The Spirit

See also: Soul, Holy Spirit, Paraclete, Spirit.

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In the spiritual writings of Maria Valtorta, The Spirit (with a lowercase) acts as the third component of Man. The description of Man in three parts: body, Soul and spirit, is not new. Saint Paul already briefly affirmed it in his first letter to the Thessalonians: "May the God of Peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may all that is within you, The Spirit, the Soul, and the body, be kept blameless until the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus-Christ!" The Letter to the Hebrews discusses the division between the Soul and The Spirit. The Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions it without dwelling on it. But Maria Valtorta identifies it very clearly: "In the body, there is the Soul and in the Soul there is the spirit."

This assertion is repeated three times in all these writings. Each time the affirmation is presented under a different authority, but twice it is related to the Assumption:

• In 1943, the above affirmation is a statement by Maria Valtorta in her Autobiography.
• On May 1, 1946, it is a comment by Jesus regarding the Assumption.
• On May 1, 1948, Maria Valtorta attributes them to an explanation by Azarias, her guardian angel while she meditates on the fourth glorious mystery of the Rosary, the very one dedicated to the Assumption.

This is a constant in her work. She thus receives approximately the same commentary three times, but each time the explanation seems new to her and does not refer, for example, to the dictation of Jesus she received three years earlier since she writes: "My guardian angel explains to me … He tells me that … To help me understand better, he points out that …" This seems to confirm that she is only a faithful transcriber who does not explore the content of her visions or dictations at the moment.

The Spirit According to Maria Valtorta

Each time Maria Valtorta uses the word spirito in a clearly spiritual sense that is not quite so clearly rendered in French, where the word esprit has a broader meaning. For instance, this is evident in the way the maxim "You shall love the Lord your God with all your Heart, with all your Soul and with all your spirit" is translated. The Vulgate uses the Latin word mente. This is the same word in Italian, and it designates the intellect. However, that same word is translated into French once as esprit in -, and another time as intelligence in , which would be closer.

Thus Man is body (or flesh, matter, sensuality, etc.), Soul (or intelligence, thought, morals, Heart, etc.), and spirit (or spiritual Soul, spiritual essence, etc.). These three parts are interwoven: within the body, there is the Soul infused by God, which itself contains the spirit. In, Jesus even defines this spirit as the most excellent part of the Soul (la sua parte migliore) and Maria Valtorta defines it as the place of "superspiritual bliss."

In the article on the tripartition of Man, it was said that:

• The Soul is inseparable from the body. Their separation leads to earthly death.
• The escape of The Spirit causes Ecstasy (rapture).
• The immortal Soul without its spiritual life (following a mortal sin, for example) is a dead Soul.

This is explained on May 1, 1946, to Maria Valtorta by Jesus, commenting on the vision of the Assumption:

There is a difference between the separation of the Soul from the body for a true death, and the momentary separation of the spirit from the body and from the Soul that vivifies it by Ecstasy or contemplative rapture.

Whereas the separation of the Soul from the body causes true death, ecstatic contemplation, that is the temporary escape of the spirit beyond the barriers of the senses and matter, does not cause death. And this is because the Soul does not detach and separate completely from the body, but only its most excellent part, which immerses in the fires of contemplation.

All men, as long as they are alive, have within them either a dead Soul due to sin or a living Soul by justice, but only those who greatly love God reach true contemplation.

This suggests that the Soul, which preserves existence as long as it is united with the body—and this peculiarity is the same in all men—possesses within itself a more excellent part: the Soul of the Soul, or the spirit of the spirit, which in the just are very strong, whereas in those who have ceased to love God and His Law, even by lukewarmness or venial sins, they become weak, depriving the creature of the capacity to contemplate and to know, as much as a human creature can, according to the degree of perfection attained, God and His eternal truths.

The more the creature loves God and serves Him with all its strength and possibilities, the more the most excellent part of the spirit increases its capacity to know, to contemplate, to penetrate eternal truths.

Man, endowed with a rational Soul, is a capacity that God fills with Himself. (Commentary of May 1, 1946, inserted in).

The Doors of Mysticism

Mysticism Between Success and Rejection

At the turn of the 20th century, the Catholic Church was confronted with intellectual and social upheavals (rationalism, industrial revolution, secularization, ...). On October 13, 1884, Leo XIII witnessed a dialogue between God and Satan. The devil boasts of destroying the Church given extra time and power. God grants him a period of one hundred years. The pope then sees the century "wrapped in Darkness and the abyss", then a legion of demons scattered throughout the world until Saint Michael the Archangel casts them into the abyss.

Simultaneously, "ascetic and mystical" movements developed marked by a return to intense spirituality, centered on union with God and often associated with mystical experiences. Great figures presented themselves as Victim Souls. This is the case of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who inspired Maria Valtorta's mystical path. She even faced making a "crusade of Victim Souls"" against the dangers emerging in the 1930s throughout the world and particularly in Italy.

