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GRM 42.8-10

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

42.8 Jesus says:
«I exhort all wives who are tortured by pain, to imitate Mary in Her widowhood: to be united to Jesus.
Those who think that Mary’s heart did not suffer any afflictions are mistaken. My Mother did suffer. Let that be known. She suffered in a holy way, because everything in Her was holy, but She suffered bitterly.
Those who think that Mary did not love Joseph deeply, only because he was the spouse of Her soul and not of Her flesh, are also mistaken. Mary did love Joseph deeply, and She devoted thirty years of faithful life to him. Joseph was Her father, Her spouse, Her brother, Her friend, Her protector.
Now She felt as lonely as the shoot of a vine when the tree to which it is tied is cut down. It was as if Her house had been struck by thunder. It was splitting. Before it was a unit in which the members supported one another. Now the main wall was missing and that was the first blow to the Family and a sign of the impending parting of Her beloved Jesus.
The will of the Eternal Father Who had asked Her to be a spouse and a Mother, was now imposing upon Her widowhood and separation from Her Creature. But Mary utters, shedding tears one of Her most sublime remarks: ‘Yes. Yes, Lord, let it be done to Me according to Your word’. And to have enough strength for that hour, She drew close to Me.
Mary was always united to God in the gravest hours of Her life: in the Temple, when She was asked to marry, at Nazareth when She was called to Maternity, again at Nazareth when shedding the tears of a widow, at Nazareth in the dreadful separation of Her Son, on Calvary in the torture of seeing Me dying.
42.9 Learn, you who are crying. Learn, you who are dying. Learn, you who are living to die. Endeavour to deserve the words I said to Joseph. They will be your peace in the struggle of death. Learn, you who are dying, to deserve to have Jesus near you, comforting you. And if you have not deserved it, dare just the same, and call Me near you. I will come. With My hands full of graces and consolation, My Heart full of forgiveness and love, My lips full of words of absolution and encouragement.
Death loses its bitterness if it takes place between My arms. Believe Me. I cannot abolish death, but I can make it sweet for those who die trusting in Me.
Christ, on His Cross, said on behalf of you all: ‘Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit’. He said that in His agony, thinking of your agonies, your terrors, your errors, your fears, your desire for forgiveness. He said it with His Heart pierced by extreme torture, before being pierced by the lance, a torture that was more spiritual than physical, so that the agonies of those who die thinking of Him might be relieved by the Lord and their spirits might pass from death to eternal Life, from sorrow to joy, forever.
42.10 This, My little John, is your lesson for today. Be good and do not be afraid. My peace will always flow into you, through My words and through contemplation. Come. Just think that you are Joseph who has Jesus’ chest as a cushion, and Mary as a nurse. Rest between us, like a child in his cradle.»

