Padre Pio’s encounters WWII GIs, and more.

 

After you click on the link below, please page down until you come to a photo of actor Gary Sinise reading from the book Padre Pio and America. Just below that picture is a video produced by the St. Pio Foundation and EWTN about Padre Pio and the American troops, featuring vintage photos and clips from that era.

Included is a brief movie of Padre Pio offering the Mass. Viewing this you can get a glimpse of why the Traditional Latin Mass was the crowning glory of Catholic religious practices until the changes after Vatican II.

https://tanbooks.com/products/books/padre-pio-and-america/

St. Francis receives the Stigmata.

From the visions of the Catholic mystic Maria Valtorta.

 

Above, against the pure, so blue and gentle sky, stands a flaming figure that seems to be made only of incandescent fire. A fire whose brilliance is more vivid than that of the sun, which emerges from behind a wooded mountain range with a splendor of rays and glories that sets everything ablaze with joy. This being of fire is clothed in feathers. […] It looks like an angel because two immense wings hold it suspended and fixed against the immaterial cobalt of the September sky, two immense open wings that form a cross, supported by the resplendent body. 

 

Two immense wings that are the whiteness of incandescence, open against the shimmering incandescence of the body, clothed in other wings that completely envelop it, gathered with their supernatural feathers of pearl, diamond, and pure silver, around the person. It seems that even the head is wrapped in this singular feathery garment. Because I cannot see it. I only see, where that seraphic face should be, a glimmer of such vivid splendor that I am left as if dazzled. […] The cross of burning feathers stands fixed in the sky with its mystery.

 

Below, a gaunt little friar, whom I recognize as my seraphic Father [Francis], prays on his knees on the grass, not far from a bare, rough cave, frightening like a precipice of hell. The ravaged body seems not to inhabit the […] overly large habit. The neck emerges, a pale brown, from the grayish cowl, a color between that of ash and certain slightly yellowish sands. The hands emerge with their thin wrists from the wide sleeves and are extended in prayer, palms turned outwards and raised as in the "Dominus vobiscum". Two hands, once brown, now yellowish, of a suffering and emaciated person. The face is a thin face that seems sculpted in old ivory, neither beautiful nor regular, but possessing a particular beauty made of spirituality. 

 

The brown eyes are beautiful. But they do not look upwards. They look, wide open and fixed, at the things of the earth. But I don't think they see. They are open, resting on the dewy grass; they seem to be studying the grayish embroidery of a wild thistle and the feathery one of a wild fennel, which the dew has transformed into a green, diamond-studded "aigrette" [headdress]. But I am certain that he sees nothing. Not even the robin that descends with a chirp to look for some small seed on the grass. 

 

He prays. His eyes are open. But his gaze does not go outwards, but inwards, into himself. How and why and when he becomes aware of the living cross that is fixed in the sky, I do not know. Whether he felt it by attraction or saw it by an inner calling, I do not know. I know that he raises his face and searches with his eyes, which now come alive with interest, confirming my conviction of his previous lack of external vision. 

 

The gaze of my seraphic Father meets the great, living, flaming cross. A moment of astonishment. Then a cry: “My Lord!”, and Francis falls back slightly on his heels, remaining in ecstasy, with his face lifted, smiling, shedding the first two tears of beatitude, with his arms more open. And behold, the Seraph moves its shining, mysterious figure. It descends. It approaches. It does not come to earth. No. It is still very high up. But not as it was before, midway between heaven and earth. And the earth becomes even more luminous because of this living sun that in this blessed dawn unites with and surpasses the other sun of every day.

 

As it descends, with wings always outstretched in a cross shape, cleaving the air not by the movement of feathers but by its own weight, it gives off a sound of paradise. Something that no human instrument can produce. [...] And now, while Francis laughs, and cries, and shines even more in ecstatic joy, the Seraph opens its two wings – now I understand well that they are wings – that are towards the middle of the cross. And the most holy Feet of my Lord appear nailed to the wood, and his long legs, of a splendor, in this vision, as vivid as his glorified Limbs have in Paradise. And then two other wings open, right at the top of the cross.

