Maria Valtorta

Maria Valtorta is a Christian mystic born with Caserta in Italy on March 14th, 1897 and died on October 12th, 1961. Although encouraged initially by Pie XII, her work, based on scenes of the life of Christ, a time was then put at the Index. She is disadvised by the Congregation of the Doctrines of the faith of Joseph Ratzinger which recalls to this occasion the position of the Church on the private revelations (see also below). The work, which touches a sensitive topic, was the subject of unfavourable standpoint or on the contrary, very favorable on behalf of ecclesiastics and theologists.

Biography

Maria Valtorta is not nun. She was born in Caserte in north from Naples in a relatively modest medium from a father warrant officer from cavalry for which she had large and deep affection and of teaching of French, a woman very authoritative and hypochondriac who required the exclusiveness in the attention of his daughter and supported no courting.

The family moves according to the assignments. In 1920, while she walks with her mother, she is attacked by young delinquent who violently strikes it in the back with a metal bar. She must keep the bed during 3 months.

In 1924, the family is established definitively with Viareggio, in Toscane. July 1st, 1931, it is offered to the Lord like expiatory victim for the sins of the men. Its health worsens gradually. As of spring 1934, it will remain definitively nailed on its bed of pain where it will remain until its twenty-seven death years later.

As from 1943 until 1947, but in less measurement until in 1953, Maria Valtorta wrote approximately fifteen thousand pages of books. Two thirds about of the literary production of Maria Valtorta were occupied by the monumental work of the life of Jesus that it showed to him by visions. By an unexplainable phenomenon, Maria feels that it is there on the spot among those which follow Jesus and it describes what it sees and hears. While keeping its bed and in spite of its great sufferings, she wrote her own hand and of only one jet, at any hour of the day or night, without feeling by no means disturbed by occasional interruptions, always keeping her natural aspect. The only books which it could consult were the Bible and the Catechism of Magpie X.

It specifies what it calls its work: " to write under the dictation or to describe what is presented to me. If it is about dictation and that it refers to a passage of the Bible, Jesus starts with me to make open the Book with the passage which He wants to explain. If it is the vision which arises, as I said, with an initial image which is generally the culminating point of the vision, and then is held while following the order I describe this point, then what precedes and what suit"

Maria Valtorta evokes discreetly, in certain personal notes, the sufferings which it endures. But Jesus, in a dictation, is more explicit and more general: " If you knew which slavery it is to be instrument of God That involves sleep, hunger, sufferings, tirednesses, desire for thinking of another thing, of reading writings which are not words of supernatural source, speaking and hearing ordinary things, the desire for being and for living like everyone, would be this one day: all that, the inexorable burn of the will of God prevents them having it and from carrying it out. On all that, the aggressiveness of the men deposits his salt and its acid, as if the Master of the galère put salt and vinegar on the burns of his esclaves." .

After having offered very to God, until his own intelligence, Maria started to contain itself gradually, during several years, in a kind of psychic insulation. It died out on October 12th, 1961 after having seen the publication of the work which, according to the directives of Jesus, was to be posthumous then its setting with the Index twenty month before its death. It left like remembering, the following sentence: " I finished suffering, but I will continue with aimer".

Works

Maria Valtorta filled 122 books, that is to say nearly 15000 manuscript pages, without any erasures, with the description of the visions and revelations which it received from God between 1943 and 1951 primarily.

Of these 122 books was initially published, in 1956, principal work " The Poem of the Man-Dieu" ( It poema dell' Uomo-Dio ). The French translation, in 10 volumes, shows only the initial subtitle: " The Gospel such as it was to me révélé". This title, which makes polemic, is due the will express of its first translator.

The work indicates a great knowledge of Palestine: vegetation, habits, topography, and even the plan of certain cities, all these aspects being inaccessible to Maria Valtorta, patient lengthened having at his disposal only the Bible and Catechism of Magpie X.

The other writings of Maria Valtorta, are presented in the form of " enseignements" of Jesus. They were published in the chronological order where they were noted, and published in three volumes: books of 1943 , books of 1944 and books of 1945 to 1950 .

