Category: Faith

That mellow, persuasive, friendly voice you hear sometimes when you need to decide between good and evil.. That’s the devil’s poison trap

Jesus says in response to some of my thoughts: “Lucifer is intelligent as well as cunning. Uses cunning to undermine, but intelligence to think about whether and when and how to give Me pain and ruin a creature. Believe Me that he never wastes his time unnecessarily.

So, given that, as he is ubiquitous on earth, has much to do with the many men who inhabit the globe. Man’s little attention and resistance to do good, make the power of Lucifer, which is already big, even bigger. However, I say to you, he must still calculate his time well and not lose a moment to work with profit. With his nefarious purpose that is to fatten his hell of stolen treasures to God: souls. He is truly a tireless worker. In Heaven, the Tireless works in your best interest. In Hell, the tireless works evils against you. And I say to you that he has more luck than God: his conquests (Editor: of souls), are more numerous than mine. But, you can well understand from My premise, that, being cunning, intelligent, and busy, He cannot afford the luxury of dealing with all souls equally. And he does not. Oh! His evil is an ascetic idea that he pursues, all voted to it, and he does not get distracted, nor by transactions, nor fatigue! If just you, men, pursued the good with the same intensity with which Satan pursues the evil! But you don’t.

Lucifer, as a human being starts growing in intelligence, initially cares very little, it only looks at them as probable future goats of its infernal flock; as a creature starts to know how to think, that is when older than seven years, it increases its attention and begins its teaching. The angelic ministry instructs and leads spirits with words of light. The satanic ministry instructs and instigates spirits with words of darkness. It is a struggle that never ends. Winner or loser one, winner or loser the other, the angel of light and the angel of darkness fight around a spirit to the last mortal blow, to tear him away from the other, returning that soul to his Lord, in the light, after he has had her in protection all of earthly day, or drag her into darkness if it was the other to eventually win. But between the two that fight, there is a third and the most important character. There is the man for whom the two fight. The man, who is free to follow his own will and is endowed with intelligence and reason, has the incalculable force of Grace that Baptism has given him and that the Sacraments maintain and increase.

Grace, you know that, is the union of the soul with God. So it should give you a lot of strength and make you unbreakable and incorruptible to satanic pitfalls and corruptions, because the union with God should make you like semi-gods. But to remain as such, one must want it. You need to tell Satan and to yourself: “I belong to God, and I want to belong to God only”. Thus obedience to precepts and counsels, thus continuous effort to follow and chase and achieve the good, and an ever growing good, thus absolute loyalty and constant vigilance, thus heroism to win themselves and the outside in the seductions of threefold concupiscence and its multiple faces. Few, very few, too few souls know how to do these things. So? So to these souls, so easy to take whenever he wants, so inert to escape when they have been taken, Satan gives little care. He does like the cat with the mouse. He takes them, strangles them a little, stuns them and then lets them go, then simply gives them another hit and bite if they show signs of a timid escape. Not more than that. He knows that they belong to him and does not waste much time with them, nor much intelligence.

But with “My” people! Oh! With my own he is different! They are the prey that most tickles his livid hunger. They are the impossible to take. And Satan, like an experienced hunter, knows that there is merit in capturing a difficult prey. They are the “joys” of God. And Satan makes great party when he can give pain to God, and make Him feel hurt and disappointed. He lives of hatred. Just like God lives of love. He is Hatred. As God is Love. Hatred is his blood. Like Love is mine. Here he is then, multiplying care and monitoring around a soul that is “mine.” Entering into a fortress which is already dismantled is a child’s play. He, the fierce king of hell, does not want that. He wants God’s strongholds, the clean and smooth fortresses, clear as crystal, strong as steel, which on all sides show the most holy Name: God, carved deep into its recesses – indeed it is as fluid that leaks out from the recesses, which emanates from the inside to the outside. The name they love, serve, speak with the spirit of adoration, with every beat of their heart. Pick them up, pick you up, tear you away from Me, erase from your threefold being of spirit, flesh and reason, that Name; make you, flowers of My garden, uncleanness for his hell; and laugh, throwing his blasphemous laughter against the divine throne, laugh for his victory against men and God. This is Satan’s joy.

