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The Second Kingdom
From the Mystical Revelations of
Maria Valtorta
INTRODUCTION
The excerpts presented here are translated fromthe critical Italian
edition of the ILQuaderni del 1943 ...1944 ("Notebooks for 1943 ...1944"
) of the greatcontemporary Italian mystic, Maria Valtorta (1961). This
collection ofmystical revelations Valtorta attests were given her by
Christ in theform of interior Locutions or direct Dictations and Visions.
Amid her many sufferings she was given them forher own spiritual
consolation andgrowth, as well as for the guidance of the Church today.
Theserevelations, moreover, pre-date by only a few months similar Visions
and Locutionswhich Valtorta would soon begin to record in a separate
series ofordinary school notebook pads, while propped up as an invalid in
her sick-bed thelast 26 years of her life. That separate series of
subsequentrevelations would constitute her major 10-volume (in Italian)
spiritualmasterpiece: The Poem of the Man-God.1 It is especially for this
latter Work thatValtorta is becoming best known and acclaimed, a Work
which not a fewnotable personages have read and recommended for
publication.Among these are: Pope Pius XII, as well as the eminent
Scripturescholars, Augustine Cardinal Bea, S.J., and Fr. Gabriel Allegra,
O.F.M.
The occasion and context of the Locutionspresented here was the death of
Valtorta'smother, Madame Iside, October 4th, 1943, just a couple of weeks
prior to theserevelations. Her father being already dead, Valtorta felt
herself"orphaned," as she said, and was utterly disconsolate in her
bereavement.Madame Iside was a very irreligious, self-centered,
heartlesslyoverbearing and tyrannical woman, whose abusive treatment of
her daughter wasthe source of much mental and emotional anguish and
suffering toValtorta during the latter's many years as a bed-ridden
invalid. Still,Valtorta loved her mother, and part of her distress over
her mother'sdeath was, understandably, her fear for the state and eternal
salvation of hermother's soul in the Beyond. These Locutions in the form
of Dictationsgiven Valtorta by her Master were, then, both to allay her
fears and toconsole her, as well as for the instruction of the Church and
faithful oftoday: namely, to correct prevalent misconceptions about the
principal subjectmatter of these instructions. That subject matter is, as
heralded in thetitle of this document, what the Christ refers to as "The
Second Kingdom,"and what Tradition has called "Purgatory" a term
alternately usedalso by Christ in the original Italian. (The extensively
italicizedpassages in the text are also italicized in the original
Italian anddoubtless indicate emphases requested by Christ Himself.)
Despite the "De Fide" nature of this essentialdoctrine of Purgatory in
the ChristianFaith, it is not uncommon today to hear soft snickers or
derisive chucklesfrom those more "enlightened" by modern rationalistic
and scientistictheologies. Or to observe some paternalistic and
condescendingsmiles, or slight embarrassment toward the naive credulity
of those whowould still blunderingly mention so pass' a topic as
"Purgatory" inour more theologically "enlightened" age.
Consequently, the doctrine as herein explainedwill clash, alas, with
these more"illumined" views of the Beyond which such modern theologies
dubiously affordus today. Indeed, it is lamentably clear that Christ, not
having benefitedHimself by modern man's superior theological science in
such matters,also shares that naive credulity concerning this doctrine.
To avoid the clear challenge of a "metanoia" change of mind or heart
implicit in thisand other works of Valtorta, adherents of these modern
theologies willsurely resort to their usual subterfuge, and shout:
"Prudence! How much is from Valtorta's ownimagination? How much stems
from her ownpsychology and interpretation?" Or they may retort with the
old saw: "Faithin the Gospels is sufficient," or "Faith is preferable to
seeking visions,"etc., etc. Undeniable truths, certainly, but easily
turned intohalf-truths when usurped to evade other truths equally valid.
Prudence, however, when excessive, can beimprudence, and hypercritical
dissecting of aVisionary's psychology, interpretation and human
imagination, fromthe purely Divine revelation incarnated in them,
contradicts thetheological implications of the Incarnation itself. In
addition, logicand honesty would require such hypercritical dissecting to
be appliedequally to the Gospels and to all of Scripture. For in
Scripture tooman's imagination, psychology and interpretation are
intimately boundup with the Divine inspiration and "private revelations"
incarnated in thehuman medium of the sacred authors.
