Maria Valtorta's work

22.10 Mary says:

«The first charity towards our neighbours is to be exerted towards our neighbours. This must not seem a pun to you. There is charity towards God and charity towards our neighbours. Charity towards our neighbours comprises also charity towards ourselves. But if we love ourselves more than our neighbours, we are no longer charitable, we are selfish. Also in lawful matters, we must be so holy as to always give priority to the needs of our neighbour. Be sure, My children, that God provides for the generous by means of His power and His bounty.

22.11 It was this certainty that led Me to Hebron to assist My relative in her condition. And to My eagerness for human help, God, giving beyond measure as He is wont, added an unforeseen gift of supernatural assistance. I went to give material help and God sanctified My good intention by sanctifying, through it, the fruit of Elizabeth’s womb, and by means of that sanctification, by which the Baptist was presanctified, He relieved the physical pain of the elderly daughter of Eve, who had conceived at an unusual age.

Elizabeth, a woman of fearless faith and confident submission to God’s will, deserved to understand the mystery that was enclosed within Me. The Spirit spoke to her through the bouncing in her womb. The Baptist pronounced his first speech, as the Announcer of the Word, through the veils and the diaphgrams of veins and flesh that separated and united him at the same time to his holy mother.

Neither did I deny My prerogative of being the Mother of the Lord, because she was worthy of the information and the Light had revealed Itself to her. To deny it would have meant denying God the praise that it was just should be given to Him, the praise that I bore in Me, and which, since I could not tell anyone, I repeated to the grass, to the flowers, to the stars, to the sun, to the singing birds and the patient sheep, to the warbling waters, to the golden light that kissed Me descending from Heaven. But it is sweeter to pray together rather than say our prayers by ourselves. I would have liked all the world to know of My destiny, not for My own sake, but that they might join Me in praising My Lord.

Prudence forbade me to reveal the truth to Zacharias. That would have implied going beyond the work of God. And if I was His Spouse and Mother, I was still His servant, and I could not take the liberty of substituting Him and exceeding Him in a decree, simply because He had loved Me beyond measure.

Elizabeth in her holiness understood, and was silent. Because a holy person is always submissive and humble.

22.12 The gift of God must increase our goodness. The more we receive from Him, the more we must give. Because the more we receive, the more obvious it is that He is with us and within us. And the more He is with us and within us, the more we must endeavour to reach His perfection.

That is why I worked for Elizabeth, postponing My own work. I was not afraid that I would not have time. God is the master of time. He provides for those who hope in Him, also in normal things. Selfishness does not speed matters up, it delays them. Charity does not delay, it speeds up. Always bear that in mind.

22.13 How much peace there was in Elizabeth’s house! If I had not been worried about Joseph and… and my Child, Who was the Redeemer of the world, I would have been happy. But the cross was already casting its shadow on My life and I heard the voices of the Prophets like a knell…

My name was Mary. Bitterness was always mingled with the sweetness that God poured into My heart. And it increased more and more until the death of My Son. But when God calls us, Mary, to the destiny of victims for His glory, oh! it is sweet to be ground like corn in the millstone, to convert our pain into a bread that can strengthen the weak and make them capable of reaching Heaven!

Now, it is enough. You are tired and happy. Rest now with My blessing.»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV

• Birth of Jean-Baptiste
• Elizabeth of Hebron (mother of John the Baptist)
• Jean-Baptiste
• Locations - Hebron
• Summary of EMV
• The Virgin Mary
• Zacharie (father of John the Baptist)

23.1 This vision of peace descends from Heaven, amid the disgusting things the world now offers us, and I do not know how that can be, because I am like a little twig at the mercy of the wind in my continuous conflicts with human wickedness so discordant with what lives within me.

• Writing the Work

23.9 Mary says:

«If My presence had sanctified the Baptist, it did not nullify for Elizabeth the sentence against Eve. ‘In pain you shall give birth to your children’ the Eternal Father had said.

Only I, because I was without stain, and I had not had any human copulation, was exempted from generating with pain. Sadness and pain are fruits of fault. I, Who was the Innocent One, had to know also sorrow and sadness, because I was the Coredeemer. But I did not know the torture of generating. No. I did not know that torture.