The closer you are to Me, the more he ranges to make you his. And since you are constantly alert and your will is strong, he, the cunning, does not pursue you with the same method used for the others. Instead, he assaults you treacherously, with longer and longer distances in time, at the most unexpected moment and the most unthinkable reasons. He takes advantage of pain, need, abandonment, disappointment, and leaps like a panther on your amazed, heartfelt weakness of the moment, hoping to defeat you then and make up for all the times you’ve defeated him.

Which means does he use? Countless. Which method? Just one. That of a benevolent, liar gentleness, a rational and peaceful word, an appearance of friendship that helps, that wants to help.

Have you been assaulted? And you’ll still be, and many times, and in more and more cunning ways. Oh! What hatred he has for Me and for you! You will have increasingly more assaults; and so cunning as to mislead even the most alert. Alert humanly speaking, though. Because, smile soul whom I love, because simplicity in God, and which is kept as such, is impenetrable to every subtlety. He will scratch you on the outside. But it is an honor for a soldier the scar that marks the flesh and says: “This sign is proof of manly battles”. And the more scars a soldier has, the more the world gives honor to the brave. The same thing happens in spiritual battles. And your wounds, which do not affect the spirit, but only scratch that which is housing of the spirit-king, are your honor. And because of them, you will be honored in Heaven.

In truth I tell you that you call “martyrs” only those who were killed by tyrants. But all my saints are martyrs. Because, to be saints, they had to suffer persecution of Satan and remain faithful. Glory to the winner! Palms are for you in Heaven.

Source: “Notebook #32”, Maria Valtorta

 

How Jesus Looked Like

Says Maria Valtorta: “I was [praying] and contemplating Jesus lying on the marble stone of anointing with alongside the weeping mother kissing His pierced hands, I noticed and wondered why the face of Jesus who had just died, and put on that stone, seemed more like the face of Jesus  when he was still alive, for thinness and beauty, than how it was instead on the way to the Calvary, on the Cross, and how it appears on the Holy Shroud.

Jesus replied: Because on the way to Calvary I was hot, swollen, with veins protruding from the effort and already with a principle of swelling for the retention of urea, caused by the atrocious lashing. On the Cross, it became even more so. After death, the spasm stopped and, emptied in part from liquids both naturally and because hit by the spear, swelling of the face decreased suddenly. Also being washed by my mother’s tears was enough to make my face look more like before. But on the Shroud it appears the face of one dead for more hours. Therefore it had already begun the usual edema process, which is much stronger in those who are killed with torture equal to mine. It is the serum that transudates and that makes you say that the dead looks like when was alive. It is the great peace that death gives also to the most tortured faces. Further consider that the image appears on a shroud and fixed on it for a process of natural aromas and salt. You know that any stain that appears on a shroud tends to expand. But in reality the traits of my face in the morning of the Resurrection, that is, when I ceased to be covered by the Shroud, were so swollen. Life has returned to the Living “.


Jesus says: “Keep in mind that Galilee was not a big place and that the Galileans were relatively few, they almost always married among themselves and therefore there were two or three types of physical features that for centuries could be found on their facs. It would not be wrong to say that in all the small countries, if you went back to the origins, there would be two or three original family roots, who married or remarried among themselves, giving a pronounced physical character across the Galilean race. That John [the apostle] also had a physical resemblance with Me should not come as a surprise. He was a blond Galilean. That was a more rare type than the darker Galilean, but it existed. But his resemblance with Me was even more marked in regard to the spirit.”

