Correspondence of Maria Valtorta with Father Romualdo Migliorini

Correspondence with Father Migliorini

Cover page CEV 2023
Work Details
Author	Maria Valtorta, Father Romualdo M. Migliorini
Full Title	Correspondence with Father Migliorini
Pages	189
Publication	January 2023
Publisher	Centro Editoriale Valtortiano
ISBN	978-88-7987-395-6
Distribution	Bookshops - online sales - Publisher's website
First Italian Edition
Title	Lettere a Padre Migliorini
Publication	2011
Publisher	Centro Editoriale Valtortiano
French Translation
Translator	Yves d'Horrer

|} Father Romualdo Maria Migliorini was born on June 21, 1884, in Volegno di Stazzema (Lucca), today a village of about sixty inhabitants in the Tuscan mountains. He was a missionary in Canada and South Africa, where he was in charge as apostolic prefect. Returning to Italy in 1939, he was sent to Viareggio as prior of the local community of the Servites of Mary, who were responsible (as they still are today) for the parish of Sant’Andrea.

When he learned that Maria Valtorta – who belonged to the parish of San Paolino – was looking for a spiritual director, he went to visit her. He took on this role in 1942.

It was Father Migliorini who invited Maria to write her Autobiography, to whom she provided the handwritten notebooks and who transcribed them into typewritten copies.

After a short time, Maria sadly learned that the priest had begun distributing pamphlets with excerpts of the visions and dictations.

This was the start of a spiritual conflict which led them to discontinue their relationship in 1946.

Father Romualdo M. Migliorini died on July 10, 1953, a few months after the last letter he wrote to Maria Valtorta.

Summary of the Book

After an introduction presenting the relationship between Maria Valtorta and Father Romualdo M. Migliorini, the book presents the correspondence in chronological order from October 29, 1943, to October 6, 1952. An index of the main characters cited closes the book.

Text of the First Letter

In this initial contact with her spiritual director, Maria Valtorta describes her life of emotional solitude and her victim offering, which would deeply mark her spirituality. She believes she is living her "last moments of mortal life." She would become more expansive when Father Romualdo Migliorini asked her to write, three months later, her Autobiography, unveiling the full depth of her spiritual path.

Very Reverend Father,

My character is reserved, shy, not inclined to outpourings and confidences; to this is added that, throughout my life, I have often been misunderstood and despised. These two reasons explain my difficulty in opening my soul as much as I would like to someone who, by his ministry, wisdom, and kindness, could guide me and bring me greater comfort than he already does.

But as I consider it desirable that there be, between the soul and the spiritual director, an atmosphere of openness and a broad and sincere knowledge, I resort to my usual stratagem: writing.

If there is something that has long prevented me from changing spiritual directors, thus addressing you to ask you to accompany and regularly assist me – which my parish priest did not do – it is the fact that this priest had known my home for many years and could inquire from trustworthy people about my family environment, so that he could believe what I communicated to him about my struggles and particular trials, which are even more painful for me than those of illness.

What I must share with you is so sad and hardly credible that it demands a great effort from me. I speak to you with tears, and I pray the Lord to enlighten you so you may hear the truth in my words. For what I am about to tell you is the truth.

Forgive me if my description must be a bit long.

Only daughter of the best of men – he was even too good – and of the most nervous, irascible, and suspicious woman, I have never known true joy. My only joys were the brief moments I could spend with my father. It was he, a soldier, who educated my mind and heart: he showed me God in nature, in art, in beauty, he taught me to honor Him through prayer, in churches and through the honest works of life.

Yes, it was my father who took me to Mass on Sundays and who, all his life, asked me morning and evening if I had said my prayers. He was a just man, a good man, a hardworking man.

My mother, with a dominant character exacerbated by a liver disease, treated me with the same methods she used toward her students.

I have always trembled before my mother... and always suffered. Nevertheless, until I was thirteen, I was relatively happy because my father still had all his intellectual faculties. Then he fell seriously ill... He recovered, but he was a different man. He had become a big child who feared his wife as much as I feared my mother, and he was no longer able to comfort or defend me.

