RES 2: APOSTLES AND OTHERS

SUN, 3 PM Jesus Appears to Two Disciples going to Emmaus.

---- Mk 16:12,13 Lk 24:13 35 ---- 621/p.727
Disciples of Emmaus, Cleopas (son of the former chief of the synagogue in
Emmaus with the same name) and Simon (his father-in-law), walk with Jesus to
Emmaus. (See also I, p.763-767 where Jesus is at the house with old Cleopas, his wife
and young Cleopas and his wife.)
621/p.727 - Jesus Appears to the Disciples of Emmaus.

622/p.735 - Jesus Appears to Other Friends. To the dismay of the Disciples at the
“Supper Room” house, Jesus has appeared to many others while they have been
ignored! In another room, separate from the “Last Supper” room, there are many
people, including the faithful women disciples, the shepherds and all the Disciples,
accept Thomas. The Disciples are greatly humbled to discover that most all have seen
Jesus except them. To make matters worse for them, they are joined by a group of
Roman women escorted by Longinus, the centurion, and another Roman soldier who
have all either seen the resurrected Christ or heard His voice. To Holy Mary they
address their appeal: “We will come to You to be taught until they (and they point to
the Disciples) allow us to say that we are of Jesus.”

349. SUN, Eve The Ten Disciples Finally See the Resurrected Lord.
---- Mk 16:14 Lk 24:36 49 Jn 20:19, 20 623/p.737
Upper Room: It is late evening. The Disciples, without Thomas, are all
alone. They have finished eating. Everyone else has either departed or are asleep in
the other rooms. They are waiting for a promised appearance of the Master. Their
conversations are fragmentary. They are quite subdued. As much as they desire to
see the Lord, they fear having to face Him. There is a bright flash as Jesus suddenly
appears. They are frightened. They remain as frozen as statues for some time even
after the Lord speaks to them. Only after the Lord eats with them does anyone even
speak. Jesus then answers something that has deeply bothered them all. Why has
Jesus appeared to almost everyone else and not to them, and why was Mary
Magdalene the first one (after His Mother) to see Him? Why did they not have the
kind of believing soul that Lazarus, the women and even the Roman ladies had?

350. SUN, Eve Receive Ye the Holy Ghost.

---- ---- ---- Jn 20:21 24 623/p.747
Upper Room: After Jesus tells the plain truth about their prejudices and
pride and the need of this time of humiliation for them, He forgives them and offers
them His peace. He sends them into the world, imparts to them the Holy Spirit and
authorizes them all to forgive or retain the sins of man.
623/p.737 - Jesus Appears to the Ten Apostles. (Gospel Episodes 349. and 350.)

351. L April Thomas is finally Found and brought Back. He Does Not Believe.
---- ---- ---- Jn 20:25 624a/p.749
The week following the Resurrection in the Upper Room: Thomas, having
been found in the Bethlehem Grotto of Jesus’ birth by Elias, one of the original
Bethlehem shepherds, has been persuaded to return sometime during the week
following Resurrection Sunday. He is now with the other Disciples in the “Upper
Room.” He cannot believe Jesus has physically resurrected. His doubt is not in Jesus
as Messiah or as being truly God. He does not believe Jesus was physically
resurrected because he does not think He would any longer come among them who
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loved Him so little. [NOTE: The key to understanding Thomas’ “unbelief” was the
fact that it was Thomas in the very beginning who had, over Judas Iscariot’s own
original reluctance, convinced him to become a Disciple of Jesus. Thomas confesses
his deep remorse over this to Judas Thaddeus four months before, but was not able to
believe that something not done out of malice involved no guilt. His lack of faith in
the resurrection, then, was based, according to Jesus, on a more serious error, lack of
faith in the holiness of the justice of God. (See IV, 518/p.662)]
624a/p.747 - The Incredulity of Thomas. Jesus’ Warnings to the “Thomases” of
Today.

624b/p.751 - Jesus laments for the Thomas’ of today who continue to doubt the
treasures of the revelations of His life given even in these works that have come to us
through the faithful and suffering penman, Maria Valtorta!

352. L April, Sun Thomas Finally Sees the Resurrected Lord.

---- ---- ---- Jn 20:26 29 625/p.755
One week after the Resurrection in The Upper Room: Jesus appears.
Thomas must be called twice before he approaches the Lord. Even then he must be
coaxed to come closer. Jesus says, “Come here, quite close to me. Look. Put your
finger, if it is not sufficient for you to look, into the wounds of your master. Give Me
your hand. Put your finger here, put your fingers and also your hand, if you wish so,
into my side and do not doubt, but believe.”
625/p.753 - Jesus Appears to the Apostles with Thomas. Speech on Priesthood.

