Man is Body, Soul, and Spirit

Usually, two parts are distinguished in Man: the mortal body and the immortal Soul, but Maria Valtorta, from her Autobiography, identifies three parts:

"In the body there is the Soul and in the Soul there is the spirit."

She thus states that Man is composed of a body, a Soul, and a spirit. This tripartition is not a new idea, but it remains a little-known truth. Indeed, only Saint Paul clearly expresses it, and briefly, in one of his epistles: "May the God of Peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may whatever is in you, The Spirit, the Soul, and the body, be kept blameless until the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!."

Maria Valtorta specifies the roles and characteristics of each of these components while making choices among the hypotheses generally formulated about them. However, it is in the exploration of "the spirit" that she pushes her reflection the furthest, opening the door to mysticism, illuminating many aspects such as:

• how the Kingdom of God is present within us and how the inner struggle with God takes place,
• the physical process of the visions and revelations that result from it,
• the paradoxical bliss of the martyrs or that of the "Victim Souls" participating in the Passion,
• the death of Souls nonetheless created immortal by God,
• the slipping of some of them into Hell where no particle of God penetrates,
• etc.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, commenting on Saint Paul's passage about the tripartition, brings clarification while remaining concise:

"Sometimes the Soul is distinguished from the spirit. Thus Saint Paul prays that our "whole being, spirit, soul, and body" may be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord. The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the Soul. "Spirit" means that man is ordered from his creation to his supernatural end, and that his Soul is capable of being elevated gratuitously to communion with God."

This elevation of the Soul is of particular importance in Maria Valtorta, who makes The Spirit the place of what she calls, in her own words, "super-spiritual beatitude".

The glorious body

See also the expanded article: Flesh, meaning.

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The Assumption of Mary uniquely illustrates that her body, as it was, entered into Glory by the power of God, thus escaping corruption. Good and fleshly, created by the union of Anne and Joachim, this body is equivalent to our future glorious body, the one we will receive when our earthly shell has returned to dust.

In the biblical story, Enoch and Elijah were also taken up with their bodies. However, they were not brought to Heaven, which remained inaccessible because of Original Sin. Jesus explains to Maria Valtorta that they were taken "to a place known only to God". Mary, however, was raised directly to Heaven, to God, in a fullness that only her Immaculate Conception allowed. Her Assumption thus anticipates the destiny promised to the righteous, revealing the splendor of bodily glorification in eternity.

The carnal being and God's design

But as far as we are concerned, our body and our flesh create in us contrary and rebellious tensions. Saint Paul recognizes himself as "a carnal being, sold under sin." He observes his inability to accomplish the Good he desires and his tendency to commit the evil he rejects. This inner Struggle, common to all men, reveals the weakness of our human condition.

In "this valley of tears," as the Salve Regina sings, we bear the weight of sorrows, pains, morbid and physical illnesses in our body throughout our earthly journey. These sufferings can lead us to perceive our body as an enemy, an obstacle on the path to happiness and holiness.

However, such a vision would be Unjust and erroneous, as it would go against God's design. Indeed, the human body participates in the dignity of "the image of God." It is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual Soul, and it is the whole human being, body and Soul united, who is destined to become, in the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Spirit. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church recalls (CCC § 364), the body is called to be the dwelling of God himself in his third person.

The Vatican II council, in Gaudium et spes, goes even further: "Body and Soul, but truly one, man is, in his very bodily condition, a summary of the universe of things which thus find, in him, their fulfillment" This statement emphasizes the nobility of our body, which must not be despised but understood in its sublime vocation.

Christ himself sanctified the human body by incarnating. His body and blood became the foundation of the Eucharist, the mystery at the Heart of Christian faith. It was a true body, true blood, given for the salvation of the world.

