POEM OF THE MAN-GOD
…The Angelus used to sell these books at the advice of Bishop Williamson. The Angelus was then (in the late '80's) sent a critique by a certain Brother James, Salesian, of California, who read the English Volumes of the POEM with slanted (LA) glasses. He sent his devastating biased report to many traditional priests and publishers, who proceeded to trash the POEM, which is a great gift of the Sacred Heart for our days.
There are two definite errors in the English version of Valtorta; both need corrective footnotes, and both are found in one each of two minor works (Azaria and Romans). They are, in my humble opinion, unfortunate typographical errors that were not in the original. One error concerns the wrong pronoun used for the Holy Ghost, the other an error against the historical fact that the Maronites are not schismatics. Perhaps "Mariavites" was meant, St. Pius X condemned them and called them back to Roman unity. (see Azaria for Good Shepherd Sunday page 84 or 86)
The massive major work of the POEM however, has no errors of any significance.
… This second edition of the POEM satisfied the Holy Office in 1962, the Commissioner giving full approval to publish it, and since then it has spread around the world with Imprimaturs in numerous languages.
Not only are there very few difficulties, but there are very many places where Valtorta resolves the difficulties and Biblical confusions of many saints and scholars over the centuries, hence the Work is a great corrective for Scripture scholars of today. During the restoration of Catholic Tradition, the POEM will play a great part, especially in reforming the minds of the clergy.
Objection answered:
What about the claim that Mary asked to become a sinner?
This is one of the most repeated arguments among Valtorta detractors.
In response to this, It is important to understand that the Blessed Virgin was merely a child at the time, and thus asked the question with the simplicity of a child's reasoning (which was gently corrected by her father St. Joachim), out of a holy desire to experience the Saving love and forgiveness of Christ our God, Whom she declares to be her SAVIOUR.
It has been described by one priest as blasphemous that Our Lady could say what is recorded in pages 37-42 of The Poem (Vol I). There the Blessed Virgin is three years old, talking with her parents before entering into the temple. She expresses her great desire to see the Saviour, Who She knows will come for sinners. She asks a logical question: can I be more saved and loved by Christ if I become a bigger sinner?
SHE DOES NOT REALLY WISH TO BECOME A SINNER as such. She wishes to experience the full power and love of the SAVIOUR. The question shows that even with Her infused knowledge, Mary was unaware of the great gift of Her Immaculate Conception which St. Joachim then explains to Her with a beautiful comparison. There is no dispute in Catholic theology about Mary's infused knowledge or her Immaculate Conception (since 1854), but there is a lawful and traditional disagreement about the extent of Her infused knowledge. On these disputed questions of theology, no one has the right to call the other opinion blasphemous. Who can understand sin? as the Psalmist says:
Psa 18:13 Who can understand sins? from my secret ones cleanse me, O Lord: (he goes on in verse 14) And from those of others spare thy servant
Nor should this statement from the 3 year old Blessed Virgin be taken out of context to condemn the whole work. St. Teresa of Liseoux said something similar, and even St. Paul said he would wish to be anathema from Christ if he could thereby save Israel from its blindness. This is a kind of hyperbole or figure of speech to stress his great love for the Hebrew people. Cf Romans 9:3 and 11:14
(Another Priest) Defending Valtorta
THIS ROCK does such a splendid job on the whole (it stirs up my old apologetical inclinations), it is a pity it did such a poor job in answering that writer [defending The Poem of the Man-God, June 1994] and in evaluating [Maria] Valtorta.
Anyone touching on this subject would do well to read all five volumes of the Poem (over 4,000 pages), as I have done--some sections again and again. It is not "fiction," and there is nothing in it against faith or morals, as many authorities and learned priests will maintain.
Some spots of the work could be better translated; not easy, considering the length. And, as any good mystical theologian will explain, in lengthy private revelations, an isolated error or even errors in doctrine can happen. St. Catherine of Siena thought the Blessed Mother told her that she, Mary, was not immaculate.
