Notes for this theme
Reading comfort
GRM 5.13
To man and woman, corrupted by Satan, God decided to oppose the Man born of a Woman Whom God had super-sublimed to such an extent that She generated without knowing man: a Flower that generates a Flower, without the need of seed, by a unique kiss of the Sun on the inviolated chalice of the Lily-Mary.
GRM 5.13-14
To man and woman, corrupted by Satan, God decided to oppose the Man born of a Woman Whom God had super-sublimed to such an extent that She generated without knowing man: a Flower that generates a Flower, without the need of seed, by a unique kiss of the Sun on the inviolated chalice of the Lily-Mary.
5.14 The revenge of God!
Hiss, O Satan, your hatred while She comes into the world! This Child has beaten you! Before you were the Rebel, the Twister, the Corruptor, you were already beaten and She was your Conqueror. One thousand assembled armies are of no avail against your power, the arms of men fall before your scales, o Perennial One, and there is no wind capable of dispersing the stench of your breath. And yet, the heel of this Child, which is so rosy as to look like the inside of a rosy camellia, and is so smooth and soft that silk seems coarse in comparison, and is so small that it could enter the chalice of a tulip and make itself a tiny shoe with that vegetable satin, that heel is crushing your head without any fear and relegates you to your den. And Her cry causes you to flee away, although you are not afraid of armies. And Her breath purifies the world of your foul smell. You are defeated. Her name, Her look, Her purity are lances and thunderbolts that pierce you and demolish you and imprison you in your den in Hell, o Cursed One, who deprived God of the joy of being the Father of all men created!
In vain you have corrupted them, who had been created innocent, leading them to knowledge and conception by means of the sensuousness of lust, depriving God, in His beloved creature, of being the benefactor of the children according to rules, which, had they been respected, would have kept a balance on earth between sexes and races, a balance capable of avoiding wars between people and calamities between families.
By obeying, they would have also known love. Indeed, only by obeying they would have known love and possessed it. A complete and peaceful possession of this gift from God, Who from the supernatural descends to the inferior, so that also the flesh may rejoice devoutly, since it is united to the spirit and created by Him Who created the spirit.
Now, men, what is your love, what are your loves? Either lewdness disguised as love or an incurable fear of losing the love of your partner through her or other people’s lewdness. You are never sure of possessing the heart of your husband or wife, since lust entered the world. And you tremble and cry and become overwrought with jealousy, sometimes you kill to avenge a betrayal, sometimes you despair, and sometimes you lack will or even become insane.
This is what you have done, Satan, to the children of God. Those whom you have corrupted, would have known the joy of having children without suffering any pain and would have experienced the joy of being born without fear of dying. But now you are beaten in a Woman and by a Woman. From now on, whoever loves Her will become once again God’s own, overcoming your temptations, to be able to look at Her immaculate purity. From now on mothers, though not able to conceive without pain, will find comfort in her. From now on She will be the guide for married women and the Mother of dying people, so that it will be sweet to die resting on that breast which is a shield against you, you Cursed One, and against the wrath of God.
GRM 5.14-15
The sublime victory of God over Satan’s revenge was to raise the perfection of the beloved creature to a super-perfection that should annul, at least in one person, all recollection of humanity, liable to Satan’s poison, so that the Son should be generated not by a man’s chaste embrace, but by a divine embrace that causes the spirit to change colour in the ecstasy of the Fire.
5.15 The Virgin’s Virginity!…
Come. Contemplate this deep virginity that gives ecstatic dizziness in its contemplation! What is the poor enforced virginity of a woman that no man married? Less than nothing. What is the virginity of a woman who wanted to be a virgin to belong to God, but is so in her body and not in her spirit, where she allows alien thoughts to enter and entertains allurements of human thoughts? It is a sham virginity, but still very little. What is the virginity of a cloistered nun who lives only for God? Very much. But it is never the perfect virginity when compared with My Mother’s.
There has always been an union, also in the most holy one. The original union between spirit and Fault. The one that only Baptism dissolves. It dissolves it, but as in the case of a woman separated from her husband by his death, it does not render virginity complete such as it was in the First Parents before Sin. A scar remains and hurts causing one to remember it, and it is always ready to become a sore like certain diseases that periodically are made worse by their virus. In the Virgin there is no sign of this dissolved union with the Fault. Her soul appears beautiful and intact as when the Father conceived Her, gathering all graces in Her.
