Maria Valtorta (1961†), contemporary Italian mystic of the present-day Church, is becoming ever more renowned in the Christian West since the translation into English of her voluminous Master-work: The Poem of the Man-God. Acclaimed by the Marian theologian, Fr. Gabriele Roschini, O.S.M. as among the greatest mystics in the history of the Church, Valtorta, at her death in 1961, was surely also a great saint, not so much from the many revelations she received but due to her intense life of prayer, mortifications, and sufferings accepted as a victim soul for love of Christ and her fellow Christians.
    Like nearly all the saints, Valtorta had many great sufferings in her life – not only physical: for the last half of her life she was a bedridden invalid completely dependent on others for all her needs – but she had also great spirituaI and moraI sufferings. Of these latter, perhaps one of the greatest was the moral and mentaI persecution infIicted upon her in her invalid state by her own mother, Iside.
    Born Iside Fioravanzi in Cremona, Italy, in 1861, she married her meek and mild-mannered soldier-husband Giuseppe Valtorta in 1893 – and the fruit of that union was to be her unwanted daughter and future great mystic, Maria Valtorta. Iside, though a cultured person and former French teacher, was a supremely egotistical and tyrannical woman of little or no religious faith. The coldness, indifference and rejection that she continually manifested toward her daughter was doubtless due in large measure to her disappointment that Maria was a girl rather than the boy she had wanted. Indeed at times she even addressed Maria as "Mario" – a masculine form, and hence a boy's name. Yet she was jealous of Maria, treating her more like a servant than a daughter, demanding of her increasingly debiIitated daughter, special care and attention for her own petty and often imagined illnesses. Indeed, Maria reveals in her writings, and particularly in her Autobiography, that two or three times her mother successfully managed by deceit to destroy relationships between Maria and her fiancés, just to insure that her daughter would remain in her power and in attendance on her frequent hypochondriacal whims.
    In coming to know this terrible, self-centered mother and the persecutions she inflicted on her daughter, one is necessarily led to doubt seriously about her salvation –as did Maria also, it seems. Yet she still loved her mother with a truly spirituaI love, and thus determined to do alI in her power to win her salvation. Hence the very sufferings Maria received at the hand of her mother, she offered back to Christ for the sake of her mother's salvation.
    Nor was Maria disappointed. By way of documenting this fact, the following excerpts presented here comprise Locutions and Visions mercifully granted to Maria by Christ concerning the "post-mortem" state of her mother. Translated especially for this web site, these excerpts are taken from the critical Italian edition of the three volumes of  Valtorta's Notebooks (I Quaderni). After a brief anecdotaI sketch of Iside Fioravanzi below by VaItorta's PubIisher, EmiIio Pisani, followed by two brief Locutions of Christ to Maria preceding her mother's death, the remaining excerpts consist mainly of Visions of the state of her mother's souI in the Beyond. The Visions indisputably confirm the existence of a state of progressive purgation in the Afterlife traditionaIly known as Purgatory –treated elsewhere on this site in the document: The Second Kingdom. They are therefore of great value for renewing and supporting this ancient doctrine of the Church when, in our day, a pervasively resurgent neo-modernism is doing its utmost to dismiss or deny it – and even the existence of Hell – as a naive and empty myth. If the presentation of this dossier helps toward that renewal and support, then its purpose will be served.

 "Listen, Maria: You know the parable of that father who had two sons? One says: 'Yes, my father,' and then does nothing; the other says: 'No, my father,' and then does what his father asks him?³

    I do not want to make you meditate here on the duties of children and on the beauty of obedience.  No.  I say onIy that perhaps that father was not a modeI father. The proof of it is that his sons did not love him: one lies, the other answers with a refusal which he later overcomes with a supernatural effort.

    Not alI children are perfect, but it is also true that not alI parents are perfect. The commandment says: 'Honor your father and your mother,' ⁴ and who transgresses it will be punished by Divine Justice. But that Justice would not be justice if it did not use the same measure toward whomever does not honor their children. In the ancient language, to 'honor' means: to treat a person with reverential respect. Now if it is a duty to honor those who have given us life and have provided for our needs as an infant and as a child, it is no less true that parents should honor their children whom God has granted them to have and has entrusted to these, His creatures, to be raised in a holy manner.