In such cases directors or confessors should throw out the error, as has happened to many holy persons and saints. But you don't throw out the baby with the bath water. The baby could be Jesus. In the case of the Poem, the Baby is Jesus Christ!
The Poem was not put on the Index because of any theological errors. Any contending so have to prove such alleged errors specifically, and not give some interpretation or fabrication of their own peculiar mind-set. … and no one has proven any error against faith or morals to be in it. So anyone can read it. And thousands of educated Catholics do.
True, Cardinal Ratzinger recently (1993) asked that the Italian bishops require that, in any future editions, it be stated that the "Church" (meaning here a Roman congregation) does not see anything "supernatural" in the Poem. That is the Cardinal's privilege, but many competent authorities think that someday the opinion will have to be reversed. Such happened to the judgment of the bishop's court which declared St. Joan of Arc a heretic for believing in her "voices" (private revelations). It took a pope (500 years later) to get that unjust judgment reversed. Similarly, the judgment, made some years ago by a Roman congregation (the Holy Office), against the authenticity of the revelations to Sr. Faustina Kowalska was reversed.
Today we are naive if we accept every declaration made by some (we do not say all) bishop ordinaries that a certain apparition or apparitions and accompanying private revelations are not "supernatural." It is usually a matter of their not having properly qualified persons on hand to do a full and proper investigation of the facts.
May all critics of the Poem take time to read it or otherwise remain silent. An open mind will reach the conclusion that this author sent to Rome some time ago: that no doctors of theology, no cardinals, no authors (nor all of them together) could author that majestic work, The Poem of the Man-God.
Much less could a poor woman of limited education and often, as a victim soul, suffering on a bed of pain as she wrote. Who then? Let the reader figure the answer.
Rev. Albert J. Herbert, S.M.
Convent, Louisiana
August 01, 2009 12:58 PM
Subject: Bp.Williamson:Eleison Comments
Eleison Comments CVIII: Killer Pride
I love "The Poem of the Man-God" by Maria Valtorta. It is, in the English edition, five Volumes of visions of the life, death and resurrection of Our Lord, mostly the three years of his public ministry, as seen during the last years of the Second World War by a crippled Italian woman, unmarried, nailed to her sick-bed by an injury suffered many years before in her youth. As a visionary she was always scared of being deceived by the Devil. The fruits of the "Poem" in edification and conversions strongly indicate rather that her visions were a true gift from Heaven.
The "Poem" does not appeal to everybody. It has severe critics. Some find it sentimental. I find it full of sentiment, but a sentiment objective and not self-indulgent. Some find it undoctrinal. I find it questionable perhaps in a few details, but generally the doctrine is astonishingly rich and accurate (the foot-notes in the Italian edition help). Some find the "Poem" too earthy. I find it a marvellous presentation of Our Lord as true God and true man Might these last critics be wishing the Incarnation had been less incarnate? Christ took flesh.
Here is one sample amongst thousands of the concrete reminders of the "Poem" on how human nature works, unrecognized today. To overcome the evil impulses that Judas Iscariot recognizes in himself, he has asked the Mother of God if he can stay with her for a while in Nazareth. As "Refuge of Sinners" she asks Our Lord if she may render this service to Judas. Our Lord replies that he is not against, only he knows that it will be useless:
"Judas is like someone drowning who although he feels he is drowning rejects out of pride the rope being thrown to him to pull him to the bank. He lacks the will to reach the bank. Every now and again the terror of drowning makes him seek and call out for help, which he clutches hold of, but then pride takes over again, he drops the help and pushes it away, as he wants to manage by himself, but all the while he is getting heavier with the muddy water that he is swallowing. However, so that nobody can say I left any remedy untried - go ahead, poor Mamma" ("Poor", because she has no taste for this rescue attempt).
Every soul in Hell - alas, would that it were empty! - has chosen to be there, as the only alternative to submitting to God. Any submission diminishes my sense of my own excellence. Pride is the sin of sins. From our hidden pride, O Lord, deliver us!
Kyrie eleison.
