"It cannot be that a prophet perish outside Jerusalem," said the Master¹ . For "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, and in his own house.²" But since "No disciple is above his teacher, nor is the servant above his master. . . . If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of his household!³" .

And as it was for Christ, so has it been for His disciples and prophets down the ages, as He foretold. And so does it continue today.

An unprecedented number of prophetic "voices" have been raised up in our day throughout the world, warning of dire consequences to come from man's unbridled rationalism, materialism, and hedonism so rapidly escalating in recent years. But just as Israel of old disparaged, ridiculed and often assassinated the prophets of "doom and gloom" sent to warn them in their day: so too are the prophets and "voices" of our day -- the many mystics sent to warn the world and the Church, the new Jerusalem -- disparaged and ridiculed for their "doom and gloom" warnings of God's impending wrath. And no less than their predecessors and their Master before them, today's prophets too are assassinated: not as crudely, perhaps, by physical death. But more subtly, cunningly, yet as effectively: by assassinating their character.

Repeating the pattern played out in ancient Jerusalem, such character assassinations are typically carried out by the "priests, the doctors and scribes" in the Church today. Christ's fatalistic prophesy of this is truly appalling and damning: "It cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem.¹" And thus has it happened to so many of those chosen today to warn the Church and the world of our times: from the Visionaries of Bethania, of Akita, of Nuju, to the six of Medjugorje -- to cite but a few of the better known.

So too did it happen to Maria Valtorta in her lifetime. And so it continues to happen to this great modern mystic, this prophetic "voice" acclaimed by the Marian theologian Gabriel Roschini, OSM, to be one of the greatest of the 18 great mystics of the Church.⁴ Valtorta's phenomenal and voluminous life of Christ and the Virgin Mary: The Poem of the Man-God,⁵ which she always and adamantly insisted was in no way her own work but was revealed and dictated to her by Christ Himself, earned her the scorn of many during her lifetime, especially among the clergy of her native Italy.

And sadly, she knew the scorn and censorship of the Holy Office as well. This latter, despite the explicit directive of the supreme authority of the Church -- the then reigning sovereign Pontiff, Pius XII -- and in clear violation of Canon Law which states that there is "no appeal from a decision of the sovereign Pontiff."⁶ Yet here a subsidiary Office of the Vatican overturned a papal directive and imprimatur!

Pius XII had read most of the original typescript of Valtorta's Poem..., and having summoned three theologians of the Order of Servites of Mary to a private audience with him, he had said:

"Publish this work just as it is; he who reads will understand. . . . One hears talk of so many visions and revelations. I do not say that all are true; but some of them could be true."

Fr. Corrado Berti, OSM, the theologian appointed to annotate Valtorta's mystical writings with scriptural references and theological clarifications, was one of the three OSM theologians summoned to the private audience with Pius XII. He carefully recorded this papal directive in his Testimony shortly before his death. Yet it is the Holy Office's invalid censorship of Valtorta's Poem of the Man-God that is always invoked in attempts to denigrate Valtorta's Work, rather than the papal imprimatur given it.⁷

This censorship of the Holy Office was the last and greatest anguish Valtorta endured before her death in 1961. But shortly after Volume I of The Poem appeared in English in the U.S., in 1986, the denigration began all over again, this time in the U.S. And the earlier Italian disparagement and invalid censorship by the Holy Office of the first edition of her great Work was regurgitated -- again primarily by the U.S. clergy -- without ever citing the prior approval of Pius XII, nor the fact that the Holy Office itself had subsequently reversed its decision and approved publication of the 2nd edition of the Poem.

Why? Why always this closed-minded a priori prejudice against anything of "private revelation." Prudence and discernment, of course, are always required where it is a question of special charisms, but "prudence" pushed to the point of ridicule and even open hostility has rather become grave imprudence and ingratitude for God's initiatives of grace. And this despite the fact that the Second Vatican Council, in its Constitution on the Church: Lumen Gentium, clearly defines this charismatic function as that other means which the Holy Spirit uses in the Church -- besides the sacraments and apostolic ministry -- to sanctify the faithful. (No.12)

So again, one is compelled to ask: Why? Why always this closure, this a priori bias so typical especially of the clergy: "the priests, doctors, and scribes" of the New Law, against any claims to private revelations?

