A singular temptation.
I was thinking again about a conversation with Paola, who said, “When I read these things (the visions), I seem to be transported into another world.... To be reading fables of Paradise.... Something so beautiful that it then remains within me like a light....”
And the Tempter said to me, “You were so interested in publishing your book for gain and out of pride.670 You can no longer do so because the Master takes away all your time, and the illnesses, your strength. To get this satisfaction, which is proper at heart, especially for you, to whom everything has been denied, why don’t you have the lovely visions you receive published? So many imaginary and thus inexact things are written on the life of God and his saints. Why don’t you contribute to making Him known truly? You would receive honor and profit, and you would do good by serving Good.”
Why, he really tries everything, you know? I sent him...back home, and I don’t think I acted badly, for...he’s worse off remaining in hell.
But, all joking apart, take a little look at all of his twistings and turnings to get me to act improperly or sinfully! Since for months and months my flesh has been dead to his work, he turns over and over to my spirit, first in Viareggio in the black days - “Worship me, and I will make you happy”671 - and then, in early July, to my heart – “Alter the Master’s words; say some of your own while imitating his style to obtain the goal of subduing the one who displeased you”672 - and now, to my mind - “Use these gifts to receive human praise.”
Poor wretch! If I go crazy, I can’t answer for myself. But if my brains stay in place, with the help of my Lord I won’t fall into these errors. They are sacred things. No one else can say so with the certainty which I, who receive them, have, and I would find it sacrilegous to use them for reasons of profit or human pride. I am happy, indeed, for them to be used for my poor brothers and sisters, and I would like them to go throughout the world, sounding the rally and gathering together many in the Light. But I do not want - I absolutely don’t want - to turn them into a business and a source of notoriety.
Maria Valtorta no longer exists. Absorbed by the Will, she lives only as a soul, in the blessed anonymity uniting so many saints in Heaven in one single classification: the saints. Oh, if, as I hope, Jesus opens to me his Paradise, not even then will I want to be known by the world! I am the little John, the spokesman. I want to be known by the names Jesus has given me: an unreal being in human terms, then. The real being has disappeared in the eyes of the world, and I don’t want the veil concealing me to be lifted for any reason.
I fear this more than a personal danger. If a thief entered to rob me of what little I still have, it would cause me less pain than someone entering into my secret as a thief and robbing me of my being unknown to the world, pointing me out as the woman God benefits with his words.
I am sometimes tempted to ask God for physical health, not in order not to suffer any more. But in order to enter a Carmelite or Trappist community and die completely in the eyes of the world so as to live out my mission alone, in security, protected by the iron grills and the strict rule.
670 Probably an allusion to a novel with autobiographical elements which Maria Valtorta had written in her early years of infirmity and later repudiated.
671 On April 15.
672 On July 4.