 

And my sight, and I believe also that of Francis, however much he is aided by divine grace, suffers from the joy of the blinding light. Behold the trunk of the Savior that pulsates with breath, and behold, oh! behold the Fire that only grace allows one to gaze upon, behold the Fire of his Face that appears when the shroud of the sparkling feathers is fully opened. 

 

The fire of all volcanoes and stars and flames, surrounded by six sublime wings of pearls, silver, and diamonds, would still be little light compared to this indescribable, inconceivable radiance of the Most Holy Humanity of the Redeemer nailed to his cross. The Face, then, and the five wounds find no comparison to describe them. I think of the most resplendent things […], this is a condensation of the sun multiplied by an incalculable number of times. 

 

The peak of La Verna must appear as if a thousand volcanoes had opened around it to crown it. The air, because of the light and heat, which burns but does not consume, emanating from my crucified Lord, trembles with waves perceptible to the eye, and stems and leaves seem unreal, so much does the light penetrate even the opacity of bodies and makes them light. […] Francis, then, upon whom the light pours and invests and penetrates him, no longer seems a human body. But a lesser seraph, brother of the one who gave his wings to the service of the Redeemer. 

 

Now Francis is almost prostrate, so much is he bent backward, with arms completely open, under his Sun God Crucified! He is immaterial in appearance, so much do the light and joy penetrate him. He does not speak, he does not breathe, materially. He would seem a glorified dead man if it were not for that pose that requires at least a minimum of life to subsist. The tears that fall, and perhaps serve to temper the human aridity of this mystical flame, shine like streams of diamonds on his thin cheeks.

 

I hear no words from either Francis or Jesus. An absolute, profound, astonished silence. A pause in the world surrounding the mystery. So as not to disturb. So as not to profane this sacred silence where a God communicates with his blessed one. Contrary to what one might expect, the birds do not burst into more acute trills and joyful flights for this celebration of light, no butterflies or dragonflies dance, no lizards or geckos dart about. Everything is still in an anticipation in which I feel the adoration of all beings towards Him for whom they were made. Not even that gentle breeze that made a sighing sound among the leaves remains. Not even that slow, arpeggiated sound of water hidden in some hollow of stone, which before occasionally cast its notes, like rare pearls, on a tonal scale. Nothing. There is Love. And that is enough. 

 

Giotto

Jesus looks at and smiles at his Francis. Francis looks at and smiles at his Jesus. But now, the glorified Face, so luminous as to appear almost as lines of light, like that of the Eternal Father, materializes a little. His eyes take on that blazing sapphire brilliance as when He performs a miracle. The lines become severe, imposing, as always in those hours, imperious, I would say. A command from the Word must go to His Flesh; and the Flesh obeys. And from the five Wounds shoot five arrows, five small lightning bolts, I should say, that descend without zigzagging in the air but perpendicularly, very quickly, five needles of unbearable light that pierce Francis.

 

I do not see, naturally, the feet, covered by the robe and limbs, and the side covered by the tunic. But I see the hands. And I see that, after the fiery points have entered and passed through – I am as if behind Francis – the light, which is on the other side, towards the palm, passes through the hole on the back of the hand. They look like two open eyelets in the metacarpus, from which two threads of blood descend, flowing slowly down the wrists, onto the forearms, under the sleeves.

 

Francesco lets out a sigh so deep that it reminds me of the last breath of the dying. But he doesn't fall. He remains as he was for some time longer. Until the Seraph, whose face I have never seen – I have only seen his six wings – spreads these sublime wings like a veil over the most holy Body and hides it, and with the two initial wings he ascends, ever higher, into the sky, and the light diminishes, finally remaining only that of a serene sunny morning. And the Seraph disappears beyond the cobalt of the sky that swallows him and closes upon the mystery that has descended to bless a son of God and that has now ascended to his kingdom. 

 

Then Francesco feels the pain of the wounds and with a groan, without getting up, he moves from his previous position to sitting on the ground. And he looks at his hands and uncovers his feet. And he opens his garment on his chest. Five streams of blood and five cuts are the memory of God's kiss. And Francesco kisses his hands and caresses his side and soles, weeping and murmuring: "Oh, my Jesus! My Jesus! What love! What love, Jesus!... Jesus!... Jesus!..."