But believe Me, daughter, that there never was, and never will be a torture of puerpery like Mine as the Martyr of a spiritual Maternity, which was accomplished on the hardest of beds, the bed of My cross, at the foot of the scaffold of My dying Son. Which mother is compelled to generate thus? To blend the torture of Her bowels which contract spasmodically because of the death rattle of Her dying Creature, with the torture which tears Her bowels apart in the strain of overcoming the horror of having to say: “I love you, come to Me, I am your Mother” to each murderer of Her Son, born of the most sublime love that Heaven ever saw, of the love of a God with a virgin, of the kiss of Fire, of the embrace of Light which became Flesh, and made the womb of a woman the Tabernacle of God?

“How much pain to be a mother!” says Elizabeth. So much! But nothing when compared to Mine.

23.10 “Let me press my hands on Your bosom”. Oh, if you always asked Me for that when you suffer!

I am the Eternal Bearer of Jesus. He is in My womb, as you saw last year, like the Host in the monstrance. He who comes to Me, finds Him. He who leans on Me, touches Him. He who addresses Me, speaks to Him. I am His Robe. He is My Soul. My Son is united to His Mother more, much more now, than He was in the nine months that He was in My womb. And every pain is appeased, every hope flourishes and every grace flows for those who come to Me and rest their heads against My bosom.

I pray for you. Remember that. The beatitude of being in Heaven, living in the ray of God, does not cause Me to forget My children who are suffering on the earth. And I pray. And all Heaven prays, because Heaven loves. Heaven is living charity. And Charity has mercy on you. But even if I were all by Myself, My prayer would be sufficient for the needs of those who hope in God. Because I never stop praying for you all, for the holy and the wicked, to give joy to the holy, to give repentance to the wicked that they might be saved.

Come, come, o children of My sorrow. I am waiting for you at the foot of the Cross to grant you graces.»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV

• Elizabeth of Hebron (mother of John the Baptist)
• Jean-Baptiste
• Locations - Hebron
• Summary of EMV
• The Virgin Mary
• Zacharie (father of John the Baptist)

24.6 Mary says:

«God forgives him who acknowledges his sin, repents and confesses it with a humble and sincere heart. He does not only forgive, He rewards. Oh! How good is My Lord to those who are humble and sincere! To those who believe in Him, and trust in Him!

24.7 Clear your souls of what encumbers them and makes them lazy. Prepare your souls to receive the Light. As a light in darkness, It is a guide and a holy consolation.

O holy friendship with God, beatitude of His faithful ones, wealth unequalled by anything else, he who possesses you is never alone, and never tastes the bitterness of despair. O holy friendship, you do not eradicate sorrow, because sorrow was the destiny of a God incarnate and can thus be the destiny of man. But you make this sorrow sweet in its bitterness, and you mix it with a light and a caress which relieve the cross with a celestial touch.

And when Divine Bounty grants you graces, make use of the gift received to give glory to God. Do not be like foolish people who turn a good thing into a harmful weapon, or like lavish persons who convert their wealth into misery.

24.8 You give Me too much sorrow, My children, behind whose faces I see the Enemy appear, that is, he who hurls himself against My Jesus. Too much sorrow! I would like to be the Source of Grace for everybody. But too many among you do not want Grace. You ask for ‘graces’, but with a soul devoid of Grace. How can Grace succour you if you are Her enemies?

24.9 The great mystery of Good Friday is approaching. It is commemorated and celebrated in churches. But it is necessary to celebrate and commemorate it in your hearts, and to beat your breasts like those who were descending from Golgotha and say: ‘In truth, this Man was the Son of God, the Saviour’, and say: ‘Jesus, for the sake of Your Name, save us’, and say: ‘Father, forgive us’, and finally say: ‘I am not worthy, but if You forgive me and come to me, my soul will be healed, and I no longer want to commit sin, because I no longer wish to be ill and hateful to You’.

Pray, children, with the words of My Son. Say to the Father for your enemies: ‘Father, forgive them’. Call the Father Who has withdrawn indignant at your errors: ‘Father, Father, why have You forsaken me? I am a sinner. But if You forsake me, I will perish. Come back, Holy Father, that I may be saved’. Entrust your eternal good, your spirit, to the Only One Who can preserve it unhurt from the demons: ‘Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit’. Oh! If with humbleness and love you surrender your spirit to God, He will lead it as a father leads his little one, neither will He allow anything to hurt your spirit.

