Advice from St Joseph

 

 

 

I was thinking about St Joseph and how much he suffered quietly.  A just and righteous Israelite.  How easily we gloss over his role in the holy family.  How that in accepting Mary as his wife he in a sense abandoned his ideal of remaining just in the eyes of men and opened himself up to gossips and snickers.  How much he suffered in feeling like he was unable to provide properly for Mary in dragging her off for a census in her late stage of pregnancy, having made a crib for the baby and prepared so many things for Mary in Nazareth.  He must have felt like a failure so many times having to abandon everything he proposed to follow the course disposed by God through the path of life.  And in his homeland where he believed he would be welcomed he met only closed doors.  A stable the best accommodations he could find for his wife and Messiah in his own homeland.  How hard he tried to make that stable comfortable, cleaning it up as much as possible, trying to keep the drafts out hanging his own cloak over the entrance.  But a cloak over a cave entrance only goes so far to warm it and sweeping and moving hay around doesn't cover up the smell of animal waste and odors.  And then in raising Jesus and providing for his little family, the poverty and not being able to provide all the materiel things a father would want to give to his family and never showing his disappointment to his family but always placing them first.  There is so much in the quiet just man to be pondered over  and emulated even in how readily he takes the back seat to Mary and Jesus in the storyline.

 

But Joseph was the true just and righteous Israelite.  He, beside Mary who was Immaculate,  was the ideal Israelite in resigning his will to the Will of God.  He was willing to cast his own ideals aside to accommodate God's plans and ideals.  He never brooded over what he could have considered his own failings, which never were failings in the eyes of God, or the way he would be mistreated by those who took advantage of him in his labors.  He always focused on God and placed his family's needs first.  In The Gospel as revealed to Me I found a passage where Jesus is advising Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus in regards to how they should act in letting go of their false notions of what the Messiah should be, using St Joseph as his model. 

 

 

 

Be just.  Just like him who was My guardian for so many years and who was capable of every renovation to serve the Lord his God.  If he were here, among us, oh!  how he would teach you to serve the Lord perfectly, to be just, just, just.  But it is right that he should already be in Abraham's bosom!...  A new Abraham, with a broken heart, but with perfect will, he would not have advised Me to be cowardly, but he would have spoke the words that he used to utter when anything painful weighed heavily on us:  "Let us raise our spirits.  We shall meet the yes of God and we shall forget that it is men who grieve us.  And let us do whatever is burdensome, as if the Most High presented it to us.  In this way we shall sanctify also the least things, and God will love us."  Oh!  He would have said so also to comfort Me to suffer the deepest sorrows...  He would have comforted us...  Oh!  My Mother!...

 

The Gospel as Revealed to Me, Vol. 9, pg 56.

 

 

Joseph the model man and father, laborer and Israelite.  He, in his silence and resignation, teaches so much.  Truly the Just Man who always placed God and others first and himself last.



And Jesus wept

I was thinking about Jesus being in the cold manger and crying and weeping more from the lack of love and correspondence from creatures than from the cold.  The manger and stable the true symbol of how far the creature had fallen.  Originally created to be the sumptuous abode of the living God, now a hovel little better than for beasts of burden.  And Jesus wept on his first day into the world for the state of fallen man.  And on that first Christmas day, Mary relates:

I wrapped Him in poor but clean little clothes, and I placed Him in the manger.  This was His Will, and I could not do without executing It.  But before doing this, I shared Him with dear Saint Joseph, placing Him in his arms; and – oh! how he rejoiced.  He pressed Him to his heart, and the sweet little Baby poured torrents of grace into his soul.  Then, together with Saint Joseph, we arranged a little hay in the manger, and detaching Him from my maternal arms, I laid Him in it.  And your Mama, enraptured by the beauty of the Divine Infant, remained kneeling before Him most of the time.  I put all my seas of love into motion, which the Divine Will had formed in Me, to love Him, adore Him, and thank Him. 

And what did the Celestial little Child do in the manger?  A continuous act of the Will of our Celestial Father, which was also His; and emitting moans and sighs, He wailed, cried and called to everyone, saying in His loving moans:  “Come all of you, children of mine; for love of you I am born to sorrow and to tears.  Come all of you, to know the excess of my love.  Give Me shelter in your hearts.”  And there was a coming and going of shepherds, who came to visit Him, and to all He gave His sweet gaze and His smile of love, amid His very tears.

Day Twenty-two
The Queen of Heaven in the Kingdom of the Divine Will.



But there is another famous moment where Jesus wept.  Before the tomb of his friend Lazarus.  So long I thought these were simple tears of sorrow, over death in general, the death of his friend in particular and the sorrow that Mary and Martha had been going through.  But like everything done by Jesus there is always a much deeper meaning beyond the surface and often layers.  And here Jesus relates:




"I wept before Lazarus' tomb.  And many names have been given to My tears.  In the meantime you must bear in mind that graces are obtained through grief mixed with unfaltering faith in the Eternal Father.  I wept not so much because of the loss of My friend and because of the sorrow of the sisters, as because three thoughts that had always pierced My heart like three sharp nails surfaced then, more lively than ever, like depths stirred up.

The ascertainment of the ruin that Satan had brought to man by seducing him to Evil.  A ruin the human punishment of which was sorrow and death.  Physical death, the symbol and living metaphor of spiritual death that sin causes to the soul, hurling it into infernal darkness, whereas it was destined, like a queen, to live in the kingdom of Light.

The persuasion that not even this miracle, worked almost as a sublime corollary to three years of evangelization, would convince the Judaic world of the Truth of which I was the Bearer.  And that no miracle would in future convert the world to Christ.  Oh!  How grievous it was to be so close to death for so few!