And he tries to stand up, pressing his fists to the ground, and succeeds with pain in his palms and soles, and he sets off, a little unsteady like someone who is wounded and cannot lean on the ground and stumbles from pain and weakness from fainting, towards his cave, and falls to his knees on a stone, with his forehead against a cross made of only wood, two branches tied together, and there he looks at his hands on which a nail head seems to be forming, penetrating and piercing, and he weeps. He weeps for love, beating his chest and saying: “Jesus, my sweet King! What have You done to me? Not for the pain, but for the praise of others, this gift of Yours is too much for me! Why me, Lord, me unworthy and poor? Your wounds! Oh! Jesus!”

Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks 1944, September 16, pp. 554-559.

View my Catholic books and web page Here. 

 

A Vision of Christmas Angels.

 

Maria Valtorta had been beseeching St. Lucy for a certain favor, but instead the saint brings her this heavenly vision. It begins while Maria has been praying the Rosary and the Fatima prayers alongside her housekeeper Marta.

She writes: “I see a night-time sky that is teeming with stars. It is a beautiful oriental sky of a very dark sapphire, containing clusters of luminous stars. A nocturnal landscape is sleeping in the night, dotted with little white houses closed and silent. There is one special home, with a terrace and kind of a small dome, a house so clear that I could draw it in the minutest detail. The landscape is slightly undulating, as if it were in a gentle hollow between hills.

Then from the sky descends a procession of angels of a luminous whiteness, although incorporeal they are still perceptible to the human eye. They make a curve, heading from the sky towards the earth, towards the quiet and sleeping town, and the night becomes brighter because of the light of the angelic bodies. The leading two angels are beautiful beyond words as they descend rapidly, without however moving their wings. Their hands are crossed on their chests, with their faces turned towards the town and sparkling with supernatural love.

 

Christmas Angel by Maren Devine

Behind them follow all the others. An incalculable number! I don't know if it was the cleaving of the atmosphere or a palpitation of love that produced such wonderful music. Perhaps both things together produced it. Certainly it was not material singing, for which words, vocal cords, uvulas and art are used. And, being a supernatural event, it was infinitely, indescribably beautiful. I cannot but consider this singing non-human. My heart is full of it and my spirit is exalted; all my pain is annihilated by it, but I cannot repeat even a single note. I think, and I don't know why, of that song that beloved St. John the Evangelist says will be sung only by those who follow the Lamb, by the 144,000 saved who have not defiled themselves with sensuality.

And then I hear Jesus Himself speak, without appearing to me: "Behold, to your suffering is given the first comfort of the Christmas season: the song that filled the horizons the night I was born. The angels sing, with their love, 'Peace on earth to men of good will'. They sing peace to you. Enjoy it. I bless you."

I add now, that is, 24 hours later, on the evening of December 14th – that I am still blessed by this radiant, peaceful, and harmonious angelic vision; and I am also in a joy, lesser but still joy, because in my very brief sleep I dreamed something festive, like a promise which was to be fulfilled in ten days [Christmas Eve]. I don't remember what it was about or who made it, because Toi [Maria’s dog] woke me up so suddenly that I couldn't see the rest or remember exactly. But I don't know... I also have this spark of joy in my heart. I know from experience how the future has been announced to me, since I was a little girl, in my sleep.”

Based on The Notebooks 1944, by Maria Valtorta, December 13, pages 636-637.

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Venerable Antonietta Meo.

“Pain is like fabric, the stronger it is, the more value it has.”

Antonietta Meo, affectionately known as Nennolina, was born in Rome on December 15, 1930, and died when she was only six years old, on July 3rd, 1937. It may be hard to imagine that a six year-old child would be declared Venerable by the Church, but Pope Benedict XVI did so in 2007, extolling her heroic virtues. This honor was made possible when the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints declared in 1981 that even young children are capable of heroic virtue. If canonized, she would become the youngest non-martyr Saint of the Church. 