In developing John 7:28-29 on the identity of the Messiah, Jesus explains, in the revelations to Maria Valtorta, why it was necessary for him to take a human body to accomplish the Redemption. God did not choose to send an angel nor intervene directly, but wanted the Word to fully incarnate to share our condition and redeem humanity at great cost. This Incarnation underscores the infinite value of our body, destined to participate in God's glory.

"Who must be Christ? An angel? More than an angel. A man? More than a man. A God? Yes, a God, but with a flesh united to him, to be able to accomplish atonement for the guilty flesh. Everything must be redeemed by the matter with which it sinned. Therefore, God could have sent an angel to atone for the sins of the fallen Angels, for Lucifer and his angelic disciples. For, you know, Lucifer also sinned. But God does not send an angelic spirit to redeem the Angels of Darkness. They did not worship the Son of God, and God does not forgive the sin Against his Word generated by his Love. Yet, God loves men and He sends Man, the only perfect one, to redeem man and make Peace with God. And it is right that only a God-Man can accomplish the redemption of man and appease God." (EMV 487.6)

Maria's work illustrates this: Jesus shared our humanity also in moments of joy. He loved the land of his birth, he celebrated the bWaterty of Creation, he rejoiced in maternal love and friendship, he ate and rested.

The meaning of suffering

The meaning of suffering in Christianity is sometimes difficult to understand for those who have not experienced Christ's love. The Cross is a Scandal and folly to men, said Saint Paul. Indeed, if one does not dive into the Heart of the Redemption, one cannot understand that Jesus was both impatient to live his Passion Neighbore, so painful, and overwhelmed by strong emotional tension. One cannot understand St Paul affirming: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church. One cannot understand the martyrdom of the deacon Stephen, killed by stoning and falling asleep in death while gazing at the glory of Christ. He was the first of tens of thousands of martyrs who followed his example.

Maria Valtorta offered herself as a "Victim Soul", receiving the Invisible Stigmata and lived, on the bed of suffering where she was nailed, the paradox of redemptive joy following and imitating Christ. In a burst of exultation, she expresses its meaning:

"Blessed, yes blessed are you, oh suffering, you who have snatched me from the world and given me to God! Blessed be you for the knowledge that came to me from you! Blessed be you for the charity you infused in me! Blessed be you for the soaring flight you gave to my self, so that I could gather myself in Heaven with all the holiest desires that dwelt in me! Blessed be you, oh suffering, who united me to Jesus on the same cross in a single Mission, which for twenty centuries has been perpetuated, to bring Souls to the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of God to Souls! I will never cease to bless you, oh suffering, oh my joy, for in you I have found Peace!".

This Blessed suffering resembles that of martyrs. Maria Valtorta explains it on the occasion of the terrible demonic assaults she endured. Although the physical suffering was intense, her spirit remained in Peace, anchored in Christ, who, having "suffered to the end the trial of his Passion, is able to help those who are being tested", in the refuge where he dwells: "the Soul of the Soul":

"It was something strange. The Soul always remained the same, united to God, in Peace, in the Thirst for sacrifice. Prayer was my joy. I longed for the Sacraments more than air itself. The flesh was in turmoil. I have the impression that by a will to be attributed I don't know to whom, to the Most High or the Most Low, I had somehow split into two. On my spirit reigned God, while on my matter Lucifer bit, excited, disturbed... and sometimes lay in the mud. Then flesh and spirit reunited and then came the anguish of having been weak... I suffered hell."

Our body, this ephemeral companion of the Soul, will eventually disappear: "dust returning to dust". However, this bruised body cannot be reduced to a mere temporary envelope: the unity of the human person will enter God's eternity with its immortal Soul and glorious body.