    Too often fathers and mothers do not reflect that they have become trustees and guardians of a prodigy of God the Creator. For every new existence is a prodigy of the Creator. Too often parents do not think that within that flesh begotten of human flesh and blood, there is a soul created by God and which must be reared to a doctrine of spirit and truth in order to be returned to God worthily.

    Every child is a talent entrusted by the Lord to a servant of His. But woe to that servant who does not make that talent fruitful, who leaves it inert, not interesting himself in it or, worse still, disintegrates and corrupts it.⁵ If from him who is not watching to enrich the living talent of the good God, God will with severe voice ask the reason and will threaten a long chastisement: then from him who destroys and kills the soul of his child, God – Owner and Judge of all that is – will, with an inexorable verdict, threaten Eternal Punishment to the parent who is a murderer of the most precious part of his child: its soul. –This in general. Now for the particular side.

DO you know how you should love your mother in order to be able to love her? With a love solely spiritual. The other...[kind] is useless. She does not see it, she does not understand it, she does not feel it. And she tramples on you, making you bleed in your humanity. Therefore I say to you: love her only spiritually. That is: love and employ yourself for her poor soul. Nor do I say anything else to you, since you are her daughter, and I do not want there to be with this any lack of honor for a mother. I am God and Judge. I can do it. But with you I do not want to do it. Even if a parent faiIs, she shouId be respected as a 'parent.'

    Love her poor soul. She has much need of your charity as a daughter. Fathers and mothers who sin toward their children have need – in the order of Eternal Life – of the help and forgiveness of their children in order to have an alleviation of their punishment.

    Reflect much on what I say without My needing to add anything else. If you stop to consider her as a woman, you cannot honor her. I agree. But consider that she is a soul, a daughter of God and very, very, very rudimentary. Your charity of a daughter should endeavor to repair for her deficiencies, to enrich her yourself so that she does not present herself too poor to her God, her Judge.

    You have pity for the sick and love for children. But what spiritual childishness is more childish than your mother's? And what spiritual sickness is a greater sickness than your mother's? Embrace, then, her dark and heavy spirit and raise it toward the Light.

    A difficult love, that spiritual I love. I know. But it is a love unto perfection. It is the love that I had for so many while I was a Mortal. I knew who would have betrayed Me. I knew who wouId have denied Me. I knew who would have fled in the terrible hour. Nothing was obscure to Me. My Flesh and My Blood trembled with revulsion when sensing the cowards, the deniers, and especially, the betrayer near Me: so I had accomplished immeasurable prodigies of spiritual love, therefore, in order to save their spirits.

    Many have I saved thus. Only those completely possessed by the demon – completely, I say – were unshaken by My bath of spiritual love. The others, possessed only by a passion, were saved before or after My Death. Judas, Caiaphas, Annas and some others,no, since the seven principal demons held them captive with seven cords; and cohorts of demons were in them to accomplish the work which made of them the gems of Hell.

    You also love thus, Maria. You will do your duty and show Me you are a true disciple. In regard to her, leave to Me the office of Judge. Go in peace, dear soul, and do not sin."

    "And I just wanted a word and a caress!... This last fragment was dictated at 7:00 in the morning, and at 11:00 that morning I was shortly going to my Creator, so much was the unjust and cruel arrogance of my mother unchained. Did I say to you⁶ yesterday that it is a ferocious period? I had not exaggerated. Now that she has made me stay sick – it is evening and still my heart is agitated: according to the doctor I had risked death, and I had felt it – now she is satisfied.

    Amen. I obey Jesus and offer this physical and moral pain for her soul."

    "Help me, Jesus! Help me to know how to suffer and not go mad, because in my poor head, so full of suffering and moral [mental?] pain, You know better than I what could happen. Take me between your dear Hands, Jesus. You promised me to be my Mother, my Father, as weII as my Brother and Spouse. Take me, for You see what I suffer..."

