sell everything you own, and give it to the poor. You will then be perfect and able to follow Me.’
“Oh, then Valentine surpassed the young man in Palestine! He did not go off, unable to separate himself from all his possessions. But he brought me these possessions for Christ’s poor and, free from the yoke of wealth, a heavy yoke keeping one from following Christ, he asked me for the luminous, winged, heavenly yoke of the Priesthood.
“Here he is. You have seen him under that yoke, with his hands bound, a prisoner of Christ, going up to his altar. He will now break the Eternal Bread for you and quench your thirst with the Divine Wine. But he and I, too, in order to be perfect in the sight of the good Master, want one thing more. To become bread and wine: to immolate, crumble, and squeeze ourselves out to the last drop, reduce ourselves to wheat so as to become hosts. To sell the last, the only wealth remaining to us: our life. My feeble life as an old man. His flourishing life as a young man.
“Oh, do not disappoint us, Eternal Pontiff. Grant us blessed martyrdom! With our blood we want to write your Name: Jesus our Savior. We want another baptism for our stole, which human imperfection always corrupts: the baptism of blood. To rise up to You with immaculate stoles and follow You, O Lamb of God who take away the sins of the world, who have taken them away with your Blood! Blessed martyr Valente, in whose church we are, ask for your very same palm and crown from the Eternal Pontiff for your Pontiff Marcellus and for your brother in the priesthood.”
And there is nothing more.7
6 Mt 19:16-30, Mk 10:17-27, Lk 18:18-30.
7 We pass over seventy-eight pages which follow in the handwritten text (January 17-26, 1945) containing the episode involving “Jesus on the Mount of Fasting,” pertaining to The First Year of the Public Life in the major work on the Gospel, followed by eight other episodes in the same series.