The final resurrection and the glorious body

Saint Paul describes this final resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:35-58: "What is sown perishable is raised imperishable." Not the resurrection of Lazarus or the daughter of Jairus, which were only a return to earthly life, but the one given by God for eternity. Maria Valtorta has the vision::

"The whole body becomes alive again, identical to ours. Identical, but of a different appearance: these are magnificent bodies whose perfection of shape and colors make them look like works of art; others are horrible, not because they are actually crippled or deformed, but by their general appearance closer to beasts than to humans. They have sly eyes, contracted Faces, a bestial look, and what strikes me most, a darkness that emanates from the body and increases the lividity of the air around them. On the other hand, those that are magnificent have laughing eyes, serene Faces, a gentle appearance, and they emanate a brightness that becomes a halo around their being from head to toe and radiates around them."

Thus the glorious body is different for the resurrected: sublimated and luminous for the elect, deformed and dark for the damned. A prolongation of what is observed on earth: love or hatred illuminates or distorts the Face. But in what way does this glorious body resemble our carnal body? An answer is found in the appearance of the resurrected Jesus to the Apostles. Maria Valtorta describes him as both similar and different at the same time. His glorious body is real yet spiritual.

"As for Jesus, the Resurrected Jesus, he is always Himself, and yet He is no longer the same. If you look at him well he is different. The features of the Face, the color of the eyes and Hair, the size, the hands, the feet are alike, and yet he is different. The voice and gestures are alike, and yet he is different. It is a real body, so much so that it also intercepts the sunlight of the dying sun whose last ray enters the room through the open window. He projects behind Him the shadow of his tall figure, and yet he is different. He has not become proud, nor distant, and yet he is different." (EMV 630.2)

In her Lessons on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the Holy Spirit comments to Maria Valtorta on the fact that the resurrected Jesus still bears his wounds in the hands and feet as the Apostles observe:

"With his resurrection Jesus proved […] that he truly died crucified. That is why he retained in his Glorious Body the stigmata of the Passion. Other marks of the Passion, such as aging, dirt and thick layers of embalming products, completely disappeared from his Body. To prove that on the cross they nailed a real Christ, a human Christ, and not some image of his person, the real holes caused by the nails and the lance wound remained in his true flesh. Forever, he had conquered death and had risen in his Body and Soul, as God, for ever and ever. Just as he was seen in the tomb by the pious Women, by the Apostles on the evening of the Resurrection, and by the Disciples during the successive Apparitions, so also, exactly the same, every human spirit who at the moment of particular judgment passes, has passed, or will pass from natural life to supernatural life, sees him, has seen him or will see him."

Thus we will carry with us what made our spiritual glory, but no longer the abuses. One should not be surprised that a saint prolongs in Heaven the apostolic life he led on earth. The inhabitants of Paradise indeed keep their personality and all that made the specificity of their human life, as Father Michel Mallet recalls so well in The Worship of Saints.

The immortal Soul

See also the expanded article: Soul.

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The word Soul comes from Latin, anima, which means breath, life. This word covers several meanings in everyday language as well as in Genesis. It is rightly that St Thomas Aquinas extends the notion of Soul to all living beings, speaking of "animated" beings as opposed to "inanimate" objects. If he uses the generic term Soul, he does not put everything on the same level: he distinguishes vegetative life, animal life, and spiritual life. The latter is the one retained by the Catholic Church, under the name "Soul", as the principle of life and thought of man.

Indeed, created by God in his image, the human person is both a corporal and a spiritual being, as we have exposed in the previous paragraph on the glorious body. The immortal Soul is the spiritual element of his being. Soul and body are so united that they form a single nature: their separation is death. It is in this sense that Maria Valtorta uses the word Soul, even though occasionally Jesus applies it to things, for example the Temple of Jerusalem.

The Soul is created by God

The creation of Souls, in their initial splendor, is shown to Maria Valtorta in a beatific vision. The Father creates Souls out of love for his Son. The Son judges them out of zeal for his Father. Man is immediately constituted fully in becoming, from the embryo, even if the Soul is infused into the fetus. "From its fertilization" specifies Evangelium vitae. What the National Consultative Ethics Committee (France) calls, speaking of the embryo, a "potential human person."

