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Notes for this theme

Who is the Virgin Mary?

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GRM 7.5

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

« I would also like to be a sinner, a big sinner, if I were not afraid of offending the Lord… Tell Me, mummy, can one be a sinner out of love of God?»

«But what are You saying, my dear? I don’t understand You.»

«I mean: to commit a sin in order to be loved by God, Who becomes the Saviour. He who is lost, is saved. Isn’t that so? I would like to be saved by the Saviour to receive His loving look. That is why I would like to sin, but not to commit a sin that would disgust Him. How can He save Me if I do not get lost?»

Anne is dumbfounded. She does not know what to say.

Joachim helps her. He has approached them walking noiselessly on the grass, behind the low hedge of vine-shoots. «He has saved You beforehand, because He knows that You love Him and You want to love Him only. So You are already redeemed and You can be a virgin as You wish» says Joachim.

«Is that true, daddy?» Mary embraces his knees and looks at him with Her clear blue eyes, so like Her father’s and so happy because of this hope She gets from Her father.

«It is true, my little darling. Look! I was just bringing You this little sparrow, that at its first flight landed near the spring. I could have left it there but its weak wings did not have enough strength to fly off again, and its tiny legs could not hold onto the slippery moss stones. It would have fallen into the water. But I did not wait for that. I took it and now I am giving it to You. You will do what you like with it. The fact is that it was saved before it fell into danger. God has done the same with You. Now, tell me, Mary: have I loved the sparrow more by saving it beforehand, or would I have loved it more saving it afterwards?»

«You have loved it now, because you did not let it get hurt in the cold water.»

«And God has loved You more, because He has loved You before You sinned.»

«And I will love Him wholeheartedly. Wholeheartedly. My beautiful little sparrow, I am like you. The Lord has loved us both equally, by saving us… I will now rear you and then I will let you go. And you in the forest and I in the Temple will sing the praises of God, and we shall say: “Please send the One You promised to those who expect Him”. »

Detail

Mary as a child has decided to be a virgin out of love for God, and she hopes to be the handmaid of the Mother of God. Then she adds:

Annotation

Can one be a sinner out of love for God? (...) How can he save me if I do not lose myself?

This paradoxical relationship between sin and grateful love for the Redeemer can be found in the Easter Exultet: Blessed is the sin of man, which brought the only Saviour to the world in distress!

Saint Paul also cultivates this paradox out of love for his brethren: I myself, for the Jews, my brethren by race, would wish to be anathema, separated from Christ (Romans 9:3).

GRM 7.9

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

« Mary was not only the Pure, the new Eve created for the joy of God: She was the super Eve, the Masterpiece of the Most High, She was Full of Grace, the Mother of the Word in the mind of God.

Jesus Ben Sirach says: “Source of Wisdom is the Word”. Will the Son therefore not have put His wisdom on His Mother’s lips?

If the mouth of a Prophet was purified with embers, because he had to repeat to men the words that the Word, the Wisdom, entrusted to Him, will Love not have cleansed and exalted the speech of his infant Spouse Who was to bear the Word, so that She should no longer speak as a little girl and then as a woman, but only and always as a celestial creature melted in the great light and wisdom of God?

The miracle is not in the superior intelligence shown by Mary in Her childhood, as afterwards it was by Me. The miracle is in containing the Infinite Intelligence, that dwelled there, within suitable bounds, so that crowds should not be startled and satanic attention should not be awakened.

I will talk again about this subject which is part of the “remembrance” which saints have of God.»

Annotation

Book of Ben Sira the Wise 1, 1-8

Si 1, 1-8 : ALL WISDOM comes from the Lord, and abides with him forever. The sand of the seas, the drops of rain, and the days of eternity, who can count them? The height of heaven, the breadth of earth, the depth of the abyss, who can estimate them? Wisdom was created before all things, and the depth of intelligence has always been there. The source of wisdom is the word of God in the highest heaven. Its paths are the eternal commandments. The root of wisdom, who has had the revelation, and its subtleties, who has had the knowledge? The science of wisdom, to whom was it manifested, and who profited from its great experience? There is but one wise and most formidable being, He who sits on His throne. He is the Lord (...).

Book of Isaiah, 6, 6-7

Is 6, 6-7 : One of the seraphim flew to me, holding a burning coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar. He brought it close to my mouth and said, "This has touched your lips, and now your fault is removed, your sin is forgiven."