It is precisely this "Why" that Christ Himself addresses in the presentation given here. A composite of four separate Dictations given to Valtorta by Christ under the dates indicated, the material offered here is taken from Valtorta's other collections of mystical revelations: her Quaderni del 1943, & ...1944 [Notebooks for 1943, & ...1944], and was translated especially for this Website. If this answer by the Master Himself to our "Why" helps the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak and perhaps even praise the Lord, it will have achieved its end.

[August 2, 1943]⁸
[July 18, 1943 ]

"Say, Maria, to your [spiritual] father,⁹ who asks for a sign to persuade his confreres¹⁰ of certain truths which cannot be denied, that I give them the same answer given to the Feasting Rich Man: 'If they do not listen to Moses and to the Prophets, they will not listen even to One risen from the dead.'¹¹

If they do not listen to the voice of their conscience, inspired by Me, which shouts its indisputable and truthful warnings, if they suffocate under their incredulity that remnant of sensitivity which lingers in them, how do you want them to hear other things? If they do not bow their foreheads before the reality that strikes them, and neither remember nor understand nor admit anything, how do you want them to believe in a sign?

They also deny Me, even if they say they do not deny Me. They are the 'scholars' and they have suffocated the beautiful, holy, simple, pure capacity of believing, under the stones and bricks of their science, too soaked with earth to be able to understand that which is not of earth.

Ah! Maria! How much sorrow has your Jesus! I see that dying which I have sown at the cost of My own dying.

But not even if I should appear would they believe. They would set in motion all the tools of their science in order to weigh, catalogue, analyze, the marvels of My apparition. They would display all the reasoning of their culture, disturbing prophets and saints, in order to quote -- wrongly and in a manner that suits themselves more -- to quote the reasons for which I, King and Lord of Creation, cannot appear.

Just as twenty centuries ago, so also now, it is the simple, the children who would follow Me and believe in Me. The simple, because they have the same heart: virgins to rationalism, mistrust and pride of the mind -- babes. No. I would not find in My Church the capacity to believe. Or rather, in the great army of My ministers, I might find some soul that has known how to preserve the highest virginity: 'that of the spirit'.

O holy virginity of spirit! How precious, dear, beloved are you to My Heart which blesses and favors you! O holy virginity of spirit who preserve the whiteness of Baptism for the souls that possess you; who conserve the ardor of Confirmation for the souls that preserve you; who maintain the nourishment of Communion for the souls that abandon themselves to you; who are the Matrimony of the soul with its Jesus, Master and Friend; who are the Priesthood which consecrates to the Truth; who are the Oil which cleanses in the last hour to prepare for the entrance into the Dwelling that has been prepared for all of you! Holy virginity of spirit, who are light for seeing, sound for hearing: how few know how to preserve you!

See, My soul: There are few things that I condemn as severely as this rationalism which rapes and desecrates and kills Faith -- I say Faith with a capital, in order to say true Faith, absolute, regal Faith. I condemn it as My assassin. It is this very rationalism which kills Me in hearts and which prepares and has prepared very sad times for the Church and the world.

I have cursed other things. But none will I curse as this. It has been the seed from which have come other poisonous doctrines, and others, and still others. It has been the treachery which opens the door to the enemy. It has in fact opened the doors to Satan who has never reigned as much as now, since rationalism reigns.

But it is said: 'When the Son of man will come, He will not find faith in hearts'¹². Therefore rationalism does its work. I will do Mine.

Blessed are those who, as they close the door to sin and the other passions, know how to close the doors of their secret temple in the face of the science which denies, and to live, alone with the Alone Who is All, to the very last.

