Hypostatic Union

Diagram of the Hypostatic Union according to St. Cyril of Alexandria

Hypostasis referred in ancient philosophy to the fundamental and intimate reality of things and beings. It differs from the nature of a thing which indicates what it is (what) but not who it is. The adoption of this term allowed for a clear affirmation that Jesus Christ is a single person (one hypostasis) who possesses two distinct natures (divine and human), without mixing or separating them.

Theological meaning

The Hypostatic Union, defined by the first ecumenical councils guarantees that Christ can be both fully God (to Save humanity) and fully man (to identify with us). It preserves the mystery of Redemption as formulated by the Creed: "He was born of the Father before all ages, and became man". This notion is very present in the work of Maria Valtorta: he is both the Savior God and the human brother we can know and imitate.

It is good that the term ὑπόστασις (hupostasis) was already in use at the time of Jesus, it is only employed in the sense given by Christian theology by Maria Valtorta.

In "The Gospel as it was revealed to me"

Main texts

• EMV 324.3 (Jesus, the Incarnate Word).
• EMV 567.17 (You have insulted the Incarnate Word who loved you so much).
• EMV 630.21 (Comments on the Our Father).
• EMV 634.11 (I am a true man, but I am also true God).

Overall summary

These four texts by Maria Valtorta offer a living catechesis on the mystery of the Hypostatic Union, as defined at the Council of Chalcedon (451). This council affirmed that Jesus Christ is one person in two natures, fully man and fully God, without confusion or separation.

• In the first text (EMV 324.3), through the testimony of James of Alphaeus the Apostle, the emphasis is on confessing faith: Jesus is God born of a Woman, and therefore truly man, but his true Father is the Most High. His divinity is proclaimed as one with that of the Father and the Spirit. This confession forms the basis of Christian faith and answers the objections of the world that would reduce Jesus to an ordinary man.

• The second text (EMV 567.17), addressed to Judas, concretely illustrates the coexistence of the two natures: limited in time and space as man, Jesus remains omnipresent and almighty as God. Here, the Hypostatic Union appears as a Judean truth that personally engages Judas: to reject Christ is to reject God himself.

• In the third text (EMV 630.21), the Resurrected One comments on the prayer of the Our Father and shows both his eternal preexistence as the divine Word and his human brotherhood with his Disciples, who have become his juniors. The Hypostatic Union is thus illuminated in its dimension of communion: Christ, the firstborn, opens believers to filial relationship with the Father. The Eucharist, where Jesus gives himself as food and drink, becomes the sign and means of this participation.

• Finally, the fourth text (EMV 634.11), where the risen Jesus speaks of his multiple Apparitions, reveals the fullness of the Hypostatic Union in glory. The humanity of Christ remains real and tangible—a true body, warm and solid—but now transfigured by divinity, freed from the limits of space and time. The glorified humanity fully participates in divine power, without ceasing to be human.

Thus, these four passages compose a journey: from the confessed Incarnation to the lived tension of the two natures, then to the filial brotherhood that introduces believers into Trinitarian communion, up to the glorification where the humanity of Christ shines with divine power. They do not simply repeat a dogma: they unfold its truth in the form of spiritual and existential experience.

In this sense, Valtorta’s writings appear as a mystical illustration of the Chalcedonian definition: they show how the Hypostatic Union, far from being an abstract formula, is the very Heart of the Christian mystery, which challenges, consoles, nourishes, and saves.

Comments by the editor or Maria Valtorta

• EMV 68.1 (Maria Valtorta adds on a typewritten copy: There too emerge the two natures united in one person: God and Man.)
• EMV 207.11 (Discourse on the fleshly reality of Jesus. "It is not a question, however," notes Maria Valtorta on a typewritten copy, of denying the Hypostatic Union by which the Word, being really in the flesh of the Son of God and Mary, has not ceased to be one with the Father and thus with Love; he has not ceased to be the Holy of holies, because he was so by his divine nature and so in his human nature, by Grace and by very perfect will.)
• EMV 342.5: "God who separates from God to Save the guilty creature". Expression that Maria Valtorta justifies by this note on a typewritten copy: "Since He is one with the Father, the Word was no longer in the Father as before the Incarnation." Likewise, the text of EMV 381.2 makes a distinction between "the Word of the Father who is in Heaven and the Son of man".
• EMV 346.5 "I will be God again in Heaven, that is, no longer God on earth (Son remained united to the Father), but God in Heaven (Son returned to the Father), as explained in the note in EMV 342.5. This expression is similar to that of John 16:28: "I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father"; it is consistent with the formulation of the Creed: "Descended from Heaven… ascended to Heaven, he sits at the right hand of the Father."
• EMV 474.2/3 Maria Valtorta, overwhelmed in the contemplation of the Man-God, expresses the following concept: divinity, always hypostatically united to Jesus Man, was not at every moment sensible to the Redeeming Man, who had to go as far as experiencing this pain.