Keywords

GRM 61.3.5-6

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

Jesus tells His disciples: «Let the poor come forward. There is a rich offer for them made by one who begs to obtain forgiveness from God.»
Three tattered old men come forward, two blind men and a cripple; they are followed by a widow with seven emaciated children.
Jesus stares at them, one by one, He smiles at the widow and particularly at the children. He says to John: «Put those over there in the kitchen garden. I want to speak to them.» But He becomes stern, with blazing eyes, when a little old man appears. But He says nothing for the time being.
He calls Peter, whom He asks for the purse received shortly before and for another one containing smaller coins, which are offerings collected from good-hearted people. He empties the coins onto the bench near the well, He counts them, and divides them. He makes six parts. A very big one, all silver coins, and five smaller ones in size, with many bronze coins and a few big ones. (...) 61.5 The third old man comes forward, He seems to be the most ragged. But Jesus has only the big pile of money left. He calls in a loud voice: «Woman, come here with your little ones.»
The young emaciated woman comes forward with her head lowered down. She seems a sad hen with her sad brood of chickens.
«How long have you been a widow, woman?»
«Three years at the moon of Tishry.»
«How old are you?»
«Twenty-seven.»
«Are they all your children?»
«Yes, Master… and I have nothing else. I finished everything… How can I work if no one wants me with all these little ones?»
«God does not abandon even the worm He created. He will not abandon you, woman. Where do you live?»
«On the lake. Three stadia outside Bethsaida. He told me to come here… My husband died on the lake; he was a fisherman.» She points to Andrew, who blushes and would like to disappear.
«You did well, Andrew, telling the woman to come to Me.»
Andrew takes heart and whispers: «The man was a friend of mine, he was good, he died in a storm and lost his boat too.»
«Take this, woman. It will help you for a long time, then another sun will rise on your days. Be good, bring your children up in the Law and you will not be without God’s help. I bless you: you and your little ones.» And He pats them, one by one, with great pitiful love.
The woman goes away pressing her treasure to her heart.
61.6
«And what about me?» asks the old man who is left last.
Jesus looks at him, but is silent.
«Nothing for me? You are not fair! You gave her six times as much as the others, and nothing to me. Of course… she was a woman!»
Jesus looks at him, but is silent.
«Look everybody; and tell me if there is justice! I have come from far away, because I was told that money was given here, and now I see that some get too much and I get nothing. A poor, old, sick man! And He wants us to believe in Him!…»
«My old man, are you not ashamed of telling such lies? Death is behind your back and you lie and endeavour to rob also who is hungry. Why do you want to rob your brothers of the offering that I received to give it with justice?»
«But I…»
«Be quiet! You should have understood by My silence and My action that I had recognised you and you should have followed My example and been silent. Why do you want Me to shame you?»
«I am poor.»
«No, you are a miser and a thief. You live for money and usury.»
«I have never lent on usury. God is my witness.»
«And is this not the most fierce usury, to rob those who are in dire need? Go. Repent. That God may forgive you.»
«I swear…»
«Be quiet! I tell you! It is said: “You shall not swear falsehood”. If I did not respect your old age, I would search you and in your breast I would find a purse full of gold: your real heart. Go away!»
The impudent old man, seeing that his secret has been discovered, goes away without any need for Jesus’ thundering voice.
The crowd threaten and scorn him, and they insult him as a thief.
«Be quiet! If he did wrong, do not do the same. He lacks sincerity: he is dishonest. If you insult him, you lack charity. A brother who makes a mistake is not to be insulted. Everybody has his sins. No one is perfect but God. I was compelled to shame him, because nobody must ever be a thief, and much less steal from poor people. But only the Father knows how much I suffered having to do it. You must also be sorry, seeing that a man in Israel infringes the Law endeavouring to defraud the poor and a widow. Do not be greedy. May your souls, not money, be your treasure. Do not be perjurers. Let your language be as sincere and honest as your actions. Life is not eternal and the hour of death will come. Live in such a way that at the hour of your death peace may be in your souls. The peace of those who lived an honest life. Go home…»

Detail

Jesus gives a large sum of money to a twenty-seven-year-old widow with seven children. Behind him is a poor, ragged widow.

Keywords

GRM 76.2

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

The dead do not suffer any longer when they have been just people. (...) And if the dead need our prayers, it is not necessary to be near their bones to pray for them.
Bones? What are they? A proof of the power of God Who made man with dust. But nothing else. Also animals have bones. But the skeletons of all animals are not so perfect as a man’s skeleton. Only man, the king of creation, has an upright position, as a king over his subjects, and his face looks forwards and upwards without having to twist his neck; man looks upwards, towards the Abode of the Father. But they are still bones. Dust that will return to dust. The eternal Bounty has decided to assemble them again on the eternal Day to give even a greater joy to the blessed souls. Just imagine: not only will the souls be reunited and will love one another as and even more than they did on the earth, but they will rejoice also seeing one another with the same features they had on the earth: dear curly-haired children, like yours, Elias, fathers and mothers with loving hearts and faces like yours Levi and Joseph. Indeed, in your case Joseph, it will be the day when at last you will see the faces for which you feel nostalgia. There are no more orphans, no widows among the just, up there…
Prayers for the dead can be said anywhere. It is the prayer of a soul for the soul of a relative to the Perfect Spirit, Who is God, Who is everywhere. Oh! holy freedom of what is spiritual! There are no distances, no exile, no prisons, no tombs… There is nothing that can divide or restrict in painful impotence what is outside and above the chains of the flesh. You will go, with your better part, towards your beloved ones. And they will come to you with their better part. And the whole effusion of loving souls will rotate around the Eternal Fulcrum, around God: the Most Perfect Spirit, the Creator of everything that was, is and will be, Love that loves you and teaches you how to love…