A prophet commissioned to speak the words that the Word (...) inspired in him, i.e. Isaiah, as we see in Isaiah 6:6-7. This fact is cited several times in "The Gospel as it was revealed to me", whether in direct form (as here and, for example, in EMV 166.8 and EMV 626.2) or indirectly (as in EMV 364.8). But it is above all the Messianic prophecies that are recalled (see notes at EMV 561.11 and EMV 577.4).

GRM 8.3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

8.3 Anna, the prophetess, will take care of this flower of David and Aaron. At present She is the only lily of David’s holy issue in the Temple and She will be taken care of just like a royal pearl. Although we are approaching the time when the Messiah is to come, and the women belonging to the house of David should be anxious to consecrate their daughters to the Temple, because the Messiah will be born of a virgin of David, yet, because of the general weakening of faith, the places of the virgins in the Temple are empty. They are too few and none of the royal offspring, since Sarah of Elisha left three years ago to get married. It is true that there are still thirty years to the appointed time, but… Well let us hope that Mary will be the first of many virgins of David’s offspring before the Sacred Veil. And then… who knows…» Zacharias does not say anything else. But he looks at Mary thoughtfully.

Detail

Anne, Joachim and Mary are in Jerusalem. The Mother of the Savior is about to enter the Temple at the age of three. They are joined by Elisabeth, who shows them into a friendly house. Meanwhile, her husband arrives and Joachim reveals their sorrow.

Annotation

The prophetess Anne will take great care of this flower of David and Aaron. Mary is a descendant of David through her father Joachim and of Aaron (brother of Moses) through her mother Anne. She is therefore of royal and priestly descent. Her priestly ancestry is deduced from her relationship with Elizabeth (Luke 1:5), and her royal race is deduced, in particular, from her marriage to Joseph "of the seed of David". Now, according to the Law of Moses, the orphaned heiress (Numbers 27:9) had to marry into the same clan (Numbers 36:8).

The times are coming to an end: Allusion to Daniel's prophecy about the seventy weeks (years) before the coming of the Messiah (cf. Daniel 9:22-27). This prophecy was widespread at the time of Christ.

The places reserved for virgins in the Temple are empty. The Messiah was to be a descendant of David (Isaiah 11:1f). He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:13-14), but the belief that this virgin would have been educated in the Temple is not indicated. Anne-Catherine Emmerich mentions it in her Vie de la Vierge Marie (chapter 35): like Maria Valtorta, she attributes it to an unspecified tradition. It undoubtedly stems from the esteem in which the virgins of the Temple were held and the quality of their recruitment.

Six more lustres are needed to reach the set date. A luster is a period of 5 years. Among the Romans, it was the period at the end of which the censors (supreme magistrates) were elected. It was also the interval between two censuses.

GRM 8.7-8

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

8.7 Jesus says:

«The High Priest had said: “Walk in my presence and be perfect”. The High Priest did not know that he was speaking to the Woman Who was inferior in perfection only to God. But he was speaking in the name of God, and therefore his order was a sacred one. It is always sacred, particularly with regards to the Virgin Full of Wisdom.

Mary had deserved that “Wisdom should precede Her and show Itself to Her first”, because “from the beginning of Her day She had watched at Its door, and wishing to be taught, out of love, She wanted to be pure to achieve perfect love and deserve to have Wisdom as Her teacher”.

In Her humility She did not know that She possessed Wisdom before being born and that the union with Wisdom was but the continuation of the divine pulsations of Paradise. She could not imagine that. And when God whispered sublime words to Her in the depths of Her heart, in Her humility She considered them thoughts of pride and raising Her innocent heart to God, She besought Him: “Lord, have mercy on Thy Servant!”

Oh! It is true that the True Wise Virgin, the Eternal Virgin, had only one thought from the dawn of Her day: to raise Her heart to God from the morning of life and to watch for the Lord, praying before the Most High, asking forgiveness for the weaknesses of Her heart, as Her humility convinced Her, and She was not aware that She was anticipating the request for forgiveness for sinners, which She would later make at the foot of the Cross, together with Her dying Son.

“When the great Lord will decide, She will be filled with the Spirit of intelligence” and will then understand Her great mission. For the time being She is only a child, who in the sacred peace of the Temple, establishes and re-establishes closer and closer connections, affections and memories with Her God.