She is the Virgin. She is the Only One. She is the Perfect One. The Complete One. Conceived as such. Generated as such. Remained such. Crowned such. Eternally such. She is the Virgin. She is the abyss of intangibility, of purity, of grace that is lost in the Abyss from which it emerged: in God: most perfect Intangibility, Purity, Grace.
That is the revenge of the God Triune and One. Against creatures desecrated He raises this Star to perfection. Against unhealthy curiosity He raises this Coy Virgin, contented only with loving God. Against the science of evil, this sublime Innocent Virgin. In Her there is not only no knowledge of dejected love: there is not only non-acquaintance with the love that God had given to married people. Much more. In Her there is the absence of incentives, the inheritance of Sin. In Her there is only the icy and white-hot wisdom of divine love. A fire that strengthens the flesh with ice, so that it may be a transparent mirror at the altar where God married a Virgin and does not lower Himself because His perfection embraces Her perfection, which, as it becomes a bride, is only inferior to His by one point, subject to Him as a Woman, but without fault as He is.»
GRM 5.14
You are defeated. Her name, Her look, Her purity are lances and thunderbolts that pierce you and demolish you and imprison you in your den in Hell, o Cursed One, who deprived God of the joy of being the Father of all men created!
Jesus speaks to Satan and evokes his Mother
GRM 5.14
The sublime victory of God over Satan’s revenge was to raise the perfection of the beloved creature to a super-perfection that should annul, at least in one person, all recollection of humanity, liable to Satan’s poison, so that the Son should be generated not by a man’s chaste embrace, but by a divine embrace that causes the spirit to change colour in the ecstasy of the Fire.
Jesus speaks of Mary.
GRM 5.15
It dissolves it, but as in the case of a woman separated from her husband by his death, it does not render virginity complete such as it was in the First Parents before Sin. A scar remains and hurts causing one to remember it, and it is always ready to become a sore like certain diseases that periodically are made worse by their virus. In the Virgin there is no sign of this dissolved union with the Fault. Her soul appears beautiful and intact as when the Father conceived Her, gathering all graces in Her.
She is the Virgin. She is the Only One. She is the Perfect One. The Complete One. Conceived as such. Generated as such. Remained such. Crowned such. Eternally such. She is the Virgin. She is the abyss of intangibility, of purity, of grace that is lost in the Abyss from which it emerged: in God: most perfect Intangibility, Purity, Grace.
That is the revenge of the God Triune and One. Against creatures desecrated He raises this Star to perfection. Against unhealthy curiosity He raises this Coy Virgin, contented only with loving God. Against the science of evil, this sublime Innocent Virgin. In Her there is not only no knowledge of dejected love: there is not only non-acquaintance with the love that God had given to married people. Much more. In Her there is the absence of incentives, the inheritance of Sin. In Her there is only the icy and white-hot wisdom of divine love. A fire that strengthens the flesh with ice, so that it may be a transparent mirror at the altar where God married a Virgin and does not lower Himself because His perfection embraces Her perfection, which, as it becomes a bride, is only inferior to His by one point, subject to Him as a Woman, but without fault as He is.»
GRM 6.1-5
6.1 In Jerusalem I see Joachim and Anne, together with Zacharias and Elizabeth, coming out of a house, which must belong to friends or relatives, and they are heading towards the Temple for the ceremony of the Purification.
Anne is carrying the Baby, all wrapped up in swaddling clothes, or rather, all tied up in a wide garment of light wool, which, however, must be soft and warm. It is impossible to describe how carefully and lovingly she carries and watches her little creature, lifting the edge of the fine warm cloth to see if Mary is breathing freely, and then she readjusts it to protect Her from the sharp air of a clear but cold winter day.
Elizabeth is holding some parcels in her hands. Joachim is pulling with a rope two big and very white lambs, which are more like rams than lambs. Zacharias has nothing in his hands. He is handsome in his linen garment, which can be seen under a white heavy woollen mantle. Zacharias, much younger than the one already seen at the birth of the Baptist, in his full manhood, as Elizabeth is a mature woman, but still fresh in her appearance: and she bends in ecstasy over the tiny sleeping face, every time Anne looks at the Baby. She also looks beautiful in her blue almost dark violet dress and in her veil that covers her head and then falls on her shoulders and on the mantle, which is darker than her dress.