So, too, a "faith-in-the-Gospels-only" can becomea faith so myopic and
closed as to maskwhat has been justifiably called the "heresy of
ecclesiologicaldeism."2 It thus conceals a basic lack of faith in a
Christ who is thesame yesterday, today and forever: a loving, caring Lord
who as He hasdone throughout all Tradition in the past can and still
continues toreveal Himself and His mysteries to His faithful followers
today:
IAM THE GOOD SHEPHERD
IKNOW MY OWN
ANDMINE KNOW ME.
[August 7, 1943]
The Three Abodesof the Beyond
JESUS :
"Souls, separated from their bodies, have threeabodes. And they will have these
until after theJudgment which will not err when there will remain but two.
The blessedrejoice immediately in Eternal rest. The repentant actively complete
their expiation,thinking of the hour of their liberation in God. The damned are
driven to rage bythe good they lost indeed, the more impious they have been,
so much the lessdo they find rest in their terrible torture."
Complete Your Metamorphosis in Me Now
JESUS :
"Flee the distractions of the earth, isolatedwith Me. When one is going to
enter a strangeland to dwell there, its language is learned in order that one
be not incapableof living there; at least one seeks to grasp the first
rudiments of thatlanguage, and imprudent is he who goes [there] without
learning even aword of it. He will have much toil the first time [there].
In the eternal dwelling, Wisdom makes you learnedin the first moment, it is
true. But see, Mysoul, the last times of the earth are preparations for Heaven.
When My Goodness gives all the signals and allthe time for preparing oneself
for Life, whennot only through the work of My Mercy, but through that even of
human will, thereis given a means of providing for the last arrangements for
your coming tothat Life, then blessed is he who prepares himself there with
care which isnever excessive.
If you took this care, all of you whom age or along sickness, or the ruthless
contingency ofwar, place in the almost certain lot of dying, there would not be
for you so manypainful stops in Purgatory. You would complete your
metamorphosis inMe with love for Me, with a true repentance for having grieved
Me, with truegenerosity, with true resignation, with all the virtues practiced
with good will,and you would not have to complete such work which makes of a
man, a doughkneaded of flesh and blood in which the spirit has reigned little
which makes ofhim a spirit that has known the true Truth: that is, that God is
the only Thingthat merits all the movements of one's being."
[October 11,1944]
Suffer Here Rather Than There
JESUS :
"...[If you are all suffering], do you believeyou have not deserved to suffer
this from whichyou now suffer? Would you perhaps be perfect monsters of pride,
so perfect as toproclaim yourselves without faults to expiate? Look within you,
at your past....Oh! no one is without faults to expiate. Well, then, if I am
pleased with thechastisement which I wanted to give you here, on earth, and
which is achastisement of love, because I do not want to punish you There where
the chastisementis measured in centuries or an eternity, while here it is ever
[but] a crumb oftime, months or years as they may be why do you immediately
want toreactivate My strictness by disobeying and showing Me a heart angered by
impatience? MakeGod your Friend, and God will be with you against the enemies
which are thethings of life: the consequences of the tragedy provoked by you
through [your]culpable fickleness, in leaving Satan and his lesser satans free
to torture thehuman race.
But if, with the ancient pride of the human race,you want to do what you
please, deaf tothe Heavenly voices which want your good, if you want to do it,
deaf to thevoices of charity and moved by the thought of egoism which I abhor,
then lo, I say toall of you: 'Do it. But you will not avoid that which, by
submitting to Me,you would have avoided. And then it will be useless to call on
God.' "
[October 17,1943]
The Purifying Flames
JESUS :
"I want to explain to you what Purgatory is andin what it consists. And I
explain itMyself, with a form that will clash with so many who believe
themselves to betrustees of knowledge of the Beyond and are not.
The souls immersed in those flames suffer onlyfrom love. Not undeserving of possessing the Light, but not yet worthy ofentering immediately into that Kingdom of Light, these souls, upon presentingthemselves to God, become clothed with the Light. It is a brief, anticipatedbliss, which makes them certain of their salvation, and makes known to themwhat their eternity will be. It makes them experience what they had committedtoward their soul; thus defrauding it of years of the blessed possession ofGod. Immersed thereafter in the Place of Purgation, they are clothed with theexpiatory flames.
In this matter, those who talk of 'Purgatory'speak rightly. But where they are
not right is inwanting to apply various names to those flames.
These flames are a conflagration of Love. Theypurify by enkindling souls with
love. They giveLove because, when the soul has reached in them that love which
it did not reachon earth, it is liberated and joined to Love in Heaven.
This seems to you a different doctrine than whatis known true? But reflect.