Truly I say to you that I will clasp to My Heart the unfortunate man who has committed a human crime and repented of it, provided he has always admitted that I can do all. But I will turn the face of a Judge to those who, on the basis of a doctrinaire human science, deny the supernatural in the manifestations which the Father might want Me to give.

A man born deaf cannot hear. True? One who has his eardrums broken by a mishap has no sense of hearing. True? Only I can give them again their hearing with the touch of My Hands. But how can I give hearing to a deaf spirit if this spirit does not let itself be touched by Me?...

One of the greatest sorrows I have is that of seeing how rationalism has infiltrated into hearts, even into hearts that are said to be Mine. It would be useless to let the other priests share in such a gift [of His revelations to Valtorta --Trans.]. It is just among them that one finds those who, while preaching Me and My passed miracles, deny My Power, as if I could no longer be the Christ capable still of speaking to souls who languish from lack of My Word; as if they admit My present incapacity for a miracle and the power of grace in a heart.

No. For now, whatever I say should serve for you and your [spiritual] father. . . I am very, very satisfied that he uses some of My words for himself, for his soul, for his preaching, for the guidance and comfort of other souls, priestly or not. But he should not reveal their source, for now. . . .Therefore let him guide himself. Let him draw on and inform himself of My sayings for himself, for all, but let him seek above all to enkindle charity in hearts, even of his confreres.

Less science and more charity. Less books and more Gospel. It is light in souls, because I am Light. Disencumber all to make room for the Light. . . .

Your spiritual Father says they [his confreres] are earthly, inaccessible? He says too little: they are an earthly enemy, and it is a great sorrow for Me.

To believe is a sign of purity as well as of faith. To believe is intelligence as well as faith. One who believes in purity and with intelligence distinguishes My Voice and gathers It in.

The others equivocate, debate, criticize, deny. And why? Because they live from their heaviness and not from their spirit. They are anchored to the things they have found and do not consider that these are things that came from Me and which have not always been seen correctly. And even if they have been seen and written correctly, they have been written for their times and have been badly understood of the future. These others do not think that I can have something else to say, suited to the needs of the times, and that I am the Ruler of how to say it and to whomever I please, since I am God and the eternal Word Who never ceases being the Speech of the Father.

I attempt the last trials in order to inflame the souls that are no longer living souls, but automatons endowed with movement, and not with intelligence and charity. My work -- from the beginning of this century, the last of the second millennium -- is a miracle of charity to attempt the second salvation of the human race, especially of priestly souls without which the salvation of many is impossible. I substitute Myself for the empty pulpits, or the pulpits blaring words without true life. But few are those who are worthy of comprehending Me. Few even among My ministers..."

They will drive you out of the synagogues. Yes, the hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering worship to God.¹⁴

"Not only will they drive you from the synagogues -- and by these I understand all the social positions in which you could have honors and service. You will be persecuted for My Name and for your fidelity to It even in the spirit. Not because whoever persecutes you does it from his sincerity of zeal for Me and My worship. But because -- and I am speaking especially to you, My mouthpieces¹⁵ -- because the words which you speak are such that they clash with the majority -- and among these, especially that part of the majority that should be the best -- and therefore you become for them an object of hate.

I am not speaking here for all believers, for whom there will certainly come periodic persecutions by human power seized with satanic fever. But I speak of the special persecutions for all my favorites on whom there has been imposed, besides the sweet cross of My Love and of My Will, the very bitter cross of hate and human malevolence.

Oh! If you knew how the world hates you, My favorites! It hates you as it hated Me. And there are in the world -- with double guilt -- the descendants of the ancient priests: their successors. Few among them have true faith. Rationalism with its doctrine makes them barren, and egoism blinds them and brings them to hate. Therefore they accuse you of being heretics. But do not be downcast. The world ends with the day of your birth. Then there will open for you the Gates of the true World, eternal and good, because [it is] the World of God.