This process of birth justifies that Man in his body and his Soul is "a summary of the universe of things which thus find, in him, their fulfillment". St Thomas Aquinas justified it thus: "The Soul preexists in the embryo; it is at first nutritive, then sensitive, and finally intellectual". And he further specifies: "The embryo initially has only a sensitive Soul. This disappears, and a more perfect Soul succeeds it, which is both sensitive and intellectual."

Jesus, in Maria Valtorta, specifies:

At first, man is only a seed that develops, a seed of flesh instead of gluten or marrow as that of wheat or Fruits is. At first, it is only an animal forming, an animal embryo not different from the one that now grows in the womb of this sheep. But from the moment this incorporeal part, which nevertheless is the most powerful in its incorporeality and which elevates it, enters this human conception, then the animal embryo not only exists with the pulsations of its Heart, but "lives" According to the Creative Thought, and becomes man, created in the image and likeness of God, son of God, future citizen of Heaven (EMV 118.6).

Which can be paralleled with this other passage:

To the equality of conception, formation, and manner of birth of the children of a man and a Woman on Earth corresponds another equality in Heaven: the creation of a Soul to be infused into the embryo so that it is that of a man and not of an animal, and that it accompanies it from the moment it is created until death and survives in anticipation of the general resurrection to then be reunited with the resurrected body and have with it the reward or punishment. The reward or punishment According to the Actions accomplished during earthly life (EMV 444.5).

The life and death of the immortal Soul

The dead Soul

God says it in Ezekiel: "the Soul that sins is the one that will die". Therefore, the immortal Soul can die, and there are dead Souls in the heart of the living. Jesus, in Maria Valtorta, explains this apparent paradox:

"Without Grace, you would simply be animal creatures, evolved to the point of being endowed with reason and a Soul, but a Soul at the level of the earth, capable of evolving within the contingencies of earthly life, but incapable of rising to the regions of spiritual life. Therefore, not much better than brutes, whose conduct is governed solely by instinct [...] Grace is therefore a sublime gift, the greatest gift God, my Father, could have given you [...] The Soul that loses Grace loses everything. As far as it is concerned, the Father created it in vain, the Son redeemed it in vain, the Holy Spirit infused it with his gifts in vain, the Sacraments exist in vain. It is dead. A rotten branch which, under the corrosive action of sin, detaches and falls from the tree of life and ultimately rots in the mud."

A person, good though still alive biologically, can be spiritually dead because of sin, indifference to God, or lack of charity. This is called "mortal sin"", and if it is voluntarily and consciously persisted in, the Soul entirely slips into Hell, for eternity, since the "dead" Soul is immortal. Eternal life corresponds to eternal death.

The stake is therefore Grace for Man designed to be "a little lower than God", which Jesus reaffirms to Maria Valtorta after the psalmist: "If a Soul knew how to preserve itself as it is after Baptism and Confirmation, that is to say at the moment when it is literally soaked with Grace, this Soul would be scarcely less than God."

The Soul therefore has an inestimable price: "The price and value of a Soul are such that the treasures of the earth are not enough to buy it. It takes the Blood of a God. Mine," says Jesus. It is because of its value that such a Soul is the target of the Adversary. He relentlessly tries to share with it the feeling that caused him to fall forever from Heaven: the Pride of Believing himself equal to God.

The living Soul

Jesus, in Maria Valtorta, announces that the Soul goes through three phases of creation: "The first is creation proper to all men. The second is a new creation, proper to the just. The third is perfection, proper to the saints (EMV 204.7)."

Indeed, if the immortal Soul is universally created by God for all men at their birth, Baptism is a new creation or more precisely a regeneration as sons of God, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC § 1213). It opens the door of the Spirit to us, frees us from sin, making us members of Christ and participants in the Mission of the Church. It is the new birth that Jesus speaks about to Nicodemus (John 3:3-5). The third birth is that of holiness, which begins with the coming of Christ in us. In her Autobiography, Maria Valtorta defines this path by an analogy with the Annunciation at the end of which Christ was incarnated in Mary.