However, this ascetic and mystical movement was considered suspect by some religious authorities, especially from the 1950s/60s on. Padre Pio was a victim, as were others, and the Holy Office even suspended the beatification process of Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit on the grounds that, in her case, there were too many supernatural manifestations.

This rejection of mysticism still persists in some circles. Theories have emerged denying the supernatural character of Jesus' miracles and reducing them to mere "signs". The same movements relegate episodes of the Gospel to the level of symbolic stories devoid of historical foundation (for example, the Magi).

The work of Maria Valtorta demonstrates quite the opposite: that the "supernatural" and the "natural" are intimately intertwined in both the narration of the Gospels and spirituality. Here are some of the most representative examples:

1. The spirit is the "tent" of our encounter with God

According to Maria Valtorta, this spirit, located in the Heart of the Soul, is the dwelling of God in us:

The spirit belongs to the Eternal. It is the house where the Master of the house dwells, the King, where the holy Triad meets because wherever the Son is, so is the Father, who sent His Son out of Love. And this house will be their home as long as we, with our ill will, do not drive them out by our sins.

Saint Paul attests to this Presence of God in us: "You are not under the power of the flesh, but under the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. And Jesus, in his encounter with the Samaritan woman attests that it is a sacred place: "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit (spiritus) and truth.

Since the spirit is "the house where the Master of the house dwells," one can suppose that this is where the unions spoken of by several great mystics occur, foremost among them Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591). Even if these mystics generally speak of "Soul" or "Heart."

Maria Valtorta had several moments of mystical union with God. Sometimes it was illuminative encounters as described in her Autobiography :

At the moment when our spirit unites with God, Peace flows wholly into us from the eternal lakes, it enlightens us with the splendors of God and makes us capable of seeing, it opens the spirit and makes us capable of understanding, it expands our Heart and makes us able to love, it gives us strength and makes us able to resist, in a word, it gives itself to us wholly.

But it was also for her the fusion in the ardent Heart of Jesus, similar to what Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (1647-1690) and many other mystics report. On the night of March 12-13, 1947 (she would turn 50 on the 14th), Maria was seized by nostalgia, feeling the end of visions approaching. Jesus then appeared to her in her room and pressed her to His Heart, making her participate in His wound from which flames radiate. She drank of it with delight. Jesus then commented:

This is how every Fire, even that of purgatory, differs from my Fire. For mine is a fire of perfect love, and it does no harm, not even to do Good. This is the Fire I reserve for you, and only this one. This is what my love for you is: It is Fire which comforts and does not burn, light, harmony, a gentle caress. And this is what my blood is for you: gentleness and strength. And finally this is what I do for you, to compensate you for men: I squeeze my blood so that it springs for you, as a mother does from her milk for her newborn, you, my daughter! This is how I love you!

These words and this vision repeat, notes Maria Valtorta, and Jesus makes this promise: "This is how we will love each other in the Future. This is what I will give you as a reward for your faithful service. It is your Future as long as you live on earth. Then will come the perfect union (p. 370)." A few days later Jesus confirms this promise to her. It is March 14, 1947, her fiftieth birthday: "From now on, you will only contemplate. And all will be bWater. Be happy, very happy! I love you so much! And you love me so much! Our two loves...! Heaven that already receives you! (p. 371)" These passages certainly give meaning to the prostration that she experienced at the end of her life. But these scenes are described in their reality and not as an inner vision. Maria speaks at this moment of "Ecstasy" and, if we remember well the explanation given by Jesus, this "spiritual rapture" is indeed the detachment of the spirit in contemplation. According to what Maria Valtorta says, this rapture of the spirit is preceded by an announcing joy which is at the same time Peace of the Soul:

We do not know when the encounter will occur, but we know it will take place. It is thus with great joy deep in the Heart that all the small material tasks of the day are accomplished, writing, working, reading, talking with visitors, eating... but the body doing all this seems to be a borrowed body, so foreign are our moral and spiritual selves, kneeling beneath the ever-stronger waves of love that overwhelm us, to the action of the body. How distant everything that is sensible! On the other hand, the supersensible is upon us, it surrounds us, we drown in it.

Sweet shipwreck that is not death, but a Vitality which receives its power from superhuman forces, a virility – forgive me for borrowing this vocabulary, I who am a Woman – a virility of the spirit that reaches, at these moments, a wise maturity, an increase of spirituality and capacity to love, and of joy, oh! of so much joy!

I experienced all this yesterday for Hours. Then, suddenly, I passed from the “Call” to the “encounter” with the supernatural. And that supernatural was once again Mary, my Virgin of Fatima.

