The Future of the Church and of Israel.

 

From chapter 264, The Poem of the Man-God, by Maria Valtorta.

 

 

“In those days they will arrest you laying hands on you, they will drag you before law courts, garrison commanders and kings, to judge and condemn you for the great sin, in the eyes of the world, of being the servants of God, the ministers and guardians of Good, the masters of virtue. And for that same reason you will be scourged and punished in many ways and even killed. And you will give testimony of Me […] confessing with your blood that you love Christ, the True Son of the True God.

 

“When you are in their hands do not worry about what you have to reply and what you have to say. […] You will be given the words to be spoken at the time. Your Father will put them on your lips because it is not you who will be speaking to convert people to your Faith and profess the Truth, but it will be the Spirit of the Father Who will speak in you.

 

“Brother will then betray brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against their parents and have them put to death. Do not be shocked or scandalised! Tell Me: according to you is it a greater crime to kill a father, a son, a brother, or God Himself?”

 

“God cannot be killed,” replies sharply Judas Iscariot. 

 

“That is true [...] confirms Bartholomew. And the others [...] are all of the same opinion.

 

“I am God and I am Flesh,” says Jesus calmly. 

 

“No one is thinking of killing You.” retorts the Iscariot.

 

“Please, reply to My question.”

 

“Of course, it is a graver crime to kill God!”

 

“Well: God will be killed by man, in the Flesh of the Man-God and in the soul of the murderers of the Man-God. So, as they will go so far as committing that crime, without the murderers being horrified at it, so the crimes of fathers, brothers and children, against children, brothers and fathers will be committed.

 

“You will be hated by all men on account of My Name. But he who stands firm until the end will be saved. And when they persecute you in one town, take refuge in the next one. Not out of cowardice, but to give time to the new-born Church of Christ to reach the age, not of a weak incapable unweaned child, but an older age in which it will be able to face life and death without being afraid of Death. Let those flee who are advised by the Spirit to flee. As I fled when a child. Truly, all the vicissitudes of My earthly life will be repeated in My Church. All of them. From the mystery of its formation to the humbleness of the early times, to the perturbation and snares brought about by cruel people, to the necessity of fleeing to continue to live, from poverty and unremitting work, to many more events that I am living now, that I will suffer later, before reaching My eternal triumph. On the other hand let those remain who are advised by the Spirit to remain. Because even if they are killed they will live and be useful to the Church. Because what the Spirit of God advises, is always good.

 

“I solemnly tell you that you and your successors will not have covered all the roads and all the towns in Israel before the Son of Man comes. Because on account of its dreadful sin Israel will be scattered like chaff by a whirlwind, and will be spread all over the earth and centuries and millennia will go by before it is gathered again [...]. Every time Israel will try to gather together, before the predetermined hour, it will be caught once again in the whirlwind and scattered, because Israel will have to weep for its sin for as many centuries as the drops of blood that will flow from the veins of the Lamb of God sacrificed for the sins of the world. And My Church, which will be struck by Israel in Me and in My apostles and disciples, will have to open its motherly arms and endeavor to gather Israel under its mantle, as a brooding hen does with its stray chickens.

 

“When the whole of Israel will be under the mantle of the Church of Christ, then I will come. But that applies to the future.”

View my Catholic web site Here.

Newest Book (actually I am just the editor)

Saints Patrick and Brigid, Patrons of Ireland.

 

Enjoy these two quaint and charming 19th century biographies of the two most important patrons of Ireland, St. Patrick and St. Brigid. Follow St. Patrick as he journeyed throughout Ireland, converting the nation from the paganism of the Druids. Learn how St. Brigid was one of the very first women to gather consecrated virgins into convents. See their connection with the geography of the land and its early saints, and with each other.

Available in paperback or ebook format.

Click HERE to see on Amazon

See all of my books Here.

 

What is Baptism, Really?

From St. Azariah’s commentary for the Mass of the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. 

 

The saint expounds on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 6:3-11. Following is the Epistle from the online Douay-Rheims Bible https://www.drbo.org/chapter/52006.htm

 

“Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in his death? For we are buried together with him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. 

 

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ: Knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall no more have dominion over him. For in that he died to sin, he died once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God: So do you also reckon, that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

 

Notes:

“Our old man": Our corrupt state, subject to sin and concupiscence, coming to us from Adam, is called our old man, as our state, reformed in and by Christ, is called the new man.