Keywords

GRM 174.19 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

I say to you: “Whoever divorces his wife, except for the case of fornication, exposes her to adultery”. Because what will the divorced woman do in ninety per cent of situations? She will get married again. With what consequences? Oh! How much there is to be said about that! Do you not know that you can cause involuntary incests by such system? How many tears are shed because of lust. Yes: lust. There is no other name for it. Be frank. Everything can be overcome when the spirit is righteous. But everything is an excuse to satisfy sensuality when the spirit is lustful. Woman’s frigidity, dullness, inability for housework, shrewish tongue, love for luxury, everything can be overcome, also diseases and irascibility, if one loves holily. But as after some time one does not love as on the first day, what is more than possible is considered impossible and a poor woman is thrown onto the road and to perdition.
He who rejects her commits adultery. He who marries her after divorce, commits adultery.
Death only dissolves a marriage. Remember that. And if your choice is an unhappy one bear the consequences as a cross, being both of you unhappy but holy, without making also the children unhappy, as they are innocent and suffer more because of such unfortunate situations. The love for your children should cause you to ponder one hundred times, also in the case of death of your partner. Oh! I wish you could be satisfied with what you already have had and to which God said: “Enough!” I wish you, widows and widowers, realised that death is not an attenuation but an elevation to the perfections of parents! To be a mother instead of a dead mother. To be a father instead of a deceased father. To be two souls in one and receive the love for the children from the cold lips of the dying partner and say: “Go in peace, without worrying for those who were born of you. I will continue to love them, on my own and on your behalf, I will love them twice and will be their father and mother and they will not suffer the unhappiness of orphans, neither will they feel the inborn jealousy that the children of a remarried consort experience with regards to him or her who takes the sacred place of mother or father called by God to a new abode”.

Keywords

GRM 201.4 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

They enter the hall which Jesus also entered once. A young man, who is writing in a corner, springs to his feet on seeing Joseph and he bows so profoundly as almost to touch the floor.
«God be with you, Zacharias. Please call Asrael and Jacob at once.»
The young man goes out and comes back almost at once with two men who are rabbis, or members of the synagogue, or scribes, I do not know. Two sullen personages whose haughtiness subsides only in Joseph’s presence. Eight other less imposing men follow them. They sit down leaving the postulants, Joseph of Arimathea included, standing.
«What do you want, Joseph?» asks the senior examiner.
«I wish to present to your wisdom this son of Abraham who has reached the age prescribed to come under the Law and comply with it by himself.»
«Is he a relative of yours?» and they look at one another amazed.
«We are all relatives in God. But the boy is an orphan, and this man, whose honesty I guarantee, has adopted him as he does not wish to be without descendants.»
«Who is the man? Let him reply himself.»
«Simon of Jonas, from Bethsaida in Galilee, married with no children, a fisherman for the world, a son of the Law for the Most High.»
«And you, a Galilean, are taking this paternity upon yourself? Why?»
«It is written in the Law that we must take care of orphans and widows. That is what I am doing.»
«Can he possibly know the Law so well as to deserve to… But, boy, tell me. Who are you?»
«Jabez Marjiam of John, from the country near Emmaus, I was born twelve years ago.»
«So you are a Judaean. Is it lawful for a Galilean to take care of him? Let us look up the laws.»
«But what am I? A leper or am I cursed?» Peter begins to boil with anger.
«Be quiet, Simon, I will speak for him. I told you that I am standing surety for this man. I know him as if he were of my own household. Joseph the Elder would never propose anything against the Law or the laws. Please examine this child with justice and dispatch. The yard is full of children waiting to be examined. Please make haste, for everybody’s sake.»
«But who can prove that the child is twelve years old and was redeemed from the Temple?»
«You can prove it looking up the documents. It is a piece of boring research, but can be done. Boy, did you tell me that you were the first-born?»
«Yes, sir. You will be able to see that, because I was consecrated to the Lord and redeemed with the prescribed offerings.»
«Let us look for these details then…» says Joseph.
«It is not necessary» reply coldly the two captious examiners.