What does God,One and Triune, want for the souls created by Him? The Good.
He Who wants theGood for a creature, what sentiments does He have for that
creature?Sentiments of Love.
What are the first and the second commandments,the two most important? Those of which I have said there are no greater, and inwhich are the keys for reaching
Eternal Life?They are a commandment of love: 'Love God with all your strength,
love yourneighbor as yourself.'
Through My own mouth and by the prophets and thesaints, what have I said to you
an infinitenumber of times? That Charity is the greatest of absolutions.
Charity consumesthe faults and the weaknesses of man, because he who loves
lives in God, andby living in God he sins little; and if he sins he at once
repents, and forhim who is repentant there is the forgiveness of the Most High.
What is lacking to souls? Love. If they had lovedmuch, they would have
committed few andlight sins, connected with your weakness and imperfections.
But they wouldnever have reached a conscious obstinacy in faults, even venial
ones. If theywould have striven not to grieve their Love, Love also, seeing
their good will,would have absolved them even of the venial transgressions they
committed.
How does one repair, even on earth, a fault? Byexpiating it even if only with
difficulty ;through the means with which it was committed. He who has damaged
something, byrestoring whatever he has taken away with his insolence. He who
has calumniated,by retracting the calumny, and so on.
Now: if poor human justice wants this, will notthe holy Justice of God want it?
And what meanswill God use to obtain reparation? Himself, that is, Love, and by
exacting love.
All pivots on love, Maria, except for the truly'dead': the damned. For these
'dead,' even Loveis dead. But for the three Kingdoms that of the heaviest:
the Earth; thatin which the weight of matter is abolished, but not of the soul
burdened by sin:Purgatory; and finally that in which its inhabitants share with
their Father thespiritual nature which frees them from every duty for all
three the motoris Love. It is by loving on earth that you work for Heaven. It
is by loving inPurgatory that you conquer Heaven which in life you had not
known how tomerit. It is by loving in Paradise that you enjoy Heaven.
When a soul is in Purgatory it does not doanything but love, reflect, repent in
the light of Lovewhich has kindled for it these flames which already are God,
but which hideGod from it for its punishment.
Behold the torment. The soul remembers the visionof God it had in its
particularjudgment. That memory is carried with it and, since to have even but
glimpsed God is ajoy which surpasses every created thing, the soul thus has
anxiety to enjoyagain that joy. That memory of God and that ray of light which
had clothed it atits appearing before God, thus cause the soul to 'see' in
their trueessence the failures committed against its Good. And this 'seeing,'
together with thethought that it has voluntarily forbidden itself the
possession ofHeaven and union with God for ages or centuries, constitute its
purgative pain.
It is love, and the certainty of having offendedLove, which is the torment of
those beingpurged. The more a soul in life has failed, the more it is as if
blinded byspiritual cataracts which make more difficult its knowing and
reaching thatperfect repentance of love which is the first collaboration with
its purgation andits entrance into the Kingdom of God.
Love is weighed down and slowed down the more asoul has oppressed it with
guilt. But as thepower of Love cleanses it little by little, its resurrection
to love isquickened and, in consequence, so is its conquest of Love which is
completed in themoment in which, having finished its expiation and reached the
perfection oflove, it is admitted into the City of God.
There is need to pray much so that these souls,who suffer in order to reach
Joy, may be swiftin reaching the perfect love that absolves them and unites
them to Me. Yourown prayers, your suffrages, are as so many increases in the
fire of love.They increase its ardor, its heat. But oh! blessed torment!
they also increase the capacity to love. Theyquicken the process of purgation.
They raise toever higher levels the souls immersed in that fire. They bring
them to thethreshold of Light. And, at last, they open the Gates of Light and
introduce thesoul into Heaven.
For each of these works provoked by your charityfor one who has preceded you
into the secondlife, there is a corresponding jump in charity for you. The
Charity of Godwhich thanks you for providing for His repentant children, the
charity of therepentant themselves, who thank you for endeavoring to place them
in the Joy ofGod.
Never do your dear ones love you as they do aftertheir death from the earth,
because theirlove is thereafter infused with the Light of God, and in this
Light theyunderstand how you love them and how they should have loved you.
They cannot speakwords to you any more which invoked forgiveness and give love.
