[Jesus
says to the
dying woman:]
"Get up, Mary. It's Me. Life is fleeing. It's true. But I have
come to tell you that Christ awaits you. There is no waiting for
Mary. Everything is forgiven her. From the first moment it was
forgiven.
But now it is more than forgiven. Your place is already prepared in
my Kingdom. I have come, Mary, to tell you this. I did not order the
angel to do so because I repay a hundredfold for what I receive, and
I remember what I have received from you.
Mary,
let us together relive a moment in the past. Remember Bethany. It was
the evening after the Sabbath. Six days remained before my death. Do
you remember your house? Everything was beautiful in the blossoming
tract of its orchard. The water was singing in the pool, and the
first roses could be scented around its walls. Lazarus had invited me
to his supper, and you had stripped the garden of the loveliest
flowers to adorn the table where your Master would take his
sustenance. Martha did not dare to reproach you because she
remembered my words and looked at you with gentle envy, for you shone
with love while coming and going for the preparations. And then I
arrived. You ran faster than a gazelle, preceding the servants, to
open the gate with your usual cry. It always sounded like the cry of
a freed prisoner. I was, in fact, your liberation, and you were a
liberated prisoner.
The
apostles were with Me. All of them. Even the one who was then like a
gangrenous member of the apostolic body. But you were there to take
his place. And you did not know that while observing your head
bending to kiss my feet and your sincere, love-filled eyes, I forgot
my disgust over having the betrayer at my side. I wanted you on
Calvary for this
reason. You in
Joseph's garden for
this reason. Because
to see you was to be sure that my death was not without a purpose.
And my showing Myself to you was an act of gratitude for your
faithful love.
Mary,
blessed are you, that have never betrayed […] Me in my hope as the
Redeemer – you, in whom I saw all those saved by my death! While
everyone ate, you worshiped. You had given Me the perfumed water for
my weary feet and chaste, ardent kisses for my hands, and, still not
content, you wanted to break open your last precious vase and anoint
my head, freshening up my hair as a mother does, and anoint my hands
and feet so that all your Master's limbs would be scented as members
of the consecrated King.
And Judas, who hated you because you were now honest and rejected
the appetites of males with your honesty, reproached you. But I
defended you because you had done everything out of love, such a
great love that the memory of it accompanied Me in the agony from
Thursday night until the ninth hour.
Now,
because of this act of love you gave Me on the threshold of my death,
I come, on the threshold of your death, to repay you with love. Your
Master loves you, Mary He is here to say this to you. Do not be
afraid or anxious about another death. Your death is no different
from that of those shedding their blood for my sake. What does the
martyr give? His life out of love for his God. What does the penitent
give? His life out of love for his God. What does the lover give? His
life out of love for his God. See that there is no difference.
Martyrdom, penance, and love consummate the same sacrifice and for
the same purpose. In you, then, a penitent and a lover, there is
martyrdom, as in those perishing in the arenas.
Mary,
I will precede you into glory. Kiss my hand and lie down in peace.
Rest. It is time for you to rest. Give Me your thorns. Now is the
time for roses. Rest and wait. I bless you, blessed one."
Jesus
has obliged Mary to lie down on her couch. And the saint, with her
face washed with tears of ecstasy, has lain down as her God has
wanted her to and now seems to sleep, with her arms crossed over her
chest and her tears continuing to fall, but with a smile on her
mouth.
She
rises again to a sitting position when a very bright radiance appears
in the grotto because of the arrival of an angel bearing a chalice
which he sets upon the altar and worships. Mary, kneeling beside her
cot, worships, too. She can no longer move. Her strength is failing.
But she is blessed. The angel takes the chalice and gives her
Communion. He then goes back up to Heaven.
Mary,
like a flower scorched by too much sun, bends – she bends
with
her arms still crossed over her chest and falls, with her face amidst
the leaves of her cot. She is dead. The Eucharistic ecstasy has cut
the last thread of life.
Jesus
says:
"Although
creatures may be consummate in the generosity of love and in repaying
those who have loved them, they are always very relative. But your
Jesus surpasses all human immensity in desire and every limit to
satisfaction. For your Jesus is God, and to you, the generous and
loving – since this
is a page which I address especially to you, the souls that
are not satisfied with obeying the precept, but embrace the counsel
and push your love for Me to holy acts of heroism – I give with my
abundance as God, and as a good God.
"I
create the miracle for you, to repay you with joy for all the joy you
give Me. I take the place of what you lack or produce what you need.
But I let nothing be lacking for you that have stripped yourselves of
everything out of love for Me to the point of living in a material or
moral solitude in the midst of the world, which does not comprehend
you and which mocks you and which, repeating the insult of old which
was previously directed at Me, your Master, shouts at you, 'Madmen!'
and takes your penances and your lights to be diabolical signs […].
"But
go ahead and let them call you 'madmen and demons.' I know that you
are possessors of true wisdom, of upright intelligence, and that you
have the soul of an angel in a mortal body. I remember, and not a
single loving sigh is forgotten, what you have done for Me; and, as I
defend you against the
world – for I bring the best ones in the world to know what you are
in my eyes – so I compensate you when the
hour comes, and I consider that it is time to infuse some sweetness
into your chalice […].
"I
never disappoint those who hope in Me. Say this over and over again
to everyone. "
Maria
Valtorta, The
Notebooks 1944, March
30, p. 252-259.
View
my books Link.
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.