Valtortian Mariology
Mariology is the branch of theology that studies the place of the Virgin Mary in connection with the mystery of Christ. Father Gabriele M. Roschini, who wrote these texts, was a specialist in this field. He was the founder and president for 15 years of Marianum, the Pontifical Marian University. There he taught Marian dogmatics, a discipline he also taught at the Pontifical Lateran University Faculty. He was also a consultor to the Holy Office.
In 1972, he discovered the Good writings, having had a glimpse of them about thirty years earlier. He was enthusiastic and became an ardent promoter. In 1973, he wrote The Virgin Mary in the Work of Maria Valtorta, an apologetic work, which he sent to Paul VI, who thanked him. That same year, he oversaw the transfer of the mortal remains of Maria Valtorta from Viareggio to the Santissima Annunziata of Florence, the founding place of the Servite Order, of which he was a member and Maria Valtorta a tertiary.
It is from this work that we extract the texts below[1]. They take the concise form of a lecture. It was presumably a resumption of his university courses. Several references to the Council, which had just concluded and stirred many debates, are noted.
Often Roschini simply quotes the passages that make sense in the context he wants to illustrate, without further comments: he steps back before the inspired writing.
The Valtortian Mariology according to Father Gabriel M. Roschini[edit | edit source]
1. The Characteristics of Valtortian Mariology[edit | edit source]
"The Osservatore Romano of January 6, 1960, which published a harsh criticism of The Gospel as Revealed to Me,[2] honestly acknowledged in a brief article accompanying the criticism that one finds in this work ‘lessons in Marian theology marked by a complete knowledge of the latest studies by current specialists in the field [...], lessons in theology written in the very terms that a professor of our time would use.’The article further insinuated that the writer may have had a Marian theology scholar as a ghostwriter[3]. This was to admit that the work contains Marian Doctrine that is quite cutting-edge: an undeniable fact! But it is also undeniable that Maria Valtorta never read a book dealing with mariology, never took any courses or lessons on such a subject, and there was never a learned Marian theologian to suggest to her what she wrote about the Blessed Virgin.
Maria Valtorta’s mariology is not of her own invention, that is obvious. And one cannot so much as think for a moment that it could be an invention of the devil, ‘because — as His Excellency Msgr. Carinci, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, astutely noted — the demon gets along very poorly with the Blessed Virgin’; and the writings of Maria Valtorta constitute, as we will see, the most melodious hymn rising from the earth to the august Queen of Heaven.
‘My dear daughter’ said the Virgin Mary to Maria Valtorta, ‘write about Me. All your grief will be comforted.’[4] And Jesus added: ‘Delight in my Mother!.’[5]
She obeyed. She wrote and found her delights in Mary.
That said, we will briefly expose the characteristics of Valtortian Mariology. They reduce to three:
- It is a new mariology in several respects;
- It is a living mariology for various reasons;
- It is an eminently biblical mariology."
2. A New Mariology[edit | edit source]
"This mariology is new in several respects, which only illuminate more and complete the old mariology, the traditional one, renewing it (always, however, ‘in the same sense and in the same meaning ("in eodem sensu eademque sententia")’)[6]’.Among the reasons that moved our divine Master to give us The Gospel as Revealed to Me[2] is this one:
"To reinstate in their truth the figures of the Son of Man and of Mary, true children of Adam by flesh and blood, but of an innocent Adam."[7]So it is a matter of restoring, in addition to the figure of Christ, that of Mary. This restoration of Mary’s figure responds to obvious gaps we observe in the canonical books about the Blessed Virgin[8].
Jesus himself says to Maria Valtorta:
I was already sufficiently described in the Gospels, the minimum necessary for the salvation of hearts. Mary was little known. Just an incomplete outline which left too much of Her in shadow. So now, I have revealed her to you. I have given you this perfect story of my Mother. Oh Order, what do you care about the name of Mary.[9]The goal of this extended knowledge of Mary is to increase love for her:
“You are a girl who knows little about her Mother. But when you know many things and come to know me not as a distant star, whose ray alone is seen and whose name is known, not just as an ideal and idealized entity, but as a living and loving reality, with my heart as the Mother of God and the Mother of Jesus, as the Woman who understands the pains of woman because the most atrocious ones were not spared her and she has only to recall her own to understand those of others, you will then love me as you love my Son-that is, with your whole self.”[10]For this reason, Maria Valtorta as a writer spared neither labor nor sacrifice:
“I am very ill, and writing weighs heavily upon me. Afterwards I am washed out. But provided I can make Her known, so that She will be loved more, I do not count the cost. Do my shoulders ache? Does my heart yield? Is my head in agony? Does the fever grow? It doesn't matter! May Mary be known, entirely beautiful and dear, just as I see Her out of God's goodness and hers, and that's enough for me.”[11]The work of Maria Valtorta, known under the Italian title Il Poema dell’Uomo-Dio could rightly also be called The Poem of the Mother of God, because, in addition to restoring and completing the evangelical figure of Christ, it restores and completes that of Mary.
