THE
  
 HOLY SPIRIT  

ON

MODERN WARS

AND

NATURAL DISASTERS
 

+    
 

— From the Mystical Revelations of Maria Valtorta —

 

 

 

— INTRODUCTION —


The brief excerpt labeled "Part I" of the document that follows this Introduction, has been translated from the recently published [2006] collection of Valtorta's revelations entitled, Quadernetti ["Little Notebooks"]. It is dated as given to her in June, 1953, the Feast of the Sacred Heart:  just before the end of the Korean War in July of that year, and three years after that War began, in 1950. The Holy Spirit, Author of Part I  and Part II of this Dictation, refers  specifically in Part I to the Korean War, and the natural disasters occurring also at that time—and He gives the cause of the War and these disasters.

At the end of Part I, the Holy Spirit refers to a previous Dictation He had given three years earlier to Valtorta—again on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, just before the outbreak of the Korean war in June of 1950. There, He had explained the proper view of these distressing events. So He concludes Part I with the suggestion to Valtorta that "if you can find what I said in 1950..., recopy it here"—that is, after the excerpt labeled "Part I".

Part II, then, of this presentation appears to be that earlier Dictation referred to in the closing statement of Part I. It is found in Valtorta's Lezioni sull'Epistola Di Paolo Ai Romani ["Lessons on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans"], and is therefore translated here in Part II as a companion piece to Part I.

The Korean war ended over half a century ago. But more wars and disasters have followed and seem now to be multiplying and escalating.  We experienced the humiliating Vietnam war, and are presently in the midst of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, with no end in sight, along with the terrorism these have generated. Then there are the powder kegs of Lebanon and the middle east, of Africa, etc. Likewise, natural disasters are proliferating today in a terrifying way: numerous violent storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, unprecedented heat waves, extensive brush and forest fires, major earthquakes in various places, tsunamis and floods, volcanoes erupting, bridges and buildings suddenly collapsing, mines caving in on workers—all with great loss of life and property.

And modern man asks: "Where is the God of love in this!?  Why does God permit all these evils!?"

But what of the evils that man permits!? We see today the frightening proliferation and widespread acceptance—even welcoming—of such grave moral evils as: abortion, rape, sodomy and homosexual lifestyles with their attempted "marriages"; sexual abuse in families, as well as by pedophile clerics and teachers; senseless murders, suicides, euthanasia ("assisted suicides"), attempts at human cloning—and now: even attempts  to produce "parahumans" or human/animal hybrids with genetic engineering, by fusing human and animal genes.  Man has surely crossed the line drawn in the sand by his Creator.

Can there be any doubt of the far greater relevance of these prophetic Dictations today, than when they were first given to Valtorta?

And then modern man asks, "Where is the God of Love!?"  He is here, as always. But He is grieving at the horrible abuse of His gift of free will to man. And yes, His chief attribute, His essence, is love, perfect love—indeed, the Holy Spirit IS that Love. Yet He is also a God of perfect Justice. Thus, when man, by his obstinate rebellion and increasing depravity, forces this God of Love to employ as well the discipline of His Justice: then does His Love become—in St. Augustine's phrase—"severe love". Or in modern parlance—"tough love".  He "gives us our head", leaves us to our evil choices, in the grieving hope that, by their consequences, we will finally learn wisdom of heart... [Psalm 90:12]

— Translator



PART  I
[June 12, 19531
Feast of the
 Sacred Heart]
THE HOLY SPIRIT 2 :

On this same feast three years ago, when the war in Korea was about to break out, I already said how strongly disturbed and troubled is the Divine Justice toward all of Humanity for its way of acting. And I announced to you [Maria], that because of this, terrible chastisements would have descended upon the Earth. The facts:  floods, cyclones [hurricanes], earthquakes with victims and disasters everywhere, have confirmed My statement.  But today I repeat to you that Divine Justice is at the limit of its tolerance.