This is for everybody.

8.8 But for you, My little Mary, has your Teacher nothing special to tell you? “Walk in My presence, be therefore perfect”. I am slightly modifying the sacred phrase and I am giving it to you as an order. Be perfect in love, perfect in generosity, perfect in suffering.

Look once again at Mother. And consider what so many ignore or wish to ignore, because sorrow is too irksome to their taste and their spirit. Sorrow. Mary suffered from the very first hour of Her life. To be perfect as She was, implied the possession of a perfect sensitivity. Consequently sacrifice was to be more piercing. And thus more meritorious. He who possesses purity possesses love, he who possesses love possesses wisdom, he who possesses wisdom possesses generosity and heroism, because he knows why he makes a sacrifice.

Raise your spirit, even if the cross bends you, breaks you and kills you. God is with you.

Annotation

Book of Wisdom 6, 13

Wis 6, 13 : She warns those who seek her, and shows herself to them first.

Book of Ben Sira the Wise 39, 6

Si 39, 6 : If the Sovereign Lord wills, he will be filled with the spirit of understanding, he will pour out his words of wisdom like a shower, and in prayer he will give thanks to the Lord.

GRM 8.7

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

Mary had deserved that “Wisdom should precede Her and show Itself to Her first”, because “from the beginning of Her day She had watched at Its door, and wishing to be taught, out of love, She wanted to be pure to achieve perfect love and deserve to have Wisdom as Her teacher”.

In Her humility She did not know that She possessed Wisdom before being born and that the union with Wisdom was but the continuation of the divine pulsations of Paradise. She could not imagine that. And when God whispered sublime words to Her in the depths of Her heart, in Her humility She considered them thoughts of pride and raising Her innocent heart to God, She besought Him: “Lord, have mercy on Thy Servant!”

Oh! It is true that the True Wise Virgin, the Eternal Virgin, had only one thought from the dawn of Her day: to raise Her heart to God from the morning of life and to watch for the Lord, praying before the Most High, asking forgiveness for the weaknesses of Her heart, as Her humility convinced Her, and She was not aware that She was anticipating the request for forgiveness for sinners, which She would later make at the foot of the Cross, together with Her dying Son.

GRM 8.8

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

« Look once again at Mother. And consider what so many ignore or wish to ignore, because sorrow is too irksome to their taste and their spirit. Sorrow. Mary suffered from the very first hour of Her life. To be perfect as She was, implied the possession of a perfect sensitivity. Consequently sacrifice was to be more piercing. And thus more meritorious. He who possesses purity possesses love, he who possesses love possesses wisdom, he who possesses wisdom possesses generosity and heroism, because he knows why he makes a sacrifice.

Raise your spirit, even if the cross bends you, breaks you and kills you. God is with you.»

GRM 9.2

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

I surrounded Myself with wise people, in My human kinship. Anne, Joachim, Joseph, Zacharias, and even more Elizabeth, and then the Baptist, are they not real wise people? Not to mention My Mother, the abode of Wisdom.

Detail

Jesus said:

GRM 9.5

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

Because of their holiness, Anne suffered no pain in giving birth to her child: it was the ecstasy of the bearer of the Faultless One. Neither of them suffered the throes of death, but only a weakness that fades away, as a star softly disappears when the sun rises at dawn. And if they did not have the consolation of having Me present, as Wisdom Incarnate, as Joseph had, I was invisibly present, whispering sublime words, bending over their pillows, to send them to sleep, awaiting their triumph.

Someone may ask: “Why did they not have to suffer when generating and dying, since they were children of Adam?” My answer is: “If the Baptist, who was a son of Adam, and had been conceived with original sin, was presanctified by Me in his mother’s womb, simply because I approached her, was no grace to be granted to the mother of the Holy and Faultless One, Who had been preserved by God and bore God in Her almost divine spirit, in Her most pure heart, and was never separated from Him, since She was created by the Father and was conceived in a womb, and then received into Heaven to possess God in glory forever and ever?” I also answer: “An upright conscience gives a peaceful death and the prayers of saints will obtain such a death for you”.

Annotation

Challenge: "Anne gave birth without pain".