London, England
Our Lord gave seven reasons why he revealed this work and guided Maria to get it right. Here is the first reason:
(from end of Vol 5) …The most profound reason for the gift of this work is that in the present time, when modernism, condemned by My holy Vicar Pius X, becomes corrupted in more and more harmful doctrines, the Church, represented by My Vicar, may have further material to fight against those who deny:
1. the supernaturalness of dogmas;
2. the divinity of the Christ;
3. the Truth of the Christ God and Man, real and perfect both in the faith and in the history that has been handed down on Him (Gospel, Acts of the Apostles, Apostolic Letters, tradition);
4. the doctrine of Paul and John and of the councils of Nicaea, Ephesus and Chalcedon, as My true doctrine verbally taught by Me.
5. My unlimited science, as it is divine and perfect;
6. the divine origin of the dogmas of the Sacraments of the Church One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic; the universality and continuity, until the end of time, of the Gospel given by Me and for all men;
7. the perfect nature, from the beginning, of My doctrine that has not been formed, as it is, through successive transformations, but was given as it is: the Doctrine of the Christ, of the time of Grace, of the Kingdom of Heaven and of the Kingdom of God in you, divine, perfect, immutable. The Gospel for all those thirsting for God.
When the English version came out in 1985, Cardinal Ratzinger expressed his discontent in a letter to another Cardinal, having re-hashed the 1960 Holy Office mistaken decree and the unsigned newspaper report that said the work is a “badly fictionalized life of Christ”. (see analysis of that event here: http://maria-valtorta.net/letter_condemnation.html )
Cardinal Ratzinger did not know at that time that the Holy Office was presented in 1962 with a second edition with footnotes, which was given express approval to be published. He has acknowledged in 2004 that the works are approved, according to Bishop Roman Danylak, who gave the English works his Imprimatur. See the evidence here: http://www.bardstown.com/~brchrys/Imprmatur.htm
Bishop Roman Danylak, S.T.L., J.U.D., wrote that Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) has affirmed in private letters that there are no moral or doctrinal errors in Maria Valtorta's POEM OF THE MAN-GOD.
“…Cardinal Ratzinger in private letters has acknowledged that this work is free from errors in doctrine or morals. The Conference of Italian Bishops has acknowledged the same in its correspondence with the current editor, Dr. Emilio Pisani… (Some) allegedly Catholic theologians, priests, Catholic websites, newspapers and even radio programs insist on bringing out old skeletons, the original condemnation of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith in 1959. Not only is this bad scholarship; it is outright immoral and sinful to continue to level their accusing fingers at this gift of heaven and God’s faithful servant and victim soul, Maria Valtorta.”… Bishop Danylak
Saint Padre Pio more than "advised" a spiritual daughter, Elisa Lucchi, to read Valtorta's writings. "I don't advise you to---I order you to." From a letter of Rosi Giordani, Jan. 7, 1989, San Giovanni Rotondo.
On Feb. 26, 1948, Pius XII said: "Publish this work as it is. There is no need to give an opinion about its origin, whether it be extraordinary or not. Who reads it will understand"
There were three priest witnesses to this statement, all gave evidence of it, and Cardinal Gagnon agreed it was the Papal Imprimatur according to Canon Law.
HOW RASH IT WOULD BE TO FIGHT AGAINST ALL THIS EVIDENCE OF GOD'S HAND! (Acts 5:38-39) And now, therefore, I say to you, refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if this council or this work be of men, it will come to nought; But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest perhaps you be found even to fight against God. And they consented to him. Gamaliel
All those I know who have read her major work (the POEM) are brought much closer to God, the Catholic Church and their own vocation than by any other means. I am referring to countless simple housewives and learned doctors, young and old, lay and clergy. I know of numerous souls who entered the seminary, or persevered therein because of Valtorta. I have a number of letters from grateful spiritual children, who thanked me for (discreetly) introducing them to this amazing Mystic.
(John Haffert testimony) A CELEBRATED ADVOCATE
Father Gabriele Roschini, O.S.M., was an old man when he wrote his masterpiece on Our Lady as he had discovered Her "a real person" in the Poem. He was an advisor to the Holy Office, founder of the Marianum (a Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Rome), and author of 130 books.