    "I ask only to take between My Hands this head of yours crowned with pain, and your heart pierced with pain.

    I never break My promises. I am with you, and I do not even say to you: 'Do not weep,' but rather I say to you: 'Weep in My Arms.' There are sorrows which need tears, and I do not hinder what is just. Never. Weep and Iisten. Your tears will be dried by the warmth of My Words.

    It is true that you have what I did not have: that is, a distancing from your mother. But think, My daughter, that you are not innocent, and that she is not innocent. I and My Mother were innocent, and yet We were both united, and divided, in death. I have said to you that seeing Me raised on the Cross was torture upon torture for My Mama. And We were Innocent!

    Your suffering and the suffering of your Mama are not without aim, Maria. Does it seem to you that your Jesus could do something useless? Could the suspicion arise in you that He Who loves you so much and loves your mother – because she too is a daughter of My Redemption – could give pains without a holy aim? No, Maria. Have you not asked to have all mercies for the soul of your mother? Now , then, know that your suffering has the same aim.

    I know that this tortures you. But if the olive were not broken, could it give its oil which nourishes, which heals and consecrates?

    I said to the sister of Lazarus: 'He who believes in Me will never die.' Not all arrive at that faith in Me which is necessary in order to have a quick resurrection in the Glory of My Paradise.

    I need there to be those who beIieve, not one time, but who beIieve seven times, for those who believe lukewarmly, in order to give to the lukewarm a last glimmer of faith, so absolute, as to make them appear in My Sight clothed with this last glimmer. For these laborers of the last hour, I go about begging heroic acts of faith and generosity which may pay for these laborers deprived of this Heavenly Money.

    And, I have already said to you that the first of these spiritual alms should be made to those of one's own blood.

    Your mama has never said 'thank you' on this earth with her mortal mouth. But think of your future joy when it will be the immortal soul of your mother which, united again to you, will say to you: 'Thank you, Maria, for the true life which you have given me.' it will be as if your mother were born from you, and for eternity.

    Leave your heart between My Hands. I want to be able to have alI these poor, feeble, sick, wounded, suffering hearts of alI of you, in order to fortify them, to heal them, to console them.

    If men would give Me their hearts! There would be no more sin on earth, no more vices which sicken flesh and spirit, there would be no more reciprocal cruelties which wound, no more of that agonizing pain of one who weeps alone and misunderstood. It would be the salvation of the world: this giving of your hearts to Me.

Entrust to Me your affections, your interests, your hopes, your sorrows, just as I have taught you: children whom I love as Myself. See in Me not only the Lord, but above alI your Friend, your Brother, Him Who loves you with a perfect love, as perfect as is His Nature of God.

My little disciple, Maria, who suffer and listen: think that your Master suffers more than you. Let us console each other in turn. I am All to you, and I keep you upon My Heart."

    "Sorrow overwhelms me! For I think of my mother when she sees You, Jesus, because she feared You. Why did she fear You, Jesus?"

    " 'Why?'  Many 'Why's' are in your heart after this previous Dictation of Mine. But I begin with the last one.

    Do not weep, My 'little voice,' My little spouse. Your mother is better than so many, notwithstanding that she had not known how to see Me as I am: as Mercy working, as Love and not Justice, Love Who, in order to be Absolver of all, asks only love and trust. My Own Love and yours have put the right weight to that weight of love necessary for the soul of your mother to redeem herself. Love is a treasure, you know? It buys all, frees all, redeems all. Do not weep.

    Why was she afraid of Me? I had gone to her to give her strength and light. She was afraid because... –Remember what the Gospel says of My disciples, still so imperfect not only before the Passion, when they saw Me walk on the water, but even after having received Me as Eucharist, and being redeemed by My Sacrifice which, by restoring Grace to them, should have made their spirit vigilant and capable of recognizing the Face of God: 'They were afraid of Jesus because they believed Him to be a ghost, a spirit,' says the Gospel.⁹ Your mother also had the same fear. She believed Me to be a ghost, a severe ghost.

    You see, 0h My friend, into what error a troubled conscience is led. You see how sure a promise of a serene death it is to have one's spirit a friend of God?