2. The spirit is the seat of the "Kingdom of God" within us

Luke 17:21 is sometimes translated as "behold, the reign of God is in the midst of you", but also as "behold, the kingdom of God is within you". Jesus, in the work of Maria Valtorta, explains this ambivalence:

Regarding the Kingdom of God, it is within you and wherever there are men who believe in Me. ... It is there, in the Kingdom of God, that the new Temple will be built, that is to say where the spirits (spiriti) that accept my Doctrine, the Doctrine of the Kingdom of God, and practice its precepts. How will it be built if you are poor and few? Oh! truly, no money nor power is needed to build the edifice of the new dwelling of God, individual or collective. The Kingdom of God is in you, and the union of all those who will have the Kingdom of God in them, all those who will have God in them, God: Grace; God: Life; God: Light; God: Charity, will constitute the great Kingdom of God on Earth, the new Jerusalem which will manage to extend to the ends of the world and which, complete and perfect, without Imperfections, without shadows, will live forever in Heaven.

Maria Valtorta locates this Kingdom of God within us, similarly to Saint Paul, affirming that "The Spirit of God dwells in you":

The Kingdom of God within us, [is] invisible since it is spiritual, living in its spiritual part and living since its creation, provided man does not destroy the Kingdom of God in him by sin and perseverance in sin, thus killing even Life within his Soul.

And Azarias further explains how this Kingdom is already the seed of the eternal Kingdom:

The dead do not enter the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God begins in The Spirit of man on earth by union with God; it is completed in Heaven by full possession of God. Here on earth, God is in you, and in heaven, you will be in God. But God does not enter the corruption of death, and the decay of death does not enter Heaven. Just as in the eternal Jerusalem there will be no Temple "because its Temple is the Lord" (cf. Apocalypse 21:23-27) in which we shall all be.

It should be noted that Maria Valtorta develops, with great mastery, this description of the Kingdom of God in her commentaries on the Apocalypse. These commentaries are of such a high level and depth that they were long attributed to the Holy Spirit until Marie-Juliette Quignon pointed out that the author was human and that this author was Maria Valtorta herself, having reached a very close proximity to God.

3. The spirit is the place of revelations and visions

The scenes seen by Maria Valtorta in Ecstasy are truly perceived by the mystic's senses but inaccessible to our senses, says Cardinal Ratzinger in his catechesis on the secret of Fatima. In one of his commentaries, Azarias informs Maria that visions become accessible by extension of the possibilities of our ordinary senses. He also implies that this is a gift from God, not the result of a human practice. Saint Paul almost explicitly says: "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows). And I know that this man (whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows) was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible things, which it is not lawful for a man to utter."

Indeed, the separation of the Soul and body causes death, but the rapture of the spirit causes only Ecstasy or a similar state. Saint John, at the beginning of the Apocalypse, is clearer about this rapture: "I, John, your brother, [...] I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, saying: 'Write what you see in a book.'"

Maria Valtorta confirms that in this state of rapture, the spirit of Man, the Soul of the Soul, becomes the place for revelations and visions, not abstractly, but through amplified senses.

I understand this because, as I have already explained to you many times, when God takes me to be His spokesperson, my intellect is amplified and raised to a power far superior to that granted to men. And I "see", "hear", "understand" Thus the spirit.

Maria Valtorta talks here of intelligence but amplified in the spirit (with a lowercase). Likewise, she sees, hears, in other words, her senses are multiplied in this zone of contact with God. Reality abstracts itself from matter to share the knowledge that God grants. This is not linked to a particular situation, such as formal prayer for example, but to a fundamental and constant attitude of availability to listen to God:

It often happens that inspirations, counsels, voices resonate in my Heart just at moments when I am engaged in things very different from the realm of the spirit. When I pray, it is hard for me to hear them. Yet when I write, read, work, eat, play with my little animals, talk with so-and-so, suddenly a word explodes in my Soul... Perhaps it is because whatever I am doing, my deep “self” always remains fixed in one place, and nothing can tear it away from its life which consists in God. I do not know. I believe that is how it is.

These are not pathological hallucinations, but rather this inner perception (visio imaginativa) that Cardinal Ratzinger defined as: "This vision calls upon the 'internal senses'. The Soul is made capable of seeing the non-sensible, the non-visible by the senses, but the objects are real, although they do not belong to our usual sensible world." This takes place indeed in the spirit as Maria Valtorta specifies when answering a question from Father Migliorini:

You asked me today how I could know the names of Hillel and Gamaliel, as well as that of Shammai. It is the voice I call the "second voice" which tells me these things, a voice even less perceptible than that of my Jesus and the others who dictate. Those latter voices — I have already told you and I repeat — are voices which my spiritual ear perceives exactly like human voices. I hear if they are gentle or angry, loud or soft, if they laugh or if they are sad. As if someone was speaking next to me. However, this "second voice" is like a light, an intuition that speaks in my spirit. I say well "in" and not "to" my spirit. It is an indication.

Everything that puts us in the listening state to God is therefore particularly important, notably prayer, in all its forms, or Lectio divina for example.

4. The spirit is the place of consumption of redemptive suffering

The spirit, this "house where the Master of the house dwells," plays a vital role for Victim Souls. Indeed, it is the place of communion with the sufferings of Christ. It is there where Christ accompanies and supports the Soul in its holocaust. It is where the physical and moral sufferings endured by co-redeemers are transformed into a Work of Salvation.