Describes Maria Valtorta: “And I got lost contemplating His face (of Jesus) and observing the smallest details. And I repeat them once again. Hair parted in the middle of the head and falling in long locks to the shoulders. Wavy for a good palm, then ending in true curl. Shiny, thin, well combed, a blonde color that especially in the final curl has decided shades of copper. Very high forehead, beautiful, smooth as a band, the slightly sunken temples on which the blue veins bring slight indigo shadows showing through the white skin, of the special white of certain individuals of red-blond hair, a white milk just a shade tending to ivory but with a faintest touch of light blue, delicate skin that seems made of petals of white camellia, so fine that the lighter thin vein shows through and so sensitive that every emotion shows with more intense pallor or redness.

But Jesus I have seen more and more pale, just a little tanned by the sun taken freely in his 3 years of preaching through Palestine. But Mary is white because she was more withdrawn at home, and is a more pinkish white. Jesus is an ivory white with a slight hint of the blue. Nose long and straight, with just a slight curve upward toward the eyes, a beautiful nose thin and well shaped. Eyes received, beautiful, the color that I have so often described as very dark sapphire. Eyebrows and eyelashes thick, but not too long, beautiful, shiny, dark brown but with a tiny spark of gold at the top of each hair. Those of Maria are of a very light brown, thinner and more sparse. Perhaps they appear so because they are more clear, so clear as to be almost blond.

Smooth mouth, tending to small, well-shaped, very similar to that of the Mother, from the lips of the right size, neither too thin to appear like a snake, not too pronounced. At the center are rounded and are accentuated in beautiful curve, the sides almost disappear, making the mouth appear smaller than it is. The mouth is of a beautiful healthy red that opens onto the teeth which are regular, strong, rather long and very white. Mary’s teeth are small, but also regular and equally spaced.

Cheeks thin but not skinny. An oval very narrow and long but beautiful, not too high cheekbones nor too elusive. The beard, thick chin and bisected into two curly tips, surrounds, without covering, the mouth up to the lower lip and then goes shorter and shorter to the cheeks where, at the height of the mouth’s corners, it becomes very short, simply putting as a shadow of dusting copper on the pallor of his cheeks. It is, where it is thick, of a dark copper color: blond-red. And so also the mustache, which is not very thick and kept short, so that it barely covers the upper lip between the nose and the lip, and is limited to the corners of the mouth. Small ears well shaped and very united to the head. They do not protrude at all”.

(Maria Valtorta, “The Notebooks of 1944”).

Do Not Be Afraid

“I will come to you as a thief.” So I said, not to scare you, but out of love, so that you may always be ready and live each moment like you would have liked to live it at the time of your rebirth to Heaven.

If men looked at their life like in the rearview mirror of death, they would give it its true meaning. You should not think of death with terror, but with confidence, and understand the full value of the meritorious phase of this existence.

Live on earth as if coming from heaven. Be down here as the man who came back from the beyond. You are a deferred dead. You should have come into eternity from a long time now, and now on earth who would ever talk about you?

I’ll leave you on earth for some more years, so that you may lead a life full of nostalgia for heaven, in which some light from the sky may filter through.

Have I not showed you, several times, how I care about you? So, what are you afraid of? I am always present and always close to you, even when everything seems to collapse, and especially at the time of death. Then you will see how it feels when my arms close to hold you and keep you on my heart. And you see the people that have been helped by your work and your sufferings. You’ll thank me for having guided you as I did, keeping you safe from numerous physical and moral dangers, leading you through paths unexpected to you, sometimes baffling, making your life an experience of profound unity in the service of your brothers.

You will thank me, better understanding the behavior of God towards you and other people. Your song of thanksgiving will grow, as you discover the mercies of the Lord for you and for the world.

There is no forgiveness without bloodshed. My blood cannot carry his precious mission of atonement, if not to the extent that humanity accepts with love to mix a few drops of his blood with the blood of my Passion.

Offer me the death of men, that they may live of My life.

Think of how it will be our meeting in the light. For this you were created, you have worked, you have suffered. There will come a day when I will welcome you. Think about it often and offer me in advance the time of your death, uniting it to mine.