"Body of sin": The vices and sins, which then ruled in us, are named the body of sin.

St. Azariah, the guardian angel of Maria Valtorta, dictated to her fifty-eight detailed mystical meditations and commentary on all of the Sunday Masses, plus a few others, found in the Traditional Roman Missal of the Catholic Church. No Traditional Catholic should be without this collection. 

 

For the Mass of the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, he told her: “[…] I propose to you the meditation in Paul’s epistle, so little understood even by those calling themselves fervent Catholics. What is Baptism, exactly? Most would answer, ‘A ceremony which is usually performed at the beginning of life to show we are Catholics’; another, smaller group would say, ‘It is the Sacrament which cancels out original sin and restores Grace to us.’ They would, indeed, have answered well, showing themselves sufficient to live in a Catholic way […] if good will is joined to knowledge.

“But very few would go further in thought to the point of thoroughly examining what Baptism truly is, what it is formed of, its real nature, hidden under the substances used for the rite. If many thought of the ‘nature’ of Catholic Baptism and if many did their best to make their children or godchildren understand this nature from the most tender age, there would truly arise in both these children and their parents or godparents a profound love for Christ, such a love that it would restrain them from sinning, such a strong love that it would lead to holy works […] and with love pay the debt we owe to Christ, and also pay our debt to the Most High with pain. 

 

“[…] This restraining from sin, this loving gratitude to Him who restores your nature as children of God – the sharing, through Grace, in Life, glory and divinity – comes spontaneously in whoever is able to contemplate Baptism for what it really is. 

 

“It is immersion in the suffering of Christ, in His tears, in His blood, in His humiliations, in His death. This is under the species of water.

 

“The Victor over Death died to destroy the truest death: that of sin. And He opened His veins to give you the means to make your souls white, and He let His chest be rent to gather you into the hollow of His Heart. And have you rise from there to a life of Grace.

 

“[...] But it is required that man second Him so that the blood of the Lamb will not cry out against you, as against sacrilegious mockers and dissipators of His Sacrifice. 

 

“If the Catholic considered these things, he would no longer call Baptism a ‘ceremony’; he would see it not only as a Sacrament which restores Grace and cancels out sin, but as the holocaust of Christ, who opened his veins to give you the lavacre which takes away evil and makes you sharers in Good […], to infuse into you the Virtues indispensable to save yourselves and, therefore, to make you capable as well of understanding Wisdom, believing, hoping in Mercy. 

 

“Whoever is born and rises again in the Blood of Christ and remains faithful to that Blood no longer dies, but lives in Jesus Christ the Savior, having, like Him, overcome the world and Satan in taming concupiscences. 

 

“[Addressing Maria Valtorta:] Rest soul of mine. I gave you few words so that you would not tremble at being abandoned. […] Offer your suffering as a sharing in the Holy Sacrifice of this Sunday.”

Websites where you can find the English translation of The Book of Azariah.

 

https://www.valtorta.org.au/Books_Booklets_and_Audio.html

https://mariavaltortastore.com/en/books/the-book-of-azariah/

View my Catholic website  www.frankrega.com

 

Book Review:

 

  The Soldier and the Saint, Memoirs of an American Soldier

The soldier is Private First Class Joseph W. Peluso from Western Pennsylvania. The core of this enjoyable book consists of Peluso’s own personal memoirs of his forty-five visits to Padre Pio, from October 1944 to July of 1945. It is also profusely illustrated with photos of many of the people he met at the time, including stills from movies he took. 

 

Joe passed on in 1996. This book was compiled from Joe’s notebooks by his son-in-law Thomas Konvolinka. You will meet here a different Padre Pio from the priest and man-of-God presented in his formal biographies. Instead this is a very informal close-up of an extremely affectionate, loving person, with a wonderful sense of humor. 

 

This is a fun read. Joe Peluso was so close to Padre Pio and to the Superior of the Friary, Padre Agostino, that he was allowed on some occasions to dine with the friars in their own refectory, sitting next to Padre Pio. “Padre Pio is served everything that the others are served, but he does not eat it because he eats very little. You could put all the food that he eats in one day in the cup of your hand. He eats no meat whatsoever, and eats fish only occasionally if it is fresh fish caught from Gulf of Manfredonia. […] Padre Pio sat there telling funny stories all during the meal, and the priests would have to hold their sides for fear that they would open over the laughter. Some even got up from the table in order to stop laughing and wipe the tears that were running down their cheeks.” 