    I, the Good Master, went to her to speak to her words suited to cleanse her in true contrition, words suited to raise her up with a holy resignation, to give her immediate salvation with an upsurge of love, a washing of her whole life. I went there out of pity for her and to make you happy.... I went to your mama to give her Myself, the Bread of Heaven, to give her kisses of love and the blessings of Viaticum. She was afraid because she knew Me too little. And too many are those who know Me too little.

    But do not be in anguish out of your filial love.... I say to you: 'I will open the gates to you, and to your mother and father with you.' Can you believe this? Can you believe that My Love can do this for you? But do you pray and love. You are not alone. I am with you, and He Who now loves you in truth and for [your] good, is near you.

    And now, I say to you also as to Simon the Cananean: 'Up! Up!' and I clasp you to Myself to make you feel that there is One Who loves you. From these Hands descend punishments, but also caresses. And from My Lips: severe words, but also – more numerous and said with so much more joy – words of My good pleasure. Go in peace, Maria. You have not pained your Jesus. Be comforted in this."

    "This morning at 6:00 a.m., I had a vision which, at least for part of it, will leave some incredulous, but which for me had been both a comfort and painful.

    I saw the highest Paradise with its people: the Saints, innumerable, celebrating, blissful in their contemplation of God. Lights and lights of loving flames were those incandescent spirits absorbed in the vision of God. All with their faces gazing earnestly and with love at One single Point: the Most Holy Trinity.

    But on the boundary of Heaven (if I may speak thus), just at the point where the blessed Kingdom has its beginning, a spirit emerged: one different in appearance and behavior. Its appearance was of a less dazzling whiteness, a little more opaque: I would say 'ashen,' even in its physiognomy which already had the characteristics of the blessed spirits: lines of light in the form of a face and limbs. Even its garments, though white, were not yet shining like those of the others: as light that has become cloth. It seemed to have just come out of a sad and smoky place which had weighed it down in its garments and its color.

    Its behavior was also different than that of the others; as though fighting between wanting to adore God and wanting to look at me with a queer look, it seemed to ask to be excused: to say, 'Now I know,' to say, 'I love you,' to say, 'Thanks,' and, 'I was blind, now I see.' The spirit had a serious appearance, almost sad, yet peaceful and serene, a humble and yet solemn appearance...

    It was my mother. Unmistakably: so precise in likeness and expression was she, as she used to be in those rare moments in which she spoke with her heart and reason.

    I sought so much for my papa, but I did not see him. And yet I think he is in God, more so than Mama.... How much I sought him among the faces of the blessed, so clear and recognizable! My joy would have been full. Although it is already a joy to have seen my mama, for whom I have prayed so much in her life and after her death.

    I think – I do not know if my thinking is correct – but I think that she has just come out of her expiation, or that she is just on its threshold: on the border between Purgatory and Paradise, and for this reason she is less shining and less absorbed in God than the others, and with a need of still remembering the earth, and with an impulse – coming from her rebirth in Perfection – an impulse to say to me now what she had never felt the need of saying to me, not even on her last day, to make reparation for such a closed and proud egoism.

    I know that those who have known her will not believe in such a swift expiation. But I think that Jesus had wanted me to know it so that I may be less desolate. I am delighted by the memory of what I have seen, and I bless the Lord for it."

    "Tuesday evening I was seized by such sadness, because I had seen my  mother.... I had also seen her thus on the first of the year. But now she seemed to me more anguished. I will explain.

    On January First, I saw her more or less as on All Saints Day¹²: opaque, alone, distracted, like one astonished at being where she is and, at the same time, humiIiated. She looked at me. But she was always so dazed then.

    Tuesday, on the other hand, she seemed less dazed, but always in that place, and always so opaque in her color and her garments. However, her eyes were more alive in their expression and she seemed to want to say something to me and couldn't. Something like an invocation, an excuse, and an admonition.... If I had to translate that look I should say that she said to me: 'Forgive me and help me. I still need you, even here, as I did when I was there. Help me... I am so alone... I have no one but you.'