Think of what it will be like the after-death, the endless joy of a soul inundated with light and love, who lives in fullness the offer of her whole being through Me to the Father, and getting through Me from the Father, the richness of the divine youth.

Yes, look at death with confidence and take advantage of the end of your life to prepare it with love.

Think of the deaths of all people your brothers: 300,000 every day. What power of co-redemption they would have if they were offered. Do not forget: oportet sacerdotem offerte. It’s up to you to offer on behalf of those who do not think about it. This is one of the most effective ways to enhance my sacrifice of Calvary and to enrich your daily Mass.

(Father Gaston Courtois, “When The Lord Speaks To The Heart”)

Love Jesus as You Are

“I know your misery, the struggles and tribulations of your soul, the weaknesses and infirmities of your body; I know your cowardice, your sins, and nevertheless I say: Give me your heart, love me as you are…If you wait to be an angel to start loving, you will never love. Even if you are weak in the practice of virtue and duty, if you fall often in those faults that you would like not to commit anymore, I do not allow you to not love me. Love me as you are.

In any instant and in whatever situation you are, in fervor or aridity, fidelity or infidelity, love me… as you are… I want the love of your poor heart; if you wait to be perfect, you will never love me. Could I not transform every grain of sand into a seraph radiant of purity, nobility and love? Am I not the Almighty? And if I prefer the poor love of your heart, am I not the master of my love?

My son, let me love you, I want your heart. Of course I want to transform you over time, but for now I love you as you are… and I want you to do the same; I want to see from the slums of misery come love. I love you even in your weakness, I love the love of the poor and miserable; I want a cry to continually rise from your rags: Jesus I love you.

I want only the song of your heart, I do not need your knowledge, nor your talent. Only one thing I care about, to see you work with love. It is not your virtues that I want; if I gave you any, you are so weak that they would just feed your pride; do not worry about it. I could assign you to great things; no, you will be the unprofitable servant; I’ll take away even the little you have… because I created you only for love.

Today I stand at the door of your heart like a beggar, I am the King of Kings! I knock and wait; hurry up to open the door. Do not worsen your misery; if you knew perfectly your indigence, you would die of pain. What would hurt my heart is to see you doubting me and lacking confidence.

I want you to think of me every hour of the day or night; I want you to do even the most insignificant action only for love. I rely on you to give me joy…Do not worry about not having virtues; I’ll give you mine. When you have to suffer, I will give you the strength. You gave me love, I will make you able to love beyond what you can dream…

But remember… Love me as you are…I gave you my Mother: make everything go through her heart so pure.

Whatever happens, do not wait to be a saint to abandon yourself to love, or you would never love.”

(Mons. Lebrun)

Act of Abandonment to God

Jesus speaks:

Why are you in distress and get confused? Let Me take care of your things and everything will calm down. I tell you in Truth that every act of true, blind, and complete abandonment in Me has the effect that you want and solves the most difficult situations.

Abandoning yourself to Me does not mean despairing and then turning to Me an agitated prayer so that I may follow you: it is rather about changing your anxiety into prayer.

Abandoning yourself to Me means placidly closing the eyes of your soul, turning away the thought of your pains, and leaving it to Me so that I alone may carry you to the other side, like a child asleep in his mother’s arms.

What upsets you and gives you immense pain is your reasoning, your thinking, your preoccupation and the will to fix at all costs what troubles you. How many things I work when a soul turns to Me for both her spiritual and material needs, looking at Me and saying “Please take care of it”, and then closes her eyes and rests!

You receive fewer graces when you get anxious to get them, while you have plenty of them when in your prayer you fully abandon yourself to Me. In your prayer, you pray that I remove your pain, but that I do so in the way you think. You turn to Me, but want that I adapt to your ideas. You are like someone who is ill, but instead of asking the doctor for the medicine, he suggests it himself.

