Bishop Roman Danylak Titular Bishop of Nyssa Toronto/Rome   This testimonial has been several years in the making. My first was the canonical and theological defense of the Poem of the Man God in 1991 in response to some of the canonical and theological problems raised by various authors with this principal work of Maria Valtorta. Subsequently I have written several commendations for individual publications about the writings of Maria.

As a priest and bishop of the Catholic Church I have learned to breathe with the ‘two lungs of Christianity’, east and west. I was born and baptized in the Byzantine Ukrainian Catholic Church, and raised in the traditions of the Church of the east. The daily prayer of the eastern fathers is my daily fare. My theological, philosophical and canonical formation came from the schools of the west. Reading the texts of the Poem of the Man-God, or the Gospel as revealed to Maria Valtorta, again and again I experienced the literary richness of this Life of Christ by a master craftsman: the factual accuracy of her descriptions of the geography and the scenes of Israel and the events of the Gospel. She narrates a story that includes a cast of hundreds of apostles, disciples, friends and enemies of Christ. She weaves the masterful tapestry of the life and drama of our Divine Savior, and His Blessed Mother, against the background of the history and topography of Israel and Palestine of the first century of the Christian era, as a faithful and accurate chronicler of the divine drama of salvation history. We find many of these names recounted in the voluminous liturgical books of the Byzantine Church and the writings of the early Church Fathers.

• Who wishes to come to know Christ and His Blessed Mother, the sublime pedagogy of the Divine Teacher as He proclaims the gospel of salvation and forms this motley band of fishermen, a tax collector, and a converted zealot healed of leprosy, as He proclaims the sublime yet simple teachings of the Kingdom of God;
• Who wants to begin to understand the mystery of salvation and redemption of mankind through the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God and Man;
• Who wants to come to know the face and the heart of the Father;
• Who wants to discover the truth of the Church of Jesus Christ;

Such a one will find an admirable guide and mentor in this monumental work of Maria Valtorta. St. John wrote in his gospel: "There is much else besides that Jesus did. If all of it were put in writing, I do not think the world itself would contain the books which would have to be written." (Jn 21, 25) This major work of Maria Valtorta, the Poem of the Man-God, is the Gospel expanded, and with her other writings, is in perfect consonance with the canonical Gospels, with the traditions and the magisterium of the Catholic Church.

Dated at Rome/Toronto, June 24, 2001
The Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and Precursor
 

+ Roman Danylak, S.T.L., J.U.D.