Jesus is not yet giving visions and dictations. I feel too bad. The pleuritis is doing a proper job on what’s left of my lungs. I lack air. The sufferings are acute; my fever, high; weakness, marked, on account of the three hemorrhages I had yesterday, too.
But I am not sad because of either the suffering or the silence in sight and hearing (for others). I am sad because I would like to be in my house and with you788 near. If you were also present, I would not wish for anything else. I say also because I have a nurse who could not be improved upon and who never leaves me in the saddest hours: my Jesus. Watched over by Him, I fall asleep, and at the touch of his caress, I reawaken.
Oh, I am not alone, no! He did not want me to feel the abandonment by my relatives. And He has taken their place entirely, filling every void with Himself. He knows what kind of heart poor Maria has! If I did not have this heart, I could not be what I am. And He also knows that, though He is my All, I still need to give and receive affection, a lot of affection, and that I suffer when affection is torn away. And He knows that I cannot suffer more than I am suffering, for I would remain crushed. And He then augments his acts of tenderness to the point of gestures of human foresight. What brief, but illuminating teachings in intimate conversations!
This morning He said to me, “You shall give the twelfth sheaf of pages to the one who asked you for them.”
“But perhaps Father Migliorini doesn’t want me to.”
“I want you to. I said789 they should be given, with knowledge and measure, to those deserving them, and especially to communities requesting them for their good. In a community, not all are the same. But those few who are suitable are benefited by them, and since the flame gives out warmth, the others, too, improve indirectly, even if they are kept in the dark about dictations which they would not accept as they should be accepted. Supernaturally. Father Tozzi and Father Fantoni790 deserve to read them. (He said exactly that: first Tozzi and then Fantoni).
They are well-formed priests. And still belong to the old school. There were also arid priests in the past. There have always been. But those who are formed now! They are my sorrow.... You shall say all of this to Father Migliorini.”
“Do they cause you a lot of pain, Jesus?”
“A lot! More than the blows of the scourge, the memory of which, in its atrocity, is still sharp in Me. The blows of flagellation have been compared to the sins of sensuality. Yes. These, too, hurt Me a lot. But idolatrous, impure, atheistic priests are heavy scourges with hooks. They sever with their blows and lacerate with their hooks.”
“Idolatrous, Lord? Impure? Atheistic?”
“Yes. Do you think it’s impossible? It isn’t. They are idolatrous in acts of worship not offered to Me. They take pleasure in knowledge and power. They take pleasure in themselves. They are impure, even if pure in body, because they commit acts of spiritual impurity by loving what I, God, am not. They are more concerned about loving and knowing human science than Me: Divine Wisdom. They are atheists. Because they deny God the attribute of power. They deny miracles. Miracles have so many forms. It is a miracle to heal a sick person, as it is to keep someone falling from a great height from dying. It is a miracle to multiply food, as it is to make a nobody God’s ‘spokesman.’ They deny this. They would like to impose limits on divine omnipotence because they themselves are so limited that they are unable not only to desire, but even to accept what moves outside the base limits of their capacity for belief. And to be convinced they ask for proofs. As many other acts of distrust. And when they have received them, they still do not believe. They have lost the innocence of the spirit, which I said was a necessary condition to possess the Kingdom of Heaven: “If you do not become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’”791
“Jesus, I believe for them, too. Don’t suffer!”
“Can one not suffer over certain things? No. Can you not suffer over just the memory of an act you have judged to be an offense against Mary and Me? It is before you like a nightmare.
One act! And I, who see my gift being torn apart, derided, and trampled on - everything given for man’s good is a gift - can I fail to suffer?”
I don’t what to answer in the face of the concern of my Jesus. I am silent, with my head on his chest.
I then dare to ask a question which has been in my mouth for over a month, since Jesus spoke so clearly about the Belfanti/ Punturieri case792 and so forth. “Jesus, what should I do with those two books by Ubaldi?793 Shall I burn them or give them to Father Migliorini? Anyway, as You know, since You became my Teacher, I no longer read anything at all - what is good and sacred, so as not to be influenced, and what is worldly and less good, so as not to be profaned. They have been there for two years, and I haven’t touched them. And they even cause me disgust now. Shall I burn them?”
“No, keep them. We must now continue to illustrate the Gospel for this poor Catholic world, which is no longer able to see the Gospel as the heavenly pearl of all sacred culture, the indispensable, unsurpassable pearl. But later... I shall perhaps ask you for the effort to confute those books filled with error. I alone can do so....”
“Oh, Jesus! But when will You take me with You, then?”
Jesus smiles, caresses, and is silent.
“Will You leave me on earth so much longer, then? And do You think that the world for its own good will accept your gift, made to the detriment of your poor Maria?”
“The world will not appreciate the gift. It is true. Speaking in human terms, I don’t know if it’s worthwhile to give it. But I said, ‘Perhaps.’
“But You know everything....”
“And I say what I want to. Be still. Don’t think about it. Do not desire anything but one thing: ‘To do what Jesus wants.’ And then, tell Me: are you very far from what you would have in Heaven? What is Paradise? The possession and knowledge of God. Though you are still in the flesh, don’t you now possess and know Me in such a broad way that it is close to the possession and knowledge of Me which those who are spirits have? I adapt possession and knowledge to your human condition so as not to burn you to ashes, to safeguard you. But you have Me. You can, then, remain a little longer here below and serve Me. And now that’s enough. Do you see that you can’t take any more? Rest. I am with you and shall not leave you. Let us give each other the greeting of peace.”
“One more reply, Jesus, and then I’ll keep still. I would say that the book Father Fantoni brought me really comes from you, though it has another, simpler style and manifests an error when it speaks about pestilence. It is yours?”
“Yes. It is my word. I adapt the style to the capacity of the one receiving. But the teaching is that.”
“And pestilence?”
“And the curious? Do you want that, too? Isn’t the plague of this war enough for you? Come on. Keep still. Obey. Otherwise I will go away.” But He smiles and remains.
You can well imagine how quickly I stopped!
788 Father Migliorini.
789 On September 24.
790 They were two priests in the Order of the Servants of Mary.
791 Matthew 18:3; Mark 10:14-15; Luke 18:16-17.
792 A similar reference is found in the entry for October 20. But now the name of Punturieri appears, concerning whom no information is available.
793 At the Valtorta house in Viareggio, two books by Pietro Ubaldi have been found: L’ascesi mistica (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1939), forming part of the Biosophy Collection, edited by Gino Trespioli, and La grande sintesi. Sintesi e soluzione dei problemi della scienza e dello spirito, Second, Revised Edition (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, ). On the title page of the latter, Maria Valtorta wrote, “This book and Ascesi [that is, the former one] were sent by my cousin [Giuseppe Belfanti, cousin of the writer’s mother], hoping to win me over to his side when he was still a spiritist.”