SERENADE TO THE MOTHER
I will tell you, truthfully, that I once experienced
jealousy—
I once was jealous of
the Blessed Mother.
For, in truth, as I came to realize how Sweet and how Tender
this Beloved Mother was and Is, and how Perfect, how Beautiful, how Holy Her Love of God and for
us—humanity—Her children, was and Is, I became jealous of Her in my heart.
I would think to myself, why was I not born immaculate? Why was I given the circumstances of my birth
and my life that I would fall from such greatness by sinning without reflection
and by sheer habit?
But, My God, in
His vast and Awesome Wisdom, knew, quite well, that even if I—an undeserving little soul—had been
given the same circumstances of birth and life as the Blessed Mother, that I
would be another Eve… I would succumb to
temptation and become ungrateful despite the precious gifts and abundant graces
from the Lord—
My heart would ultimately fail to love.
And in time, I realized and accepted this reality—that I
would have fallen, too. We all would
fall—
Except Her.
And so, from this bit of knowledge—insight from the Lord—I
learned to love the Blessed Mother even more and more. She did not live a perfect life, born in a
Garden of Eden.
Rather, in the fullness of time, She was born into a world
so hostile and foreign from the Ways and Love of God, that She was chosen To Be The Blessed Mother of God. For the Lord had to personally Incarnate to intervene and change the
path of humanity—to direct us all back to the Light of His Most Sacred Heart.
Oh, how Great Is She!
Theotokos. The Mother of God.
I am just a sinner. A
poor, poor sinner. And yet, I was given
such A Beautiful and Holy Mother to
honor and love. How blessed am I!
How blessed am I to be a child of Hers. A sister of Her Divine
Son, Jesus. A daughter of the Lord!
I once wrote these words:
“…let me be Your rose,
sweet, dearest Mother. let me be that seed that waits in stillness of
winter, dying to itself in springtime, in order to be transformed and reborn as
a beautiful budding rose, that awakens in the fullness of the Light.
let me face the
heavens, as the Father smiles down on me in pure delight. let the rays of
His Son melt upon me as the breeze of the Spirit lifts me up, glistening in the
dew of a Mother's sweet tears. let me be perfected in a love that has no
bounds…”
I wrote those words, because I
want to live my life in imitation of This Exquisite Mystical Rose of
Heaven. My Dear, Sweet Mother. Oh,
Blessed Mother of God!
I am a poor sinner. Born into this world and having lived a life
as a sinner, I have a choice. Every
present moment—
I can live my life continuing as
a sinner and pass away in that state…
Such is free will.
Or, I can aspire to be a saint—
A saint in imitation of Her.
A life lived in every present
moment loving God and others more than myself.
Jesus once told St. Maria Valtorta that there are two great
plenary indulgences granted that come directly from Him, The Supreme and
Eternal Pontiff:
A Love that covers a multitude of sins and Obedience unto death.
I am not the Blessed
Mother. I am not immaculate, nor, will I ever be.
But, I have a heart. Created in the image and likeness of My Lord, I have a heart that can
love. A heart that can love in imitation
of Her and, ultimately, in imitation
of My Lord.
This I can aspire to. This is the universal call at Holy Love.
Oh, Lord, give me this. Give me a Love that covers a multitude of
sins. All my sins.
Give me a Love that enflames my
heart so that by the fire of my love I will no longer offend Thee, My Lord and My Love.
Let me live every precious
moment that remains left in my life as a Holy
Tabernacle burning in Love of You, constantly,
always, overflowing in abundance of love, to this darkened and fallen
world.
Teach me to Love like Her. A Queen
So Perfect, So Holy, So Beautiful… I
am astounded that I am Her child and
Yours.
And when it is time for my moment
to pass, let me know your PEACE.
Let me be a flower—a rose at the
Blessed Mother’s feet—that opens in full bloom and full fragrance to the rays
of Your Love.
I want to make My Lord smile.
In my final moments, when the
clouds of heaven part, and My Lord
looks down upon me—His mere creature—let Him see in me, His child—
Let me be a reflection of the
Son looking up at the Father looking back at His Son.