But they speak them to Me for you, and I bringthem to you, these words of your
Dead, who nowknow how to see and love you as they ought. I bring them to you
together withtheir requests of love and with their blessing, already valid
inasmuch as fromPurgatory, because already infused with that kindled Charity
which burns andpurifies them. And [it is] perfectly valid, then, from the
moment in which,being liberated, they come to meet you upon the threshold of
Life, or will bereunited to you in that same Life, if you have already preceded
them into theKingdom of Love.
Trust in Me, Maria. I work for you and for yourdearest ones. Lift up your
spirit. I come togive you joy. Trust yourself to Me."
[October 21,1943]
JUDGMENT: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
JESUS :
"I take up again the subject of souls receivedinto Purgatory. If you, [Maria],
have yourselfalready grasped the complete meaning of My words, no matter. These
are pages forall, because all have some dear ones in Purgatory and almost all,
with the lifethey lead, are destined to stay in that abode. For those as for
these, continuethen [to write].
I have said that souls being purged suffer onlythrough love and expiate with
love. Here arethe reasons for this system of expiation.
If you, unreflecting men, consider attentively MyLaws in their counsels and in
their commands,you see that it all pivots on love. Love toward God, love toward
your neighbor.
'I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD....
YOU SHALL NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME.'
In the first commandment I, God, impose Myself onyour reverential love with all
the solemnitywhich is worthy of My Nature in respect to your nothingness: 'I am
the Lord yourGod.'
Too many times you forget this, O men, whobelieve yourselves to be gods and, if
you do not havein you a spirit vivified by grace, you are nothing else than
dust androttenness: animals who unite to your animality the cunning of an
intelligencepossessed by the Beast, which makes you commit works of beasts
worse thanbeasts: those of demons.
Say it to yourselves morning and evening, say itto yourselves at noon and at
midnight, say itto yourselves when you eat, when you drink, when you go to
sleep, when youwake, when you work, when you rest, say it to yourselves when
you love, say itto yourselves when you contract friendships, say it to
yourselves whenyou command and when you obey, say it to yourselves always: 'I
am not God. Thefood, drink, sleep, are not God. The work, rest, occupations,
the works ofgenius, are not God. A woman, or worse: women, are not God.
Friendships are not God. Superiors are not God.One alone is God: He is my Lord Who has given me this life so that with it Imay deserve the Life which does not
die, Who hasgiven me clothing, food, dwellings, Who has given me work so that I
may gain alivelihood, genius so that I may witness to being the king of the
earth, Who hasgiven me the capacity to love and creatures to love with
holiness, and notwith lust, Who has given me power, authority, so that I may
make of them ameans of holiness and not of damnation. I can become like Him
since He hassaid: "You are gods," but only if I live His life, that is, His
laws; only if Ilive His Life, that is, His Love. One alone is God: Him. I am
His son andsubject, the heir of His Kingdom. But if I desert and betray, if I
create my ownkingdom in which I want humanly to be king and god, then I lose
the true Kingdomand my lot of a son of God falls and is degraded to that of a
son of Satan,since egoism and love cannot be served simultaneously, and he who
serves the firstserves the Enemy of God and loses Love, that is, loses God.'
Take from your mind and from your heart all thefalse gods which you have put
there, beginningwith the god of mud which you yourselves are when you do not
live in Me.Remember what you owe Me for all that I have given you and more
would I havegiven you if you had not tied the hands of your God with your
manner of liferemember what you owe Me for what I have given you for the life
of each day andfor Eternal Life. For this, God has given you His own Son, so
that He might beimmolated as a lamb without spot and might wash away with His
Blood your debtsand thus not cause, as in the Mosaic temple, the iniquities of
the fathers tofall back upon their sons unto the fourth generation of sinners,
who are 'thosewho hate Me,' since sin is an offense to God and he who offends,
hates
DO NOT RAISE UP OTHER ALTARS TO UNTRUE GODS.
Have not only upon altars of stone, but upon theliving altar of your heart; have the sole and only Lord your God. Serve Him,and to Him tender the true worship of love, of love, of love, O sons who knownot how to love; you who say, and say, and say words of prayer words only, butwho do not make of love your prayer, the only one that
pleases God.
Remember that one throb of true love which riseslike a cloud of incense from
the flames ofyour heart in love with Me, has for Me a value infinite times
greater thanthousands and thousands of prayers and ceremonies made with a
lukewarm or coldheart. Attract My Mercy with your love. If you knew how active
and great is MyMercy with him who loves Me! It is a wave that passes and washes
however much inyou constitutes stain. Give yourselves a white robe in order to
enter into theholy City of Heaven, in which there shines like the sun the
Charity of theLamb Who has immolated Himself for you.