I love you, O My beloved ones. I thank you. I bless you and with Me the Father and the Spirit. Because by serving Me, you serve the eternal Trinity, and It kisses you with Its rays of love and surrounds you with Itself to compensate you in an ineffable manner for all the sorrow which those who misunderstand God give you.

Go in peace, Maria. And give Me your tribulation and your desolation. It is not that you are alone. It is that I have need of this your pain. A little of Gethsemani for love of Me."

"Already it had been said even in the time of the ancients: 'If God gives peace, who can condemn?'¹⁷

And yet those doctors [of the Law] who always accused Me, and who knew to perfection the words of the Book, judged it differently. Why? Because they knew the Law in its letter, but did not comprehend the spirit of the letter. They are in every way like the doctors of today¹⁸ who, with ridiculous and cruel pretexts, judge and condemn My favorites,¹⁹ and Me with them.

For Zacchaeus, too, they had used condemnation.²⁰ God had given peace to His repentant servant who was returning more to the house of his Father, than of his Master. They condemned Him and His servant because, according to them, Zacchaeus's form of repentance was not enough. Naturally! It did not have those hypocritical forms, wholly external, which they, the Pharisees and Scribes, loved: forms used to deceive the world with a false holiness which was only a sham, because the inside was and remained infected with their vices. Zacchaeus's was a true repentance, from his heart.

I have said: 'It is from the heart that those things come forth which contaminate a man.²¹' But from there also come forth the things which sanctify him. From this tabernacle which contains, as in a golden pix, your spirit in which God incarnates Himself and resides through a spiritual transubstantiation,²² there come forth good thoughts, right intentions, the firm will to be saints, the heroism which gives you Heaven, the sincere repentance which cancels from the mind of God even the memory of your faults, and brings you to Him and He to you for His Fatherly kiss.

For My favorites, too, the Pharisaic world, always existing and working, judges and condemns: 'This is a "voice"? It cannot be. What has she done to merit it?'²³

'Nothing and everything,' I answer. Nothing, if one considers her wretchedness with respect to the power of God and His perfection. Everything, if one considers her generosity which is wholly given to God, and to God alone: a generosity working under the humility of an ordinary life, loving even to the point of consuming her physical strength, obedient in the great and in the little things, even in the trifles for which I ask, in order to keep her always docile to My desire and to try her continually in meekness. Believe that only she who loves 'with her whole self ' can, with a smile, give her life to God Who asks it of her, give it like a fruit which she brings to her lips: the sacrifice of a parent, or of a holy affection: or like the word which I tell her to keep silent, or [the sacrifice] of her house and her bread, as [also] of her rest which I tell her to cancel in hours of profound weariness, in order to continue to serve Me.

If I give her peace, who will be able to condemn? Condemn what? That which God judges worthy of blessings and caresses now, and of bliss hereafter? Condemn the good which she does to herself and to others? Imitate her and do not condemn her. And be ashamed, O useless servants, O Satanic blasphemers, for no longer knowing how to serve the Lord your God; for no longer knowing how to receive, to understand and to speak the words of the eternal Spirit; for no longer knowing how to make yourselves bread for the souls of your companions, but rather: coldness, poison, chains.

Condemn what? The way she speaks or writes? Oh! see, O angelic spirits, O blessed possessors of Paradise! observe these little men: being unable to raise themselves up in flight anymore with the broken or missing wings of their own mind, with it they judge that others cannot do so! Observe these blind moles who, being unable to see the sun [themselves], deny that it exists and that others see it! Observe the songless crows who, unable to repeat the harmonies that others have learned from Heaven, deny that voice even exists!

But there where the wings of the little bird²⁴ enamored of God are insufficient, the angelic wings rush down and lift it to that height which I will. I -- I Myself, the Eagle of love,²⁵ and I will show it this beauty which you hardly know how to imagine, which seems to all of you but a fable. And you hide your own incapacity under an avalanche of words whose point is this: 'Paradise has no description because it is [only] a thought.'