Oh, please Lord, let me make You smile.
My God, how I love Thee…
From the Writings of
Maria Valtorta
– II –
[May 19, 1944]1
JESUS :
"How sweet it is to communicate this Our thought with one who is loved! Its lights offered as gems to those most dear! It is the love of love: the purest, the choicest.
I want to give you all My Thought. To make you understand the Thought hidden in the Word. It is as if I took you and put you in My Mind and made you know the treasures enclosed in It. So as to make you always more like Me and therefore more pleasing to My Father and yours.
In the Gospel of John, perfect possessor of the Thought of the Word of God made Flesh, of the thought of his Jesus, Master and Friend, there is said the phrase: 'Now He said this to signify with what death he would have rendered glory to God.'2
With what death he would have rendered glory to God. Sons! All deaths are glory rendered to God when they are accepted and undergone with holiness. Far be from you even the holy envy of this or that death. And far the human measuring of this or that death's value. Death is a will of God that is accomplished. Even if its executor is a ferocious man who makes himself arbiter of another's destiny, and by his adherence to Satan becomes the latter's instrument to torment his fellow men and be their assassin –cursed by Me. Yet death is always the last obedience to God Who has threatened man with death for his sin.3
You all know [about] so many Indulgences,4 and there are tiny souls (not little: tiny) who, constrained and wrapped up in the practices of their religion like a mummy amid the darkness of a subterranean tomb, make out their daily sum of how many days of Indulgences they acquire with this or that prayer. The Indulgences are there, it is true, so that you may benefit from them in the future life. But put light, put wings to your soul and your religion. They are heavenly things. Do not make slaves of them, captive in a dark prison. Light, light, wings, wings, raise yourselves! Love! Pray from love, be good out of love, live from love.
There are two Indulgences that are the greatest: Plenary Indulgences. And they come from God, from Me, eternal Pontiff. That of Love which covers a multitude of sins. It destroys them in its fire. One who loves with all his strength consumes from moment to moment his human imperfections. One who loves commits no more imperfections. The second Plenary Indulgence, given by God, is that of a resigned death – whatever kind it may be – of a willing death so as to perform the last obedience to God.
Death is always a Calvary. Great or small, it is always Calvary. And it is always 'great' even if in appearance it has nothing that makes it seem such, because it is proportioned by God to the strength of each one (I speak here of My children, not of those who are Satan's), it is proportioned to [each one's] strength which God increases to the measure of the death which is the destiny of His creature; and it is great because, if it is accomplished in a holy manner, it assumes the greatness of that which is holy. Every holy death, then, is glory rendered to God.
How beautiful it is to see the rose open on its stem! Look: it is closed up like a ruby in its emerald setting, but the folds of the setting unfold and, like a mouth that opens in a smile, the purple petals unlock. It responds with its own silken smile to the kiss from the sun. It opens itself. It is a halo of living velvet around the gold of the pistils. With its color and its fragrance it sings the glory of Him Who created it. And then at evening it bends itself wearily and dies with a more lively fragrance, which is its last praise to the Lord.
How beautiful it is to hear in the woods, at evening, the chorus of the birds. Before putting themselves to rest, they sing with all the trills of their throats the prayer of praise to the Father Who nourished them! [Then] it seems like the choir falls away; but there is always the most enamored [bird] that throws out a new trill and incites the others to follow him, since the sun has not yet fallen, and the light is such a beautiful thing that they should bid it farewell so that it may love them and return in the morning, when the good God again allows a scattered seed on the ground to be seen, a lost gnat, or a little tuft of wool to be carried to the little ones, or to give to a little throat what the good Lord feeds [them]. And the chorus continues until the light dies and these grateful [ones] gather themselves on a branch, little balls of warmth that still give a chirp under their feathers in order to say: 'Thank you, O my Creator.'
The death of the just is like that of the rose, it is like the sleep of the bird. Sweet, beautiful, pleasing to the Lord. In the arena of a circus or in the darkness of a prison, amid the affection of relatives or in the solitude of one who has no one [near], swift or slow with torments, death is always, always, always glory rendered to God.