'YOU SHALL NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD YOUR GOD IN VAIN'
Do not use the holy Name from habit or in orderto give force to your anger, to
vent yourimpatience, to strengthen your curses. And above all do not apply the
term 'god' to ahuman creature whom you love through the hunger of the senses or
through theworship of the mind. To One only should be spoken that Name. To Me.
And to Me itshould be said with love, with faith, with hope. Then that Name
will be yourstrength and your defense. The worship of this Name will justify
you, because hewho works by setting My Name to the seal of his actions, cannot
commit evilactions. I am talking of one who works with truth, not of liars who
seek to coverthemselves and their works with the splendor of My Name thrice
holy. And whom dothey seek to deceive? I am not subject to deception. And men
themselves atleast if they are not sick of mind in confronting the works
of these liarswith what they say, understand that they are counterfeits, and so
experienceoutrage and disgust toward them.
'REMEMBER TO KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH DAY'
You who know not how to love anything butyourselves and your money, and to whom any hour seems lost to you that is notdedicated to satisfying your flesh or
fattening yourpurse: in your enjoyment of work as gluttons and brute beasts,
know how to put astop to [those pursuits], such as may give you a means of
thinking of God,of His goodness, of His patience, of His love. You should, I
repeat, have Mealways present in whatever you do; but since you do not know how
to work bypreserving your spirit fixed in God, cease from working, one time in
the week, inorder to think only of God.
This, which could seem to you a servile law, isinstead a proof of how God loves
you. Your goodFather knows that you are fragile machines which are in continual
use, and He hasprovided for your flesh even for that since it is also His
work by givingyou a command to make it rest one day out of seven in order to
give it a justrelief. God does not want your sickness. Had you remained His
sons, His veryown, from Adam onward, you would not have known sickness.
Sickness is thefruit of your disobedience to God, together with sorrow and
death; and likemushrooms, they are born and hidden upon the roots of the first
disobedience:that of Adam, and they sprout each from the other, a tragic chain,
from the germwhich has remained in your heart, from the poison of the accursed
Serpent whichgives you fevers of lust, of avarice, of greed, of sloth, of
culpableimprudence.
It is culpable imprudence to want to force yourbeing to continue to work for
gain, as is thatof wanting an over-enjoyment of the belly or the senses without
contentingyourselves with the food necessary for life and the companion who is
necessary for thecontinuation of the species, but glutting yourselves beyond
measure likeanimals from a swamp, and exhausting and defiling yourselves like
or rather, notlike brute animals which are not like you, but are superior to
you in theirunions to which they go by obeying laws of order but rather
defilingyourselves worse than brute beasts: like demons who disobey the holy
laws of rightinstinct, of reason and of God.
You yourselves have corrupted your instinct andit now leads you to prefer
corrupt meals,formed of lusts in which you profane your body: My work; and your
soul: Mymasterwork. And you kill the embryos of life by denying them to life,
because yousuppress them willingly before time, or through your leprosies which
are deadly poisonto a rising life.
How many are the souls whom a sensual appetite ofyours calls from heaven and to which you then close the gates of life? How manythose who have hardly reached
their term, andcome into the light dying or already dead, and to whom you bar
Heaven? How manythose on whom you impose a weight of sorrow, which they cannot
always carry,with a sick existence, marked by sorrowful and shameful diseases?
How many thosewho cannot stand this lot of an unwanted martyrdom affixed by you
as a firebrandupon their flesh which you have begotten without reflecting
that, when one iscorrupted like graves full of rottenness, it is no longer
permitted tobeget children so as to condemn them to the sorrow and the disgust
of society? Howmany are those who, being unable to stand this lot, commit
suicide?
But what do you think? That I will damn them forthis their crime against God
and themselves?No. Before their sin against two [God and themselves], there are
you yourselveswho sin against three: against God, against yourselves, and
against theinnocent whom you beget so as to bring them to despair. Think on
that. Think wellon that. God is just, and if He weighs the fault, He also
weighs the causeof the fault. And in this case the weight of the fault lightens
the condemnationof suicide, but loads the condemnation on you, true homicides
of yourdespairing offspring.