Insight for other expressions

• EMV 62.2 ("I am accustomed to go out early often, to raise my spirit and unite myself to the Father").
• EMV 62.4 ("if the whole world came to Me to listen [...] I would not even regret Heaven where I was in the Father! ...).
• EMV 123.5 ("It is also for this Soul that I took flesh and left Heaven").
• EMV 126.1 ("not to me, but to Him who sent me").
• EMV 126.10 ("Blessed are you, Messiah, our avenger!" - "No, not Me. God, the Eternal Lord").
• EMV 128.2 ("Have mercy! Only You can ..." - "Not Me. God".).
• EMV 129.3 ("Lift up your Soul. God is in Heaven. Adore Him and go to Him.")
• EMV 249.4 ("this fullness of love with which I now love him because I see him faithful to the Lord" - "To Himself, you mean." - "To the Lord. Now he is the Messiah of the Lord and he must be faithful to the Lord.")
• EMV 254.3 ("I also wonder why they exist. Maybe they are necessary?" - "That, you would have to ask Him who made them.")
• EMV 272.2 ("To God. To Him all glory and praise. I am his Messiah and I am the first to praise and glorify Him. The first to obey Him.")
• EMV 287.6 ("To God, not to his Servant").
• EMV 298.6 ("Not from me, but from the Father").
• EMV 317.3/5 (Conversation of Jesus with his Father for the salvation of Judas. The humanity and divinity of Jesus. Notes by Maria Valtorta).
• EMV 399.4 ("this Jesus who left the Father to come to Save you and who will leave his life to give you Salvation").
• EMV 452.11 ("Are you suffering? God too [...] Do you know to what extent? Suffering from separating Himself from Himself and striving to know the human being with all the miseries that humanity carries with it [...] This is what God suffers, coming down to save you. This is what God suffers in the heights of Heaven, allowing Himself to suffer it.")
• EMV 479.2 (Dialogue of John of Zebedee the Apostle and Mary: "but if He returns to the Father, we must rejoice. No one will be able to hurt Him anymore." And she moaned: "Oh! but before!").
• EMV 487.9 (Priestly prayer of Jesus: "Father, my Father! I told you at the beginning of days: 'Here I am to do your Will'").
• EMV 517.2 (In his humanity, Jesus is wounded by betrayals, conspiracies, heartbreaks, refusals).
• EMV 534.8 ("Tell in your countries that the Light is in the world and that they come to the Light. Tell them that Wisdom has left Heaven to become bread for men").
• EMV 600.21 ("I left the Father to come to her and become Jesus in her spotless womb. Yet, it is from the Unviolated One that I came in the luminous Ecstasy of my Nativity; and it is from her love, turned into milk, that I fed myself; I am made of purity and love, for Mary fed me with her virginity, fertilized by the perfect Love that lives in Heaven").
• EMV 618.5 ("I am no longer separated from the Father. You will no longer be separated from the Son. And having the Son, you have our Trinity. Living heaven, you will bear on earth the Trinity among men and you will sanctify the Church, you, Queen of the Priesthood and Mother of Christians").
• EMV 632.34 ("if the Rabbi of Nazareth finished his Mission, the Emmanuel continues his until the end of the ages for all who have faith, hope and charity in the One and Triune God whose incarnate Word is a Person who, because of divine love, left Heaven to come to teach, suffer and die to give Life to men").
• EMV 637.6 ("Just as I left Heaven to dwell in the womb of Mary, I chose, at the moment of leaving the earth, the womb of Mary for ciborium").
• EMV 642.9 ("He had to die, and die with his very Holy Humanity").

In a Christian sense, study concerning God and divine things in the light of Revelation.

Extraordinary assembly of representatives of the Catholic Church, convened to discuss and collectively decide on important issues.

The Gospel as it was revealed to me (Maria Valtorta).