One can say further that Maria Valtorta’s mariology is new because it presents the Blessed Virgin under a new light, that is to say as a new creature, apparently similar to all other pure creatures, but actually very different: a creature always immersed in the infinite light of her Creator, in the light of the one and triune God, surrounded by an exceptional and fascinating splendor that emanates from her unique Mission.
God…
“Her soul appears beautiful and intact as when the Father conceived Her, gathering all graces in Her. She is the Virgin. She is the Only One. She is the Perfect One. The Complete One. Conceived as such. Generated as such. Remained such. Crowned such. Eternally such. She is the Virgin. She is the abyss of intangibility, of purity, of grace that is lost in the Abyss from which it emerged: in God: most perfect Intangibility, Purity, Grace.”[12]Finally, Maria Valtorta’s mariology is new because it presents the Blessed Virgin in a new form, with new developments[13] and fascinating new images. For example, she appears under this image:
“As a circling fishing vessel in which the waters flow down without ever going into a river, so too Mary, the purest water from an enclosed fountain, emerged from the incandescent fervour of eternal Thought and flowed along the rivers of peace, bringing peace and purity with Her; and in God, She re-entered in order to receive Him and to generate the Son of God; She then returned among the savage arenas in order to give the Light, the Truth, and the Life to the lonely-hearted and again, after having completed Her mission, like water that is evaporated by the sun, She was taken up into the mystical womb who gave birth to Her for you so that She could give birth to Salvation for you. And there She is: the inviolate Fount of purity, the only worthy mirror of Perfection that forgets everything which is sinful by looking at the Immaculate.”[14]The image evoked here is a kind of circular movement, from God to God."
3. A Living Mariology[edit | edit source]
This mariology does not contemplate the Virgin in the icy stratosphere of the abstract, but in all her concrete reality as a Woman (Good an extraordinary one, a Woman both ideal and real), of virginal spouse and maker-of-virgins, of a mother full of tenderness, love, and pain. From this mariology emerges a living and active Virgin Mary who thinks, meditates, speaks, acts in the most diverse situations of life; a Virgin with a human Spirit filled with divine light, with a human Heart overflowing with divine love; a Virgin who, wherever she goes, whatever she does, spreads a heavenly fragrance: that of her eminent Virtues, especially of her exquisite kindness, of her limitless mercy; a Woman apparently like all others, but in reality a miracle of goodness both physical and moral; a Woman who walks on earth with Spirit and Heart always fixed on heaven. A prodigious Woman. Woman of Paradise, although still Woman of earth; perpetual delight, support, and comfort of her divine Son and God worthy.Maria Valtorta, beyond making us know the Blessed Virgin, makes us feel her very near, makes us almost see her, makes us live with her in the sweetest intimacy.
Such is Mary and the mariology that emerge from the writings of Maria Valtorta: a living Mary who gives us a living mariology. Living and invigorating.
4. An Eminently Biblical Mariology[edit | edit source]
In addition to being new (in several aspects) and living (for various reasons), mariology in the Valtortian writings is also eminently biblical.The Bible, both the Old and the New Testament, is the Soul, the fabric, the marrow of the Valtortian Mariology. It suffices to say that almost the entire Bible appears in the text or notes of The Gospel as Revealed to Me[15]; its 73 books and 1166 of its 1334 chapters (including the 150 psalms) are found there explicitly or implicitly[16]. The work continually speaks a biblical language: the very language of God.
All biblical passages relating to Mary in both Testaments, from the Book of Genesis (3:15) to the Apocalypse (12), are highlighted in Valtortian Mariology. The so-called "antimarian" passages[17]” are all there, but with the interpretation required to dispel any shadow around the luminous figure of Mary.