626/p.761 (E May, next day, Mon.) - At Gethsemane with the Apostles. From the
Upper Room, Jesus leads the Apostles out toward Gethsemane. On the way out the
door, He disappears, and they must face the hostility in the city alone. Along the way
they are confronted by a woman who, recognizing them as deserters of the Lord,
heaps upon them her rightly deserved contempt. Jesus reappears and takes them to
Gethsemane, where they are all torn by remorse. Jesus reminds them, “remorse is a
good friend in good people.” Jesus prays the Our Father and teaches from it.

627/p.778 (E May, same day, Mon.) - The Apostles Go along the Way of the Cross.
The grieving Apostles start out alone for Golgotha in the heat of midday as Jesus
instructed them to do. Here they would make up for their failure to accompany the
Savior when He was being crucified. John points out to the rest every horrible event
along that way which become like knives in all their hearts. At the summit of the hill
where the Jesus had sacrificed Himself, they all fall on the ground and weep. Jesus
appears as they make their final supplication in the Our Father on their knees, “deliver
us from evil.”

353. E May, Tue Jesus Appears all over Israel in the Same Day to Demonstrate
His Omnipresence.
---- ---- ---- Jn 20:30,31 628/p.792
Next day: The many other signs of which John speaks took place between His
appearance to Thomas and His appearance at the Sea of Tiberias in 354.. Indeed, the
following miraculous appearances of Jesus did occur on this Tuesday to various
people in different places in Israel almost at the same time: To Annaleah’s mother; to
Mary of Simon at Kerioth (the Iscariot’s godly mother); Anne, the mother of Joanna
and old Ananias; to the children of Juttah with their mother Sarah; to young Jaia, at
Pella; to John of Nob; to Matthias, the old solitary man near Jabesh-Gilead; to
Abraham of Engedi, who dies in His arms; to Elijah, the Essene of Mount Cherith; to
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Dorcas and her child in the castle of Caesarea Philippi; to the people gathered in the
synagogue of Kedesh; to a group of rabbis at Giscala; to Joachim and Mary of
Bozrah; to Mary of Jacob at Ephraim; to Syntyche at Antioch; to Zacharias, the
Levite; to a woman of the Sharon plain; to some shepherds on the Great Hermon; at
Sidon, to the little boy born blind; to Johanan’s peasants; to Daniel, a relative of
Helkai, the Pharisee, with Simon, the member of the Sanhedrin; and to a Galilean
woman named Rachael in the Esdraelon plain.
628/p.792 - Jesus Appears to Various People in Various Places.

354. E May Peter Does His Penance and is Confirmed in His Office of Chief
Shepherd.
---- ---- ---- Jn 21:1 23 629/p.823
During the next seven days on the southeastern shores of Galilee: Jesus has
breakfast with seven Apostles who have gone fishing. Though they were told to go to
Mount Tabor and wait for Him, Jesus does not condemn them for fishing, as they
were in need of food and money and they did not want to take advantage of the
hundreds of disciples gathering at Mount Tabor. Jesus does tell them that from now
on they should be the ones to pray and counsel pilgrims and believers and send others
to obtain food and money when needed. After breakfast of fish from the miraculous
haul and bread from Jesus, Peter is asked about his love for the Lord. Peter’s very
modest triple confession of his love for the Lord reflects a remarkable new humility.
Jesus had asked him if he loved Him unconditionally (agape love). Peter dares only
to confess affection for Him (phileo love). He thus admits that his love falls short of
what it should be and is not any greater than the other Disciples as he had at one time
thought! With each humble confession his pontifical priestly commission is affirmed
as Chief Shepherd of the Church: “Feed My lambs... Feed My lambs... Feed my
sheep.” Jesus then says, “Your treble profession of love has cancelled your treble*
denial. You are completely pure... .” Jesus then sends them off to Mount Tabor.
*[NOTE: “treble” is symbolic of something complete. Peter actually denied the Lord
four times. (See 294.)]
629/p.823 - Jesus Appears on the Shores of the Lake. The Mission Conferred to Peter.