Do not do that, but do as I have taught you in the Our Father: “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, that is, be glorified in this need of mine: “Thy Kingdom Come”, that is, everything contribute to your Kingdom in us and in the world, “Your Will Be Done”, that is, take care of it.
I intervene with all My omnipotence and resolve the most difficult situations.

You see that the illness gets worse instead of getting better? Do not panic, close your eyes and tell me with confidence: “Thy Will Be Done”, take care of it. I tell you that I will take care of it, that I step in as a doctor and work even a miracle if necessary. You see that the patient gets worse? Do not get anxious, but close your eyes and say: “Take care of it”, I tell you that I will take care of it.

It is against abandonment, worrying, getting anxious, and obsessing over the consequences of an event. It’s like the confusion of children, when they want their mother to take care of their needs, but at the same time want to think about it themselves, and so they get in her way and hamper her work with childish whims.

Close your eyes and let yourself go to the flow of My grace; close your eyes and let Me work; close your eyes and think of the present moment; turn away the thought of the future as a temptation. Rest in Me, believe in My goodness, and I swear to you, for My love for you, that if with this way you then tell me “Take care of it”, I think of it in full, I console you, I set you free, I guide you.

And when I have to take you by a different way from the one you see, then I train you, I carry you in my arms, because there is no medicine more powerful than My love. I take care of it only when you close your eyes. You are sleepless, you want to evaluate everything, scrutinize everything, think about everything, and in this way you put your trust on human strength, or, worse, on men, trusting in their intervention. That’s what hinders My words and My views.

Oh, how I wish from you this abandonment so that I may help you, and how I suffer to see you anxious!
Satan wants precisely this: to make you anxious, so that you subtract yourself from my intervention and throw yourself into human initiatives. Confide only in Me, rest in Me, abandon yourself to Me in everything.

I work miracles in proportion to the degree you abandon yourself in Me and put no trust in yourself: I spread treasures of grace when you are in full poverty!

If you have your own resources, even if just a little, or if you look for them, you are in the realm of nature, and follow the natural path of things which is often hampered by Satan. No big thinker ever worked miracles, even among the saints. Works miracles only who abandons himself to God.
When you see that things get complicated, say with the eyes of your soul closed: “Jesus, please take care of it”, and then distract yourself. Trust in Me often, distracting yourself from yourself. Do so for all of your needs. Do so all of you, and you will see great, silent and continuous miracles. I swear it by my Love. I’ll think about it, I assure you.

Always pray with this attitude of abandonment, you will gain great peace and great fruit, even when I will grant you the grace of immolation for repair and love, which requires suffering. You think it is impossible? Close your eyes and say with all your soul: “Jesus, take care of it”. Do not be afraid, I will take care of it, and you will receive blessings for your humility. Your prayers are not worth as much as an act of confident abandonment; remember this well. There is no novena more effective than this:
“Jesus, I abandon myself to Thy, please take care of it”.

Abandon yourself to My heart, and you will see. I want you to believe in my omnipotence and not in your action, I want you try and put Me into action, and not yourself, in others.

Seek closeness to me, fulfill my desire to have you, bless you and love you as I want. Let go, let Me rest in you, let Me express My omnipotence on you. If you stay with Me, you will not worry to do things your way. You will show Me that you believe in My omnipotence and I will work hard with you when you talk, you go, you pray or sleep, because “to My beloved, I give what they need even in their sleep” (Psalm 126). If you stay with Me without wanting to run nor worry about anything, but putting your complete trust in Me, I will give you everything you need according to my eternal plans.

I’ll inspire you the feelings I want from you, I’ll give you a great compassion for your neighbor and I will let you say and do what I want.

Then your action will come from My love. I alone, not you with all your activities, can make new children, who come from me. I’ll make more the more you will want to be a true son as the Only Begotten, because you know that: “If you do My Will, you’ll be My brother and sister and mother. What you will do to succeed is all smoke in comparison to what I do in the secret of hearts of those who love.
“Remain in My love … if you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you want and you shall receive it” (John 15:7).

Source: Father Ruotolo Dolido