The Little Notebooks
 Cover page of The Little Notebooks
| |
| Work Details | |
|---|---|
| Author | Maria Valtorta |
| Writing Period | From June 16, 1942 to June 22, 1954 + undated texts |
| Number of Pages | 286 |
| First Italian Edition | |
| Title | Quadernetti |
| Publication Year | 2015 |
| Publisher | Centro Editoriale Valtortiano |
| English Translation | |
| Title | The Little Notebooks |
| Translator | Denis Parry |
| Publication Year | 2022 |
| Publisher | Centro Editoriale Valtortiano |
| ISBN | 978-88-7987-383-3 |
| Distribution | Bookstores - online sales - [publisher's website] |
Under the generic title of "The Little Notebooks", the publisher has gathered, in chronological order, various writings of Maria Valtorta scattered on loose sheets, booklets, three notepads, and one notebook. Written at different dates (except for some without any mention and impossible to date), they cover various topics, which frequently relate to those of the three "Notebooks" and the "Letters". Different notes allow for referencing them.
At the end of the volume, a 37-page appendix presents correspondence about "The Tomb of Saint Peter," regarding the location of which Maria Valtorta was questioned in 1948 by the entourage of Pius XII following the papal audience.
Unlike the three volumes of the "Notebooks", the texts collected in "The Little Notebooks" may be supplemented, in any future edition, by other scattered manuscripts that could be discovered among the unpublished Valtortian documents.
Table of Contents[1]
- Life and Works of Maria Valtorta (p. 7)
- Writings from 1942 (p. 11)
- Writings from 1943 (pp. 11-14)
- Writings from 1944 (pp. 15-73)
- Writings from 1945 (pp. 73-81)
- Writings from 1947 (pp. 81-102)
- Writings from 1948 (pp. 102-183)
- Writings from 1949 (pp. 184-213)
- Writings from 1950 (pp. 214-221)
- Writings from 1953 (pp. 221-245)
- Writings from 1954 (pp. 245-246)
- Undated and impossible to date writings (pp. 247-260)
- Appendix: The Tomb of Saint Peter (pp. 261-298)
The First Texts
[In the foreword is the original poem "The Sinister Mountain," which was transcribed in a notebook and published in the volume Notebooks 1943 dated May 13. The term "spinacristi," which appears in the following commentary, is explained in the introduction of the Autobiography. The date given at the end is from the year when Father Migliorini went to visit Maria Valtorta, then infirm, and became her spiritual director.]
June 16, 1942"Here is what “Spinacristi”[2] the younger sister wrote when she saw a cross on top of a mountain and the Beloved crucified on it… However, don’t tell anyone about my…, I wouldn’t dare call it a “vision” but simply “what I saw”. I don’t want people to think I’m a mystic or mad. Anyway, to the shame of my Ego it would be more humiliating to be accused of being mad rather than mystic. Because I’m not one and because I could become proud and then it would be goodbye!… I think that the Infinite Mercy who forgives so much shuns the proud and I don’t want him to shun me, just as I don’t want him to say: «How dare you distort the idea through your twisted verse? » But for your Mercy you accept and forgive them as I pray, Father, that You accept them.August 13, 194316-6-1942
Sister Spinacristi"[3]
"Invocation to the Most Holy Mary for Peace«In this hour of darkness, in which much of the world is crying over the ruins of their countries, and their homes, loves and dreams lie shattered under the terrible but deserved storm of punishment, with its conscience blocked by pain and guilt, we pray to Heaven and to You who are the Queen of Heaven.
May the light of Grace come down to give us the light to understand and the capacity to ask for what is really necessary. May it come down to teach our hearts, which have lost the knowledge of Life and don’t know anything except how to sin. May it come down to teach us how to pray and love.
We need so much to love and to pray. We no longer know how to really believe in God, to love God with all our strength, and to love those God has given us as brothers. We no longer know how to love and pray, and all our suffering comes from this.
In place of a heart we have a knot of hatred and sin. Our soul, trapped like a bird in the hunter’s net, no longer knows how to lift itself towards Heaven and is dying biting the mud of the earth.