Do not blame what is happening on anything else but the piling up of sins of every kind being committed always more on Earth. [They are] horrible sins against the Faith, the Church, good morals; unnamable vices—compared to which adultery is still a small thing; hatred and desire of death against the Church and the Priesthood; crimes, sacrileges in actions and words—and I could continue endlessly. These things—and nothing else—are the cause of the misfortunes that have happened until now, and also of future [misfortunes], always more grievous, which will befall the Earth and Humanity because of the always more grievous faults committed.

If you can find again [Maria] what I said in 1950, recopy it here.2 And pray, and urge prayer, that this corruption of Humanity may cease, if one wants to avoid frightful catastrophes. I am Wisdom and Truth, and I know what is to happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PART  II
[June 16, 19503
Feast of the
 Sacred Heart]

 
[Here follows the Dictation from Lezioni sull'Epistola Di Paolo Ai Romani
referred to in the last paragraph of Part I above. —Trans.]

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!   For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."  So it depends not upon man's will or exertion, but upon God's mercy.   For the scripture says to Pharaoh, "I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing My power in you, so that My Name may be proclaimed in all the earth."   So then He has mercy upon whomever He wills, and He hardens the heart of whomever He wills.   You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?"   But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? 
 —Romans 9:14-18                                                                                                                                                             

THE HOLY SPIRIT 2 :
No one, without becoming sacrilegious or showing himself an unbeliever, can arrogate to himself [the right] to make observations to God or [give] Him orders —even if the way in which God deals with individuals, nations, or all humanity, seems unjust to him.

For, truly those who do not believe that something can be from God unless they see a divine manifestation, imitate the fault of the apostle Thomas [Jn 20:19-29]—the fault of a man not yet confirmed in faith in the Christ4, but rather shaken in that faith by the capture and ignominious death of the Christ. They therefore repeat the unpardonable and unpardoned fault of the Pharisees, high Priests, Scribes, or anyone who, in order to believe, and in the moment of the consummation of the greatest sacrifice of God's love—Who is infinite Charity—demanded that Christ should descend from the Cross and save Himself. Nor would that have then sufficed for them, since they would have said: "He did it because He is a satan, and Beelzebul helped Him" [Matt 12:24].

No one can make observations or [give] orders to God. Because God is God. And all—persons and things past, present and future—are a nothing compared to Him: One and Triune, Immense, Perfect, in all His Three Persons and in His marvelous Unity, as in His Attributes and Acts.

There is no other God outside of Him: the Father God, Creator and Lord of Heaven and Earth, First Person of the Most Holy Triad, Who was begotten by no one, because [He is] Eternal.  And, by divine generation, He begot [generated] from Himself, His Word—by means of Whom all things have been made—the Second Person, divine, eternal, immense, perfect, equal in all to the First [Person] Who takes pleasure in Him, just as the Son takes pleasure in the Father Who has begotten Him. And this double [mutual] pleasure is the origin of the Holy Spirit Who proceeds from the Father and the Son and is Their very Love Itself. [He is] the knot that tightens Them, the embrace that unites Them, and the fire that fuses Them without creating confusion of Persons. And He is the peace in which They work untiringly and rest together in Love, through Love and with Love; Which proceeds from Them, and Which is the greatest attribute and very essence of God.

He, God, being Love, cannot but be also Justice. Because only one who does not love can be unjust toward his fellows, or to his children and brothers. But one who loves is always just, and even though recognizing that the actions of another are unjust—because not to recognize them as such, if they be [unjust], would not be goodness but foolishness—He is just also in punishing them. [In this way He is] neither excessive in severity nor in indulgence, but acting in the measure that the fault demands.

God loves. He loves His children as a Father—as Jesus, the God-Man, [loves] His brothers. Hence God is always just, in punishing as in rewarding. And when from the lips of incarnate Wisdom there came forth the Gospel counsels: "Do what, and as, I have done. Be perfect as your Heavenly Father" [Matt 5:48]—the Word was urging [you] to this perfection of a loving justice: to the perfect Justice of the Father and of the Son made Man. [He was urging you] to that justice, namely, which does not favor any side: neither from pressures nor for gifts, nor for friendship nor [blood] relationship: but it judges, absolves, or condemns, with a spirit that transcends every material or earthly thing,  as it should.