It is a thought? It is reality! Speak, My little bird, you who have been raised up There²⁶ between the wings of the Eagle Who loves you, and say whether Paradise is only a thought -- or a spiritual reality, a reality of light, song, joy, beauty. Say to these who have their wings dragging in the mud -- because their idleness has broken their wings and reduced them to dead limbs -- tell them what it is that merits Paradise, and how sorrow, poverty, sickness are to be greeted with a smile, thinking of this Place where endless Joy awaits them.

The Sun,²⁷ which you can hardly see behind a thick curtain of clouds, given your sensuality of the flesh and of your thought, your rationalism which has crushed in you all capacity to believe with the simplicity of children and the firmness of the martyrs -- the Sun which you can no longer contemplate because you do no longer succeed in lifting your head from the heavy yoke of your humanity which overwhelms your spirit -- while My blessed ones, stripped of every human constraint, stand with the head of their mind always raised to adore Me -- the Sun -- and It is [truly] there, that Sun: It spreads oceans of light and fire to clothe with warmth, and to reclothe with splendor these friends of Mine for whom I have prepared an eternal throne. The Sun is There, and It is already theirs, for It shines above their head like the face of a father over the cradle of his baby, and there is nothing sweeter than this loving, jealous, protection of Love which does not leave them even for one minute.

You [men] who no longer know how to sing your harmonies to God, you no longer even know how to tell Him that you love Him: not with your mouth, but with your heart -- and it is this harmony that God wants to hear from man -- do not then deny that these, My lovers, can repeat supernatural harmonies, learned from Me and from My saints. My lovers have made their spiritual throat pliable, warbling²⁸ without tiring -- either from the passage of time or the adversities of life -- warbling their hymn of love, and of all the things that have given them their cue to tell Me: 'I love You.' They have thus been capable of learning and retelling the songs of Heaven.

Oh! bless them, these [little apostles] who unveil to you points and lights, who bring back to you lights and words which your poverty does not know; these who, with a total slavery of love have been fastened upon a gallows which, like Mine, has its base fixed in earthly mud, but its summit in the Azure Blue of the sky. They are bridges by which you can go up -- you who know only how to crawl -- by which you can go up and know how beautiful is that Azure Blue, and be enamored by It and have the desire to imitate It.

Why do you all want to deny, why do you want to say to God: 'You are not allowed to do that'? The apostolicity of the Church did not end with the Apostles. It continues with the lesser apostles. Every saint is one of them, every 'voice' is one of them. And I, Head of the apostolic Church, can choose and spread everywhere these My little apostles for your good.

They are humble, compared to you scholars? And what were the first twelve? Fishermen, illiterate, ignorant. But it was them that I took, and not the scholarly rabbis, because since they [the twelve] were conscious of being nothing, they were capable of accepting the Word; while the rabbis saturated with pride, had no capacity to accept It. Humility is what I seek, and if these [little apostles], even while remaining loving, pure and generous, should become proud, I would abandon them without fail.

There are two things that I absolutely require in them: love and fidelity to the truth -- and not only to God-Truth, but also to the virtue-Truth -- and also: sincere humility. And I am still more uncompromising on this [latter virtue]. Pride, the sign of Satan -- the first sign of Satan -- sends Me away in disgust.

Therefore think that if I give My peace to them [My little apostles], none of you can condemn them. They are beyond your condemnations. Within My arms they love and listen to the secrets of God and then offer them to you according as God wills, in order to throw you a necklace of Paradisal pearls which may be a guide and ladder for you to Heaven.

I give you My peace, My 'voice.'²⁹ Rest in it as a baby in the bosom of its father."

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1. Luke 13:33.

2. Matthew 13:57.

3. Matthew 10:24,25.

4. See Gabriel M. Roschini, O.S.M., The Virgin Mary in the Writings of Maria Valtorta, Kolbe's Publications Inc., 2464 Forest, Sherbrooke QC Canada, JIK IR4, 1989.