But Joachim and Anne are certainly solemn in their best clothes. Unexpectedly, he is not wearing his dark brown tunic. Instead he has on a long garment of a very deep red, which we would now call St. Joseph’s red, and the fringes attached to his mantle are new and beautiful. He, too, is wearing a kind of rectangular veil on his head and it is secured with a leather band. Everything is new and of excellent quality.
Anne, oh! She is not wearing dark clothes today! Her dress is a very pale yellow, almost the colour of old ivory, tied at her waist, neck and wrists with a large belt that seems of silver and gold. Her head is covered by a very light damask veil, held at her forehead by a thin but precious plate. She has a filigree necklace around her neck and bracelets at her wrists. She is like a queen, also because of the dignity with which she wears her dress, and particularly her cape, which is of a light yellow colour hemmed with a Greek fret beautifully embroidered in the same shade.
«You look exactly as the day you got married. I was just a little older than a girl, then, but I still remember how beautiful and happy you were» says Elizabeth.
«But now I am even more so… and I decided to wear the same dress for this rite. I had kept it for this… and I was no longer expecting to put it on for this.»
6.2 «The Lord has loved you very much…» says Elizabeth sighing.
«And that is why I am giving Him the thing I love most. This flower of mine.»
«How will you be able to tear it from your heart when the time comes?»
«Remembering that I did not have her and that God gave her to me. I shall always be happier now than then. When I know She is in the Temple I will say to myself: “She is praying near the Tabernacle, She is praying the God of Israel also for Her mummy” and I will have peace. And a greater peace I will have in saying: “She belongs entirely to Him. When these two old but happy parents, who received Her from Heaven, are no longer alive, He, the Eternal, will still be Her Father”. Believe me, I am fully convinced, this little creature is not ours. I was not able to do anything more… He put Her in my bosom, a divine gift to wipe away my tears and fulfil our hopes and our prayers. That is why She belongs to Him. We are the happy guardians… and may He be blessed for this!»
6.3 They have now reached the walls of the Temple.
«While you go to Nicanor’s Gate, I will go and inform the priest. And then I will come, too» Zacharias says. And he disappears behind an arch leading into a large yard surrounded by porches.
The group continues to proceed along the ensuing terraces. I do not know whether I have said this before: the enclosure wall of the Temple is not on level ground but it rises up higher and higher by means of successive terraces. Each terrace is reached by means of a flight of steps and on each terrace there are yards and porches and beautiful portals wrought in marble, bronze and gold.
Before reaching their destination they stop to take out the contents of the parcels: cakes, I think, which are wide and flat and very greasy, some white flour, two doves in a small wicker cage and some big silver coins: they are quite heavy but fortunately garments did not have pockets in those days. They would have made holes in them.
Here is the beautiful Gate of Nicanor, all chiselled in heavy bronze silver plating. Zacharias is already there beside a stately priest dressed in linen.
Anne is sprinkled with what I suppose is lustral water and then she is instructed to move towards the altar of the sacrifice. The Child is no longer in her arms. Elizabeth, who has stopped at this side of the Gate, has taken Her.
Joachim, instead, enters behind his wife, dragging a miserable bleating lamb. And I… I do exactly what I did on the occasion of Mary’s purification: I close my eyes not to see any slaughter.
Now Anne is purified.
6.4 Zacharias whispers something to his colleague, who nods smiling. He then approaches the group, which has reassembled, and as he congratulates the mother and father on their joy and their loyalty to the promises, he is given the second lamb, the flour and the cakes.
«So this daughter is sacred to the Lord? May His blessing be with Her and with you. Here is Anna. She will be one of Her teachers. Anna of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. Come here, woman. This little one is offered to the Temple as a victim of praise. You will be Her teacher and She will grow holy under your guidance.»
Anna, already completely grey, fondles the Child, who has awakened and is looking with Her innocent and surprised eyes at all the white and gold lit up by the sun.
The ceremony must be over. I did not see any special rite for the offering of Mary. Perhaps it was sufficient to tell the priest, and above all God, at the sacred place.
6.5 «I would like to give the offering to the Temple and go over there where I saw the light last year.»
They go accompanied by Anna of Phanuel. They do not enter the actual Temple; since they are women and it is the case of a little girl, it is understandable that they do not even go where Mary went to offer Her Son. But very close to the wide open door, they look into the half-dark inside from which sweet songs of girls can be heard and where precious lamps are lit and spread a golden light on two flower beds of white veiled heads: two real flowerbeds of lilies.