"I believe that every Soul is comparable to the Virgin before the Annunciation. Each Soul is indeed called to form Christ, just as a young wife will have to form her creature. The conception of Christ in us happens when we say our: 'Here is the servant of the Lord.' Before that exists only the invitation of the Lord, carried by his angel, by his inspiration. But the event is only fulfilled when a Soul, in a thrill of love, responds with her fiat: "Yes, I want it." Then the Spirit descends to cover with his shadow the generous and loving Soul, he descends with his Fire, with his light, with his gifts, and the conception is engaged. Christ incarnates in us, not, of course, I know well, as in Mary, but he incarnates and is born spiritually, grows, forms himself and informs us of Himself and the more he grows, the more the Soul shrinks and diminishes, to make room for Him alone."

Saint Paul says no different: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." (Galatians 2:20). It is indeed when we have God in us, which is the etymology of enthusiasm, that we can access Heaven and its truths.

If your Soul were alive, it would tell you, it who, when it is in the state of Grace, is like a flower in the hands of your guardian angel, like a flower under the Kiss of the sun, bathed in dew by the Holy Spirit who warms it and illuminates it, waters it and adorns it with celestial lights. How many truths would your Soul not reveal to you if you knew how to converse with it, if you loved it as the one who gives you the resemblance of God, who is Spirit as your Soul is spirit! [...] Did I not say: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him"? The Soul in the state of Grace possesses love and with that it possesses God, that is to say the Father who maintains it, the Son who teaches it, and the Spirit who enlightens it. It thus possesses knowledge, science, and wisdom. It possesses the light. Imagine therefore what sublime conversations you could have with your Soul!" (EMV 17.1).

All this takes place in "the Soul of the Soul," which is our spirit, the place where our free will is exercised, the tent of the struggle with God.

The spiritual Spirit

See also the expanded article: The Spirit.

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Certainly, the tripartition is not a new idea. It is found in various forms in ancient philosophy as well as in modern thought, but nothing approaches what Maria Valtorta expresses. She speaks of the spirit (with a lowercase letter). In French, this word covers many meanings that Italian, as Latin, distinguishes. Spiritus in Latin and spirito in Italian designate the spirit covering our eternal identity, whereas the word mente designates the intelligence that chooses what it wants to serve. It is therefore here about our eternal identity.

Maria Valtorta wrote her statement in 1943, at the request of Father Romualdo Migliorini, who questioned her about her spirituality. She had not yet received the visions of the Gospel that would bring her fame; it is therefore a meditation proper to Maria Valtorta and not a dictated text, which came later. A dictation from Jesus, given on May 1, 1946, explains what Maria Valtorta briefly wrote in her Autobiography:

"There is a difference between the separation of the Soul from the body by true death, and the momentary separation of the spirit from the body and the Soul that vivifies it, by ecstasy or contemplative rapture. While the separation of the Soul and body causes true death, ecstatic contemplation, in other words the temporary escape of the spirit beyond the boundaries of the senses and matter, does not cause death. And this is because the Soul does not detach and does not totally separate from the body, but only with its deepest part, which plunges into the Fires of contemplation." (EMV 651.17).

Body and Soul are thus indissolubly linked until death, but there is in the Soul an autonomous component capable of temporarily escaping matter to reach Heaven. If the cause of this escape is contemplation, in other words God, The Spirit is under the control of our free will: one can want to open the Soul to God or want to exclude him. This is the difference between the life and death of the Soul subjected by God to our choice. Therefore, eternal life or eternal death depends on this.

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

Voluntary acceptance by man of the will of God. Ex: The fiat of Mary at the Annunciation and the mystery of the Incarnation. (From Latin fiat "let it be done")