5. Maria Valtorta, The Poem of the Man-God, trans., Nicandro Picozzi and Patrick McLaughlin (Centro Editoriale Valtortiano srl, 1986-1990), 5 Volumes, hardbound, $35.00 U.S. Distributed (among others) by Saint Raphael's Publications Inc., 31 King St. W., Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, J1H 1N5, and in select bookstores in the U.S. See also links to other Valtorta Sites given on this Website.

6. Code of Canon Law, No.333.3

7. For documentation on The Poem's controversial history vis-a-vis the Church, see elsewhere on this Website: The Church and Maria Valtorta's Poem of the Man-God.

8. Maria Valtorta's, I Quaderni del 1943 (Edizioni Pisani / Centro Editoriale Valtortiano srl, Via Po 95, 03036 Isola del Liri [FR], Italia, 1985: 236-238; 219-220, passim.

9. Fr. Romuald Migliorini, O.S.M., was Valtorta's spiritual director at that time.

10. "...his confreres...", that is, Fr. Migliorini's fellow-priests in the Order of the Servites of Mary. Evidently Fr. Migliorini's confreres were very skeptical regarding Valtorta's claims to the Divine origins of her revelations. Such inherent skepticism and incredulity are, unfortunately, typical of most clergy and even many religious. This tendentious attitude toward "private revelations" is undoubtedly due in large measure precisely to the intensely rationalistic and cerebral formation of priests in their seminary years (and usually perpetuated by themselves after ordination). It also probably stems from a perceived threat to their priestly authority. Their a priori prejudicial attitude thus leads them virtually to deny in practice that other means which the Holy Spirit uses in the Church -- besides the sacraments and apostolic ministry -- to sanctify the faithful: namely, the charisms given to the faithful. This charismatic function in the Church is clearly defined by Vatican II in its Constitution on the Church: Lumen Gentium (No.12).

11. Luke 16:31.

12. Luke 18:8.

13. Maria Valtorta, I Quaderni del 1944 (Edizioni Pisani / Centro Editoriale Valtortiano srl, Via Po 95, 03036 Isola del Liri [FR], Italia, 1985): 363-364.

14. John 16:2

15. "My mouthpieces" [Italian: "portavoci"]: that is, Christ's Visionaries and Prophets of today through whom He is speaking to the Church and mankind in this century. In this instance, of course, it refers particularly to Valtorta.

16. Maria Valtorta, I Quaderni 1944: 513-517.

17. Job 34:29.

18. "doctors of today": that is, the theologians and scripture scholars of today in academia and the Church, usually boasting doctoral degrees. Their typical response to Valtorta's claim to private revelations, or that of other Visionaries, is usually a barely concealed disdain and incredulous dismissal.

19."My favorites": As will become clear, Christ is referring here once again to His chosen Visionaries and Prophets of today, His "mouthpieces", with of course special reference to Valtorta.

20. See Luke 19:7.

21. Matthew 15:10-11.

22. "Transubstantiation": Note that this is also the technical word with which the Church has traditionally understood and described the miraculous change of the bread and wine at Mass into the actual Body and Blood of the living and risen Christ through the words of Consecration pronounced by the priest.

23. "This is a voice?..." Although the word "This," Costui in the Italian, is masculine, and thus all subsequent pronouns referring back to it, "voice" is feminine and obviously this paragraph and the following ones are specifically referring to Valtorta and reactions to her revelations. Hence for the sake of clarity, the pronouns have been rendered in the feminine gender in this English translation.

24. "little bird": the reference is again particularly to Valtorta.

25. Cf. Deuteronomy 32:11. As so many things in nature, the eagle is also a symbol of God.

26. Again the reference is to Valtorta, brought up to Heaven in two previous Visions of January 10 and May 25, 1944, translated on this Valtorta Website in The Mystery of the Holy Trinity.

27. "The Sun..." capitalized also in the Italian, because here it is a symbol of Christ.

28. Jesus resumes the metaphor of the "little bird" as a symbol of His lovers and "mouthpieces", again referring especially to Valtorta in this context.

29. "My voice": Jesus again addresses Valtorta directly now.