Meeting Maria Valtorta - her spirituality

Meeting Maria Valtorta - her spirituality

CEV 2020 cover page
Work details
Author	François-Michel Debroise
Full title	Meeting Maria Valtorta - her spirituality
Pages	206
Publication	November 2020
Publisher	Centro Editoriale Valtortiano
ISBN	978-88-7987-357-4
Distribution	Bookstore - online sales - Publisher's site

The third volume of the trilogy dedicated to Maria Valtorta addresses the spirituality of this disciple of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, nicknamed by Jesus "Little John" in reference to the apostle that "Jesus loved". For this, the work sets her "inspired writings" in the background to focus more particularly on the writings she authored and the testimonies collected about her.

In conclusion, the author wonders:

"Is Maria Valtorta a saint? Yes, certainly, even if the recognition is not yet official.

Already, by the merit of her Autobiography alone, Maria Valtorta would deserve to be. Like her spiritual godmother, Thérèse of Lisieux whose portrait watched over her bed, she wrote, in her own way, the story of her Soul in all sincerity:

'Be careful,' Heaven had told her, 'everything you write is material that will remain and within which we will dig to reconstruct your life. Therefore, take care to think well about what you say, so as not to diminish yourself and not to exalt yourself.'

When finishing her Autobiography, Maria Valtorta thought she had reached the final point of her earthly race so much had she overcome Trials and endured sufferings. [...] She was mistaken, however: she was neither at the end of her life nor at the end of her holiness. Her holiness was not to be ordinary, but extraordinary. For this, she had to face other Trials, undergo other opprobrium to give everything.

She had faced Satan, she would see him. She knew his opposition, she would experience his rage.

She knew solitude, she would know abandonment.

She knew joy, she would know bliss.

In this, one can say that Maria Valtorta is saintly "threefold". Because there are several degrees in Maria's life [...] Maria is a gift for our time and there lies her glory. She was a seed of holiness, she became a bud, then a flower, and finally seeds. Maria was more than a saint: she was a succession of 'holinesses'".

Contents of the book

• "Little John" the disciple whom Jesus loved - 7 -

Her holiness lies in her Virtues, not in the Work (9) Her relentless path to the meeting of Love. (20) The key to her life is in her last words. (38)

• 1st part: from human loves to Divine Love - 50 -

The glorious path. (59) Christ was born in me. (59) Union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus (66) The co-redeemer Souls (74) Christ endured extreme suffering (78) The "co-redeemers" (81) Mary of the Cross (82) Suffering in loving and suffering without loving (85) The power of the victim offering (93)

• 2nd part: like a violet announcing spring - 112 -

The faithful Soul (114) In the tradition of the Church (115) In the dynamic of renewal (126) The teaching Soul (140) The commentaries (141) The Apocalypse (149) The Soul and the spirit (153)

• The "little queen crowned with love" - 170 -

Additional bibliography - 187 -

General index of persons cited in the trilogy - 191 -

The first pages of the book

"Maria Valtorta’s faithful and trusting love earned her the affectionate nickname "Little John" from Jesus. A reference to the apostle whom Jesus loved. The only one of the twelve who remained faithful to the Calvary, where the violet symbolizing Maria Valtorta’s vocation was found.

Jesus made John the spiritual portrait to Maria and gave him as a model: "John: the first of those who become victims out of love for Me. And you are one of them. My Mother and I are the sublime Victims. It is difficult to reach us, in fact it is impossible, because our sacrifice was of total bitterness. But My John! He is the victim that all My lovers can imitate: virgins, martyrs, confessors, evangelisers, servants of God and of the Mother of God, devoted to activity or contemplation: he is an example for everyone. He is the one who loves. […] John feels he is nothing, he accepts everything, he does not ask for reasons, he is satisfied with making Me happy. That is the example."

The parallel with the evangelist does not stop there. Maria Valtorta, the "Little John," was also an evangelist in her own way, by transcribing the life of Jesus which she was given to see.

Like the Gospel of John, her "revealed" life of Jesus is characterized by a deeper penetration of the mystery of Christ. Like him, Maria Valtorta’s narration brings peculiarities to the known facts of the Gospel by highlighting their depth and power. Like him, her account precisely restores the Palestinian milieu with frequent indications of time, places, and many other things that she recounts as an eyewitness, for following the evangelist, she notes "many other things that Jesus did" (John 21:25).

She records all she saw and heard "so that our joy may be full". But at the final point of this account, on April 28, 1947, her Mission does not end.

She had to suffer to defend this gift from God. She lived misunderstandings and betrayals. She saw the sublime Work shaken by human interests. Worse, she had to see it condemned by those very ones who should have recognized it at once and defended it following the Supreme Pontiff.

She nevertheless continued to record other words from Heaven until it closed under the offense made to it, but it remained faithful to Maria Valtorta who then wrote comments of firm certainty and high theological value herself.

The reward awaited her at "Golgotha," where the self-giving ends and culminates. She accepted to offer everything, completely, integrally, even her spirit. She then took on the appearance of a stupefied rag. But she was already living in the company of God. Despised, abandoned by men, Woman of sorrows, familiar with suffering, she was like the one to whom people turn away. She had identified with that suffering Christ from when she was four years old, whom she saw and loved.