To be just with one's neighbor is still more difficult than to be a lover of God. Because God is good, and it is easy to love someone who is good. Because God is comfort, and it is easy to love someone who comforts and consoles. Because God is a support, and it is easy to love someone who supports. And because God is forgiveness, and it is easy to love someone who forgives.

But a neighbor is often bad and unjust; and ready to hurt you and to increase your pain with his incomprehension, obstinacy, ridicule and hardness. And he easily abandons you if you are oppressed or unhappy—when he doesn't become an accomplice of someone who already oppresses you, so he may oppress and hurt you still more. It is hard for him to forgive, even when he unjustly thinks he was offended or damaged by you, although you are innocent. And it is very hard for him to forgive when he is [indeed] provoked by your fault. To love him, therefore, is difficult.

But it is said: "Love those who hate you and you will be sons of the Most High" [Matt 5:44-45].  Why?  Because you will have perfect love: the greatest image and likeness of God.  Just as any son assimilates the life which his father transmits to him through his seed, and the inherited physique from his father is ineffaceable—whether in his blood, appearance, character, or name—so [it will be] for all of you: if you assimilate the chief attribute of God—the one that is His essence: [love]—you thus take into yourselves the very Life of God. You live for Him and in Him, and you become His true sons, not through an equality of nature and substance, but through a supernaturalizing of the creature, which thus becomes divinized through a relative participation in the actions of God, One and Triune, and through its likeness [to God] by doing what He does always:  by loving.

God says to Moses: "I will have mercy.... I will have compassion...." [Exod 33: 19]. But His mercy and compassion did not begin from that moment. Although united to divine justice, [these attributes] were already alive in Eden, before the two Transgressors were condemned in time with work, suffering, fatigue, exile, and death. But [they were] forgiven for eternity with the promise of the Redemption, and by means of the Redemption [Gen 3: 14-20].

[There is] still more: that mercy and compassion [of God] were alive before the existence of man, whose future Fault was not unknown to his Creator. God created man in order to give him Heaven, sonship, and divine likeness, [even] while knowing that man, who ought to be holy, was already destined to be—of his own will—a sinner, a rebel, transgressor, thief, a homicide, violent, a liar, lecherous, sacrilegious, an idolator—all the evil human tendencies present in him by human consent. And above all, God created man while knowing he was capable at one time of killing His Word—Who for man's sake had assumed [man's] Humanity—and of wounding that Word with his sins times without number, as the grains of sand that form the sea bed; and doing so from [the time of] the Word's redemptive coming until the end of the ages. This [foreknowledge] gives the exact measure of the infinite mercy and compassion of God.

From eternity God looked at His Word, and His eternal Thought, considered all the things He had created through the Word. Jubilantly He admired in His thought the numberless beauties and marvels of the Creation, which had been made through the Word at the proper moment. But at the same time, the Father of lights saw that creative poem of all light and goodness, staining  itself with a disfiguring, poisonous stain: the origin of every fault and disaster.

As one who marvels and pauses to contemplate a place of delights, of all balms and flowers, of pure water and the songs of birds, and then trembles with horror upon seeing come out of it a poisonous and aggressive serpent which breaks, bites and kills plants and animals, and corrupts the water and the flowers—so the Father of the Word and of man, contemplating from eternity the future Creation in which all would have been created "good" [Gen 1:1-31], saw the Serpent attack, corrupt and poison everything, bringing suffering [to this Creation]. He saw fallen man, and He saw Cain, killer of Abel [Gen 4:1-16] and figure of another Cain (Israel) who would kill the new Abel:  His Word [Jn 11:45-53].

Before such knowledge, even the holiest of men—if they had not hated—would at least have felt indifference rise up [in them] for the ungrateful, uselessly benefited, squanderer of the benefits received.