Jesus, in His agony, prayed to teach you how to pray. I am reminding you of it in these days of His Passion.

24.10 And you, Mary, since you see My joy of a Mother and you are enraptured by it, consider and remember that I possessed God through an ever increasing sorrow. It descended into Me with the Seed of God and like a gigantic tree it has grown until it touched Heaven with its top, and hell with its roots, when I received on My lap the lifeless remains of the Flesh of My flesh, and I saw and counted His tortures, and I touched His torn Heart to consume My sorrow right until the last drop.»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV

• Elizabeth of Hebron (mother of John the Baptist)
• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• Locations - Jerusalem
• Summary of EMV
• The Virgin Mary
• Zacharie (father of John the Baptist)

25.8 Mary says:

«It is the eve of Maundy Thursday. Some people may think that this vision is out of place. But your grief of lover of My Jesus Crucified is in your heart and will remain there even if a sweet vision is shown to you. It is like the tepidity emanating from a flame, which is still fire but is no longer fire. The flame is fire, not its tepidity which comes from it. No beatific or peaceful vision will be able to remove that grief from your heart. And regard it as something precious, more precious than your own life. Because it is the greatest gift that God can grant a believer in His Son. Further, my vision is not discordant, in all its peace, with the commemorations of this week.

25.9 Also My Joseph suffered his passion. It began in Jerusalem when he noticed My condition. And it lasted several days, exactly as it had happened to Jesus and to Me. Neither was it less painful for his soul. And only because of the holiness of My just spouse, it was contained in such a dignified and secret form, that it has been hardly noticed throughout centuries.

Oh! Our first Passion! Who can feel its intimate and silent intensity? Who can describe My pain when I realised that Heaven had not yet heard My prayer by revealing the mystery to Joseph?

I understood that he was not aware of it when I saw that he was respectful to Me as usual. If he had known that I bore in Me the Word of God, he would have adored that Word enclosed in My womb, with the acts of veneration which are due to God and which he would not have failed to accomplish, as I would not have refused to receive, not for My own sake, but for Him Who was within Me and that I bore, as the Ark of the Alliance carried the stone code and the vases of manna.

Who can measure My struggle against the dismay that endeavoured to overwhelm Me in order to convince Me that I had hoped in vain in the Lord? Oh! I think it was the furious rage of Satan! I perceived doubt rising behind My back, and stretching its icy claws to imprison My soul and prevent it from praying. Doubt is so dangerous and lethal to the spirit. It is lethal because it is the first agent of the deadly disease called ‘despair’, against which we must react with all our strength, so that our souls may not perish, and we may not lose God.

Who can truly tell Joseph’s pain, his thoughts, the perturbation of his feelings? Like a little boat caught in a great storm, he was in a vortex of conflicting ideas, in a turmoil of reflections, of which one was more piercing and painful than the other. He was, to all appearances, a man betrayed by his wife. He saw his good reputation and the esteem of his world collapse around him; because of Her he saw scornful fingers pointed at him and felt pitied by the village people. Above all, he perceived that his love and esteem for Me had fallen, struck to death, before the evidence of a deed.

25.10 In this respect, his holiness shines brighter than Mine. And I give this witness with the affection of a spouse, because I want you to love My Joseph, this wise, prudent, patient and good man, who is not separated from the mystery of Redemption, on the contrary, he is closely connected to it, because he suffered for it, consuming himself in sorrow for it, saving your Saviour at the cost of his own sacrifice because of his holiness.

Had he not been so holy, he would have acted in a human way, denouncing Me as an adulteress so that I should be stoned, and the Son of My sin should perish with Me. If he had been less holy, God would not have granted him His light as guidance in his trial. But Joseph was holy. His pure spirit lived in God. His charity was ardent and strong. And out of charity he saved your Saviour for you, both when he refrained from accusing Me to the elders, and when he saved Jesus in Egypt, leaving everything with prompt obedience.

25.11 The three days of Joseph’s passion were short in number, but deep in intensity. And they were tremendous also for Me, those days of My first passion. Because I was aware of his suffering, which I could not alleviate, in fact I had to obey God’s command Who had said to Me: ‘Be silent!’