This celebrated author and theologian had been a skeptic about the Poem, and finally "discovered" it during a holiday in the mountains. "Wow!" is probably the best word to describe his reaction. In the preface of the book mentioned above he wrote:
"I have been studying, preaching, and writing Mariology for over half a century. I had read innumerable works and articles of all kinds on Mary - a veritable library. And I must candidly admit that not even the sum total of EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER READ AND STUDIED gave me as clear, as lively, as complete, as luminous, or as fascinating an image..."
Speaking only of the reality of Our Lady as found in the Poem (which is not a book about Our Lady but about the life of Jesus!), the learned theologian exclaimed: "It seems to me that the conventional image of the Blessed Virgin, portrayed by myself and my fellow mariologists, is merely a papier mache Madonna, compared to the living and vibrant Virgin Mary envisioned by Maria Valtorta... If any one believes my declaration to be one of those ordinary hyperbolic slogans abused by publicity, I will say this only: "Let them read before they judge!"
One tends to become childlike in old age, and I sometimes wonder if it is not necessary to be like children, to grasp the wonder of Jesus as we find Him in the Poem... truly a man, while at the same time God,
After I wrote this booklet (John Haffert) I asked the opinion of two life-long friends. The first was Father Venard Poslusney, O.Carm., a Carmelite specialist in mystical theology who had spent many years in a contemplative hermitage in Austria. He was in his seventies before he discovered the Poem. He became so enthralled, that he began recording a commentary of the entire work on audio tapes. Over and over on the tapes one hears him exclaim: "Oh! How could anyone think that this work was not supernatural!"
I eagerly sought his opinion because: 1) He was well schooled in theology; 2) He had read the Poem over and over and was well acquainted with all the criticism. Indeed, he himself had answered much of it. His only suggestion was that I write more. His comment: "This is what we need!"
The second person whose criticism I eagerly sought was the superioress of a religious community I had long known and respected, but who - unlike Fr. Venard - had never wholeheartedly accepted the Poem. Ithought that perhaps the size of the work could have intimidated her, since she was the busy superioress of a community. But she had read substantial parts.
To my surprise, I learned in discussing this booklet, that it was not the size of the work, but the very work itself which had proved intimidating. The Poem reveals Jesus to be really man. And it is possible to feel that our utter faith in His Divinity is tested, when we admit that He was a Man. Many of us have so constantly affirmed His Divinity, that we cannot dare to think of Him as a Man born in human ignorance, even though as God He was omniscient.
But if we read the Poem through, we do not have to dare. Little by little we come to SEE the reality of Jesus as a Person, with two very real natures. And that is the WONDER of the Poem.
I wish Fr. Roschini were still alive, to tell us what prevented him for years from accepting the Poem, and then, at the end of his life, becoming perhaps its greatest proponent of the 20th century. (There may be a greater in the 21st!)
But I think he would have told us that he began by reading "parts." And perhaps he did not have the example of someone more learned than himself, as I did in the case of Bishop Venancio (to me both theologian and saint), the joy of whose old age was discovering Jesus in the Poem.
Another benefit I had was to read the Poem before it was published in English, my native tongue, in which words seem often like weathered coins, while those in a second or third language seem quite often to sparkle like new, not clouded by the same range of different usages.
While editor of Soul Magazine (which at the time had some 240,000 subscribers) I had introduced the Poem to the English public. Later one reader wrote and told me that a priest denounced the Poem because he had read it in French, and it said Jesus died on a "St. Andrew" cross. And he mentioned one or two other contradictions.
I knew at once this was not true. But I went back to the French edition to make sure. I could not imagine that a priest would want to defame the Poem with lies. But indeed what he said was just not true.
Another person wrote that a certain passage seemed to say that Jesus favoured women priests. And sure enough, at least out of context, that seemed to be the case... But it was due to an ambiguity in the English translation. Moreover the following paragraph made the true position perfectly dear.
One can find fault here and there in almost any work, including scripture, by taking words too literally or taking them out of context.