 

She was born to a devout family, and her parish church was “The Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem,” one of the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome. It houses pieces of the True Cross and two thorns from Crown of Thorns, among many other sacred relics. It now also contains the tomb of Venerable Antonietta Meo. 

 

Nennolina was a happy and playful child. When she was four, her parents noticed a lump on her knee, and attributed it to a simple fall, but the swelling would not go away. It was eventually diagnosed as an aggressive cancer of the bone, and her left leg was amputated when she was only five years old. She was outfitted with an artificial leg, and was soon back playing with her friends. Although in pain, she remained cheerful. 

 

The power of God’s grace was evident in the way she accepted her suffering. When her father asked her if she was in pain, she reportedly answered: “Daddy, pain is like fabric, the stronger it is, the more value it has.” One day she said to her mother: "When I suffer, I immediately think of Jesus so I don't suffer anymore! It's simple not to suffer: don't think of your pain, but think of Jesus', because He suffered so much for us that you won't feel anything yourself". 

 

Shortly before her death, Professor Aminta Milani, the chief physician of Pope Pius XI, came to examine her at the request of her doctor. The professor spoke with Antonietta and was astonished that she could endure such pain without complaining. Her parents told him about letters she had been writing to God, and at his request they provided him with the most recent one, which her mother had crumpled up and thrown into a drawer because she was so upset at seeing her daughter suffer so much and so close to death. 

 

On the next day an auto from the Vatican stopped at their house, and a personal messenger from the Holy Father greeted the family and imparted the apostolic blessing upon Nennolina. He related that the Pope had been very moved upon reading the child’s letter to the Crucified Jesus. He also gave them a note from Professor Milani, in which he asked the dying girl to remember him in her prayers. 

 

Following is the text of this letter: 

 

May 2, 1937; Letter No. 162 [spelling and format retained].

Dear Crucified Jesus,

I really wish You well and I love You so much.

I want to be on Calvary with You and I suffer with joy because I know how to be on Calvary.

Dear Jesus. Thanks that You have sent me this illness because it’s a way to arrive in Paradise.

Dear Jesus, tell God the Father that I love Him so much, Him too.

Dear Jesus, I want to be Your lamp and Your lilly dear Jesus, dear Jesus give me the strength necessary to stand the pains that I offer for sinners [at this moment she was taken to vomiting].

Dear Jesus, tell the Holy Spirit to illuminate me with love and fill me with His seven gifts.

Dear Jesus, tell the Madonnina that I love her so much and that I want to be with her on Calvary because I want to be Your victim of love dear Jesus.

Dear Jesus, I entrust to you my Spiritual Father, and do for him all the graces necessary.

Dear Jesus, I entrust to you my parents and Margherita [her sister].

Dear Jesus, I send you lots of greetings and kisses.

Antoinetta of Jesus.

In June of 1944 Our Lord spoke to Maria Valtorta about Nennolina. He said that this little child, who had barely reached the age of reason, now, in heaven, “...possesses an intelligence and a knowledge not at all inferior to those of the most-learned and long-lived of the mystical doctors.” St. John the Evangelist, “...who died at the age of one hundred, after having known the highest mysteries of God; Paul, the scholarly Apostle; Thomas the angelic doctor and […] all the giants of true knowledge, cannot add light to that Little One, my saint.”

  

“The Holy Spirit, whose precocious bride she was on earth, taught her in embraces of fire what He does not teach to the proud humanly learned, and in uniting her to Himself in this blessed Country […] He infused into this Little One the perfection of knowledge, just as He infuses it into adults and the learned.” [Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks 1944, June 14, p. 357.]

 

Less than a month later, in July of that year, Nennolina herself appeared to Maria Valtorta while she was at prayer. As background, it is necessary to know that Italy was in the midst of the Second World War, and Valtorta had been forced to leave her own home in Viareggio due to a mandatory evacuation. She was bedridden with a number of serious ailments, but did not want to take the risk of asking the German Command for an ambulance; consequently she was placed as comfortably as possible on the back seat of an automobile. For eight months, she was obliged to take refuge with some others in the small Hamlet of St. Andrea di Compito, where she had a room in the home of a married couple. Infirm and in pain, she was extremely unhappy there, especially since she was left without her spiritual director. 