She had finally joined Him."

Her holiness lies in her Virtues, not in the Work.

"Lord, I do not ask you for the glory of visions, but the Grace to love you ever more". (Notebooks 1944, July 14, page 442).

Maria Valtorta’s inspired writings are of such value that one might be tempted to let the glory shine back onto her herself and declare her saint because she allowed us to discover them. Indeed, all these returns to God, all these conversions, all these intimacies with Heaven – could they have existed without her participation and her holiness?

It is Maria Valtorta who transcribed all these inspired writings, and becoming “God’s pen-holder” is not within everyone’s reach. So one is surprised when Jesus tells her: "The Work I gave you. It is my gift. It is not your merit." Does Maria then have no merit? Is her life as an invalid only a convenient situation to allow her to fulfill this function? Far from it. At the conclusion of the Work, Jesus makes sure to specify that Maria is the cause of this gift because she loved God with all her being and her brothers similarly: "And here the Work, that My love for you all has dictated and that you have received through the love that a creature has had for Me and for you, is over."

If Jesus claims to be the sole Author of the Work, it is to better attest to its origin and better show Maria Valtorta’s own merits. He adds indeed, right afterwards: "you will not be holy because you have written the Work, but you will be holy for your sacrifice; for your whole life of love and sacrifice." She will therefore be holy, it is said, it is written. But she will be by her life of love and sacrifice and not for having transcribed inspired works among which one finds The Gospel as Revealed to Me.

[...] If we want to be interested in Maria Valtorta's spirituality, and thus in her holiness, we must put these inspired works in the background to better highlight her thoughts and feelings expressed mainly in her authorial writings.

It is in this sense that we must understand this dictation from Jesus on February 17, 1946 given shortly after Maria Valtorta recorded, on his instruction, her "mystical calendar".

"You transcribed your prayers of love, as I told you to,168 your steps along the way of the Cross. They are more valuable than the visions and the dictations. The latter are a 'school,' and you are a pupil. They are an 'examination result' on what you are. And you know people cannot call themselves educated unless they show proof that they are. As long as they remain at their desks and listen distractedly, without will, can they say they are educated? No, they cannot. But when, at the end of school, they give proof of what is in them and speak about the wisdom they possess instead of listening to the teacher, one can then say, 'This is what the student thinks.' And they are approved, with a certificate which opens the doors for them to employment and income. And for you the gates to heavenly gain, the possession of God, shall be opened, not because you are a 'spokesman,' but because you are a voluntary victim, because with the word of the spirit, with the word of love, you have written 'those' words to crystallize on paper what your spirit was already doing. This alone will be of value to judge you on earth and in Heaven. And this alone will explain why I have made you a 'spokesman.' Because you showed good will and strong love."

She was therefore "at the school" of visions and dictations. We will later see what sublime Fruits this produced in her… and in their readers. But we understand well that her "certificate of holiness" lies in her life. Jesus says it: the value that will allow judging Maria "on Earth and in Heaven" is there.

Thus, Maria Valtorta was not only the faithful transcriber of the visions of Jesus’s life. She previously lived a "way of the cross" in the mystical sense of the term. She then pursued it by suffering martyrdom so that the Work would overcome all obstacles that were – and still are – put on its path. The term "martyrdom" is not exaggerated as this book will try to illustrate.

In one of her last letters to Monsignor Alfonso Carinci, - this close collaborator of Pius XII who supported her before the Holy Office -, she implores the help of his prayers because she can no longer endure, "neither morally nor physically". Knowing all that she lived previously, one guesses the extreme suffering behind this Confession. Which does not prevent that, five days later, in her very last correspondence with the prelate, she will mention her dearest wish: that the Work given by Jesus overcomes all obstacles. For this, she did not fear the physical and moral sufferings that she nevertheless suffered abundantly: "Since 1931 I offered myself as a victim, and I want to remain so". These were the last words she exchanged with Msgr. Carinci. After which she gradually fell into prostration.

[...] Maria Valtorta, by her life, became a "fountain to Save by the Word" and gained, by all her efforts, the right to be a "Spokesman" in a disoriented world, the beginnings "of a regenerated Church."

[...] Her path was long, sometimes chaotic. At each stage, we see her act and react saintly, but Jesus demands more, still more up to the final prostration where she pre-lived eternal bliss, body on earth and Soul already in Heaven.

She very early manifested her vocation to the love of the incarnate Love. That is why she followed Jesus on all the roads He made her take. On this path, there is something stronger than a simple passive consent from Maria Valtorta. Each step she crossed requires adherence of her mind, her Soul, her Heart, and her body. A Fiat.

[...] Being Called, however, is not a guarantee of acquired holiness. Other Souls were likewise Called on this glorious and painful path, especially in this time, then they abandoned: the good seed fell on the edges of the road, on stony ground or among thorns [32]. That is why Maria Valtorta had to cross all these thorns of life to respond to her Call and to make it bear fruit 'a hundred, or sixty, or thirty for one'".

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