One can better understand what this means by reading this confession from Maria Valtorta:

Immediately after offering myself to martyrdom of love came added a martyrdom of acute suffering in the flesh, accentuated in the spirit by an austerity which seemed to weigh on my being.

I explain myself, or try to. I did not feel abandoned by God. No. His love always watched over me. But if Jesus caressed me, the Father intensified the weight of His hand on my Heart. Then began a period of harsh penances […] It had come immediately, total and obscure, the hour of Gethsemane... and it lasted, I could say, ten long years, because it was only from 1941 that its harshness diminished.

Do not imagine that I felt dryness of the Heart. No, never that. Just as I was never deprived of the comfort of Christ’s love. But I suffered intensely and morally in perceiving exactly what was to occur in the world...

Here, redemptive suffering is accentuated but simultaneously supported by the love of Christ. In this second excerpt, one discovers that under these conditions, suffering becomes a source of joy. Not a masochistic joy, but redemptive joy. The one that made Jesus exult on the threshold of His Passion, the one that animated Saint Paul, who endured much suffering for evangelization, and whom we have quoted several times: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church."

I asked for suffering, writes Maria Valtorta. And suffering came to me from all sides. I felt like a cistern into which pour the waters of many channels. There poured the channel of illness, that of slander, that of indifference, that of demands, that of greed. All, all poured in […] And I was, and I am, in my spirit, in perfect joy, for Jesus, treating me as a friend, gives me the joy of willing suffering for love of Him, pains, crosses, and all kinds of sufferings.

And a little further on:

It was something strange. The Soul always remained the same, united to God, in Peace, in the Thirst for sacrifice. Prayer constituted my joy. I desired the Sacraments more than air itself. The flesh went mad. I have the impression that by a will to attribute I do not know to whom, the Most High or the Most Low, I was somehow split in 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.

The sufferings, very real, are offered to the Heart of God, who redistributes the merits. This is how one can understand why Maria, like all Victim Souls, was able to bless suffering. This feeling, which may seem inhuman, becomes more accessible to humanity through compassion: sharing, through listening and Presence, someone’s trial lightens the burden weighing on them. This act restores, in a spirit overwhelmed by the trial, the love that suffering had driven away.

5. The life and death of the spirit

If the Soul is immortal, the Life inhabiting it can nevertheless "die" when, through our will, we expel God who resides therein. The Soul then becomes "dead." It is not so much the sins themselves that condemn, but the conscious and repeated decision to reject God until the end. That is hell. "God predestines no one to go to hell. It requires a voluntary aversion to God (a mortal sin), and persisting in it to the end."

As long as life lasts, this rejection remains temporary because it can be erased by contrition. After death, however, this rejection becomes definitive and eternal. Killing the spirit within us—this Life which is the Soul of our Soul—is therefore an action of extreme gravity. This spiritual death begins with the appearance of Pride: the human pretension to be equal to God, to be able to do without Him. It is through Pride that Lucifer became Satan. And no one is safe from this Temptation, not even Maria Valtorta, to whom Jesus said:

Never pride. You would be punished by losing me.

If that is the path to death, then what is the path to life? Azarias shows the way, a path accessible to all: it is the very path of the Gospel:

It is truly clear that man does not know how to see, reflect, or understand. If man knew how to love, he would see, reflect, and understand. The proportion of seeing, understanding, and reflecting corresponds to the degree of love attained by the Soul.

Man becomes capable of seeing, reflecting, and understanding in the same measure as he gives himself and surrenders to love to be enveloped by it, burned, destroyed to be rebuilt under a new form, inflamed to inflame and thus glorify and sanctify by carrying among men the ardor of the immense furnace where the creature is transformed into a seraph to truly enter God, into the burning tabernacle that is God — the source of all, the tireless accomplishes-all, the perfect, the accomplished, the holy, the power, the wisdom, the light, the thought, the word, the love, the life, the Grace, the one who confirms Grace.

In a word: the loving man, living by his spirit within the Most Holy Trinity, takes on the habits and feelings of the place where it dwells, therefore active, contemplative, joyful love, light and knowledge, the faculties of seeing, reflecting, and understanding.

Azarias continues the following Sunday, explaining how God goes to meet the prodigal son:

The stronger the love, the stronger the knowledge, and the distance is reduced. I remind you that to the degree of love attained by the creature corresponds a degree of love of God relative to it, and even multiplied by its power, because God loves to give Himself to those who seek Him without measure, He who gives by His mercy and Providence even to His children who do not seek Him. This distance is reduced because the Soul is more united to God who descends— as it cannot rise to the abyss of height where the Trinity burns,—to God who concedes Himself to be known as much as possible, burning to be completely known, completely possessed by His child when the reward of paradise will be given to his faith, his love, his heroism.

But human weakness remains. Maria, once again, enlightens and advises us:

Of this body, from which we cannot, by ourselves, part, let us make it an instrument of glory rather than defeat. We must show patience even with ourselves, especially with ourselves, and lead with the spirit made of light the matter made of Darkness, raise with the spirit, fit for flight, the matter which tends to fall to the ground. And this must be done without ever tiring. We must bear ourselves without fear. We must take example from the Master who bears us and never tires of healing us every time we hurt ourselves.