 

One evening, at 3 a.m. while crying desolately, she began to pray. “Afterwards I made my usual offerings. And when I came to the one for Nennolina, I said to her ‘Nennolina, give it yourself to Jesus and tell Him to have me go back to my house. If you say so, He will listen to you...and you can understand – you that were so sick – what what the suffering of an infirm woman means.’”

 

Antonietta (Nennolina) then appeared to Maria, dressed in white, with “...her thoughtful, shining eyes, smiling and luminous, with a sash of light at her side, in the place where the big wound was.” 

 

“Is it you?” Maria asked, and Nennolina replied with the smile of a happy girl. Maria asked her if she was happy, and the girl smiled once more.  

 

Maria then asked about her leg. Nennolina now gave a spoken answer: “It’s no longer of use. Here, where I am, nothing is of use any longer. Love is enough.” And then she pirouetted half-way around with the act proper to a girl, laughing all the while. 

 

Maria: “Do you love me, Nennolina?” The reply: a smile of assent. 

 

Maria: “Remember to tell Jesus that poor Maria has only Him and hopes in Him alone.”

 

With a farewell smile, “...the figure dissolved into light.”

 

[Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks 1944, July 6, pp. 421-422.]

A longer version of this blog post appeared online in The Remnant Newspaper, Saturday, September 10, 2022, titled “Nennolina’s Letters”.

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House Calls – A Proposal.

 

The Medical establishment has quietly replaced “house calls” with walk-in-clinics, ER rooms, 911 calls, and ambulance services.

 

But are all 911 calls made because of true emergencies? How many are made to seek treatment for non-life-threatening situations that would have been resolved by house calls in prior years?

 

A 911 call is currently the only alternative for an ill person who has become so bed-ridden and debilitated they cannot make a trip away from their own home. 

 

Sometimes a patient is so weakened, perhaps with a fever and some vomiting, that she cannot suffer to get out of bed, get dressed, walk outside to a car, enter a Doctor’s office or walk-in Clinic, sign in, and then sit on a chair and wait until called. How many ER resources and ambulances are committed to support such very ill patients, who have non-urgent symptoms, that could instead be treated by a Doctor on a house call? 

 

Fortunately, the innovative Beebe Healthcare System has taken the initiative to combine their Primary Care Intern program with limited house call visitations. Thanks to specially equipped vans operated by professional drivers, Interns who may be accompanied by their senior medical advisers, are able to diagnose and treat many of these cases in the patients’ own homes, leaving 911 resources free to be used in life-threatening situations. 

 

Such visits are limited to situations where the only other alternative for the infirm bed-riddden patient would be to phone 911 for an ambulance visit to an emergency room. It is understood that said patient’s symptoms would not be life-threatening, such as having heart pains or an unusually high fever. 

 

Why house calls may grow further – according to ChatGPT, an AI site: 

 

“Modern healthcare systems have discovered that home visits can:

• Reduce ER visits

• Reduce hospitalizations

• Improve outcomes for chronically ill patients

• Lower costs for insurers

So house calls may become much more common again.”

 

The above example for Beebe Healthcare is currently only fictional.

https://frankrega.com/index.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just Seeing the Blessed Virgin Mary is Enough.

 “Indeed, just seeing Her teaches the beauty of purity, of prayer, and of silence.”

Maria Valtlorta writes in her notebook: Last night, September 18, I suffered terribly. I had been suffering like that all day long and was utterly exhausted. Every breath, every movement, however small, was most painful for me and forced me, who never complain, to protest. And then there was the coughing […]

At supper time – that is, from 8 to 9 pm – when I had been left alone, my mental sight was beatified by the vision of Holy Mary. I will try to describe Her to you. But how can I manage to show you her beauty and the colors She had?

She is dressed in white: a dress closed at the base of the neck, as if it were curled, for I see that over her breast the cloth forms soft folds which chastely follow Mary's figure. The sleeves are rather narrow and long, down to her wrists. At her waist a belt gathers in her dress. But it is not golden or silver. It seems to be a silken cord, the same as the dress in color and luster. It has no bows, but falls down over the dress. It encircles it, and that's all.