And when, after we arrived in Nazareth, I saw him go away with a laconic goodbye, and bent as if he had aged in a short time, and I noticed that he no longer came to see Me in the evening as he used to do, then I tell you, My children, that My heart wept very bitterly. Closed in My house, all alone, in the house where everything reminded Me of the Annunciation and the Incarnation, and where everything reminded Me of Joseph, married to Me with spotless virginity, I had to fight despair and Satan’s insinuation, and hope, hope, hope. And pray, pray, pray. And forgive, forgive, forgive Joseph’s suspicion, his disturbance and just despair.

My children: you must hope, pray, forgive in order to obtain God’s intervention in our favour. You must live your passions, because you deserved them with your sins. I can teach you how to overcome them and turn them into joy. Hope beyond measure. Pray with confidence. Forgive to be forgiven. God’s forgiveness will be the peace you desire, My children.

25.12 I will not say anything else for the time being. There will be silence until after the Easter triumph. It is Passion time. Have pity on your Redeemer. Listen to His cries, and count His wounds and tears. The former were suffered, the latter shed for you. Let every other vision disappear before that one that reminds you of the Redemption accomplished for you.»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV

• Joseph of Jacob (Saint Joseph)
• Locations - House of Nazareth
• Passion of the Virgin Mary and Joseph
• Summary of EMV
• The Virgin Mary

26.6 Mary says:

«No one must interpret My pallor erroneously. It was not caused by human fear. From a human point of view I should have expected to be stoned to death. But I was not afraid because of that. I was suffering because of Joseph’s pain. Neither was I upset by the thought that he might accuse Me. I was only sorry and afraid that he might be lacking in charity if he should insist in his accusation. That is why all My blood rushed to My heart when I saw him. It was the moment when even a just man might have offended Justice by offending charity. And I would have been extremely upset if a just man were to commit an error since he never erred.

26.7 Had I not been humble to the very extreme limit, as I told Joseph, I would not have deserved to bear within Me Him Who was lovering Himself, God, to the humiliation of being a man, in order to make reparation for the pride of the human race.

26.8 I have shown you that scene, which is not described by any of the Gospels, because I want to draw the excessively misguided attention of men to the conditions which are essential to please God and receive His continuous calls to your hearts.

Faith: Joseph believed the heavenly messenger’s words unquestioningly. He wanted but to believe, because he was sincerely convinced that God is good and that since he had hoped in the Lord, the Lord would not have reserved for him the torture of being betrayed, disappointed and sneered at by his neighbours. He asked for nothing, but to believe in Me, because, being honest, it was painful for him to think that other people were not honest. He lived according to the Law and the Law says: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’. We love ourselves so much that we think we are perfect even when we are not. Can we therefore not love our neighbour simply because we think he is faulty?

Unrestricted Charity. A charity that knows how to forgive, that wants to forgive, and forgive in advance wholeheartedly excusing the imperfections of our neighbours. It is necessary to forgive immediately, accepting every extenuating circumstance.

Humility, as unrestricted as charity. You must admit that you can be faulty even in simple thoughts, and you must not be so proud as to refuse to say: ‘I made a mistake’, because such pride would be more harmful than the previous fault. Everybody makes mistakes, with the exception of God. Who can say: ‘I am never wrong’? And there is a more difficult humility: the one that knows how to keep silent about God’s wonderful things in us, when it is not necessary to proclaim them for His glory, so that we might not discourage our neighbour who has not received such special gifts from God. If He wants, oh! if He only wants, God reveals Himself in His servant! Elizabeth ‘saw’ Me for what I was, My spouse knew Me for what I was, when it was time for him to know.

26.9 Leave to the Lord the care of proclaiming you His servants. He is anxious to do so, because every creature that rises to a particular mission, is a new glory which is added to His infinite glory, and is a witness of what man is, as God wanted him to be: a lesser perfection that reflects its Author. Remain in shadow and silence, you who are beloved by Grace, so that you may hear the only words of ‘life’, that you may deserve to have on you and in you the Sun that shines eternally.

Oh! Most Blessed Light, God, joy of Your servants, do shine on those servants of Yours that they may exult in their humility, praising You, only You, because You disperse the proud but raise the humble, who love You, to the splendour of Your Kingdom.»

• Dictations of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the EMV