Living in God’s Eternal Now.

Suffering from five major illnesses simultaneously, Maria Valtorta had offered her pains to Jesus as a victim soul for the salvation of others. In order to encourage her in coping with her offering and suffering, the Lord said to her:

"To love pain is indeed a counsel of perfection [for victim souls], for the command of God, who knows human capacity, limits itself to order you to endure pain out of obedience to God. Many – the majority – are unable to do even this.

"To the best ones God says, 'Love pain since my Son loved it for your good. Do the same for the good of your brothers and sisters.'

"But among the best, who are faithful, convinced, generous, and loving Christians, there is a select category. They are the seraphim of the faithful, the most inflamed with love. The love inflaming them makes them loving as regards what is most difficult, to the point that they not only love the pain which God allows them to be rent with, but ask for it, saying, 'Here I am, Father. I am here to ask you for the same chalice you gave to your Son and for the same reason.' And they become the 'victims.'

"To these, by way of you [Maria], who are one of them, I give this counsel of perfection.

"When pain is atrocious, but brief, it is easier to carry out. But when in its gnawing severity it lasts and lasts […] then it is difficult to persist in carrying out the mission of a victim.

"Well then, […] to live without disequilibrium in the life of victims one must place oneself resolutely on the spiritual plane. To see, think, and act in everything as one acts in the realms of the spirit – that is, in an eternity which always says 'now.'

"Those of you that live for the spirit – how do you want to regard things according to the flesh? What have you asked God for? To make you spiritual creatures. In what time do spiritual creatures, like God, live? In God's time. What is God's time? An eternal present. An eternal 'now.' For your Eternal Father there is no past or future in Heaven. There is the eternal instant.

"God does not experience birth or death, dawn or sunset, beginning or end. The angels, spiritual, like Him, know only 'one day.' A day which began the instant in which they were created and which will have no end. The saints, from the moment of their heavenly birth, become possessors of this immutable celestial time, which does not pass and is fixed in its splendor as a diamond inflamed by God […] while it is always the same and will remain such. For how long? Forever.

"Consider, Maria. If you could count all the grains of sand which are in the seas of the whole world […] you would still have a limit to this number of days. If I joined to them all the drops of water which are in the seas, lakes, rivers, torrents, and brooks [...] you would still have a limit to this number of days. And if I also added all the molecules forming the planets, stars, and nebulae […] you would still have a limited number of days. And if I added the dust buried in the earth, dust which is the earth of men who have gone back with their matter to nothingness […] awaiting the command to become man again and see the triumph of God [..] you would still have a limited number of days.

"The Kingdom of God is eternal, like its King. And eternity knows only one word: 'Now.' You, too, and, with you, all those consecrated to the holocaust [of being a victim soul], must know this word alone to measure the time of pain.

" 'Now.' How long have I been suffering. Since now. When will it cease? Now. The present. For spiritual creatures there is only this which is God's. Time as well. Learn, before the time comes, to calculate time as you will possess it in Paradise. Now.

"Oh, blessed is that time, which is immutable possession, immutable contemplation of God, immutable joy! 'Life is the blinking of an eye; earthly time lasts a breath. But my Heaven is eternal.' This is the chord which must govern your song as creatures who are martyrs and blessed.

"You read in the life of my martyr Cecilia: 'Cecilia was singing in her heart.' You as well – sing in your hearts. Sing the "now" of God, who awaits me: ‘I already find myself enveloped in the abyss of this eternal "now," and this abyss draws me closer and closer to the center of its perfection. I am thus seeing his dust fall away, where every atom is a day, and a grain is a month; I see it fall, blown away by this whirlwind, which, inhales me into God, and it is the love of God, who wants to give me "his" time. He wants to give me his eternal present, where to every second of earthly time there corresponds a receiving into myself of the blessedness of having God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, in an embrace that is always new, always desired, always wanted, without weariness, rich in ever-new splendors, ever-new savors, and ever-new love.’

And I am born [...] and am then reborn to my joy as a blessed one to love Him on and on and on, and to be loved by Him on and on and on. Not more. For there, in Paradise, everything has reached Perfection and is not capable of increases or decreases, but with ever – the – same, fresh rejoicing. Mine as a blessed one embracing God. His, as God, who can pour his love, his essence, over a creature of his whom He created out of love, to receive that person's love and give and give and give that person love.'

"Look at your suffering in this way, my little bride, and its duration will be less than nothing for you. At the end of it I am there. I am.

"My peace be always with you."

From The Notebooks 1944 by Maria Valtorta, Entry for June 12. Her books are available Here.

View my Catholic books Here.