Accept it with peace. Desire it with peace. Accomplish it with peace. Let My peace remain in you even in this trial, in this desire, in this consummation. Have My peace already in you, even now, and for this last thing. Think that the bloody death of an Agatha is no different for Me than that of a Liduina, and that of a Therese Martin from that of a Dominic of Guzman, that of a Thomas More from that of a Contardo Ferrini.5
He who does the Will of My Father, I said, is blessed. Blessed, I said, and My brother and sister and mother.6 This I said. Because I rendered glory to God My Father by doing His Will in My life and death. Imitate, then, your Master and I will call you: 'My brothers, My sisters'."
__________________________________
NOTES
1. Maria Valtorta, I Quaderni del 1944 ["Notebooks for 1944"] (Edizioni Pisani / Centro Editoriale Valtortiano srl, Via Po 95, 03036 Isola del Liri (FR), Italia,1985), 274-276.
2. John 21:19. (These words were spoken about Peter.)
3. Genesis 3:17-19.
4. "Indulgences": Remissions in whole (Plenary) or part (Partial) of the temporal punishment or reparation due for past sins to be worked out either in this life or in the Afterlife in Purgatory. Partial or Plenary Indulgences are granted to individuals by the Church for prayers or actions performed, and are drawn from Her vast treasury of the infinite merits of Christ and His saints and martyrs. These remarks were possibly occasioned by Valtorta's tendency (according to her editor, Pisani) to meticulously keep count of days of Indulgences she earned.
5. St. Agatha (lived in the 3rd century) died as a martyr; and St. Liduina (1380-1433) died as a sick woman. Therese Martin – St. Therese of the Child Jesus (1873-1897) – died wasted away in a cloister; and St. Dominic (1175-1221), the founder of the [Dominican] friars preachers died worn out from the fatigues of his travels. St. Thomas More (1118-1170) died assassinated; and the Bl. Contardo Ferrini (1859-1902) died from typhus.
6. Matthew 12:46-50.
_________________________________________________
– II –
[May 19, 1944]1
JESUS :
"How sweet it is to communicate this Our thought with one who is loved! Its lights offered as gems to those most dear! It is the love of love: the purest, the choicest.
I want to give you all My Thought. To make you understand the Thought hidden in the Word. It is as if I took you and put you in My Mind and made you know the treasures enclosed in It. So as to make you always more like Me and therefore more pleasing to My Father and yours.
In the Gospel of John, perfect possessor of the Thought of the Word of God made Flesh, of the thought of his Jesus, Master and Friend, there is said the phrase: 'Now He said this to signify with what death he would have rendered glory to God.'2
With what death he would have rendered glory to God. Sons! All deaths are glory rendered to God when they are accepted and undergone with holiness. Far be from you even the holy envy of this or that death. And far the human measuring of this or that death's value. Death is a will of God that is accomplished. Even if its executor is a ferocious man who makes himself arbiter of another's destiny, and by his adherence to Satan becomes the latter's instrument to torment his fellow men and be their assassin –cursed by Me. Yet death is always the last obedience to God Who has threatened man with death for his sin.3
You all know [about] so many Indulgences,4 and there are tiny souls (not little: tiny) who, constrained and wrapped up in the practices of their religion like a mummy amid the darkness of a subterranean tomb, make out their daily sum of how many days of Indulgences they acquire with this or that prayer. The Indulgences are there, it is true, so that you may benefit from them in the future life. But put light, put wings to your soul and your religion. They are heavenly things. Do not make slaves of them, captive in a dark prison. Light, light, wings, wings, raise yourselves! Love! Pray from love, be good out of love, live from love.
There are two Indulgences that are the greatest: Plenary Indulgences. And they come from God, from Me, eternal Pontiff. That of Love which covers a multitude of sins. It destroys them in its fire. One who loves with all his strength consumes from moment to moment his human imperfections. One who loves commits no more imperfections. The second Plenary Indulgence, given by God, is that of a resigned death – whatever kind it may be – of a willing death so as to perform the last obedience to God.