O Mary, you who asked for the water to be changed to wine,[4] help us achieve a more essential miracle: the conversion of our hearts, dried out by hate, to love. Remove these Cain-like tendencies to hate, you who are the Mother of God and our mother.
Through that divine motherhood, spotless and virgin, which forms your double crown, become a mother for poor humanity a second time. Weak, blind humanity which is dying in the grip of the one crushed by your heel,[5] who takes revenge on us for his defeat by you, O Most Strong. Unite again with the Spirit of love to regenerate us into the life of grace.
If we are reborn in you, we will receive from your Heart the purity we do not have and the love which makes us sons of God. We will know and be able to raise our hearts again in a prayer that will not be the empty sound of words, but a holy act of faith and will.
O Mary, teach us to pray and to love.
Guide our souls and lips, Holy Virgin, to ask for that peace of which you are the Queen and Treasurer, because you are the Mother of Christ who is Peace itself.
Teach us to ask for and to merit that peace which children give to their parents, husbands to their wives, fathers to children, the peace which makes us good and hardworking, the peace that unites peoples who are now divided, under the sign of your Son, who told us to love each other as brothers and as a Brother loved us giving his life for us.
Peace, O Holy Virgin! Through your Assumption, give us peace, O Mary!
So that those who believe in you may doubly believe in you and love you not as you merit but love you as much as they can; may those who do not know who you really are, those who deny your existence and those who are unaware of you come to believe in you
Sparkle, O Morning Star, in this sky blurred by the heat of sinful passions and desecrated by curses.
With your smile chase away the nightmare which has spread through the world and which has caused Adam’s children to doubt God.
Defend us, O Queen, against all dangers and protect the mission of your Son who came to bring peace to the world at the cost of his own pain.
One day you said: “Let it be done according to the word of God”, and as a result of your word the salvation of the human race began.
Oh! Pluck a word of peace for us from the Eternal, in memory of the moment when you became fused into the Holy Trinity.
Let it be that the holy lips of your son proclaim this blessed “Fiat” and that, with the end of the clamour of the instruments of death, a hymn to the goodness of the Lord and your power may rise to the throne of The Highest and to yours.»
I honestly believed that I could not satisfy you.
Today this came. I am writing and I am not even making a copy because I am sure that you will give me a copy.
With regard to the rest of your letter, you will find the answer in the notebook. A very beautiful answer,[6] for me and for you and which I believe will make you happy just as it has made me happy.
Jesus, who watches over me, crushed under the weight of the cross, wants to lift our cross because he sees that we are buckling under the sadness of this moment.
But, poor Jesus! He is also so sad.
It seems to me that to my laboured question: «Where are you going Lord? », he gives an answer similar to that given to Peter. «I am going to die for many of my children who no longer know how to die (with Faith, Hope and Charity) ».
If only I could make you see Jesus’ look! It is a deep sea of pain... and one cannot see the bottom of his divine suffering.
Thank you for the letter and its contents. But… those notes which have been all round Viareggio come back to me!…
Enough. I won’t say anymore because I have a terrible pain in my shoulder and Jesus has not spared me today. He made me write so much.
I will pray for your preaching. But I will also pray that your listeners’ ears will not just be useless decorative holes, but a way of bringing the Word to their hearts. If that does not happen then it will be pointless to emulate the greatest preachers. If you have the merit of preaching, the others will have nothing but the fault of being... pumpkins without a soul.
Pray for Jesus’ poor scribbler and may Jesus bless me.
13 August 1943. Maria Valtorta"[7]
Notes and references
- ↑ Page numbers are from the French edition.
- ↑ Spinacristi or “thorn of Christ” generally refers to the Christ’s Thorn Jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi), whose sharp thorns were used to weave Christ’s crown of thorns. This identification comes from several ancient traditions and from the relic of the Holy Crown of Paris.
- ↑ The Little Notebooks, June 16, 1942.
- ↑ See John 2:1-11.
- ↑ See Genesis 3:15.
- ↑ The Good beautiful answer is found in Notebooks 1943, on the same date of August 13.
- ↑ The Little Notebooks, August 13, 1943.