Hymn to love and suffering
"Only one who has experienced that piercing anguish of agony, cramps, suffocation, and collapse can know what it is really like. And I experienced it for the first time on Good Friday. Jesus in agony, Maria of Jesus in agony. I really thought I was dying. One could not go out on account of the throng, and, moreover, you cannot walk at that time...! I practically had to get undressed in the church because everything which is tight-fitting increases the suffering. But I was not afraid. I felt that Jesus was lifting me up onto the cross.... I had begged Him so for the past five years to accept me as a victim.... The blessed time of divine consent had come, and on a day and at an hour which were so full of significance."[1]On Good Friday 1934, she was "pierced by love" while contemplating Jesus on the Cross. It was on this occasion that she composed her Hymn which she often repeated, especially at the most painful Hours, or during Lent. Two days later, Sunday, April 1st, she lay down never to get up again until her death.
Hymn to Love and Suffering[edit | edit source]
“He is the Man of Sorrows, the Beloved of my heart. To resemble God, I, too, must suffer.To me, then, to me come, O dear thorns, O sweet nails; strike me, for the bride wishes to adorn herself with the jewels of her King.
See how languishing his gaze is, how dry his mouth is as He prays on the cross for guilty mankind.
My heart, do you hear the voice murmuring the words of love amidst the sobs?
He is dying for us and forgives and promises paradise and, inclining his sweet face, says, ‘I am thirsty!’ and awaits mercy from us.
‘What care can I offer for your blessed lips, your suffering heart to soothe your last breath? With what balm can I give relief to your breast, O Redeemer?’
‘With your faithful affection and generous suffering.’
Oh, to me, to me come, sweet thorns and dear nails! Encircle me, strike me, nail me to the hard wood. May the head of my King rest on my breast and over my heart.
With my affection and my love I want to wipe away his tears, quench his feverish thirst, comfort his agony.
Blessed be the pain which renders me like unto You! Blessed be the cross that raises me up to heaven! Blessed be the love which gives wings to my suffering!
Blessed be the day that your gaze enchanted me! More blessed be the moment which consecrated me to You!
But seraphic is the torment which joins me, O Redeemer, to the cross, to pain, for your glory, O God!
Oh, to me, to me come, sweet thorns, dear nails; adorn me, engrave upon me the semblance of my King.
Come, come, hard, blood-stained wood of the cross; I want to seek you alone for support here below.
Above, in heaven, among the splendors, the Redeemer awaits me, no longer languid and moaning, but eternal and radiant.
One day, adorned with the cross, my head encircled by his thorns, consumed by his love, I shall fly to Him. And in the midst of angels singing hosannas and seraphic brilliance He will change the torments and pains into as many jewels.
Blessed be pain, blessed be the cross, blessed be the love which will be completed in heaven!”
She adds:
"Writing like this, writing alone, would not be at all praiseworthy, but rather a vain exercise in words. But I bore out those words—and bear them out—with my pain, which I love much more than myself. And this gives value to that cry written in a moment of deep union with my crucified King.The afflictions have progressively increased in both number and depth, but I have not changed my song and always say, “Blessed be pain, the cross, and love.” And my constant appeal is “For me, the thorns, nails, and scourges, since what the world flees constitutes my repose, for the more the grip of suffering tightens, the more peace and blessedness increase, and for every fiber that is broken and every strength that is annulled I feel that a cell is being added to my new self, which will live in heaven, because heaven belongs to those who succeeded in dying to the flesh before the flesh died to us.”
I suffer with Christ and with Him shall be glorified. May his life and his passion be manifested in me, who ask only to remain nailed on the cross, on that cross which is madness for the children of perdition, but is divine strength for those who have entered upon the way of salvation, as the Apostle with incisive words and a burning heart states.[2]
Two days after that moment of ecstasy and that cry of desire, which rent my chest, I was nailed to the Cross. Christ was coming down from it, in the glory of his Resurrection, and I was ascending to it, out of love for my dearest friends: Jesus and souls.
I had strained myself so as not to cause Father sadness by staying in bed precisely on that day. But I was too weak to stand. From a nearby radio I heard the papal blessing imparted after the canonization of Don Bosco. With this viaticum I went to bed. We had by now turned the parlor into a bedroom, and I took possession of it—and am still there."[3]
Going Further in Discovery[edit | edit source]
- Her spiritual life
- Her mystical calendar
- Act of Offering to Merciful Love and Divine Justice.
- Her Invisible Stigmata
- Tertiary of the Servites of Mary
- Her rosaries
- Our Lady of Fatima in the life of Maria Valtorta
Notes and references[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Autobiography, p. 340. Page number is from the French edition.
- ↑ St Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:17-25.
- ↑ Autobiography, pp. 429–430. Page numbers are from the French edition.