This work is finally supplemented by a Autobiographie made at the request of its confessor, the " Lessons on the epistle of Paul saint to the romains" , lessons dictated by Jesus with Maria Valtorta, and the " Deliver of Azarias" , comments of the texts of the mass given by the guardian angel of Maria Valtorta.

Contrary to the visions received by Consuelo (contemporary an anonymity), but with identical of Venn. Maria d' Agreda (1602-1665) or of Happy AsCatherine EM (1774-1824), Maria Valtorta did not generate any religious movement inside or out of the Church.

The first French edition, in ten volumes, is in the course of complete new translation by Central Leading Valtortiano (Insulated del Liri, Italy).

Position of the Catholic church

This private revelation, whose Pie XII had encouraged the publication, is a whole of visions of scenes of the life of Christ, since the childhood of Marie until her Assumption.

But in 1960 the Vatican put it in the list of the books at the Index before its suppression of the aforesaid the list in 1966 per Paul VI at the request of the Fathers of the council. The work of Maria Valtorta was besides the last work registered with the Index.

In 1994, the Congrégation for the Doctrines of the Faith specifies that: " the visions and the data reported in those cannot be recognized of supernatural origin but must be regarded as literary forms used by the author to tell with his manner the life of Jésus" .

This position is in the continuation of the " Catechism of the Catholique" Church; (1992) which specifies in its paragraphs 66 and following: " With the wire of the centuries there were revelations known as " privées" , some were recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong however to the deposit of the faith. Their role is not " of améliorer" or of " compléter" the final Revelation of Christ, but to help to live about it more fully at a certain time of the histoire" .

The removal of the Index of course raises prohibition to read the work of Maria Valtorta, who is left with the freedom of each one, but it removes neither the warning statements of them, nor the need for the understanding.

With these conditions, the reading of the private revelations, is not without interest since this same Catechism of the Catholic church explicitly recognizes, in its paragraph 514, that " all the life of Christ is a mystère" and that " Many things which interest human curiosity about Jesus do not appear in Évangiles". It makes thus that taking again only known as Jean at the end of his Gospel (Jean 20,30-31 and Jean 21,24-25).

Theological value of work

The article of Ossevatore Romano commenting on the setting with the Index, especially retains against the publication a disciplinary infringement: its absence of imprimatur and, implicitly, provocative character of its subtitle, " The Gospel such as it was to me révélé" because according to the Catholic church there cannot be several " révélations" (see above).

But paradoxically, on the theological level, the anonymous author cannot stress that the high theological value of work, which it finds abnormal. " Jesus is always ready to make talks of theology in the same terms as would employ a professor nowadays. (AD impartire lezioni di teologia idiot gli stessi termini che userebbe a professore dei nostri giorni) and it continues: " The very Blessed Virgin is always ready on the matter to give lessons of a theology mariale updated according to the most recent studies of the current specialists (E sempre pronta AD impartire lezioni di teologia mariana, aggiornatissima fino agli ultimissimi studi degli attuali specialisti in materia.").

This high theological value will be recognized by several ecclesiastics, in particular by P. Gabriel Mr. Roschini O.S.M (Servites of Marie), professor at the University pontifical of Lateran in Rome, philosophical, theologist, hagiographal, mariologist of great fame, author of 130 volumes and adviser with the Saint Sits (1972): " I must acknowledge ingenuously that the mariology which emerges from the writings published and new of Maria Valtorta was for me a true discovery. No other written marial, not even the sum of all those which I read and studied, had been able to give me on Marie, masterpiece of God, such a clear idea, also lives, also supplements, also luminous and also attractive, at the same time simple and sublime".

It is difficult to allot to humble Maria Valtorta such a science.

Work is however not free from criticisms from this point of view, but very often they have as a source a partial reading of it. The understanding thus remains the rule.

Historical value

Descriptive of the places

The work of Maria Valtorta describes 177 cities and places. " Immergée" in the visions which it retranscribes, its style becomes particularly evocative about it. It is delayed on the panoramas, the habitats or the flora. A geologist and mineralogist, Dottore Vittorio Tredici, attest " its knowledge specifies aspects panoramic, topographic, geological and mineralogical of Palestine" (1952).

For its part, the Father Dreyfus o.p (Dominican), Professor at the Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem writes in 1986: " I was very impressed to find in the work of Maria Valtorta the name from at least six or seven cities which appear neither in the Old one nor in new the Wills. These names are known only by some rare specialists and sources are not known not bibliques".

