Believers, Beliefs, Faithful, Righteous

Saint Joseph, the "Just of the just" and the child Jesus - Photograph taken in BWatermotte-lès-Pin (Haute-Saône): interior of the Church Saints-Pierre-et-Paul.

Mary said of Saint Joseph, her chaste spouse and earthly father of Jesus by adoption: "At first, he was only a just man of his time. Then, by successive stages, he became the just of the Christian era. He gained faith in the Christ and peacefully abandons himself to this faith".

The just possess the virtue of Justice: CCC §1807: Justice is the moral virtue consisting in the constant and firm will to give to God and to the Neighbor what is due to them. Justice toward God is called the "virtue of Religion". Toward men, it disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relations the harmony that promotes equity toward persons and the Good common good.
The just man, often mentioned in the holy Books, is distinguished by the habitual uprightness of his thoughts and the rectitude of his conduct toward the Neighbor. “You shall have no partiality to the little, nor shall you favor the great; with justice you shall judge your Neighbor” (Lv 19:15). “Masters, grant to your slaves what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven” (Col 4:1).

In "The Gospel as Revealed to Me"

• Holiness is nothing other than the fruit of the continual Struggle that the Soul and reason of the just wage against the assaults of their bad inclinations, and the fruit of the victory they achieve in the effort to remain faithful to Love. (Lessons on the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans, Lesson No. 23, page 145)
• To an apostle who said: "It is only with us that they are without love. But we are different from them. That is just." “No, in the Kingdom of my Father it is not just and the manner of judging will be different. It is not the rich and the powerful, as such, who will have honors, but only those who have always loved God. Yes, even the wicked must be loved. Not for their wickedness, but out of pity for their Souls whom they mortally wound. They must be loved with a love that supplicates the Heavenly Father of heavenly paradise to heal and redeem them.”
• Friend! But do you know, Ishmael, the meaning I give to this word? For many a friend it means an acquaintance, for others an accomplice, for others a servant. For Me it means: faithful to the Word of the Father. He who is not that cannot be a friend to Me, nor I to him.
• Popular beliefs arise, spread by hearsay.
• Think of the many who still await Me, of the many who will have to die without having seen Me, of the many who will have to love Me without ever having known Me.
• With some poor, little fish and with a few crumbs of bread: humble Souls and laity, I will feed a great number and they will be filled.

In other works of Maria Valtorta

Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans

• Holiness is nothing other than the fruit of the continual Struggle that the Soul and reason of the just wage against the assaults of their bad inclinations, and the fruit of the victory they achieve in the effort to remain faithful to Love. (Lessons on the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans, Lesson No. 23, page 145)

Notebooks

• Catechesis of July 1, 1943: When I spoke of the ‘ten just’, I did not mean that the place where ten just people will be found will be saved. But one can understand without mistake that if ten just and generous Souls gather in prayer, for a holy end, to ask for pity for a place, I will not reject their prayer.

Notes and references

Note: Quotations from the work of Maria Valtorta on this page currently use machine-translated text and will gradually be replaced by the official English translation. Until then, the official translation may be consulted through the reference link provided with each quotation.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992).