 

The Friary was thirty-seven miles from his army camp, which was just south of the city of Foggia. When Joe could not arrange for a ride with his buddies, he would hitch-hike all the way up the mountain. During these journeys to the friary he was often given rides from colorful characters, such as a truckload of Gurkha soldiers, who were fighting alongside the British. You will meet Count John Telfener, Red Cross Director William Carrigan, Padre Pio’s father known as Nono, the Padre’s older brother Mike, and other family members. Not to be overlooked is Mary Pyle, the “Americana” who gave up her worldly life in the USA to live near the Padre. Her dining room hosted Peluso and his buddies quite a number of times. 

 

There were even a few miracles, such as the gift of tongues, and the aroma of sanctity. Although in most cases, the only word of Padre Pio’s Italian that Joe understood was “America.” He was there for Padre Pio’s fifty-eighth birthday party, for the Christmas eve Mass, and for the wedding of the saint’s niece Pia. 

 

After each visit he wrote an account of his experiences and the people he met. Here is a short excerpt from visit number thirty-eight. Joe is in the Friar’s refectory, sitting next to Padre Pio for dinner. “After finishing my dinner, dessert, and all of Padre Pio’s food and most of his wine, I was filled to the brim. However, he started to nibble on a little fruit and nuts in the little drawer under the table. He ate a few and gave me a handful to eat. I ate some and saved some for what I considered relics. Again, my glass was empty, and I had drunk all of my wine and almost all of his. He took his bottle and filled my glass down to the last drop of wine from his bottle. My glass was filled to the very top, not another drop could have fit in, and yet, it did not run over. After dinner we all sat around and everyone joined in the conversation. When it was time to leave, Padre Pio took me by the arm, and took me into the sacristy of the Church. We knelt and prayed together at the altar. After prayers, I went into the back room with the priests. All of them bid me goodbye, and then Padre Pio gave me a very fatherly and heavenly embrace, kissed my cheeks and we bid each other goodbye.”

 

Actually it was Joe Peluso who did the most to open the floodgates for the hundreds of troops who eventually come to San Giovanni Rotondo to receive the sacraments from Padre Pio. Peluso wanted to share his “discovery” of Padre Pio with the Allied soldiers stationed in southern Italy, and not just the Americans and Catholics. He asked Padre Pio if it was possible to change the 5 AM Mass to 9 AM, so that the troops could attend, and it was done. Peluso also desired to have an article appear in the “Stars and Stripes” armed forces newspaper about Padre Pio, and that also was done. 

 

In addition to the forty-five “memoirs” of his visits to the saint, the book also has a chapter on Padre Pio’s life and also on Mary Pyle, and closes with additional stories from Peluso’s note cards and his daughter, his return visit to Italy forty-three years later, and quotes from Padre Pio. 

 

This 140-page book is currently available directly from the author. For single copies, send check or money order for $17.45 (which includes $4.50 for S & H) to:

 

Thomas Konvolinka

6530 Leo’s Lane

Fennville, MI 49408

Please include your email address with your order in case of any questions.

For multiple copies or bookstore pricing, contact Tom at: konvolinka at gmail.com

 

Lord Jesus, Increase Your Love in Me.

Notice that this prayer does not ask ‘increase my love for You Jesus,’ but instead it petitions Jesus to increase His love in us. That is because the Lord needs to pour forth His infinite love for us, which is rejected by so many. “I pour it into those who love Me to receive comfort therefrom.” This is the secret for increasing in holiness. The more he effuses His love in us, the more we shall love.

The only place I have ever seen this prayer is in the writings of the mystic and victim soul, Maria Valtorta. On March 30, 1949 she wrote that the Lord told her this: “Along with the great John, you, little John, should repeat the short perfect request: ‘Lord Jesus, increase Your love in me.’ Repeat it! Repeat it! I need to pour forth this infinite love of mine, which so many reject. […] I pour it into you.”