But God—No.  God knows all. But His mercy and compassion do not change nor weaken. Rather they are born precisely through this eternal knowledge. And [His mercy and compassion] decree that, since Man and men will be sinners, homicides of their eternal part [the soul] and of their brothers: in order to make them "living", "sons" and "co-heirs" again, it is necessary to sacrifice the Son.

He will be the Son of Man, the faithful and most holy Adam, the Abel and the Lamb immolated by the deicide Cains. And from the first Fault and the second Fault—that of Eden and that of the Temple [Jn 11:45-53]—will come the Redemption.

And God will be compassionate and merciful with whom He wills. That is, with all those who, in their turn and with good will, want to be "sons of God", having welcomed the Christ [the "Messiah"] with love, and followed and practiced the commandments and instructions of the divine Word.

God draws good from all things, always.

From the Fault of Adam, He drew the good of the Redemption—the measure of the divine Charity which is infinite and most perfect.

He drew the confirmation of His infinite power, justice and goodness, from the stubbornness of Pharaoh toward the divine orders which Moses, His servant, transmitted to the Egyptian monarch [Exod 7:8 - 12:34]. Thus, through the plagues that struck Egypt, and through the killing of the first-born, and of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, Pharaoh knew that God is the Lord. And the People of God also knew it, through those prodigies which confirmed them in their faith in the Only God, in their God.

From the fault of Israel—the crucifier of His incarnate Word—God drew the blessed certainty of the Resurrection of the flesh and of the eternal Jerusalem, where the spirits of the just ascend, and where later the flesh of the just will be reunited to their spirits, for an eternal life of joy.

From all, the Most Good draws good things. It is only necessary that man, with his good will, should know how to draw his good from all that God does.  How?  By not rebelling, and by not estranging himself from his Heavenly Father, if His hand is heavy and His chalice bitter.

You are sinners. All of you. Even the best are imperfect. Jesus was innocent, holy, perfect [Heb 7:26]. And yet the Father loaded upon Him the whole weight of the faults of men, so that it consumed Him on Golgotha. And He presented to Jesus the bitterest chalice [Lk 22:42]—more bitter than the bitterness of all that is disgusting:  from the abandonment of His Father [Matt 27:46], to the suffering of His Mother; from the betrayal of a friend and apostle, to the cowardice of the other apostles; and from the denial of His Cephas [Matt 26:69-75], to the ingratitude of the people. Among men, no one has borne nor will bear the burden, nor will drink the chalice which crushed and embittered the Christ: the Innocent.

Hence, know how to imitate Him—in His perfect good will, and in His most holy obedience—in order to draw your good from all that God permits to befall you, to test you and to reward you.
________________________
— NOTES —

1-Maria Valtorta, Quadernetti (Edizioni Pisani / Centro Editoriale Valtortiano srl, Via Po 95, 03036 Isola del Liri (FR), Italia, 2006): 213.
2- Valtorta gives no indication of  Who the Divine Author is in this following brief excerpt. But guided by its opening sentence— "On this same feast three years ago...," —as well as its last paragraph: "If you can find again [Maria] what I said in 1950..." — it is probably the Holy Spirit, since the Dictation of 1950 to which this sentence refers, is found in her Lezioni sull'Epistola di Paolo ai Romani [Lessons on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans]. In that work, Valtorta clearly indicates that the Author Who Dictated it, and wishes to be called the "Most Sweet Guest", is the Holy Spirit [op. cit., p.118] .
3- Maria Valtorta, Lezioni sull'Epistola di Paolo ai Romani (Edizioni Pisani / Centro Editoriale Valtortiano srl, Via Po 95, 03036 Isola del Liri (FR), Italia, 1986): 237-242.
4- The article "the" is often used in Italian where it is not needed in English. However, here it is retained from the original Italian before "Christ"— "the Christ" — because "Christ" is the English form of the Greek "Christos", which means "anointed", and translates the Hebrew word for "anointed::  "Mashiach" [English: "Messiah"].  Hence, the divine Author here seems to be saying that Thomas was not yet sure ("confirmed in faith") that Christ was the "Mashiach"—the Messiah.