355. M May, Sat The Disciples at Mount [Tabor] with five Hundred Believers.
Mt 28:16,17 ---- ---- ---- 630/p.829
Three weeks after the Resurrection, Jesus is at Mount Tabor with the eleven
Disciples and 500 believers. The crowd has gathered halfway up the Mountain, not at
the summit where Jesus was transfigured. There had been upwards to 1,500 seekers
of the resurrected Lord waiting here since early May, but many went away with those
who had said they had seen Jesus in this or that place, hoping to see Him without
waiting for Him to appear in the Mountain. Jesus makes a strong point for obedience
over this, as they had all been told to go to Mount Tabor and wait for Him. [NOTE:
Jesus had warned His Disciples that their enemies would deliberately send word out
that He had appeared (returned) and was in this or that place to draw them out to
capture them. See at 250. Mt. 24:23; Mk 13:22]
Jesus then describes what His Church would be like. It would have, as all
organisms must have, a hierarchy. It would be united and brotherly, under the
leadership of Peter and his successors until the end of time. Love must always
prevail. Jesus tells them to do as He did with Judas. The extreme pain and deep
sorrow of Jesus, which is clear to see as He speaks of Judas, is a real shock to them
all. That Jesus is still suffering is so distressful to John the Apostle that he cries out to
Jesus, “Do not suffer! Do not suffer!” He tells them He will have much more to

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suffer until the end of the age, but that they are to come to Bethany twenty days before
Pentecost (Mid June) for a second Passover in late May (see Numbers 9:10 ff.)
He then arranges to see the Apostles and the original “72” who are present to meet
with Him the next day at dawn. These would become the first priests of the new
Church (see 631/p.840).
630/p.829 - Jesus Appears on Mt. Tabor to the Apostles and About Five Hundred
Believers.