The great John is the Apostle St. John, the Evangelist. The little John refers to Maria Valtorta herself, it is how the Lord often refers to her, because of her mission as an evangelist of the gospel.

The Lord said, “Along with the great John,” because it was St. John himself who first prayed this prayer, as recorded in a vision Maria received a few years earlier, on April 28, 1945. It takes place near the beginning of the second year of the public life of Jesus, and He is talking with his twelve Apostles – the topic is suffering and death.

“I will endeavour to get accustomed to suffering,” says Bartholomew. […] “I am old and all I ask for is to precede You and enter peace with You,” says Simon Zealot. […] “I will be unhappy if I survive You. But I will be comforted by preaching You to the people,” says the Iscariot.

The Apostles continue to comment, and finally Andrew exclaims, “Oh! Keep quiet. You would think that the Master is to die soon! I do not want to think of His death!” Peter, his brother, responds that he is quite right, since Jesus is young and healthy. But the Lord interjects: “What if they killed Me?”

Peter replies, “Let that never happen to You, but I will avenge You.” “How, by a blood vengeance?” “Well, also by that means if You will allow me. Otherwise by my profession of faith amongst the peoples. […] The world will love You because I will be indefatigable in preaching You.” The Lord replies, “That is true and that is what will happen. And what about you John, and you, Matthew?” The latter replies, “I must suffer and wait until I have washed my soul by suffering a great deal.”

John on the other hand does not seem to know for sure what to answer. He affirms that he would like to die at once so that he would not have to see Jesus suffer. He would like to be near the Lord to comfort Him in His agony. Then he also says that he would like to live a long time in order to serve Him. He continues with, “I would like to die with You to enter heaven with You. I would like everything, because I love You. And I think that I, the least of my brothers, will be able to do all that, if I know how to love You properly." Then John concludes with, “Jesus, increase your Love!”

Judas the Iscariot tries to correct him. “You mean, increase my love,” he remarks.

John: “No. I say: ‘increase Your love.’ Because the more He will inflame us with His love, the more we shall love.”

Jesus is pleased by John’s words, and drawing him closer says, “It is not a mistake, but a wise prayer, to ask God to increase His love in one’s heart.” He says that John has revealed a mystery of God about the sanctification of hearts. “God effuses Himself to just souls, and the more they surrender to His love, the more He increases it, and their holiness grows greater. That is the mysterious and ineffable work of God and of souls. It is accomplished in mystical silence, and its power, which cannot be described in human words, creates indescribable masterpieces of holiness.”

Lord Jesus, increase Your love in me. Repeat it! Repeat it!

Based on The Notebooks, 1945-1950, page 520; and The Gospel as Revealed to Me, chapter 149.

View my Catholic books Here.

 

 

 

St. Paul’s Prison Mass – A Vision of St. Paul and the Early Martyrs.

Based upon a vision experienced by Maria Valtorta, reported in The Notebooks 1944, February 29, pp. 176-186.

 

It is one of the earliest persecutions, and St. Paul will soon be holding Mass in a dark chamber for the future martyrs incarcerated there by the Emperor Nero. It is not Rome’s Mamertine, but the Tullianum jail. It is a large, dark cellar made of blocks of stone and oozing moisture. Its small size is not sufficient for the great throng of Christian prisoners held therein. They are from every age and social condition, from the elderly who were not mercifully allowed to die a natural death, to little children only a few years old who should have been left free to play their innocent games.

 

Packed together, the rich and poor, the Romans, Greeks, Iberians and Thracians, and others of different origins, have one thing in common, their love for one another. The strongest give up their places, on seats of stone, to the weaker, and the healthiest aid those who are sick. They surrender their cloaks and togas to help bind the wounds of those suffering from tortures previously undergone. 

 

They sing from time to time, until a child moans in the darkness, halting the song.

 

Someone asks, “Who is crying?” and the answer comes: “It is Castulus. The fever and the burn give him no relief. He is thirsty and cannot drink because the water burns his lips, scorched by the fire.”

 

The face of the child Castulus is one big burn; perhaps once handsome, now he is monstrous. There are no longer cheeks and nose, but a bright red swelling, and instead of eyes and lips, there are just open wounds. Apparently they must have held his face over a flame, and only his face, for the rest of his body is not burnt. 