Death is always a Calvary. Great or small, it is always Calvary. And it is always 'great' even if in appearance it has nothing that makes it seem such, because it is proportioned by God to the strength of each one (I speak here of My children, not of those who are Satan's), it is proportioned to [each one's] strength which God increases to the measure of the death which is the destiny of His creature; and it is great because, if it is accomplished in a holy manner, it assumes the greatness of that which is holy. Every holy death, then, is glory rendered to God.
How beautiful it is to see the rose open on its stem! Look: it is closed up like a ruby in its emerald setting, but the folds of the setting unfold and, like a mouth that opens in a smile, the purple petals unlock. It responds with its own silken smile to the kiss from the sun. It opens itself. It is a halo of living velvet around the gold of the pistils. With its color and its fragrance it sings the glory of Him Who created it. And then at evening it bends itself wearily and dies with a more lively fragrance, which is its last praise to the Lord.
How beautiful it is to hear in the woods, at evening, the chorus of the birds. Before putting themselves to rest, they sing with all the trills of their throats the prayer of praise to the Father Who nourished them! [Then] it seems like the choir falls away; but there is always the most enamored [bird] that throws out a new trill and incites the others to follow him, since the sun has not yet fallen, and the light is such a beautiful thing that they should bid it farewell so that it may love them and return in the morning, when the good God again allows a scattered seed on the ground to be seen, a lost gnat, or a little tuft of wool to be carried to the little ones, or to give to a little throat what the good Lord feeds [them]. And the chorus continues until the light dies and these grateful [ones] gather themselves on a branch, little balls of warmth that still give a chirp under their feathers in order to say: 'Thank you, O my Creator.'
The death of the just is like that of the rose, it is like the sleep of the bird. Sweet, beautiful, pleasing to the Lord. In the arena of a circus or in the darkness of a prison, amid the affection of relatives or in the solitude of one who has no one [near], swift or slow with torments, death is always, always, always glory rendered to God.
Accept it with peace. Desire it with peace. Accomplish it with peace. Let My peace remain in you even in this trial, in this desire, in this consummation. Have My peace already in you, even now, and for this last thing. Think that the bloody death of an Agatha is no different for Me than that of a Liduina, and that of a Therese Martin from that of a Dominic of Guzman, that of a Thomas More from that of a Contardo Ferrini.5
He who does the Will of My Father, I said, is blessed. Blessed, I said, and My brother and sister and mother.6 This I said. Because I rendered glory to God My Father by doing His Will in My life and death. Imitate, then, your Master and I will call you: 'My brothers, My sisters'."
__________________________________
NOTES
1. Maria Valtorta, I Quaderni del 1944 ["Notebooks for 1944"] (Edizioni Pisani / Centro Editoriale Valtortiano srl, Via Po 95, 03036 Isola del Liri (FR), Italia,1985), 274-276.
2. John 21:19. (These words were spoken about Peter.)
3. Genesis 3:17-19.
4. "Indulgences": Remissions in whole (Plenary) or part (Partial) of the temporal punishment or reparation due for past sins to be worked out either in this life or in the Afterlife in Purgatory. Partial or Plenary Indulgences are granted to individuals by the Church for prayers or actions performed, and are drawn from Her vast treasury of the infinite merits of Christ and His saints and martyrs. These remarks were possibly occasioned by Valtorta's tendency (according to her editor, Pisani) to meticulously keep count of days of Indulgences she earned.
5. St. Agatha (lived in the 3rd century) died as a martyr; and St. Liduina (1380-1433) died as a sick woman. Therese Martin – St. Therese of the Child Jesus (1873-1897) – died wasted away in a cloister; and St. Dominic (1175-1221), the founder of the [Dominican] friars preachers died worn out from the fatigues of his travels. St. Thomas More (1118-1170) died assassinated; and the Bl. Contardo Ferrini (1859-1902) died from typhus.
6. Matthew 12:46-50.
_________________________________________________