Anne did not experience the pains of childbirth. In a typed note, Maria writes: "This is a fact admitted even by some theologians in the material sense of the pains of childbirth; in reality, the ecstatic joy of giving birth to Mary prevailed over the natural suffering for any woman, to the point that Anne gave birth without the usual anguish and suffering in this case".

Contestation emitted: Mary was created from all eternity (eternity is reserved for God).

In speaking of Mary, the Work says that she "never separated herself from the Father from the moment he thought of her". This confirms that Mary's soul is thought of by God from all eternity (as is every one of us). But this is to be distinguished from her actual existence (2000 years ago).

GRM 10.1-2

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

10.1 Only yesterday evening, Friday, I began to see. I saw nothing but a very young Mary, twelve years old at the most, Her face no longer roundish, as is typical of children, but already showing the future outlines of a woman in a perfect oval. Also Her hair is no longer falling loose on Her neck in soft curls, but it is plaited and two thick braids fall over Her shoulders down to Her waist. Her hair is a very pale gold colour, so light that it seems to be blended with silver. Her face is more pensive and mature, although it is the face of a young girl, a beautiful and pure girl, all dressed in white. She is sewing in a very small room, which is also completely white, and through the wide open window one can see the imposing central part of the Temple, the flights of steps of the yards and porches. Beyond the enclosure wall also the town can be seen with its streets, houses, gardens, and in the background the humped green top of the Mount of Olives.

Mary is sewing and singing in a low voice. I do not know whether it is a sacred song or not. It says:

«Like a star in clear water

a light is shining within My heart.

It has been with Me since My childhood

and it guides Me tenderly with love.

In the depths of My heart there is a song.

Where does it come from?

Man, you do not know.

It comes from where the Holy One rests.

I look at My clear star

And I do not want anything,

Not even the sweetest and dearest thing,

Except this sweet light that is all Mine.

You brought Me down from the Heavens above,

O star of Mine, into the womb of a mother,

Now You live in Me, but beyond the veil

I see Your glorious face, Father.

When will You grant Your servant the honour

Of being the humble maid of the Saviour?

Send us the Messiah from Heaven,

Accept, Holy Father, the offer of Mary.»

10.2 Mary is now quiet. She smiles and sighs, then She kneels down in prayer. Her little face is shining brightly. She is looking upwards, towards the clear blue summer sky and Her face seems to be absorbing and then radiating all the brightness in the air. Or rather, it looks as if from within Her a hidden sun is radiating its rays and lighting up Her face, colouring Her snow-white flesh with a light rosy hue. And the light from Her face spreads out towards the world and the sun shining on the world: a blessing and a promise of much good.

While Mary is getting up after Her prayer, with ecstatic brightness still on Her face, old Anna of Phanuel enters the room. She stands still, amazed or at least wondering at Mary’s attitude and appearance.

GRM 10.3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

10.3 «Were You praying? Are Your prayers never enough for You?»

«My prayers would be enough. But I speak to God. Anna, you cannot imagine how close I feel Him. More than close, within My heart. May God forgive Me for My pride. But I do not feel lonely. See? Over there, in that House of gold and snow, behind the double Curtain, there is the Holy of Holies. Nobody is ever allowed to look at the Propitiatory, on which the glory of the Lord rests, except the High Priest. But My worshipping soul does not need to look at the embroidered Curtain, which quivers at the songs of the virgins and Levites and is scented with precious incense, as if I wanted to pierce its fabric and see the Testimony shine through it. I do look at it! Do not think that I do not look at it with worshipping eyes like every son of Israel. Do not think that pride blinds Me making Me think what I will now tell you. I look at it and there is no humble servant amongst the people of God that looks more humbly at the House of the Lord than I do, because I am convinced that I am the least of all. But what do I see? A veil. What do I think there is behind the Veil? A Tabernacle. What is in it? If I listen to My heart, I see God shining in His loving glory and He says to Me: “I love You” and I reply to Him: “I love You” and I die and I am recreated at each beat of My heart in this mutual kiss… I am amongst you, My dear teachers and companions. But a circle of fire isolates Me from you. Within the circle, God and Myself. And I see you through the Fire of God and so I love you… but I cannot love you according to the flesh, neither shall I ever be able to love anyone according to the flesh, neither shall I ever be able to love anyone according to the flesh. I can only love Him Who loves Me, according to the spirit..