To comfort me! He comforted me with his kisses, mixing his tears with mine... and that was all. My suffering only increased.

Love was broken... God knows it was right and good that I have a home of my own! But the selfishness of those closest destroyed even that joy God granted me. My health began to deteriorate. In the beginning, my diseases were not only physical; my spirit also became ill. Unloved and misunderstood, I experienced despair, I admit it, and... I do not regret having known it: it enables me to understand the desperate, to pity them, and to pray much for them.

But one always eventually obtains from good God what one asks for with pure intention. And I, in my dear college, had asked Jesus to be the sister of Agnes, Cecilia, Agatha, and Lucy, as well as of all the gentle martyrs, who died for love of Christ more than under the sword of executioners.

And God drew me to Himself by the deepest suffering of my life.

Since 1925, I have only climbed toward God, at least in desire. He alone knows whether I have risen more or less well. I have done my best and, judging by how Jesus treated me, I suppose my offerings were not displeasing to Him.

In 1912, at my college, after a course of Spiritual Exercises, I wrote the following resolution: "Sacrifice and duty in all things and at all times.”

I have remained faithful to it, ever more faithful, especially after the brief parenthesis of my twenties, which were rather dark.

Here are my service records – if I may say so:

Offering as a victim to Merciful Love in 1925, which I have never regretted. On the contrary, the heavier the cross, the happier I am to have given myself.

Offering as a victim to Divine Justice and God willing that the one made in 1931, on the feast of the Most Precious Blood, which had as a consequence that pain fell upon me with all its force, I repeat: I have never regretted it.

My other vows, you understand well, have fallen by the wayside due to circumstances… Amen.

But the vow of suffering remains and fills my naive schoolgirl’s desire: it makes me a sister of Agatha, Agnes, Cecilia, and Lucy. Above all, it crucifies me like Jesus, who has never seemed to me as much King and Jesus as on the cross.

Be sure, my Father, suffering does not frighten me; on the contrary, it is my joy, my most precious treasure, and the more my flesh is torn by a thousand pains, the more I exclaim: "More! More!"

On the eve of anniversaries that are dear to me, I often ask Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the saints I love most: “What packet of suffering will you bring me tomorrow?” And I am happy when, the next day, I suffer more.

I bear moral sufferings fairly well too, but less so than those of the body. And only heaven knows how much moral suffering we chronic sufferers have...

There is only one kind of moral pain that I truly poorly endure: those that come from family disagreements, incompatibilities, and injustices.

I do not know if you have noticed the difficult and demanding character of my mother, a character that age has made even more irascible and suspicious. This is the cause of endless scenes between her and Marta, as well as between her and me, because I try to fix things justly. According to my mother, Marta is almost a delinquent. But I remember the countless servants who have served at home, I know how even I, despite all my affection and willingness, cannot satisfy Mom, and I see what Marta does: errands, house chores, various burdens, and all “with seriousness, honesty, and ability, for the more than modest salary of 50 lire per month”. I say 50, but when I think of all that, and realize that if Marta gets tired, I would have to go to the hospital and Mom to the hospice – because we would find no one who asks for so little while having all the required qualities that Marta possesses – I “affirm in all truth” that Marta is a brave girl, affectionate, and she does not deserve the continual mistreatment my mother inflicts on her and Marta endures out of love and “pity for me.” That makes me suffer greatly. Suffer because I see Marta cry; suffer because this ill humor is obviously not appropriate for a sick person; suffer because, if I intervene to correct things, a hail of unfair and very painful reproaches, insults, harsh words, and so on falls on me. And I suffer so much that it worsens my physical condition.

Sometimes I restrain myself, but that effort causes dangerous congestions! Other times, like Wednesday the 28th, I cannot control myself and I am seized by a paroxysmal crisis of a kind of delirium, which ends in a severe heart attack, which is very dangerous.

There you have it: you know me better now and can better guide and comfort me. Believe me, my Father. I have not exaggerated; on the contrary, I have greatly toned down the sad reality surrounding my last moments of mortal life. Pray for me and bless me.

Maria Valtorta

Viareggio, 29-10-1942