Bishop Roman Danylak of Toronto, wrote a defence which has become widely diffused. His Excellency wrote:
"My initial reaction (to the criticism) was one of apprehension. I went back to the original Italian... and reviewed again the major work of Fr. Gabriel Roschini... It soon became evident to me that the criticism stems from interpretations of hearsay comments, and interpretation of episodes in the Poem."
TESTIMONY OF Bl. GABRIEL ALLEGRA
The Blessed Gabriel Allegra, O.F.M., whose process for canonization was opened in 1984 just 8 years after his death, was a theologian and a biblical exegete. (first one to put the Bible into Chinese, beatified Oct 2012).
He wrote:
"The Poem never contradicts the Gospel but admirably completes it, making it living, and powerful, tender and demanding... the crowds move, shout, are agitated. The miracles you would say are SEEN. The discourses of Our Lord, even the most difficult in their conciseness, become of solar clarity... Whoever reads this work breathes at last the atmosphere of the Gospel and almost becomes one of the crowd which follows the Master."
So say we all: The gospels come alive.
Answering a critic in 1961, the Venerable Father Allegra realized that the critic had never read the entire work. He wrote: "When completed the Poem makes us better understand the Gospel, but does not contradict it. I still do not know how to explain to myself, and perhaps I will never know, how the Lord had ever shown His earthly life to a soul of the 20th century, but I believe in the Love which can do all..."
In one of my books I suppose I was expressing the same thought when I called the Poem a special gift from God to our time... and perhaps especially for the time that is coming, the time of the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, when the world will be very different. It will be the time of the reign of Jesus, and it is near.
Fr. AI Winshman, SJ., of the Marian Renewal Ministry in Boston, wrote: "The Poem has not only opened the life of Jesus, Mary and the apostles to me, but has challenged me through the life and preaching of Jesus, and His training of the apostles, to follow Him more closely. Using this work, I have enjoyed being with Jesus in prayer in a the way a teenager insightfully described prayer as "hanging around with Jesus."
That’s it! That is what is WONDERFUL about the Poem. We enjoy being like a child "hanging around with Jesus"...and Oh! how we come to love Him!
That’s the bottom line... knowing the tree by its fruit.
One must pity the critics and the hearsayers who keep some of us from this joy. We should pray that more and more will have the grace (and that is what it is!) of the Poem experience.
But for the sake of the critics, and for our own peace of mind - as we said before - it is important to realize that the very real visions of Maria Valtorta are meant to convey a spiritual message, rather than an historical one.
THE SPIRITUAL REALITIES
To realize that visions sometimes are intended to convey spiritual realities more than geographical or historical ones, consider the following example:
Our Lord is seen carrying the entire cross on the way to Calvary in the Poem. Maria Valtorta herself seemed surprised. She comments that others say Our Lord carried only the horizontal beam. But she had to describe what she saw.
Different visionaries are shown different aspects of the supernatural realities.
The Venerable Mary of Agreda writes in the City of God (Vol. 5, pg. 304): "I was made acquainted with the many contrary opinions of ecclesiastical historians concerning things which I am describing as, for instance, the departure of the Apostles from Jerusalem... But I have no commission from the Lord to clear up these and other doubts, or to decide controversies... If what I write follows naturally and does not contradict in any way the sacred text, and at the same time maintains the dignity corresponding to the matter, I cannot undertake to add to the authenticity of this history, and Christian piety will ask for no more."
Those who read such works in a spirit of piety indeed ask for no more.
If one saint sees Our Lord carrying only one beam, and another sees Him with the entire cross, one may be factual and the other symbolical. The entire cross symbolizes better than a beam the death He was to endure. Moreover it symbolizes much better His own words: "If I be lifted up I will draw all men to Myself" That is what He was carrying: ALL of US. That is why He was going to Calvary. The truth is in the Scriptures. There is only additional light in the visions, a light clearly seen by those sincerely seeking to understand what the Scriptures reveal.
One thing is certain: In the Poem we know that what we read (barring faults of translation from the original Italian, some of which are unfortunate) is what Maria Valtorta heard and saw. She herself, while seeing and hearing, wrote it down.