This human frailty finds its aid, refuge and invincible strength in a source known and offered to all:

Mary is the one who triumphs over Satan. The true Death, that of the spirit, will not come to those who know how to pray to the Mother for the hour of their life, for the hour on earth, for the hour of Temptation and for the hour of Death.

The work addresses our spirit.

I speak to you, little voice, I speak to all the "voices", and then to those who are still men made in the image and likeness of God, that is to say a combination of body and Soul in whom The Spirit is a king who remembers God.

Jesus, concluding his discourse on the Bread from Heaven,, proclaimed: "It is the spirit (spiritus) that gives life; the flesh is no help. The words I have spoken to you are spirit (spiritus) and they are life."

Is this reflection on The Spirit applicable to Jesus, true God and true Man?

Saint Peter reveals our destiny as participants in the divine nature and assures us that we have all we need to become so: "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire."

But what about Christ himself: what was the nature of his Soul? Did he have a spirit like ours?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church answers us: the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is partly God and partly man, nor that He results from a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He really became man while remaining truly God.

The Christ, perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, truly God and truly man, made up of a rational Soul and a body, consubstantial with the Father as to divinity, consubstantial with us as to humanity, like us in everything except sin" (-).

The difference of natures is not annulled by their union but rather the properties of each are preserved and united in a single person and a single "hypostasis".

Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human, not opposed but cooperating, so that the Word made flesh willed humanly in obedience to His Father all that He divinely decided with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation. Christ’s human will "follows his divine will, without resistance or opposition to it, but rather while being subordinated to that all-powerful will."

This is perfectly illustrated by the following dialogue where Jesus, in Maria Valtorta, addresses Judas:

During the night my spirit draws nourishment from the Father. Prayer, meditation, and solitude are more necessary to me than material food. Whoever wants to live by The Spirit and bring others to live the same life must put the flesh after — I would almost say kill it — to devote all care to The Spirit.

This domination of divinity over humanity is commented on by Maria Valtorta in footnote:

The two ladders of Satan aim to make man, this child of God, an animal, and the Only Son of God made man, a sinner. The first descends from the spirit to the flesh and "succeeded" by the fatal fall. The second ascends from the flesh to the spirit and "failed" for the following reason: the Satanic design to induce the Messiah to sin and thereby destroy forever all possibility of man's regeneration to his condition of child of God, served, thanks to the perfection of the Man-God, to confirm Christ in his grace as man and therefore in his power as Messiah, cause of eternal salvation for the offspring of Adam redeemed (, in the note on original sin).

The divine and human nature is again explained in the commentaries Maria Valtorta writes on a typed page attached to the original text which she never touches. For this, she takes up the wording of Jesus in the work and then comments:

(Jesus): "The spirit, created for all men from the same Source of power and goodness, knows no difference of “initial” perfection, but he knows many once united to flesh. There is only one uncreated and perfect Spirit, and who has always remained so. There are three perfect created spirits (=Adam, Eve, and Mary)…"

Later:

(Jesus): "I have in my flesh the divine Spirit, uncreated, but begotten by the Father in overflowing love. And I have the Soul that the Father created for me since now I am Man. It is a perfect Soul, as fits the Man-God. But I speak of other spirits."

Maria Valtorta then comments:

"He speaks here as the God-Word 'through whom all things were made,' even His human Soul. If He spoke as a man, He would say that God — thus Himself again — created "the unique perfect spirit" to unite it to His Incarnate Word's flesh, in whom all perfections concentrate. And He speaks to pagans, thus in a way adapted to their ignorance on the matter."

The editor finds it necessary to conclude this commentary by Maria Valtorta as follows:

In light of what Jesus says about Himself in and in, we can affirm that the spirit (one of the three parts that constitute man: body, Soul, and spirit), created (and infused) by the Father for all men, was, in the case of Christ, begotten (and not created) by the Father. Therefore, Christ’s Soul is created and His spirit uncreated."

In "The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me"