Over her head, a mantle of the same cloth as the dress, light, but not veiling Her. It descends over Mary's cheeks and approaches her neck, as if it were held back by a clasp. A long clasp, though, for I see Mary's extremely white throat. In short, it is supported at her shoulders and descends along the upper part of her arms and her side down to the ground.

But how can I describe for you the splendor of that very white arid simple dress? Snow is gray and opaque; the lily is still less beautiful. Its whiteness shines so brightly that it resembles silver turned into cloth. Oh, words are impotent to describe the light! Only in Heaven […] can there be such cloth of a phosphorescent, diamond-like, pearly, opaline whiteness which is a gem without being a gem or resulting from the union of gems so as to shine that way!

I see the rather round oval of Mary's face. Of a shade of ivory like certain magnolia petals, the same color as that of her Son's face, though shaped differently from his, which is longer and thinner. On this flowery face only the thin lips and eyebrows, slightly dark, provide color.

The eyes, not wide open, but seeds veiled by her eyelids, have the same gaze as her Son's and are of the same sky-blue as Jesus', but paler. To continue with human comparisons, I might say that Jesus' eyes are sapphire, and Mary's, turquoise. Jesus' serious, saddened look is in Mary a sadness joined, however, to a smile: the good smile of someone who is afflicted, but wants to console and exhort at the same time.

Her hair is the color of ripe wheat, or pure gold, if you prefer, always tending towards reddish blond, but more blond than red, whereas in Jesus there is a tendency towards a coppery blond.

 

Her long, thin hands, with very long and tapering fingers, emerge from the tight sleeves, with their delicate, very white wrists. They are two magnolia petals joined in prayer. They so resemble budding flowers that it seems to me they must smell of flowers.

No necklace, none at all. It is all of Mary which is a Gem with the luminosity of alabaster, or, better, of opal inwardly illuminated by a flame. Her glorified body emits light, a very gentle light which really makes me think of a lamp burning before the Tabernacle: a lamp of white alabaster or, I repeat, of opal.

I do not see her feet because the dress is so long that it covers them. That's my description of our Mother for you.

She kept and keeps me company, and it strikes me that everything around me is becoming luminous and virginal, and light and purity descend into my heart and, along with them, a joy that makes me weep with blessedness.

I believe that if Mary said a single word, my soul would swoon in ecstasy, for only a thread keeps me from sinking into it, and this is only so I can see the Blessed One and feel kissed by her smile and her look.

It is now evening, and I say to Jesus, "Lord, won't you say something today?"

He replies that my lesson today is being given me by Mary and that the contemplation of Her does not require other words. Indeed, just seeing Her teaches the beauty of purity, of prayer, and of silence. Three great things very little and poorly practiced.

In the midst of my physical and moral aching, I find myself in joy, for the light of the loveliest star, Mary, shines upon me, and it is granted to me to fix my eyes upon Her.

Later… And Mary tells me wordlessly that She is teaching me something else: to see her children even in one's enemies. For them, too, She gave her Son and accepted them as children, as She accepted us. She makes me grasp that to look upon them with acrimony is to cause Her pain and become unlike Her, who gazed at those who crucified her Son and pierced her Immaculate Heart with loving compassion.

Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks 1943, September 19, pp. 322-324.

 

_______________________________________________

 

The Lord is speaking to his Apostle Simon the Zealot: “Let us go to sweet Galilee, rich in green fields and cool waters. Have you ever been there?”

“1 passed through once, in winter, during one of my painful pilgrimages from one doctor to another. I liked it...”

“Oh! It is beautiful. Always. [...] The lake... The lake surrounded by mountains, more or less close to it, seems to be made just to speak of God to souls seeking God. It is a piece of the sky which has fallen into the green vegetation, and the vault of Heaven does not forsake it, but is reflected in it with its stars, which are thus multiplied, to be presented to the Creator strewn on a sapphire plate. The olive-trees reach down almost to its shores and are full of nightingales, and they also sing their praise to the Creator Who lets them live in such a sweet and placid place.