WHY DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS?
There are at least three reasons why different visionaries may see the same event, even the same scene, in different ways (always for our benefit).
1) Some depict unseen truths; 2) God intends that we look beyond the visible facts to their meaning; 3) Some visions are symbolical.
In the case of the life of Our Lord, on the supernatural level, things are happening which we cannot see. If some vision does not show St. Joseph with Mary at the moment she greeted her cousin Elizabeth, was he not there in spirit? Indeed, by his love and in his thoughts, was He ever absent from Her?
Catherine Emmerick saw Our Lady’s dormition in Ephesus, and others in Jerusalem. Could She not have been present spiritually (or even by bi-location) to all whom She loved at the moment of Her transition - wherever they were? If bi-location was not uncommon with ordinary saints, how much more likely in the case of Our Lady! No single vision could show all that really happened,
But even more, does not the very fact of different images cry out to us: ‘Look beyond the images!’ Do not read out of curiosity. Read to understand.
Therese Neumann saw her pastor, Father Naber, at the foot of the Cross in one of her visions of the crucifixion. Was he really there? At the actual crucifixion 2,000 years ago, no. At the crucifixion renewed in the Mass, of course! And all of us have that privilege. That is the message... so much more important than what is seen.
NO REAL CONTRADICTIONS
At first it may be disconcerting to meet apparently contradictory statements from persons like Therese Neumann or Ven. Mary of Agreda, whom we know beyond reasonable doubt to be credible. Many of us have felt confused, because some saints have seen Our Lord nailed through the Hands, the Shroud shows the nail marks in the Wrist, some mention ropes, some do not. Whom should one believe?
They are all correct according to the account in the Poem:
Holes had been drilled in the Cross in advance. After the first Hand of Our Lord was nailed through the Wrist, it was found that the other Hand did not reach the pre-drilled hole.
Our Lord was pulled so strenuously that His shoulders were dislocated, but still the nail had to be put through the Hand ... and further secured by rope because the Hand could have torn away. Furthermore, the strain on the other Wrist was so great that the wound tore down into the base of the Hand. So all were there: Wrist wound (which shows on the only Hand visible on the Shroud), Hand wound, rope.
And we must always look beyond what is seen. The stigmata of the saints are comparatively small wounds, not intended to show the ghastly reality of Calvary, but to be seen as signs of co- redemption.
A further illustration of apparent contradiction is found in the case of Therese Neumann’s description of the veil, given to Our Lord when He was stripped to be crucified. She said:
"A courageous woman takes off her shoulder cloth and hands it to Him. ‘
That is as much as Father Naber recorded. This seems to contradict the Poem, which says that it was Our Lady who gave Her veil to Jesus. Why would Therese Neumann not say so? Or was there something Father Faber missed? Why did she exclaim that it was a "courageous woman"?
These words remind us of the courage of the "Woman", as Our Lord referred to Her, at the foot of the Gross. She was not, as could he supposed, immobilised by grief. She was actively participating with, and in, the sacrifice of Her Son. How important!
IMPORTANT TO READ WITH TRUST
Reading with trust that God would not deceive His saints, what might at first appear to be contradictory, becomes profoundly illuminating. In this case, Maria Valtorta describes the event. Therese Neumann’s exclamation further illuminates it.
Our Lord has revealed Himself more and more during the past 2,000 years. And now, when there is much confusion, He has given us this great gift, The Poem of the Man-God.
Until I read the Poem, I had begun to think it was impossible - this side of Heaven - to really KNOW Jesus as God and man, both natures operative in one person.
But little by little the Poem reveals Jesus in action from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, and we begin to grasp WHO He is. Little by little we are overwhelmed by the realisation that God truly is LOVE, and that Jesus is God, Who has become incarnate to redeem us, and to reveal to us Infinite Love.
That having been said, it remains that the reality cannot be summarised in a paragraph. It is to be found in the more than three thousand pages of the Poem.
Having struggled - like millions before me - with the mystery of the dual nature of Jesus, I said one day to Bishop Venancio, before I myself had begun to read the Poem: "Does it help you to understand Jesus at once as God and man?"