    I said to her: 'Is this what you want to say, Mama?' And she, with her head, said: 'Yes, yes,' and smiled, but very sadly. I had wept, and I too remained sad.

    And she returned again. I said to her: 'But don't the suffrages suffice?' And she, always with her head, said: 'Yes, yes.' But at the same time she asked something that I do not know how to express. I had said to her: 'I love you. You know that,' and she agreed, but always had that look. 'I have no spite, Mama, and I still want you here,' and she smiled but she was not cheered. I suffered. I did not feel at peace.

    This is the thing that I had to say and have never written, because these things seemed only my own and so sad, too sad...."

    "My mama! She is mildly sad. With a peaceful face, no longer ashen as in the first apparitions. It is the face of her better hours and also more at peace, as though softened from a reflection of a soul nourished by peace. But she is sad. She looks at me with loving pity. A look which I have desired from her many times while she was my mama on earth, and which I had had so rarely, and always more feebly than this look now. She looks at me... She seems to suffer... But she is no longer distant from me, in an ultra terrestrial zone, as in the first apparitions. She is right here with me, towards the foot of my bed, and she looks around – I do not know if from curiosity or to greet her own things which she sees again around me. She smiles at her portrait set near me; she smiles more luminously at her Lady of Sorrows [picture], at my miniature one, and then she looks at Jesus Whom I have at the head of the bed, and her look is so vague that I am unsuccessful in describing it. She seems to pray and venerate, but she seems to be humiliated, asking forgiveness... She seems to suffer.

    I think she is sad because for two months I have not been able to have a Holy Mass of suffrage said for her. Before, from December to March, she was calm, or she seemed calm to me , because I did not see or feel her anymore, as if the monthly Holy Mass gave her relief. And I said it to her: 'You are right, Mama. But if you knew how put down I am. They almost do not occupy themselves anymore with me.' ¹⁴

    She shook her head with an act of denial....

    I continue: 'I don't know to whom to address myself to be sure that they solace you with the Holy Sacrifice...' She answers:

    'I know. We, here, we know. But it is not for myself that I suffer; it is for you. Poor Maria! Never understood, never loved, never happy... Not even now that you are sick and so worthy of help. How many wrongs we all have done toward you!'

    'Do not suffer, Mama. You know that I am habituated to this state...'  –I do not say any more, since I understand that my words would be a rebuke for the memory of the past, of her past and mine.... She answers:

    'I cannot not suffer. Because now I understand. Immersed as we are in a burning and luminous bath of expiating love, we see, we know and we learn now, here, to love our God and our neighbor whom in life we had loved little and badly. And the sufferings of our neighbor increase our expiation because, with our egoism fallen away, we know how to suffer with him and for him. But do not afflict yourself for this. This serves us for going more quickly into Paradise. Have patience, Maria. God alone loves you. But He loves you so much. And now, your mama also loves you so much, your mama who cannot yet give you all that she wants in order to repair. The first period, that of remorse, is ended...and I am in active love. But I still cannot do anything else for you but pray. However, remain at peace. You already know how to love, and therefore you are protected by Love. I learn to know, moment by moment for Eternity. Knowing always more, I learn to love always more. When I know how to love as it was commanded us, my expiation will be ended, and then I will be able to do much more. Paradise and power – on earth and here – are had by loving. Do not weep, "picceccola" (a term of endearment that Mama gave me when I was a child, and means: "little baby", and which she also gave me after I became a woman in her very rare, expansive moments). The evil is from the others. It is they who should weep, because they do evil. Oh! If you knew how one expiates here what our neighbor is made to suffer. And they will all suffer it. And it will be just because they have no pity either for God's creature or for the means used by Him. How good one should be while one can! Be patient and offer to God your patience as a suffrage for your mama. The best of offerings: just because made by you, solely by you. It is your offerings, your sacrifices which give me relief, because it is toward you that I have failed the more in love, toward you among all the living.... Peppino is no longer among the living.... Good-bye, Mario...' (another way that I was called by Mama who had wanted a boy instead of a girl and called me "Mario" as though to console herself for having put a girl into the world...), and a cool kiss grazed my cheek while the vision darkened...and slowly disappeared.