“And My Nazareth! All ready to be kissed by the sun, all white and green […], charming, between the two giants of the Great and Small Hermon, and the pedestal of mountains supporting the Tabor […].

“And then... then, oh! Simon! There is a Flower there!

“There is a Flower that lives solitary, fragrant with purity and love for Her God and Her Son! There is My Mother. You will meet Her, Simon, and then you will be able to tell Me whether there is a creature like Her, also in human grace, on the earth. She is beautiful, but everything is surpassed by what emanates internally from Her. If a brute should [...] disfigure Her and send Her roving, She would still appear as a Queen in a royal dress, because Her holiness would cover Her as a mantle and confer splendour on Her.

“The world can give Me all possible evil, but I will forgive the world everything, because to come into the world and redeem it, I had Her, the humble and great Queen of the world, Whom the world does not know, but through Whom it has received Good and will receive still more throughout centuries.

“Here we are at the Temple. Let us keep the Judaic form of worship. But I solemnly tell you that the true House of God, the Holy Ark, is Her Heart, the veil of which is Her most pure flesh and its embroidery work are all Her virtues.”

Maria Valtorta, The Gospel as Revealed to Me, Volume 2, Chapter 85, pp. 56-58.

 

 

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Why Mary Magdalene? The great secret and the great grace.

 

The great secret:

 

The Lord is talking to Maria Valtorta about the Eucharist, which she has just received.

Jesus says:

 

“I am now with you in Body and Soul, in Blood and Divinity. I am with you as upon an altar. Here, in your room, where your faith shines more than a lamp and your love gives off perfume more than incense, I am as in the Father's breast, and around Me are the worshiping angels. Your faith makes you believe this, and for this faith may you be blessed.

“I want to tell you a secret. The saint whom you have loved since childhood – Mary Magdalene, when a penitent in the lands of France and alone among the crags, was able to release her spirit, caught in the whirlpool of love, to the point where she would send it where I was present in the Sacred Species. And this desire of hers to worship Me in the Sacrament as she had worshiped Me when I lived on earth moved Me more than her penances.

“I am worshiped too little by Christians, by the quibblers who, to worship Me, need more than display. Oh, love Me by the strength of love! See Me and believe in Me just by the strength Of faith! Know that I have not received more intense acts of worship than those of the voluntary recluses or exiles in cells and deserts and that I have not had a worthier altar than that of the little Tarcisius reddening the sacred linen with his blood. [Tarcisius was a child martyr during the roman persecutions, whose death was seen by Maria Valtorta in one of her visions of the Church of the catacombs.]

“To find something more perfect you must think of the ineffable transports of my Mother bending over my cradle or the throbbing altar, whiter than a lily and rendered luminous by love, of her most chaste body bearing Me or her arms, her lap, turned into a cushion for the dreams of the Child God.

“Maria, be Mary [Magdalene]. Mary adoring the living Bread descending from Heaven, the Flesh and the Blood of the Son of God and of Mary […]. Ask her to teach you her Eucharistic fervors.

“Maria, make your house a Nazareth and a Bethany. It already is because I am there, and make it more so with a complete love for your Eucharistic Jesus. Illness is not an obstacle for the loving heart. There are numberless churches where I am alone. Come into them with your spirit. Make up for others' lack of love.

“Learn from Me to say, 'I have ardently desired. I have ardently desired to come to You, Jesus, who remain entirely alone on so many altars, to tell You that I love You with my whole self. I have ardently desired to see You, O my Eucharistic Sun. I have ardently desired to consume my Bread, which You are. For the sake of so much desire, have mercy on your servant, Lord.

“Let me come to your heavenly altar and adore You forever, O Lamb of God. Have me see You with my soul enraptured in your glory, O my Divine Sun, who now appear veiled to Me, because of the weakness of my condition among the living. Let me love You, as I would like to love You, for blessed eternity. Open the gates of Life to me, Jesus, my life. Come, Lord Jesus, come. In the Communion of Light may what is flesh perish and may the spirit conquer You, my Only and Triune God, the sole love of my soul'.”

Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks 1943, October 27 pp. 426-427.

The great grace:

 

How was Mary able to send her spirit to where the Eucharist was present? Because of the great grace which she had received earlier in her life.

Mary Magdalene and Jesus are together at Bethany, where the Lord has just raised her brother Lazarus from the dead:

“Now... I measure the bottom of my abjection and I know that I must go a long way to climb out of it. But I will do it, if You help me.”

“l will help you, Mary. I will help you also when I have gone away.”

“How, my Lord?”

“By increasing your love in an immeasurable way. There is no other way for you.”

“Too mild when compared with what I have to expiate! Everybody is saved through love. Everybody obtains Heaven. But what is sufficient for the pure, the just, is not sufficient for the great sinner.”

“There is no other way for you, Mary. Because, whatever way you may take, it will still be love. Love if you help people in My name. Love if you evangelize. Love if you live in isolation. Love if you martyrize yourself. Love if you will make people martyrize you. You can but love, Mary. It is your nature. Flames can but burn whether they creep on the ground, burning straw, or they arise like a bright embrace around a trunk, a house or an altar to ascend towards the sky.

“Everyone has his nature […]. Could you pretend that a bee, destined to make honey, should become a little bird that sings among the leafy branches of a hedge? Or that this little branch of an almond-tree that I am holding in my hands, with all the tree from which I picked it, instead of yielding almonds should exude sweet-smelling resins from its bark? A bee works, a bird sings, an almond-tree bears fruit, a resiniferous plant secretes resins. And each fulfills its task. Souls do the same. Your task is to love.”

“Then infIame me, Lord. Grant me it as a grace.”

“ls the power of love that you possess not sufficient for you?”

“lt's too little, Lord, It could have served to love men. Not to love You Who are the infinite Lord.”

“And just because I am such, a limitless love would be required...”

“Yes, my Lord. That is what I want: that You give me a limitless love.”

“Mary, the Most High Who knows what love is, said to man: "You shall love Me with all your strength". He does not exact more than that. Because He is aware that it is already a martyrdom to love with all one's strength...”

 

“It does not matter, my Lord. Give me an infinite love that I may love You as You deserve to be loved, that I may love You as I have not loved anybody else.”

“You are asking Me for a suffering that is like a fire that burns and consumes, Mary. It burns and consumes slowly... Think about it.”

“l have been thinking about it for such a long time, my Lord. But I dared not ask You. Now I know how much You love me. Just now I am aware of how much You love me and I dare to ask You. Give me that infinite love, Lord.”

Jesus looks at her. She is in front of Him, still thin after so many long hours of watch and so much grief, wearing a modest dress and with her hair arranged in a simple way, like a girl without malice, her pale face full of eagerness, her imploring eyes already shining with love, looking more like a seraph than a woman. She is really the contemplator asking for the martyrdom of absolute contemplation.

Jesus says one word only after looking at her carefully, as if He wanted to weigh her will: “Yes.”

“Ah! my Lord! What a grace to die out of love for You!” she says falling on her knees and kissing Jesus' feet.

“Stand up, Mary. Take these flowers. They are those of your spiritual wedding. Be as sweet as the fruit of the almond-tree, as pure as its flower and as bright as the oil that is extracted from its fruit, when it is lit, and as sweet smelling as this oil when sated with essences it is spread in banquets or on the heads of kings, scented with your virtues. Then you will really spread on your Lord the balm that He will appreciate infinitely.”

Mary takes the flowers but she does not stand up and in advance of her balms of love she kisses and sheds tears on the feet of her Master.

Maria Valtorta, The Gospel as Revealed to Me, Volume 8 Chapter 550, pp. 472-474.

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Disclaimer: A brief ‘press release’ from a Vatican dicastery has proposed, without offering proof, that her writings are not supernatural [Link]. However, according to the dicastery’s own published standards their press release has no canonical validity [Link, no. 22]. Therefore I am not being disobedient by publicly asserting my 100% human faith that the supernatural revelations of Maria Valtorta are from Heaven.