“The centuries [writes Maria Valtorta, preempting expressions of Vatican II Council[18]] pass with an ever clearer voice and with ever sharper particulars, the voice of the divine promise of a Redeeming Messiah and of the Woman without concupiscence who will punish the Prevaricator by giving birth to the Victor of Sin and Death. Many are the symbols and voices which repeat the promise in the centuries[19].”[20]
Conclusion[edit | edit source]
In conclusion, Jesus says to Maria Valtorta:“Delight in my Mother.”[21]And after inviting her to immerse herself "on the heavenly contemplation” of Mary, he added:
“You will emerge from this experience with your soul as fresh as if you too were created at the moment by the Father [...] You will emerge with your soul filled with light, because you will plunge into God’s masterpiece. You will emerge with your wholeself being saturated in love, because you will have understood the degree to which God can love.”[22]The same will happen to us, if we throw ourselves into Mary as just shown by Maria Valtorta. We will feel our Soul refreshed, enlightened, warmed.
Notes and references[edit | edit source]
- ↑ The Virgin Mary in the Work of Maria Valtorta, CEV, 2021 edition, pp.27-31.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 We use the title under which the work is now published. Father Roschini uses Poema, abbreviation of its original title Poema del'Uomo-Dio.
- ↑ He interprets what indeed comes out of the Osservatore Romano article: "the theological level is such that it can only be a behind-the-scenes writing, of which we are not fooled!" The phrase about Marian theology was aimed at Father Roschini, who was also consultor to the Holy Office.
- ↑ GRM 2.5.
- ↑ Notebooks 1943, December 26. Jesus gives spiritual directives to Maria Valtorta: “Remember that you will not be great because of the contemplations and revelations, but because of your sacrifice. The former are granted to you by God not because of your merit, but through his infinite goodness. The latter is the flower of your spirit, and it is that which has merit in my eyes. Increase it without human considerations to the limit of your physical and spiritual strength. The more you rise up, the more I will carry you off on high. And do not fear. [...] I will say nothing more to you. Delight in my Mother.”
- ↑ Quotation from John XXIII, speech of the October 11, 1962 (address at the opening of the Council) paragraph 6, line 5: "it is necessary that this certain and immutable Doctrine [Christian Doctrine], to which faithful obedience is owed, be studied and expounded in the manner required by our time. For the deposit of the faith itself, or the truths contained in our venerable Doctrine, is different, and the manner in which they are expressed is different, but with the same meaning and wording." This quotation was taken up in Gaudium et spes, paragraph 62, line 2, note 134.
- ↑ GRM 652.4.
- ↑ This is already an instruction given by the Virgin Mary to Mary of Agreda (The Mystical City of God, Book 6, chapter 28, paragraph 1508).
- ↑ The Little Notebooks, February 25, 1949.
- ↑ Notebooks 1943, December 8.
- ↑ Notebooks 1944, June 7.
- ↑ GRM 5.15.
- ↑ For example, on the famous classical Eve/Mary parallel: nowhere among the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, not even collectively, is there a development so captivating, broad, and complete of this parallel as in the writings of Maria Valtorta. In all this, she was completely independent of these traditional sources (they were completely unknown to her).
- ↑ Lessons on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, 2-1-48.
- ↑ The work also covers the 373 narrative units (pericopes) of the canonical Gospel, without omission and without incoherence, with 98.5% of its verses cited integrally or alluded to. This constitutes a unique phenomenon distinguishing it from the commercial lives of Jesus, whose hypotheses are generally based on only a few verses.
- ↑ To convince us, one only has to browse the biblical index of the work (Indice biblico dell'opera Il poema dell’Uomo-Dio), a patient work of Edmea Dusio (Pisani, Isola del Liri, 1970).
- ↑ “Antimarian” Gospel episodes are those that seem to reject the Virgin Mary. There are four: Matthew 12:46-50 and Mark 3:35 | Luke 2:41-52 | Luke 11:27-28 | John 2:2-4. Roschini, later in his work (pp. 32-38), demonstrates their sound positive foundation in accord with Maria Valtorta's work. This debate arose, at the time, from the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, chapter 8 which treated “The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God in the mystery of Christ and the Church.” This dogmatic constitution, defended by Cardinal Bea, who dealt with ecumenism, raised on this point the vision some Protestants have of the role and place of the Virgin Mary. (Nicolas Favart, "Reception of the teaching of Vatican II on the Virgin Mary by the Marie-Youth Family", 2008, Université Laval, Québec, Canada, pp.50-51).
- ↑ “Thus the Church, while the centuries pass, constantly tends toward the fullness of divine truth, until in her are fulfilled the words of God.” Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, chapter 8, November 18, 1965. See also the underlying idea in Psalm 18 (Hebrew 19): The Glory of God is transmitted "day by day".
- ↑ Genesis 3:15.
- ↑ Lessons on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, 14-2-48.
- ↑ Notebooks 1943, December 26.
- ↑ GRM 5.7.