Detail

Marziam passes her majority exam.

Annotation

The duty to love and help widows and orphans is recalled several times in Maria Valtorta's work, for example in EMV 229.3 and EMV 557.6.

The Exodus prescription is quoted verbatim in EMV 335.14.

Book of Exodus 22, 21-23

Ex 22, 21-23 : You shall not afflict the widow or the orphan. If you afflict them, they will cry out to me, and I will hear their cry; my anger will be kindled, and I will destroy you with the sword, and your wives will be widows and your children orphans.

Book of Deuteronomy 14, 28-29

Deut 14:28-29: At the end of every third year, you shall set apart all the tithe of your produce of that year, and lay it up within your gates. Then shall come the Levite, who has no portion or inheritance with you, and the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, who shall be within your gates, and they shall eat and be satisfied, that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the works that you undertake with your hands.

Book of Deuteronomy 16, 11

Dt 16, 11 : You shall rejoice before Yahweh your God, in the place which Yahweh your God has chosen to make his name dwell there, you, your son and your daughter, your man-servant and your maid-servant, the Levite within your gates, and the stranger, the orphan and the widow among you.

Deuteronomy 26, 12-13

Deut 26:12-13: When you have finished tithing all the tithe of your produce ▼ in the third year, the tithe year, and give it to the Levite, the stranger, the orphan and the widow, to eat within your gates and be satisfied, you shall say before Yahweh your God: "I have taken away from my house that which is holy, and have given it to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, according to all your precepts which you gave me; I have not transgressed or forgotten any of your precepts.

Book of Deuteronomy 27, 19

Dt 27, 19 : Cursed be he who violates the rights of the stranger, the orphan and the widow! - And all the people will say: Amen!

Book of Isaiah, 1, 17

Is 1, 17 : Learnto do right; seek justice, set right the oppressor, vindicate the orphan, defend the widow.

Keywords

GRM 209.6-7 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

«In this land of Judaea, still near Bethlehem of Naomi, I remind you that love relieves pain and gives joy. Consider, you who are weeping, Naomi’s desolation when her house was left without men. Listen to the words of her down-hearted dismissal of Orpah and Ruth: “Go back, each of you, to her mother’s house. May the Lord be kind to you as you have been to those who have died and to me…”. Listen to her weary insistence. She who once had been the beautiful Naomi and now was the tragic Naomi, crushed by grief, did not hope for anything else in life. She only wished to go and die in the place where she had been happy in the days of her youth with the love of her husband and the kisses of her children. She said: “Go, go. It is useless to come with me… I am as good as dead… My life is no longer here, but there, in the next world, where they are. Do not sacrifice your lives any longer beside a dying thing. Because I really am ‘a thing’. I am indifferent to everything. God has taken everything away from me… I am bitter grief. And I would grieve you… and that would weigh sorely on my heart. And the Lord would ask me to account for that, He Who has already struck me so hard, because it would be selfishness to keep you, alive, near me, dead. Go to your mothers…”. But Ruth stayed to support the sorrowful old woman.
Ruth had understood that there are sorrows which are always greater than one’s own and that her grief of a young widow was lighter than the woman’s who had lost her husband and two sons; as the grief of an orphan boy, who is compelled to live begging, without caresses, without good advice, is by far greater than the deep sorrow of a mother bereft of her children; likewise the keen regret of him who, for a number of reasons, goes as far as to hate mankind and see in every man an enemy whom he must fear and against whom he must defend himself, is even greater than other sorrows, because it involves not only flesh, blood and mentality, but the soul with its supernatural duties and rights and drives it to perdition. How many childless mothers there are in the world for motherless children! How many childless widows there are who could be compassionate towards solitary old aged people! How many there are, who, having been deprived of every love so that they may devote themselves entirely to the unhappy, could fight hatred with their need to love and thus give love to unhappy Mankind, which suffers more and more because it hates more and more!
209.7
Sorrow is a cross, but it is also a wing. Mourning divests to reclothe. Rise, you who are weeping! Open your eyes, get rid of nightmares, of darkness, of selfishness! Look… The world is the barren land where one weeps and dies. And the world shouts: “help” through the mouths of orphans, of sick, lonely, doubtful people, through the mouths of those who are made prisoners of hatred by treason or cruelty. Go among those who are shouting. Forget yourselves among those who are forgotten! Recover your health among those who are sick! Be hopeful among those who are despairing! The world is open to those willing to serve God in their neighbour and to gain Heaven: to be united to God and to those whom we mourn. The gymnasium is here. The triumph there. Come. Imitate Ruth in all your sorrows. Say with her: “I will be with you until I die”. And even if those misfortunes, which consider themselves incurable, should reply to you: “Do not call me Naomi, call me Mara, for God has marred me bitterly” you must persist. And I solemnly tell you that those misfortunes one day, because of your persisting, will exclaim: “Blessed be the Lord Who relieved me of my bitterness, desolation and solitude, by means of a creature who knew how to make his sorrow bear good fruit. May God bless him because he is my saviour”.
Remember that Ruth’s kindness to Naomi gave the Messiah to the world, because the Messiah descends from David, as David descended from Jesse, Jesse from Obed, Obed from Boaz, Boaz from Salmon, Salmon from Nahshon, Nahshon from Amminadab, Amminadab from Ram, Ram from Hezron, Hezron from Perez, and they populated the fields of Bethlehem preparing the ancestors of the Lord. Every good deed is the origin of great things, which you do not even imagine. And the effort man makes against his own selfishness can cause such a wave of love, capable of rising higher and higher, supporting in its limpidity him who caused it, until it lifts him to the feet of the altar, to the heart of God.
May God grant you peace.»