    I call: 'Mama! Mama ! Tell me!... Are you more purified that you speak now, while before you could not? Tell me!...' But she had gone away without answering me. I wanted also to ask her: ' When you were so tormented in December and called me with that weeping voice, was it because you saw what was prepared for me?' And I also wanted to say to her: ' Why does Papa never come? Is he perhaps in peace, or so much in peace as to act from Paradise without coming?' But she had not given me time for that. I remain in my curiosity but with a sense of calm comfort...."

  Maria : "After so long a time I see my mama. She is in the midst of the flames of Purgatory. I  have never seen her in the flames. I
            cry out. I do not succeed in suppressing my outcry which I then justify to Martha [Diciotti]¹⁶ with some excuse, in order not to impress her.

    My mama is no longer so vaporous, so grayish, and with a hard expression, hostile toward the All and toward all, as I saw her in the first three years after her death when, though I begged her to, she did not want to turn to God... Nor is she dim and sad as though afraid, as I saw her for successive years. She is beautiful, young again, serene. She seems like a bride in her garment, no longer gray but white, very incandescent. From her groin up she is out of the flames. I speak to her. I say to her: 'Are you still there, Mama? And yet I have prayed so much to shorten the pain for you, and I had others pray. This morning, for your sixth anniversary [of death] I received Communion for you. And you are still there!'
Cheerfully, merrily she answers me:

 Iside : 'I am here, but only for a little while still. I know that you have prayed and had others pray. This morning I made a great step
            toward Peace. I thank you and the sister who has prayed for me. I will repay you after... Soon. Shortly I will be finished being purged. I have already purged the faults of my mind... my proud obstinacy... and then those of my heart... my egoism.... They were the most grave. Now I expiate those of the lower part. But they are a trifle compared to the former.'

Maria : 'But when I saw you so vaporous and hostile you did not want to turn toward Heaven....'

 Iside : 'Heh! I was still proud... Me? humble myself? I did not want to. But then my pride had fallen.'

Maria : 'And when you were so sad?'

 Iside : 'I was still attached to earthly affections. And you know that it was not a good attachment... But I already understood. I was
            sad for that reason. Because now that there was no longer a fault of pride, I understood that I had loved God badly, wanting Him as my servant, and that I had loved you badly....'

Maria : 'Don't think of it anymore, Mama. It's passed now.'

 Iside : 'Yes, it is passed. And if I am this way now, I thank you. It is through you that I am thus. Your sacrifice... It obtained
            Purgatory for me , and shortly, Peace.'

Maria : 'In 1950?'

 Iside : 'Before that! Before that! Soon!'

Maria : 'Then there will be no more need for us to pray for you.'

 Iside : 'Pray all the same , as if I were here. There are so many souls, of every kind, and many souls of mothers, forgotten. There
            is need to love and think of them all. Now I know that. You know how to think of all, to love all. I know this now also, and now I understand how just it is. Now I do not extemporize the process of God anymore. Now I say that it is just....'

Maria : 'Then, you pray for me.'

 Iside : 'Heh! I thought of that first for you. You see how I had kept house for you. You know it, eh? But now I will pray for your soul
            so that you may either be happy, or that you may come with me.'

Maria : 'And Papa? Where is Papa?'

 Iside : 'In Purgatory.'

Maria : 'Still?! And yet he was good. He died as a Christian, with resignation.'

 Iside : 'More than I. But he is here. God judges differently than we do. In a manner all His own...'

Maria : 'How ever is Papa still there?'

 Iside : 'Heh!!'

Maria : (I am hurt about it; I hoped he was in Heaven for a while). 'And Martha's mama? You know, Martha...'.

 Iside : 'Yes, yes. I know now who Martha is. Before...my character... Martha's mama is out of here for
            some time.'

Maria : 'And the mama of my friend, Erama Antonini? You know?'

 Iside : 'I know. We know all, we who are being purged, but less well than here. the saints. Yet we know. When I came down here,
            she went out of here.'

Maria : (I see the flames licking and they distress me.) I ask her: 'Do you suffer much from that fire?'