«In three years’ time You will be there too, my Lily» promises Anne to Mary, Who looks fascinated at the inside and smiles at the slow song.
«You would say that She understands» says Anna of Phanuel. «She is a beautiful child! She will be as dear to me as if She were my own. I promise you, mother. If I shall be granted to be so.»
«You shall, woman» Zacharias says. «You will receive Her amongst the sacred girls. I also shall be there. I want to be there that day to tell Her to pray for us from the very first moment…» and he looks at his wife who understands and sighs.
The ceremony is over and Anna of Phanuel withdraws, while the others leave the Temple speaking to one another.
I hear Joachim say: «Not only two lambs and the best, but I would have given all my lambs for this joy and to praise God!»
I do not see anything else.
GRM 6.1
Anne is carrying the Baby, all wrapped up in swaddling clothes, or rather, all tied up in a wide garment of light wool, which, however, must be soft and warm. It is impossible to describe how carefully and lovingly she carries and watches her little creature, lifting the edge of the fine warm cloth to see if Mary is breathing freely, and then she readjusts it to protect Her from the sharp air of a clear but cold winter day.
GRM 6.2
6.2 «The Lord has loved you very much…» says Elizabeth sighing.
«And that is why I am giving Him the thing I love most. This flower of mine.»
«How will you be able to tear it from your heart when the time comes?»
«Remembering that I did not have her and that God gave her to me. I shall always be happier now than then. When I know She is in the Temple I will say to myself: “She is praying near the Tabernacle, She is praying the God of Israel also for Her mummy” and I will have peace. And a greater peace I will have in saying: “She belongs entirely to Him. When these two old but happy parents, who received Her from Heaven, are no longer alive, He, the Eternal, will still be Her Father”. Believe me, I am fully convinced, this little creature is not ours. I was not able to do anything more… He put Her in my bosom, a divine gift to wipe away my tears and fulfil our hopes and our prayers. That is why She belongs to Him. We are the happy guardians… and may He be blessed for this!»
Anne speaks with Elizabeth, the future mother of John the Baptist. She asks her how she will know how to offer her child to God when the time comes.
GRM 6.4-5
Zacharias whispers something to his colleague, who nods smiling. He then approaches the group, which has reassembled, and as he congratulates the mother and father on their joy and their loyalty to the promises, he is given the second lamb, the flour and the cakes.
«So this daughter is sacred to the Lord? May His blessing be with Her and with you. Here is Anna. She will be one of Her teachers. Anna of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. Come here, woman. This little one is offered to the Temple as a victim of praise. You will be Her teacher and She will grow holy under your guidance.»
Anna, already completely grey, fondles the Child, who has awakened and is looking with Her innocent and surprised eyes at all the white and gold lit up by the sun.
The ceremony must be over. I did not see any special rite for the offering of Mary. Perhaps it was sufficient to tell the priest, and above all God, at the sacred place.
6.5 «I would like to give the offering to the Temple and go over there where I saw the light last year.»
They go accompanied by Anna of Phanuel. They do not enter the actual Temple; since they are women and it is the case of a little girl, it is understandable that they do not even go where Mary went to offer Her Son. But very close to the wide open door, they look into the half-dark inside from which sweet songs of girls can be heard and where precious lamps are lit and spread a golden light on two flower beds of white veiled heads: two real flowerbeds of lilies.
«In three years’ time You will be there too, my Lily» promises Anne to Mary, Who looks fascinated at the inside and smiles at the slow song.
«You would say that She understands» says Anna of Phanuel. «She is a beautiful child! She will be as dear to me as if She were my own. I promise you, mother. If I shall be granted to be so.»
«You shall, woman» Zacharias says. «You will receive Her amongst the sacred girls. I also shall be there. I want to be there that day to tell Her to pray for us from the very first moment…» and he looks at his wife who understands and sighs.
The ceremony is over and Anna of Phanuel withdraws, while the others leave the Temple speaking to one another.
I hear Joachim say: «Not only two lambs and the best, but I would have given all my lambs for this joy and to praise God!»
I do not see anything else.
Anne has come to present Mary to the Temple and purify herself after giving birth. She is accompanied by her husband, Elizabeth and Zechariah. When all is accomplished and she is purified by the priest, a colleague of Zechariah, Maria Valtorta writes the following.