In that day of rest, then, which God has put inthe week and has given you as
His example ofrest think of Him: the infinite Agent, the Begetter Who is
continuallybegotten from Himself; He has shown you the need of rest, He has
done it for you,so as to be your Master in life. And you, [such] negligible
powers, you donot want to take account of it, as if you were more powerful than
God! In that dayof rest for your flesh, broken under excessive fatigue, know
how to occupyyourselves with the rights and duties of your soul. Its rights: to
true Life. Thesoul dies if it is kept separated from God. Give Sunday to your
soul since youknow not how to do it on all other days and at all hours so
that on Sundayitself your soul is nourished with the Word of God, it is filled
with God so as tohave a lasting vitality for the other work days. For a son
whom work haskept far away throughout the whole week, how sweet is rest in the
house of hisfather! And why do you not give this sweetness to your soul? Why
sully this daywith debaucheries and lust, instead of making it a clear light
for your blissnow and hereafter?
'HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER'
And after love for Him who has created you: lovefor the one who has begotten
you, and for himwho is your brother. If God is Charity, how can you say that
you are in God ifyou do not seek to be like Him in charity? And can you say
that you are likeHim if you only love Him, and not others created by Him? Yes,
God should beloved more than all, but one cannot say he loves God who disdains
to love thosewhom God loves.
Love first of all, then, those who, throughhaving begotten you, are the second
creators of yourbeing on earth. The supreme Creator is the Lord God Who forms
your souls and,Proprietor as He is of Life and of Death, permits your coming to
life. But secondcreators are those who, from two different flesh and
bloodlines, makea new flesh, a new son of God, a new future inhabitant of
Heaven. Becauseit is for Heaven that you are created, it is for Heaven that you
should live onearth.
Oh! sublime dignity of a father and a mother!Holy Episcopate I speak with
bold words, buttrue Holy Episcopate which consecrates a new servant to God
with the chrismof one conjugal love, washes him with the tears of her who
begets him,clothes him with the work of his father, renders him a bearer of the
Light byinstilling the knowledge of God into children's minds and the love of
God into innocenthearts. Truly I say to you that parents are only a little
inferior to God,just by the fact of creating a new Adam. But what then when
parents know howto make of the new Adam a new little Christ? then their
dignity is hardlya step lower than that of the Eternal.
With a love only inferior, then, to that whichyou should have for the Lord your
God, love yourfather and your mother, this double manifestation of God which
their conjugallove causes to become one 'unity'. Love this unity because its
dignity and itsworks are most like those of God for you: they are your parents,
your earthlycreators, and all in you should venerate them as such.
And you, O parents, love your offspring, Rememberthat to beget a flesh is much,
but at the sametime it is nothing. Even the animals beget a flesh, and many
times they carefor it better than any of you. But you beget a citizen of
Heaven. With thisyou should preoccupy yourselves. Do not quench the light in
the souls of yourchildren, do not let the pearl of the soul of your children
get the habit ofthe mud. Give love, holy love to your children, not foolish
cares forphysical beauty, for human culture. No. It is the beauty of their
soul, theeducation of their spirit: that is what you should care for.
The life of parents is sacrifice, as is that ofpriests and teachers convinced
of their mission.All three categories are 'formators' 11 of that which does not
die: the spirit,or the psyche, if you prefer. And granted that the spirit
stands to theflesh in the proportion of 1000 to 1, consider to what perfection
you shouldattain, O you parents, teachers and priests, in order to be truly
what you shouldbe. I say 'perfection'. 'Formation' is not enough. They are to
form others, butin order to form them 'un-deformed', they must mold them on a
perfect model.And how can they claim to be such, if they are imperfect
themselves? Andhow can they become perfect themselves if they are not molded on
the Perfect,which is God? And what can give man the capacity to mold himself on
God? Love, alwayslove. You are all but iron, raw and unformed. Love is the
furnace whichpurifies and melts you and makes you fluid to flow through
supernaturalveins into the form of God. Then you are the 'formators' of others:
when you haveformed yourselves on the perfection of God.
Children many times exhibit again the spiritualbankruptcy of their parents.
Through thechildren it appears what the parents were worth. For, if it is true
that sometimesfrom holy parents are born depraved children, this is the
exception.Generally, at least one of the parents is not holy and, given the
fact that it iseasier for you to copy evil rather than good, the child copies
the less goodparent. It is also true that sometimes from depraved parents a
holy child isborn. But even there it is difficult for both parents to be
depraved. Throughthe law of compensation the better of the two is good for
both, and withprayers, tears and words, completes the work for both by forming
the child forHeaven.