Annotation

It's in this land of Judea, still close to Naomi's Bethlehem, that I remind you how love relieves pain and brings joy. Cf. the Book of Ruth, chapter 1, 1-22.

Book of Ruth 1, 1-22

Rt 1, 1-22 : In the days when the Judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. A man from Bethlehem of Judah went with his wife and two sons to sojourn in the fields of Moab. The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahalon and Cheljon; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem of Judah. They went to the fields of Moab, and settled there.

When Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, she was left alone with her two sons. They took Moabite wives, one named Orpha and the other Ruth, and lived there for about ten years. Mahalon and Cheljon also both died, and the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. Then she and her daughters-in-law arose and left the fields of Moab, for she had heard in the countryside of Moab that Yahweh had visited his people and given them bread. So she went out from the place where she had settled, with her two daughters-in-law, and they set out to return to the land of Judah. Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law: "Go, return each to her mother's house. May Yahweh show kindness to you, as you did to those who died and to me! May Yahweh make you each find rest in the house of a husband!" And she kissed them. They raised their voices and wept, and said to her, "No; we will return with you to your people." Naomi said, "Return, my daughters; why should you come with me? Do I still have sons in my womb who can become your husbands? Go back, my daughters, go. I'm too old to remarry. And when I say: I have hope; when I would be this very night to a husband and would bear sons, would you wait for that until they were grown up? would you refrain for that from remarrying? No, my daughters. It is very bitter to me because of you, that Yahweh's hand has fallen upon me." And, raising their voices, they wept again. Then Orpha kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

Naomi said to Ruth, "Behold, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her god; return with your sister-in-law." Ruth replied, "Don't press me to leave you by returning away from you. Where you go, I will go; where you dwell, I will dwell; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God; where you die, I will die and be buried there. May Yahweh deal with me in all his severity, if anything but death separates me from you!" Seeing that Ruth was determined to go with her, Naomi ceased her entreaties.

The two of them set off until they reached Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town was moved by them, and the women said, "Is this Naomi? "20She said to them, "Don't call me Naomi; call me Marah, for the Almighty has filled me with bitterness I went away with full hands, and Yahweh is bringing me back empty-handed. Why would you call me Naomi, after Yahweh has testified against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?"

So Naomi returned, and with her her daughter-in-law, Ruth the Moabitess, who had arrived from the fields of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.