The holy bishop (and let it he remembered he was a learned theologian who had taught dogmatic theology at the university in Rome) seemed to be looking into the Divine Light, as he sighed: " Oh, more and more"
Most who read the Poem will have this experience. They will discover Jesus. But how... except by those more than 3,000 pages... will they he able to tell others what He is really like?
HE GREW IN KNOWLEDGE
One of the problems most of us face, in trying to understand Jesus, is the fact that He was omniscient as God, but as a man He had to learn.
In the Poem, sometimes when the apostles asked: ‘Do you know this road, Master?", He would reply that He did not. Yet many times He journeyed to be at a certain place at a precise time he was needed. Sometimes He knew. Sometimes He did not. And perhaps here, more than in any other circumstance, we have the key to understanding Him, as we see Him living and speaking in the pages of the Poem.
Blessed Anne Marie Taigi’s miraculous light gives us an example.
This saint had constantly at her side what could be best described as "supernatural television" (television being from the Greek word meaning to see what is far away). It was a globe of light beneath a crown of thorns, framed on both sides by long thorns.
The light was borne by an angel, who apparently told Anne Marie when to look into it. When she obeyed, she would see events of the present and the future - sometimes events of world-shaking importance, and sometimes an event as ordinary as that of a husband and wife quarrelling, in need of help.
For Jesus, the light was His own Omniscience. As man (since He came into the world to be like us in everything but sin), He lived by the Will of his Father. He looked into the Light of His Omniscience only when He knew it was His Father’s Will that He know something He could not know merely by human faculties.
WHAT LESSONS FOR US ALL!
During His first thirty years, it was apparently the Will of His Father that, even though He knew Who He was, He lived most of His childhood as though blind to His Omniscience. The people of Nazareth, who must have felt that they really knew Him, had no idea whatever who He really was. For 30 years! This included even his four cousins, two of whom were educated with Him. The older brothers and their father reproached Jesus when He first began His public life.
The Poem says that St. Joseph lived by faith, without ever having seen the miracles of his foster Son. Scriptures confirm that Jesus performed his first miracle at Cana.
Oh! What lessons for us all! The ordinary circumstances of life are our means of sanctification. Holy fulfillment (which is sanctification) of every-day activities is the alpha and omega of holiness.
Oh! Blessed Poem which reveals this reality!
Consider again that the Poem remarks that St. Joseph lived by faith - as do we all - having never seen the miracles of Jesus. Then note again that the Scriptures say that Our Lord’s first miracle was at Cana. ...The Poem does not replace the gospels - as almost every scholar who has commented on it repeats over and over - but enhances them. Indeed, the more we read the Poem the more we feel a real need to read the Bible, both the Old Testament and the new. One thousand and six hundred and thirty five times in the Poem, Our Lord quotes from the Old Testament. A Benedictine Abbot in Georgia completed the laborious task of identifying all 1,635 references. Many read the Poem with the bible and the Abbot’s list at hand.
LEADS US TO READ SCRIPTURE
The Poem often leads us to a certain moment, and simply adds: "What followed is as told in the Gospel." And how very often (1,635 times!) Jesus, speaking to the people of Judea and Samaria, refers in detail to passages in the Old Testament, passages with which all Jews were familiar. How woefully ignorant those who do not read scripture must feel, as they read these many important references, while recalling that Jesus said all the prophecies were marvelously fulfilled in Him.
...with Fr. Roschini, that learned author of 125 books, we can say that all the other books give us little more than a paper image of the living, real Person of Jesus we find in the Poem.
We have already suggested that a childlike attitude and a truly open mind, plus a sincere desire really to know Our Lord, will best prepare us to experience this great work.
Pope Pius XII, after reading the Poem, told the Servite Fathers to publish it, saying: "Those who read it will understand." His Holiness further instructed that they "Publish the work as it is. There is no need to give an opinion about its origin, whether it he extraordinary or not. Those who read will understand. One hears of many visions and revelations. I will not say they are all authentic, but there are some of which it can be said they are authentic."