In any case, whatever your parents be, Ochildren, I say to you: 'do not judge,
love only,forgive only, obey only, except in those things which are contrary to
My Law. For youthere is the merit of obedience, of love and of forgiveness,
forgiveness fromyou, the children, Maria, which hastens the forgiveness of God
for your parents,and hastens it so much the more as your forgiveness is
complete;12 foryour parents there is whether in regard to you, or in what
concerns God forthem there is the responsibility and the just judgment of
God, the onlyJudge.
'YOU SHALL NOT KILL'
It is superfluous to explain that to kill is alack of love. Of love toward God,
from Whom youtake the right of life and of death toward a creature of His, and
the right ofJudge. Only God is Judge, and a holy Judge, and if He has granted
to man to createfor himself assemblies of justice in order to put on you a
bridle, either incrime or in punishment, woe to you if, as you fail in the
Justice of God,you fail in the justice of man by setting yourselves up for
judges of onelike yourselves who has failed you, or whom you believe has failed
you.
Think, O poor sons, that an offense, a sorrow,upsets minds and hearts, and that
this anger andthis very sorrow put a veil upon your intellectual vision: a
veil which barsyou from the vision of the true truth, and also of charity as
God presents itto you, so that thereby you may know how to regulate even your
just outrage, andnot make of it by too pitiless a condemnation an
injustice also.Be holy even while the offense burns you. Remind yourselves of
God then aboveall.
And you also, judges of the earth: be holy. Youhave in your hands the most
vivid horrors ofhumanity. Scrutinize them with your eye and mind steeped in
God. See the true'why' of certain 'miseries'. Think that even if they are true
'miseries' of ahumanity which is degraded, many are the causes which produce
them. In the handthat kills, seek the force that moved it to kill, and remind
yourselves thatyou also are men. Question yourselves: if you betrayed,
abandoned, goadedwould have been better than this man or woman who is before
you awaitingsentence. While making a severe examination of yourselves: think if
there be nowwoman who could accuse you of being the true killers of her child
which sheblocked, because after the hour of play you withdrew yourselves from
your pledge ofhonor. And if you can do that, be yourselves also severe.
But if, after having sinned against the creatureborn from your intrigue and
from your lust,you still want to obtain a pardon from Him Who is not deceived
and not forgetfulwith years and years of correct life after that
incorrectnesswhich you did not want to repair, or after that crime which you
had provoked thenat least be operative in preventing the evil, and especially
there wherefeminine fickleness and the misery of the surroundings predispose
one for a fallinto vice and infanticide.
Remember, O men, that I, the Pure, did not refuseto redeem dishonorable women. And for the honor which they no longer had, I hadraised up in their soul , like
a flower fromprofaned ground, the living flower of repentance which redeems. I
had given Mypitying love to the poor disgraced women whom a so-called 'love'
had prostrated inthe mud. My true love had saved them from the lust with which
that so-calledlove had infected them. If I had cursed them and fled, I would
have lost themforever. I loved them even for the world, which after having
enjoyed them,covers them again with hypocritical ridicule and false
indignation. Inplace of the caresses of sin, I caressed them with the pureness
of My Look; inplace of delirious words, I had for them words of love; in place
of money,shameful price of their kiss, I had the riches of My Truth.
Thus does one do, O men, in order to pull out ofthe mud one who has sunk into
the mud, and thusone is not clutched by the neck oneself so that both perish.
Nor does onethrow stones at them to make them sink the more. It is love, it is
always love thatsaves.
'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY'
I have already said what sort of sin adultery is,and I do not repeat it, for
now at least. Onthis backwash of animality there is so much to say and so
much you cannoteven grasp, because you boast about being betrayers of the
hearth that outof pity for My little disciple [Maria], I keep silent. I do
not want toexhaust the strength of this worn out creature and disturb her mind
with humancrudeness since, being near her goal, she thinks only of Heaven.
'YOU SHALL NOT STEAL'
It is obvious that he who steals is failing inlove. If he would remember not to
do to anotherthat which he would not want done to himself, and if he loved
others ashimself, he would not take with violence and fraud that which is his
neighbor's. Hewould not fail therefore in love, as instead he is lacking
therein bycommitting a larceny which could be of goods, of money, as well as of
an occupation.How many commit theft by stealing a position of a friend, an
invention of acompanion. You are thieves, thieves three times, for doing that.
You are more sothan if you stole a portfolio or a gem, because without these
one can stilllive, but without an earning position one dies, and with that
stealing of hisposition his family dies.
'YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST YOUR NEIGHBOR'
I have given you speech as a sign of yourelevation above all the other animals
of the earth. Youshould therefore love Me through your speech, My gift. But can
I say that youlove Me through your speech when, of this gift from Heaven, you
make yourselves aweapon in order to ruin your neighbor with a false oath? No,
you do not loveeither Me or your neighbor when you assert what is false, but
rather you hateus. Do you not reflect that speech kills not only the flesh, but
the reputation ofa man? He who kills, hates; he who hates, does not love.
'YOU SHALL NOT COVET YOUR NEIGHBOR'S WIFE, NOR HIS GOODS...'
Envy is not charity: it is anti-charity. He whodesires immoderately the
belongings ofanother is envious and does not love. Be content with what you
have. Think thatunder the appearance of joy there are often sorrows which God
sees and whichare spared you, who are seemingly less happy than those whom you
envy. Because if,then, the object desired is the other's wife or the other's
husband, then youshould know that to the sin of envy you join that of lust and
of adultery. Youtherefore accomplish a triple offense toward the Charity of God
and of neighbor.
As you see, if you infringe against theDecalogue,you infringe against love.
And it is thusalso for the counsels that I have given you, which are the
flower of thetree of Charity. Now if by infringing against the Law you infringe
against love, itis obvious that a sin is a failure in love. And therefore you
must expiate withlove.
PURGATORY: EXPIATING LOVE
The love which you did not know how to give Me onearth, you must give to Me in
Purgatory. Hereis why I say that Purgatory is nothing else than a suffering of
love.
Through all your life you have loved God littlein His Law. You have thrown
behind your backthe thought of Him, you have lived loving all [else] and loving
Him little. It isjust, therefore, that neither deserving Hell nor Paradise, you
deserve It now byigniting yourselves with charity, burning ardently to the same
extent that youwere lukewarm on earth. It is just, therefore, that you sigh
longinglythousands and thousands of hours with an expiation of love for what
you had thousandsand thousands of times failed to sigh for on earth: God,
supreme goal ofcreated intellects. To every time that you have turned your back
on Love, therecorresponds years and centuries of loving nostalgia. Years or
centuries,according to the gravity of your fault.
Now that you have become secure [in Purgatory]about God, and have known some of the supernal beauty of God through thatfleeting encounter of the first
judgment,thememory of it comes with you so as to render more vivid the
anxiety of love:you sigh for Him, you weep over His distance, you regret and
repent havingbeen yourselves the cause of such distance, and always render
yourselves morepenetrable by that fire ignited by Charity for your supreme
good.
When, by the prayers of the living who love you,the merits of Christ are thrown
like an ardentessence into the holy fire of Purgatory, the incandescence of
love penetratesyou more strongly and more inwardly; and amid the glowing of the
flames, thatmemory of God seen in the moment of judgment becomes always more
lucid.
As in life on earth, the more love grows, thethinner becomes the veil which
hides theDivinity from the living: so equally in this Second Kingdom, the more
the purificationgrows, and therefore love, the nearer and more visible also
becomes the Faceof God. Already It smiles and shines through the flashes of the
holy fire. It islike a Sun which comes ever nearer, and Its light and Its
warmth annulalways more the light and heat of the purgative fire, until,
passing from thatdeserved and blessed torment of the fire to the conquered and
blessed relief ofpossession, having passed from a flame to The Flame, from a
light to TheLight, you go up to be light and flame in Him, the eternal Sun,
like a sparkabsorbed by a blazing pyre and like a lamp thrown into a
conflagration.
Oh! joy of joys, when you find yourselves raisedup to My Glory, having passed
from that kingdomof waiting to the Kingdom of Triumph. Oh! perfect knowledge of
Perfect Love!
This knowledge, O Maria, is a mystery which byGod's Will the mind can know, but
cannot describewith human words. Believe that it merits suffering a whole
lifetime topossess it at the hour of death. Believe that there is no greater
charity than toprocure it with prayers for those whom you have loved on earth
and who now begintheir purification in that love to which in life they closed
the doors oftheir hearts so many, many times.
Courage, blessed one to whom hidden truths havebeen unveiled. Go on, work and ascend. For yourself and for those you love inthe Beyond.
Let the thread of your life be consumed by Love.Pour back your love upon
Purgatory inorder to open the Gates of Heaven to those whom you love. Blessed
are you if youknow how to love even to incinerating what is weak and has
sinned. To meetthe spirit purified by the immolation of love, there come the
Seraphim, andthey teach it the eternal "Sanctus" to sing at the foot of My
Throne."
The End
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