• EMV 17.1: How many truths your Soul would reveal to you if you knew how to converse with it, if you loved it as the one who gives you the likeness of God, who is Spirit as your Soul is spirit!
• EMV 17.2 : If you knew how to question your Soul, it would teach you the true, exact meaning, as vast as creation itself, of the word “to dominate”: “So that man dominates over all. Over his three levels: the lowest level, animal; the intermediate level, moral; and the highest level, spiritual. All aim at a single goal: to possess God.” To possess Him by deserving it through this absolute mastery which subjects all the forces of the “self” to serve this purpose alone: to deserve to possess God.
• EMV 35.7 : But you are so entangled by your humanity, which excessively dominates The Spirit in you, that you cannot follow these paths indicated to you (the Law and the Doctrine).
• EMV 35.8 : And the more he (Satan) raged, the more we took refuge in the light of God out of disgust for the muddy Darkness he presented to our bodily and The Spirit eyes.
• EMV 35.10 : They are fallen in their Soul so corrupted, in their spirit prostituted to the flesh, to the point of being unable to think that a man could respect the Woman by seeing the Soul in her and not the flesh […] I say that Mary was and remained a virgin, and that only the Soul was married to Joseph, as her spirit was united only to the Spirit of God and by its operation conceived the Only One She bore: Me, Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God and of Mary. 
• EMV 36.8 : The Spirit in these two saints was more alive and dominated everything. It was this spirit that made them magnify the Lord by thanking Him for choosing them as guardians of His Eternal Son.
• EMV 36.9 : In the house and in The Spirit of those who love work, vice with many faces does not enter. And as it does not grow there, affection, mutual esteem, and respect develop. 
• EMV 37.8 : You, mothers, you beget and that is all. You, fathers, you do not care more. But a son is not only a being of flesh. He is intelligence, a Heart, a spirit. Believe it, therefore, no one more than a father and mother has the right and the duty to form this intelligence, this Heart, this spirit.
• EMV 46.13 : The two paths most commonly taken by Satan to reach Souls are carnal attraction and greed. He always begins from the material side of nature. After dismantling and enslaving it, he directs the attack towards the upper part.
• First the moral side: thought with its Pride and desires; then the spirit, by taking away not only love but also the fear of God. Divine love no longer exists when man has replaced it with other human loves. It is then that man abandons himself, body and Soul to Satan to reach the pleasures he pursues and to become more and more attached to them.      
• EMV 69.1-3 : During the night my spirit draws its nourishment from the Father. Prayer, meditation, and solitude are more necessary to me than material food. Whoever wants to live by The Spirit and bring others to live the same life must put the flesh after — I would almost say kill it — to give all care to The Spirit. This is true for all, Judas. For you too, if you truly want to belong to God, that is to the supernatural.      
• EMV 80.9 : (With the Apostles on the mountain of fasting) "With whom were you?!" - "With my spirit and with the Father." […] "Then came the Angels of the Lord... Man had won the triple victory. Man knew what it meant to be man and he had conquered. He was exhausted. The Struggle had been more exhausting than prolonged fasting... But the spirit dominated...  
• EMV 122.8 : Because of this, as I did with this deficient one, the Name that puts Satan to flight must be taught, engraved in The Spirit and in the Heart, put on the inner being as a seal of ownership.      
• EMV 125.2 : "It is said: 'Work an honest work, and on the seventh day dedicate it to the Lord and to your spirit.' This is what the Sabbath rest commandment says.          
• EMV 137.5 : "I only ask you to let me do Good to those who have infirmity in their flesh, in their head, or in their spirit. Why do you forbid me?"
• EMV 174.9 : (In the note on original sin) : Satan’s two ladders aim to make man, this child of God, an animal, and the Only Son of God made man a sinner. The first descends from the spirit to the flesh and "succeeded" by the fatal fall. The second rises from the flesh to the spirit and "failed" for the following reason: Satan’s design to induce the Messiah to sin and thus to destroy forever all possibility of man's regeneration to his condition of child of God served, thanks to the perfection of the Man-God, to confirm Christ in His grace as man and thus in His power as Messiah, cause of eternal salvation for the descendants of Adam redeemed.  
• EMV 146.1 : At least a moral law was given to you, O Gentiles, O idolaters, because you are men, and man has within him an essence that comes from God and is called spirit and that always speaks to you and advises you to rise and urges you to the reality of a holy life.
• EMV 196.4 : Indeed a father and mother who are healthy and holy do not only give Food and caresses to their child’s flesh but also nourishment and love to their child’s Soul and The Spirit.
• EMV 204.5 : This comes from a spur of the Soul which is alive and present even among pagans. It also suffers in them, for it is disappointed in its desire, for in its nostalgia it is hungry for the True God whose memory it keeps, in this body where it dwells and which is governed by a pagan spirit. Even you have had the awareness that man is not only flesh and that to his perishable body is united something immortal.
• EMV 204.8 : One must know how to surround the Soul, queen of a body that is the Temple of the eternal Spirit, with a barrier which defends it without, however, cutting off the light or oppressing it by the sight of ugliness. A sure enclosure, freed from the desire of love for all that is inferior: the flesh and blood, to rise towards what is superior: The Spirit.
• EMV 209.6 : As for the one who, for a whole set of reasons, comes to hate the human race and sees in every man an enemy from whom he must defend himself and whom he must fear, his pain is even greater than other pains because it affects not only the flesh, the blood, the mentality, but The Spirit with its supernatural duties and rights and this leads him to his perdition.