Cardinal Gagnon certified that the above was a papal imprimatur, given before two witnesses (whose meeting with the Pope was reported in the Vatican newspaper).
As one who first struggled to read the Italian edition, then read all ten volumes in French and finally the English edition, over and over, I have not found it necessary to keep the words of Pius XII in mind. I experienced them. If there is a passage difficult to understand, or which seems quite different from what might be expected, it can become clear with prayerful thought and a sincere desire that Jesus make Himself known to us.
There are some passages (very few) which critics delight to take out of context. It is important to read through.
At first, curiosity will cause you to rush through. You will think you have READ the Poem, and you will have only sampled it. It is likely that the few critics of the Poem have sampled not enough. But they must admit it is a wondrous work, even if it were not supernatural.
Those of us who read as Pope Pius XII advised, will find the truth of his words: "Those who read it (with a sincere desire to know) will understand."
NB: Remember that Archbishop Lefebvre allowed Valtorta to be promoted at Econe for many years. This is a fact of history. He never read it, he trusted Fr. Barrielle: “OUR MODEL SPIRITUAL GUIDE”
Archbishop Lefebvre at a conference to the sisters in 1986 told them of the opinion of the late great Fr. Barielle: “These works can not NOT be from GOD”!
ON A HOLY CARD FOR THE REQUIEM MASS HE WROTE:
To dear Fr. Louis Marie Barrielle, our model spiritual guide
with our affectionate assurance of our faithful prayers.
Marcel Lefebvre (feast of) St. Joseph 1983
When the controversy erupted with Cardinal Ratzinger’s comments in 1985, the Archbishop read just a small extract and gave his nuanced and somewhat negative opinion to the Carmelites when asked. Yet he quoted to them the late great Fr. Barrielle as saying that these works...”cannot NOT be from God”.
Bishop Williamson would quote from Valtorta in classes of Sacred Scripture, and he told all the seminarians at Ridgefield that he would not hesitate to ordain any seminarians who love to read the Poem of the Man God. You must read it to find out why, (as Pope Pius XII suggested), it is like being IN the FIRST seminary.
As far as real errors are concerned, here is a reference. The learned Fr. Peter Joseph who re-published the great Sheehan's Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine and is currently the chief censor for all books in the Sydney Archdiocese (and a very orthodox friend of the SSPX, who arranged for Cardinal Pell to meet the District Superior, Fr. Black), said to me that he found one clear error in the POEM. He quotes some Roman soldiers in the first volume admiring Our Lord's Wisdom and oratory skills, and saying that He is greater than Galen. Well, modern history texts put the famous medical scholar Galen into the second Century, hence an obvious error. BUT the modern textbooks of history could be wrong, and/or the one we now know as Galen may have had a first Century precurser, whom those Romans were talking about in the POEM. Such is the quality of the best objections to Valtorta. Not very substantial.
The POEM is a great remedy to liberalism, sentimentalism, modernism, feenyism and sedevacantism, as well as protestantism, indifferentism, socialism and the rest.
The POEM in English is 4,134 pages.
Copies may be obtained with standard bookstore discounts at the publisher:
USA (Distributor in Canada)
Librairie Médiaspaul
250 nord boulevard St-François, Sherbrooke, Québec J1E 2B9,
Phone 819.5695535, Fax 819.5655474 www.heandi.qc.ca libmedia@qc.aira.com
The Society of St. Pius X has trained a good number of its priests with the direct help of Maria Valtorta; i.e. all those at her first seminary of Econe until 1983 by the first Spiritual Director Fr. Barrielle; then in the USA from 1984 until 2003 by the Rector of its seminary, Bishop Richard Williamson, a renowned biblical scholar and theologian. He said to the entire body of seminarians in 1987:
Listen to the Bishop speak of it at this link (November 2007 in Boston):
http://www.advancedchristianity.com/Mp3/MPC/Bishop_Williamson/Bishop_Williamson_2007-11-04_008_(1)(1)_02.mp3 (only five minutes)
“I love it…. Our Lord’s answer to TV…no fear of being misled…magnificent.”