 Iside : 'Now, no. Now there is another [Fire], stronger than it, which makes me almost not feel this. And then... that other Fire gives
            the will to suffer... You know that...'.

Maria : 'You are beautiful now, Mama. You are as I wanted you.'

 Iside : 'If I am, I owe it to you. Heh! How many things are understood when one is here. They are always more understood, the more
            one is purified here from pride and egoism. I have so much of that...'.

Maria : 'Don't think anymore about that.'

 Iside : 'I must think of it.  Good-bye, Maria.'

Maria : 'Good-bye, Mama. Come quickly to take me.'

 Iside : ' When God wills....'

Maria : I had wanted to note this down.¹⁷ It contains instruction. God punishes first the faults of our mind, then of our heart, lastly
            the weakness of our flesh. One needs to pray for those abandoned in their purgation, as if they were our relatives; the judgment of God is very different from ours. Those being purged understand that which in life they did not understand, because [they were] so full of themselves.

    Apart from my displeasure for Papa... I am satisfied to have seen her so serene, even glad, poor Mama!"

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¹ Martha Diciotti was Maria Valtorta's "live-in" friend who, because of Martha's loneliness after her own mother died, came to live with Valtorta as her private nurse in 1935. At first Martha intended to stay just "15 days" to help Maria with her needs as a bed-ridden invalid, but those "15 days" were continually extended until they stretched to 26 years of loyal and devoted service to Maria!
    Martha still lives in Valtorta's house in Viareggia, Italy today, and welcomes the many pilgrims who travel there to see the house and the room in which Valtorta recorded all her Visions and in which she died in 1961. In 1975, Prof. Albo Centoni persuaded Martha to grant him a series of interviews which he recorded electronically and later published in his book (not yet translated): Uno Vita Con Maria Valtorta – Testimonianze di Marta Diciotti, [ A Life With Maria Valtorta –Testimonies of Martha Diciotti ], CEV (1987). In it, Martha gives vivid and detailed accounts of her life for so many years with Maria Valtorta, as well as her experiences of Valtorta's mother, Iside, while the latter still lived.

² I Quaderni del 1943, Ed., Emilio Pisani, (CEV (1985), pp.669-670. This Locution of Christ to Valtorta occurred just three months before her mother's death on October 4, 1943. It was Christ's advice and comforting of Valtorta in the face of her mother's habitual coldness and tyrannical hostility toward her.

³ Mt 21:28-32.

⁴ Ex 20:12.

⁵ Mt 25:24-30.

⁶ Valtorta refers to her mother, Iside, here. She is addressing her remarks and describing these Locutions and Visions to her spiritual director and typist, Fr. Romuald Migliorini, O.S.M., to whom she would send all her Visions and Locutions for his appraisal and for typing from her handwritten pages.

⁷I Quaderni del 1943, Ed., Emilio Pisani, CEV (1985), pp.370 ff. Valtorta's mother died the day following this Locution. Her imminent death was thus the evident cause of Valtorta's anguish here.

⁸ I Quaderni del 1944, Ed., Emilio Pisani, CEV (1985), pp. 669-70.

⁹ Mt 14:23-26.

¹⁰  I Quaderni del 1944, Ed., Emilio Pisani, (CEV (1985), pp. 703-04.

¹¹ I Quaderni dal 1945 al 1950, Ed., Emilio Pisani, (CEV, (1985), Isola del Liri, p.20.

¹² November 1, 1944, as in the previous Vision No. 1, q.v.

¹³ I Quaderni dal 1945 al 1950, Ed., Emilio Pisani, (CEV, (1985), Isola del Liri, pp. 283-285.

¹⁴ This statement may refer to the priests of the Servites of Mary assigned to bring Communion to Valtorta at her house and minister to her spiritual needs.

¹⁵ I Quaderni dal 1945 al 1950, Ed., Emilio Pisani, (CEV, (1985), Isola del Liri, pp. 523-524.

¹⁶ See Note 1 above.

¹⁷Valtorta is again addressing her spiritual director here. See Note 6 above.