• EMV 212.2 : But Christ takes refuge in faithful Hearts and from there He looks, from there He speaks, from there He blesses Humanity and then... and then He gives Himself to these Hearts, and they... and they touch Heaven with its beatitude, while remaining here below, but burning so much as to feel a delightful torment of the whole being: in the senses and organs, feelings and thought and finally in The Spirit.
• EMV 225.8 : Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, I too, the Son, can give life to whomever I wish and even, because of the infinite love the Father has for the Son, it is granted to me not only to give life to the lower part but also to the upper part by freeing man's thought and Heart from errors of The Spirit and evil passions, and to the spiritual part by restoring to The Spirit independence from sin.
• EMV 237.2 : Try to surpass yourselves, to trample down your human tendencies to make The Spirit triumph. Assimilate not only my word but its spirit, that is, sanctify yourselves by it and then you will be able to do all.
• EMV 243.10 : "A Doras, as you say, so as not to lack charity towards anyone, […] are those who are more completely possessed by Satan, who extends his power over the 'three great powers of man'. The most tyrannical and subtle possessions, from which only those free themselves who are still little degraded in their spirit enough to understand the invitation of Light.
  Doras […] did not come to the Liberator. This is the difference. Whereas for those who are lunatics, and mute, deaf, or Confessionglers by the demon's action, the parents seek and think of bringing them to me, for those possessed in their spirit, only their spirit seeks freedom. Because of this, they receive forgiveness in addition to their liberation, because their will has first started the dispossession of the demon.
• EMV 272.4 : There is transmigration of The Spirit only from the Creator to the being and from the being to the Creator, to whom one presents after life to receive a judgment of life or death. That is the truth. And where it is sent, it remains forever."  
• EMV 275.10 : The Spirit has infinite value compared to flesh and blood, yes that, but the flesh does not have a power superior to that of The Spirit. And The Spirit can be corrupted not by material things, but by spiritual things.
• EMV 275.13 : Give the bread of The Spirit to the hunger of spirits.
• EMV 286.7 : "You have read Genesis, haven't you? What did you find? In the beginning, a complex sin embracing all three states of man: matter, thought, and spirit. () and
• EMV 346.5 : And there is no redemption without suffering. My suffering will reach the body, flesh, and blood, to repair the sins of the flesh and blood. It will be moral to repair the sins of the Soul and passions. It will be spiritual to repair the faults of The Spirit. It will be complete.
• EMV 406.10 : Footnote: The created spirit… up to the perfect created spirits… was rewritten by Maria Valtorta on a typed page as follows: "The spirit, created for all men from a single Source of power and goodness, knows no difference of “initial” perfection, but many as soon as it is united to the flesh. There is only one uncreated and perfect Spirit, and he has always remained so. There are three perfect created spirits (=Adam, Eve, and Mary)…"
  The following answer of Jesus, which begins with "No, not me," was entirely rewritten by Maria Valtorta on a typed copy as follows: "I have in my flesh the divine Spirit, uncreated, but begotten by the Father by overflowing love. And I have the Soul which the Father created for me since now I am Man. It is a perfect Soul, as fits the Man-God. But I speak of other spirits."
  Still on the same typed copy, Maria Valtorta added this note: He speaks here as God-Word "through whom all things were made," even His human Soul. If he spoke as man, he would say that God — hence himself again — created "the unique perfect spirit" to unite it to His Incarnate Word's flesh, in whom all perfections concentrate. And He speaks to pagans, thus in a manner adapted to their ignorance on the matter.
  One must also take into account our note in on the sometimes ambiguous use of the terms “Soul” and “spirit”. In the light of what Jesus says about himself in and in, it can be affirmed that the spirit (one of the three parts that constitute man: body, Soul, and spirit), created (and infused) by the Father for all men, was, in Christ’s case, begotten (and not created) by the Father. Consequently, Christ’s Soul is created and His spirit uncreated.
• EMV 465.4 : Even when imposing Virtues, one must be careful not to demand more than spiritual formation and the general resources of the being can provide. Demanding a virtue or spiritual mastery too strong, relative to the degree of spiritual moral, and even physical strengths attained by a creature, can produce a Dispersion of already accumulated forces and a breaking of the being in its three degrees: spiritual, moral, physical. 
• EMV 473.9 : But now, now that too many Women are strangers to their husbands, I say: "Those who do not love their companion with their Soul, their spirit, and their flesh, push him to adultery, and if I ask him why of his sin, I will also ask for the one who did not perform it but caused it."
• EMV 524.7/8 : "The Soul is not thought, man. The Soul is The Spirit, the immaterial principle of life, the impalpable but true principle that animates the whole man and endures beyond man. That is why it is said to be immortal.
  […] In eternal thought, the Soul, The Spirit, is the thing that reigns in man, in the created animal called man. It came from the King and Father of all kings and fathers, His breath and His image, His gift and His right, and its Mission is to make the creature called man a king of the great eternal kingdom, to make the creature called man a God beyond life, a "living" in the Dwelling of the very sublime, unique God, it was created queen, and with the authority and destiny of a queen. Its servants are all the Virtues and faculties of man, its minister the goodwill of man, its servant the thought, servant and pupil the thought of man. It is through The Spirit that thought gains power and truth, gains justice and wisdom, and can rise to royal perfection. Thought deprived of the light of The Spirit will always have gaps and Darknesses, and will never be able to understand the truths. Etc...