Its description of Gérasa, today Jerash in Jordan, surprises. It could with difficulty know also precisely this archeological site of reputation which was exploited only later on.

the characters The work of Maria Valtorta implements 650 by name designated characters. They are divided into four categories:

1 - Those which one often meets in the Gospel. Jesus, Marie, apostles. The contribution of work is to show them, from day to day, in their humanity. A character is put forward, for purposes of teaching, Judas Iscariote. Others, less known, are clarified like Simon the Zealot or the cousins of Jesus.

2 - Those which one entreperçoit in the Gospel. The first of which one finds the holy women about which the evangelists speak: Jeanne de Chouza, Marie de Cléophas, Marthe, Marie Madeleine, Marie Salome, Suzanne,… One discovers there as Mathias, elected official in the place of Judas or Joseph the Juste, introduced at the same time as him. Beyond, it is the woman of Pierre, the figure of Lazare, the friend ressuscity, etc…

3 - Those which are only evoked in the Gospel. Work gives consistency to the soixante-douze disciples sent " two by deux" (Luc 10,1-17) or five hundreds which saw Jesus ressuscity (1Corinthiens 15,6). Remarkable fact, Maria Valtorta quotes by name 50 of the 71 members of Sanhédrin, the large Jewish court which will condemn Jesus but to which belong also Joseph d' Arimathie, Nicodème or Gamaliel, known in addition.

4 - The crowd and characters of meeting. Cured, the indifferent ones, the heinous ones, believers,… the crowd which listens or decries.

the events

As opposed to what can evoke the word " révélation" , there is, in the work of Maria Valtorta, no " large secret". Compared to the facts deferred in the Gospel (that work never contradicts), the visions develop the scenes or the lesson given in their historical context. One of best the example, to judge some, is celebrates it passage of the Blisses and the Sermon on the mountain. Another example to judge contribution of Maria Valtorta is the scene of the crucifixion and of died of Jesus or the parabolas known or not.

Maria Valtorta and the other conspicuous ones

The visions of scenes of the Gospel is not a case reserved for only Maria Valtorta. The large holy ones profited from it like holy Hildegarde de Bingen (1098-1179), holy Angèle of Bohemia (+ 1243), holy Gertrude de Helfta (1256-1302), holy Brigitte of Sweden (1302-1373), holy Therese d' Avila (1515-1582), holy Marie-madeleine de Pazzi (1568-1607), and others. But they provide only visions limited on various aspects of the life of Jesus.

Three conspicuous received these complete visions: happy the Marie d' Agréda (María Jesús de Ágreda; 1602-1665), happy the AsCatherine EM (Anna Katharina EM; 1774-1824) and Maria Valtorta. All these conspicuous has jointly to have seen a very great polemic around their work and to have had a life of accepted suffering.

The interest of the work of Maria Valtorta holds mainly in three points:

Whereas the visions of Marie d' Agréda, relate to the life of Marie, little known of the Gospels, those of Maria Valtorta, like besides those of AsCatherine EM, report in more the life of Jesus, in other words the Gospel. The work of Maria Valtorta is so precise in this relation which an exact agreement could be established between the four Gospels and the work of Maria Valtorta.
Whereas the visions of Marie d' Agreda suffer from a late narration (with more than thirty years of distance) and that those of AsCatherine EM suffer from a narration indirect (Clemens Brentano and its heirs), those of Maria Valtorta are retranscribed immediately and directly after the visions.
Lastly, more still than AsCatherine EM, Maria Valtorta brings back the historical vision of the scenes of Gospel, without interfering in their narration. The lesson (of Jesus) distinct and is reported in the series of the three " Cahiers".

Even under these conditions, the comparative study of works of these three conspicuous clarifies minor differences, probably due to their mode of retransmission. One cannot really conclude with the influence from the one on the other or with the influence from the texts Apocryphes on them. On the other hand, there are interesting convergences between these conspicuous: Marie entrusted to the Temple at the three years age, methods of choice of Joseph like husband, mode of crucifixion,…

However, adhesion with such works, even screen most objective, will remain always a personal act.

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