The Notebooks. 1944 is the second volume to appear in English of three works already published in Italian under the title of Quaderni which contain additional visions and dictations received by Maria Valtorta during the period extending from 1943 to 1951, when she contemplated and recorded the events which would constitute her major opus on the life of Christ.
The text of this translation is accompanied by references to other works by the writer, a number of which are available in English, and readers are also provided with biographical information shedding light on The Notebooks and numerous annotations concernings the Gospel episodes which were revealed to her while these passages were being written.
The material selected for publication in this volume embraces a vast and varied array of topics ranging from visions of the Crucifixion and of the early Christian martyrs to commentaries by Christ on multiple facets of revealed truth and his redemptive and sanctifying action.
Within the scope and variety of the subjects dealt with, however, a central underlying theme is Maria Valtorta's personal experience of intense purification and trial, especially during the period in which the seriously infirm writer was forced by wartime evacuation to leave her home in Viareggio and spend months in unfamiliar surrounding. In 1944, particularly in April, she was subjected to an excruciating state of “spiritual abandonment” in which we can discern the characteristic marks of a profound “night of the pirit,” as described by St. John of the Cross and undergone by all the great Christian mystics in preparation for definitive union with the Holy Trinity, or “mystical marriage.” The term used in the Valtortan writings for this supreme consummation of Trinitarian love in the human spirit is “fusion.”
This time of deep trial and progressive elevation included a growing identification with Christ Crucified and the Sorrows of Mary which was augmented by numerous revelations concerning the Passion. As a counterpoint to certain painful states bringing the writer to the brink of despair, abundant consolations were also provided in the form of even the physical proximity of Jesus and Mary and a striking sequence of contemplations and locutions involving some of the greatest saints: John the Apostle, Paul, Joseph, Francis of Assisi, Mary Magdalene, Margaret Mary, Thérèse of the Child Jesus, and Catherine of Siena. This succession of unexpected encounters with brothers and sisters in the Mystical Body of Christ produces a living sense of one of the core realities of Catholic faith, the “Communion of the Saints,” wherein the perfect joy and peace of the inhabitants of the Heavenly Jerusalem are intimately associated with the pain and tribulation of those still engaged in spiritual combat on earth.
Perhaps the image which best summarizes the content of these Notebooks of 1944 is that of the “song of love,” which forcefully recalls the biblical “Song of Songs.” At the beginning of the year, Christ says, “...I gave you my heart as a pillow and my mouth as music and linen, which dried your tears with its kiss and relieved your pain with its song of love” (January 9). A description of Heaven received on March 6 is expressed as follows:
Paradise sings with words of light. It is light. It is the glowing of light that forms these solemn, powerful, soft chords, in which there are the trills of children, the sighs of virgins, the kisses of lovers, the hosannas of adults, and the glory of seraphim. They are not songs like those of the poor Earth, where even the most spiritual things must be clothed in human forms. Here there is harmony of splendors producing sound. It is an arpeggio of luminous notes rising and falling as the splendors change, and it is eternal and always new, for nothing is weighed down with old age in this eternal Present.
Later (June 15), Jesus also uses the figure of song to describe the protection which He offers the infirm writer, along with John the Apostle and Evangelist, symbolized by the “eagle”:
This little ‘voice’ of mine, like that of a small sparrow remaining with its wings extended to follow the flight of the eagle because it would like to follow it to hear its song and repeat it to its companions - for the royal eagle does not oppress the little sparrows, but makes friends with them, even in prison – deserves to have the impetuous current of the royal fligh carry its smallness, incapable of heights, off to the heights of Paradise and to have the eagle defend it, under the protection of its powerful wings, from kites and falcons and enable it, on the solitary rock, to feed on morsels which the eagle shreds for it. For the eagle loves it.
It loves this little voice very much. And it has thu rebaptized it ‘John,’ so that it will be defended by the apostolic eagle, in addition to the Divine Eagle, and learn its song from ours, and have peace in the shadow of our fortitude, warmth from the Sun to which we carry it off, and food from what we give it. I defend it - John and I.
On July 13 the writer notes, “I have been very ill since yesterday afternoon on account of my heart. Whereas yesterday morning, after the Mother came, I was so relieved, physically as well, that I even sang a love song to Jesus which I composed, both music and lyrics.” Towards the end of the year, on granting a vision of the heavenly hosts over Bethlehem, Christ says, “Look. May the first comfort of Christmastime be given to your suffering: the song that filled the horizons on the night which saw my birth. With their love the angel sing ‘Peace on earth to men of good will.’ They sing peace to you.”
Indeed, the authenticity of these “private revelations” granted to Maria Valtorta can best be gauged by the intensity of the Divine Love throbbing symphonically through all these passages, like beats of the Sacred Heart. On February 20, Christ repeated to the writer a central reflection He had previously affirmed: “You will not be great because of the contemplations and the dictations. These are mine. But because of your love. And the highest love lies in sharing sorrow.”
These writings are in fact a continuous witness to a basic tenet of the New Testament: “God is Love” (1 John 4:16). In her locution on May 13, Our Lady states that her “theology ...has only one key word: ‘Love’. I am Queen of the Heavens because I have understood this theology as no other creature has.” The same entry contains a further counsel:
Let there be a point in you, the deepest one, which, in the midst of a whole wounded, stricken, agonizing being stupefied by pain, exhausted by the devil’s assaults, nauseated by life events, and tossed about like a ship in a storm, is able to remain still and alive in love. A point in you which has this one mission – to love – and fulfills it for your mind, heart, and flesh. And let that point be your sanctuary. Let the altar be there with the lamp which is always lit, with flowers which are always fresh, and with praise which is always resounding.
In a complementary passage on June 15, Christ says, “For those who always take the liberty of reproaching Me for my words, I say, if they don’t understand them, let them study theology. They reflect what theology teaches.” A theology based on human erudition alone does not, however, suffice, for such thinkers have only the “single wing” of knowledge and lack the “other one” of “total charity” in being “learned, but not loving.”
Similarly, in a locution on January 14, Jesus reveals that the supreme measure of all religion is divine charity:
O lukewarm Catholic Christians, how often my Word shines and becomes light in the hearts of those who are not your brothers and sisters in Catholicism, but who surpass you in love for Christ and, even if they do not know Christ, in love for the true God, whom they feel - although He is unknown to them - to be living eternally in his Creation! In truth I tell you that the Spirit of God knows no limitation and becomes the Teacher of Truth for many....
...It is always He, the Third Divine Person, who prepares the way for Me in the hearts that have not yet received Me as Truth and waters them for Me so that my Truth, deposited like a seed borne by the divine wind, will become a large tree in them in which all the virtues may take up their dwelling. Prior to Me, He baptizes present-day pagans (and by “pagans” I mean all non- Catholics).... He baptizes with the fire of true love.
As we move into the Third Millennium of Christianity, the writings of Maria Valtorta, who offered herself to the Father as a “victim soul” alongside Christ the Redeemer, sing to us the enduring hymn of this “fire of true love” guiding our passage from human history into the fullness of eternal life.
Rome August 26, 1998
David G. Murray August 28, 1998