 

An imposing matron says, “I am a mother who no longer has her baby to give milk to, have Castulus brought to me, milk burns less than water.” It is Plautina, who is sitting on one of the blocks of stone against a wall. A man comes forward and carefully takes the child of about 8 years into his arms and lays him along the lap of the matron, as if upon a bed. Plautina looks like the mother of sorrows, as tears roll down her cheeks. She squeezes her breast so that the milk trickles into the mouth of the boy, and lets some of it fall upon his face to medicate it with its balm. Castulus caresses her hand in thanksgiving, and lets himself be rocked to sleep by the Roman matron. 

 

The singing resumes, until interrupted by a voice that says, “Fabius is dead; let us pray.” They all pray the Our Father and another prayer. An old man exclaims, “How fortunate is Fabius, he is already seeing Christ!” Another person answers, “We too shall see Him Felix, and go to him with the two-fold crown of faith and martyrdom. […] We sinned greatly – we who were pagans for long years – and it is a great grace for the jubilee of martyrdom to come to us to make us new, worthy of the Kingdom.” 

 

Suddenly a voice thunders: “Peace be with you my brothers and sisters.” 

 

“Paul! Paul! Bless us!”

 

“Peace be with you,” the Apostle repeats, as he advances into the area with two other priests. 

 

“What about the Pontiff?” many ask. 

 

“He [Peter] is alive for now and safe in the catacombs; he sends you his greeting and blessing. He would have come but he is too well known among the jailers. I, less well-known and a Roman citizen, have come. Brothers and sisters, what news do you have for me?”

 

“Fabius is dead,”

 

“Castulus is suffering martyrdom.”

 

“Sixta has now been led to torture.”

 

“Linus has been taken with Urbanus and his sons to Mamertinus or to the Circus, we do not know.”

 

And Paul, with his arms opened in the form of a cross, prays in the middle of the dungeon: “Let us pray for them – whether alive or dead – that Christ may give all of them his Peace” After their prayers, Paul asks: “Where is Castulus?” He is told that he is on Plautina’s lap, in the back of the jail.

 

Paul cuts through the throng and blesses the child and matron. Castulus has awakened, and meekly raises a hand to Paul, who says to him: “Be strong, Castulus, Jesus is with you.” But the child cries, and moving his scorched lips with difficulty, laments that he can no longer receive his Lord. 

 

Paul responds: “Don’t cry; can you swallow a single crumb? You can? Well then, I’ll give you the Body of the Lord. Then I’ll go to your mother – what should I say to her?” “Tell her fire does not hurt when the angels are with us and that she shouldn’t fear for my sake or for hers. The Savior will give us strength.”

 

The Apostle then relates to the jailed Christians how a fourteen year-old girl named Lucina “. . . was tortured with a thousand torments. Beaten, hung, stretched out, and twisted with tongs. And she was always healed by the work of God. […] Then, unable to break and destroy the lily of her purity in any way, the tyrant ordered that she be bound and hung in such a fashion that she would remain as if seated and then lowered swiftly onto a pointed wedge, which tore apart her viscera. […] She is now in peace. The barbarian thought he had thus taken away her beloved virginity, but her purity had never flourished so beautifully as in that bloodbath.

 

“Courage, brothers and sisters. I had fed her yesterday with the Bread of Heaven, and with the taste of that Bread she went to her final martyrdom. I shall now give that Bread to you as well. […] The Circus awaits you. And you do not fear. In the beasts and snakes you will see celestial appearances, for God will work this miracle for you, and the jaws and coils will seem to you to be loving embraces; the roars and hisses, heavenly voices.”

 

All of the Christians, except for Plautina with Castulus on her lap, kneel and sing psalms of praise. At the same time, some friendly Roman soldiers and jailers enter, and mount guard over the group, while Paul prepares for the rite of Mass. 

 

“You shall be our altar,” he says to Castulus. “Can you hold the chalice on your chest?”

 

The child answers “Yes,” and a linen cloth is spread over his little body as he lays along the lap of Plautina. The chalice and the bread are set upon the cloth. The Mass is served by Paul and the two priests accompanying him. 