• EMV 527.7 : How did Satan corrupt Adam? By tempting the senses, the thought, The Spirit.
• EMV 548.14 : There was a day when God took of the mud, gave it shape, and breathed into it the Spirit of life and it was man. I was there to say: "Let us make man in our image and likeness," for I am the Word of the Father. Today, I, the Word, have said to what was still less than mud: to corruption: "Live," and corruption became again flesh, an integral, living, beating flesh. Here it is looking at you. And to the flesh I joined The Spirit that had been lying for days in the bosom of Abraham. I recalled it by my will because I can do all, I, the Living One, I, the King of kings to whom all creatures and things are subject.
• EMV 555.6 : man: the perfect creature, above all that is alive, in time and in the world, endowed with matter like animals, minerals, and plants, and with spirit like the Angels of Heaven, and destined like them, if faithful in trial, to know and possess God, with Grace first, with Paradise afterwards. Man, a synthesis embracing all states*, has a Mission that other creatures do not have and which for him should be, besides a duty, a joy: to love God. To give intelligently and voluntarily a Worship of love to God. To repay God for the love He gave to man by giving him life and giving him Heaven after life. To give intelligent Worship.
  (*note): All states is corrected by Maria Valtorta to all natures.
  Indeed, she notes on a typed copy:
  “The mineral nature is present in man — since his matter is composed of mineral substances — as well as the animal nature and the spiritual state.”
• EMV 567.16 : What have you done (Judas) with your free will? With your intelligence? Did you preserve for your spirit the freedom it had? Did you use your spirit's intelligence wisely? No. You do not want to obey Me, I do not say Me as Man, but not even Me as God. You obeyed Satan. You used the intellect of your thought and the freedom of your spirit to understand Darkness. Willfully.
• EMV 567.21 : And I said again, the first time, to you alone (Judas): "Life is a holy gift and therefore it must be loved holily. Life is a means that serves the end, which is eternity". I said: "Let us then give life what it needs to endure and to serve The Spirit in its conquest: continence of the flesh in its appetites, continence of The Spirit in its desires, continence of the Heart in all the passions that belong to the human, and unlimited impulse toward the passions of Heaven: love for God and Neighbor, will to serve God and Neighbor, obedience to the Voice of God, heroism in Good and in virtue."
• EMV 601.1 : Come: I want to lead you to my sufferings. Long will be the road that we will have to travel together, for no pain was spared to me: neither those of the flesh, nor those of the spirit, nor those of the Heart, nor those of the Soul. I knew them all, I made each of them my food and my drink, unto death.
• EMV 608.13 : It is the first word since he was tortured that expresses his suffering. For in this word, there is the confession of everything and all his terrible pain of The Spirit, moral and flesh.
• EMV 610.16 : And the torture continued with periodic assaults until dawn on Sunday. I had, in the Passion, only one Temptation. But the Mother, the Woman, expiated for the Woman, guilty of all evil, many times over. And Satan pounced on the Victorious one with a hundredfold ferocity. Mary had defeated him, On Mary the most atrocious Temptation. Temptation Against the flesh of the Mother. Temptation Against the Heart of the Mother. Temptation Against The Spirit of the Mother. The world believes that Redemption ended with my last breath. No. The Mother fulfilled it, adding her triple torture to redeem the triple concupiscence, fighting for three days Against Satan who wanted to lead her to deny my Word and not To Believe in my Resurrection.
• EMV 613.9 : That is what your Jesus suffered in His innocent body. And I do not speak to you of the tearing that my affection for my Mother caused me, especially seeing her pain. That pain was necessary, but it was my cruelest torment. Only the Father knows what His Word endured spiritually, morally, physically.
• EMV 651.17 : "There is a difference between the separation of the Soul from the body for true death, and the momentary separation of the spirit from the body and from the Soul that vivifies it by Ecstasy or contemplative rapture.
  While the separation of the Soul from the body causes true death, ecstatic contemplation, that is the temporary escape of the spirit beyond the barriers of the senses and matter, does not cause death. And this is because the Soul does not detach and separate completely from the body, but does so only with its most excellent part which plunges into the fires of contemplation.
  All men, as long as they are alive, have within them the dead Soul due to sin or a living one by justice, but only the great lovers of God reach true contemplation.
  This tends to show that the Soul, which maintains existence as long as it is united to the body—and this particularity is the same in all men—has within itself a more excellent part: the Soul of the Soul, or the spirit of the spirit, which in the just are very strong, whereas in those who have ceased to love God and His Law, even by lukewarmness or venial sins, they become weak, depriving the creature of the capacity to contemplate and to know, as much as a human creature can, according to the degree of perfection it has reached, God and His eternal truths.
  The more the creature loves God and serves Him with all its strength and possibilities, the more the most excellent part of its spirit increases its capacity to know, to contemplate, to penetrate eternal truths.

Preliminary stage to canonization recognizing that a deceased person can be called Blessed because of their holiness.