356.M May, Sun The Great Commission. The Last teachings Before Ascension.
---- Mk 16:15 ---- ---- 631/p.840
Next day, on a mountain near Nazareth: The 11 Apostles and many of the “72”
disciples are present. Jesus speaks of Baptism as a Sacrament, removing original sin
and the need of that washing before being worthy to take The Body of Christ or being
Re-confirmed in grace by the infusing of the Holy Spirit. [NOTE: The disciples of
Apollo in Ephesus who knew only the baptism of John the Baptist had to be baptized
in the name of the Lord Jesus in order for them to receive the Holy Spirit. (See Acts
19:1-6)] He instructs them in how to judge the severity of sin, when to be severe,
when to remit and when to retain and when to excommunicate. In regard to Marriage,
Jesus says that in the new Christian religion He wants it to be a “sacred indissoluble
act” wherein the two will become “ministers . . . in the propagation of the human
race” and warns of coming to allow in the Church what Moses had to allow in Israel
in regard to the dissolution of marriage. The Rite of Anointing of Oil and Last Rites
are also explained.
Finally, Jesus speaks most solemnly of the perpetuation of the Priesthood. He
speaks at great length of the great threat to the Church and the entire world “when the
abomination of desolation will affect the new Priesthood.” Jesus presents a
frightening picture of the storm of opposition to the faith and the faithful that will
come. There will be a time when many priests “will have only the garment and not
the soul of a priest . . . When all the books will replace the Book, and this will be used
. . . mechanically . . . without meditating . . . The Gospel will be taught scientifically
well, spiritually badly . . . I truly tell you that the time will come in which too many
among the Priests will be like swollen straw stacks . . . Can straw be enough? It is not
even sufficient for the stomach of a beast . . . But you, Pontiff [Peter], and you,
Shepherds, watch that the spirit of the Gospel may not get lost in you and in your
successors . . . and do not allow My future voices to become void. And each of them
is an act of mercy of Mine to assist you, and the more are the reason by which I see
that Christianity needs them to get through the storms of times, the more numerous
they will be. He who, wholly or partly, rejects My Word is a member in whom the sap
of the Vine no longer flows.” [NOTE: Of all that is so very serious here from Jesus to
His Disciples, it is His message concerning what many in the Church have blanketly
labeled “private revelation” that gets Jesus’ strongest emphasis! It also elicits His
strongest commanding order: “Do not allow My future voices to become void!” and
“Christianity needs them.” To be straw in a straw stack and of little spiritual value to
anyone in one’s own ministry is one thing, but to then to be part of denying,
suppressing, hindering, or even making little of those Voices of God and Heaven
given to reverse the spiritual damage caused by one’s spiritual ineptness and sloth, is
quite another. It is an infinitely far worse transgression against Christ and His
Church. For a doctor to be responsible for a deadly malady in his patient through
irresponsibility is very serious, but for that doctor to then resist the administration of
the needed cure is incomparably worse, a crime of the highest order.
That is precisely how many Priests and Bishops in the Church are responding to
the widespread spiritual malpractice in their ranks, leading to the spiritual affliction
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and death of numberless souls under their care. To acknowledge another needed
source outside themselves to cure the sickness in the Church is too much for the proud
to admit. The smoke of Satan in the Church, however, goes deeper than faithless
priests resisting the help of Heaven. We have firmly entrenched heresies in the
Church itself that support the “voiding” of these “voices” of Jesus, or, as the
Catechism calls them, “authentic calls of Christ and the saints to the Church,” which it
also admits are to be discerned by the faithful and welcomed into the Church! Yet,
how many priests have been taught that there has been given vital revelation since the
Apostles that is required belief for the Church and the world? Most have been told
none of this revelation can be believed in the absolute sense or by “divine faith!” This
error says that even those apparitions and revelations that have been “approved” by
the Church such as Fatima, Lourdes etc. do not have to be believed and cannot be
believed absolutely by “divine faith.” The faulty thinking is based on the fact that the
Church hierarchy has only, in its “approval,” determined that these certain apparitions
are free of moral and theological error. Not one of these “approved” publicly
significant revelations which Jesus emphatically stresses are important for the Church
have been determined by the Magisterium to be truly of God. Discerning the
authenticity of publicly significant revelation in our day is the duty of the Church. I
John 4:1 says the Church is to “try the spirits if they be of God.” That the Church has
the gifts to do this (I Corinthians12:10) means that deliberate resistance to God and
His voice is involved in this disobedience. The claim that no one is required to
believe these messages of God goes even one step further in making void the Word of
God. May God raise up ten thousand voices in our day against this crippling error and
indifference to the Word of God and the salvation of the Church! “He who, wholly or
partly, rejects My Word is a member in whom the sap of the Vine no longer flows.”]
In response to Peter’s concern about dealing with Gentiles, Jesus gives some
humbling but significant counsel. He speaks about the coming of heresies and those
who will break from the Church. He tells them how they are to treat heretics. Jesus
tells them not to avoid the places where they have gone, but, “Go. I tell you: Go to all
peoples. As far as the boundaries of the world. So that all My Doctrine and My Only
Church may be made known . . .” [Mk 16:15 is also found in Chapter 634, p.872.]
Finally, Peter asks the Lord about the twelfth Disciple and is told he is responsible
to see that someone is chosen. Peter does not want the responsibility. Several names
are suggested, but there is no consensus. Jesus tells them when they are all in
agreement they will know.
631/p.840 - The Last Teachings Before Ascension Day (The identity of the true
Church!)

632/p.857 (L May, one week later, 4th Sunday after The Resurrection) - The
Supplementary Passover. Lazarus’ Estate is filled with Apostles, disciples and new
followers of Christ. They are all waiting for Jesus, who has told them to meet here on
this day so those who missed the first feast can keep the supplemental “little”
Passover. This is the Passover that Jesus had promised the women disciples whom He
had forbidden to come to the primary Passover. Since the day has passed, Peter
dismisses the crowds on the grounds and wonders why Jesus has not showed up.
Jesus then privately appears to Lazarus and instructs him to hold the Passover at
Gethsemane, so those remaining go over to the olive grove which was owned by
Lazarus. Jesus now appears and asks Matthias (the future Apostle) to lead the
ceremony. James of Alphaeus (who was to be head of the Church at Jerusalem) has
seen Jesus ( I Corinthians 15:7a) privately and is asked with Peter to break the bread.
Peter is asked by Jesus at each stage to describe what took place in the “Supper
Room.” The event deeply moves them all.
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633/p.862 (L May, next day, Mon.) - Farewell to His Mother before Ascension. There
is here an incredible revelation of the love union between the hearts and souls of Jesus
and Mary!
633b/p.864 - Jesus to MV addresses those who might question that He would actually
live in the heart of Mary, leaving only to consecrate the Bread and Wine. This was
only one of many things He did for His Mother to help her forget the bitterness She
experienced. “Everything, everything, everything, you have through Mary! You
ought to love Her and bless Her at each breath of yours.” He also comments on the
genuineness of the “Veil of Veronica” and the Holy Shroud.