 

The Mass seems to contain “...parts now lacking and to lack parts now in use [in 1944]. It lacks the epistle, for instance, and after the blessing – ‘May the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit bless you’ – there is nothing else. But the parts are the same as now from the Gospel to the Consecration. The Gospel read was that of the Beatitudes.” [St. Matthew’s gospel was possibly written about ten years before Nero’s persecution began.]

 

After breaking the Host, Paul is about to bend over the little martyr to give him Communion as the first of all, with a tiny particle; but Plautina says, “He is dead.” Paul pauses for an instant, and then gives the matron the particle meant for Castulus. The child has remained with his fingers closed over the base of the chalice in his final contraction, and they have to disengage them from it in order to take the chalice and give it to the others. 

 

The Mass ends after Communion has been distributed. The Apostle removes his vestments and places them and the linen cloth, the chalice, and the receptacle for the hosts in a bag he is carrying under his cloak. Paul then takes the body of the little martyr Castulus, in order to give him a proper burial. As he goes out carrying the child, he blesses everyone: “Brothers and sisters, may peace be with you, and remember me when you are in the Kingdom.”

~ ~ ~

The victim soul and mystic Maria Valtorta was graced with over 20 visions of the heroic witness and martyrdom of the early Christians (e.g. St. Cyprian, St. Agnes, Pope St. Cletus), which occurred during the seminal years of the Catholic Church. The following depiction of St. Paul holding Mass for imprisoned Christians condemned to death under Nero is based on a detailed vision granted by the Lord to her in 1944, and recorded in her Notebooks. The treasury of this set of visions is especially relevant now, since it refutes the disgraceful lie of the modernists and revisionists that the death of Christians in the Colosseum and Circus Maximus is nothing more than a pious fabrication and myth. These visions are not included in her Opus, The Gospel as Revealed to Me, since they occurred after the Gospel era, but they comprise part of her three Notebooks. All of the chapters of the Gospel as Revealed to Me were lifted from her Notebooks, and that aforementioned book has received four Imprimaturs.

View my Catholic writings Here.

 

Nennolina

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". 

 

While it is remarkable that a six year-old child has been acknowledged as Venerable by the Church, it is equally extraordinary to learn that a young child could write letters such as the one below, addressed to the Holy Trinity. In this letter, written with childlike simplicity, she prays to each member of the Holy Trinity individually and familiarly. She speaks of sacrifices in reparation for sins, spiritual Communion, Calvary and the Cross, the Blessed Sacrament, sanctification of her body and soul, prayers for the pope and the Church, and more. And it is only one of over 160 that have been preserved. She wrote them while suffering from the painful metastasis of cancer through much of her body.

04/02/1937 Letter No. 132 [spelling and format retained].

 

Dear Most Holy Trinity,

Dear God the Father I wish you very very well!...Dear God the Father what a beautiful name

Father!...I want to say it with as much more respect than when I don’t say it with as much

respect as it should be said. Dear God the Father I ask Your forgiveness for all these sins that I

have committed, Dear God the Father I want to make many sacrifices to make reparation for all

the sins that on this day are committed dear God the Father and forgive many many sinners,

make is so repentent the come into Paradise to glorify the Most Holy Trinity.

Dear Jesus, I can’t come to receive you sacramentally every day in my heart, but come at least

spiritually.

Dear Jesus now that you are in my heart remain always always with me and make it so I can

come into Paradise.

Dear Jesus, I want to be always always on calvary beneath Your cross and also want to be Your

lamp that burns day and night before the Most Blessed Sacrament of the altar. Dear Jesus I

wish you very very well.

Dear Holy Spirit, You who are the love that unites the Father to the Son Sanctify my body and

my soul and make me come soon into Paradise. Dear Holy Spirit, You who are the Spirit of love

inflame my heart with love for Jesus.

Dear Holy Spirit I wish You very very well, dear Holy Spirit make me grow always more good

and make it so one day I can come into Paradise.

Dear Most Holy Trinity, Bless the Church the Pope the Clergy my family and all the world.

Greetings and kisses from Your dear

ANTONIETTA AND JESUS

 

Shortly after Nennolina wrote her final letter, 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 the letters she had been writing, 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 1944 Our Lord spoke to a mystic 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, p. 357.]

Less than a month later Nennolina herself appeared to Maria Valtorta while she was at prayer in the early morning hours of July 5, 1944. 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, pp. 421-422.]

 

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