The mental vision of My imminent death.  I was God.  But I was also Man.  And to be the Redeemer I was to feel the weight of expiation.  Therefore the horror of death and of such a death.  I was a living healthy being who was saying to himself:  "I shall soon be dead, I shall be in a sepulcher like Lazarus.  Soon the most dreadful agony will be my companion.  I must die."  God's kindness spares you the knowledge of he future.  But I was not spared it."

Pgs. 447-448 Vol. 8, The Gospel as Revealed to Me (The Poem of the Man God), by Maria Valtorta




As with the first tears of the newborn Jesus so here.  Jesus wept over the lot of his beloved creature fallen into a death of the spirit which only can be glimpsed in the physical death of man.  He wept over how even with his coming to the earth to save and redeem everyone, so many souls would choose the death of their spirits over life in Him.  He wept over the price and the horror of the sacrifice he had to make, which was always before him even from the moment of his birth.  A sorrowful life and an agonizing death which would not even benefit everyone.  But grief and sorrow are the way to graces as Jesus himself says:  "...bear in mind that graces are obtained through grief mixed with unfaltering faith in the Eternal Father."  It is through grief and sorrow tempered by faith that God makes his way into the world and can make his way into our hearts.  Can anyone truly be hard enough to refuse a shivering crying child?  And in the moments of our sorrow and grief may we bring to mind and unite ourselves to Jesus' sorrow and grief and tears for us even from the first moment of his birth.

Fallen Adam

 

In the previous post we glimpsed the heights, the beauty, the seas of grace and divine fields of action with which Adam was endowed.  This initial period of his life can not be taken away despite his fall.

So, by virtue of the first period of his life, innocent and carried out all in the unity of Our Fiat, Adam possesses such glory and beauty that no one can equal him. At the mere sight of him, all of the Blessed recognize how beautiful and majestic the creation of the first man was, enriched with so much grace. In looking at him, they can see, in him, the incalculable good of the Divine Will in the creature, and the joy and happiness that the creature can possess. In him alone, as though within a mirror, the Blessed can see how man was created, the exuberant love that We had for him, the abundance with which We enriched him. We gave him everything, as much as a creature could contain, to the point of overflowing outside and being able to flood the whole earth.

Vol. 24, September 10, 1928

When we think of Adam after the fall we encounter images of him being cast out with Eve from a beautiful garden to sorrow and hardship in shame and confusion.  But this image is so lacking in the reality of the extreme change which happened within himself which he brought upon himself and the heights from which he fell which left him as crippled and blind.

"...Adam fell from a very high place; he had been placed by his Creator at such an elevated point, that it surpassed the limits of the sky, the stars, and the sun.  Living in My Will he lived above everything - in God Himself.  See from where he fell?  Falling from such heights, it is a miracle that he didn’t totally perish.  But if he didn’t die, the blow he received in falling was so strong that it was inevitable that he remain crippled, broken, and deformed in his rare beauty.  He was left with all his goods smashed; [he was] left indolent in his actions, dulled in his intellect, suffering from a fever which weakened him, withered in all the virtues, and he no longer felt the strength to dominate himself.  Man’s most beautiful asset, dominion of self, had vanished, and the passions had taken over to terrorize him, to render him restless and melancholy.  Because he was the father and head of the human generations, he produced a family of cripples.  Many think that not doing My Will is of little importance; instead it is the total ruin of the creature, and for as many acts (as the creature) commits of his own will, by so many times do his evils increase, along with his ruin, and he only continues to dig an abyss ever deeper for him to fall into.” 

So I thought to myself:  if Adam, withdrawing just one single time from the Divine Will, made him fall so low and change his fortune into misery, his happiness into bitterness - how will it be for us who so many, many times have withdrawn ourselves from this adorable Will?  But as I was thinking this, my loving and only Good added: 
 

“My daughter, Adam fell so low because he withdrew from an Expressed Will of his Creator, in which was enclosed the test to try his faithfulness towards He who had given him life and all the goods he possessed.  More so, because that which God had asked of him was that before so many goods that He had freely given Adam, of the so many (varieties of) fruit that He had given him, that he deprive himself of one single fruit out of love for He who had given him everything.  And in this small sacrifice that God wanted from him, He let Adam know that it was only because He wanted to be sure of his love and his fidelity.  Adam should have felt honored that his Creator wanted to be sure of the love of His creature.  Who would ever have believed that the one who brought him down and persuaded him to fall was not a being superior to him, but a vile serpent - his capital enemy.  His fall brought graver consequences; because he was the head of all the generations, so all the members would naturally eventually feel the effects of the evil of their head.  See, therefore, how when my Will is expressed, wanted, and commanded, the sin is greater and the consequences are irremediable.  Only My same Divine Will can make reparation to such a great evil as that which befell Adam.
“On the other hand, when It is not expressed, the creature still has the obligation to pray that I make known My Will in his actions, if inside his acts there is an interest for good and My pure glory.  But if this is not expressed the evil is not as grave, and it is easier to find a remedy.  I do this to each creature to test their faithfulness, and also to be assured of the love they say they have for Me.  Who is there who does not want to be sure of the authority that they have, such that they arrive at making a contract?  Who is there who doesn’t want to be sure of the faithfulness of a friend, or of the true loyalty of a servant?  So to be sure, I make known that I want small sacrifices which will bring all goods, along with holiness, and We will realize the purpose for which they were created.  Instead, if they are reluctant, everything will be upset in them, and all evils will fall upon them.  But not doing My Will is always an evil more or less evil according to the gratitude, for It that [they] possess.”

Vol. 21, April 8, 1927

So the fall of Adam from the expressed Will of God became the fall of us all.  The original pattern from which we all take our own pattern was damaged and we were all struck with original sin.  But what was it that caused Adam and Eve to turn from God in the first place and how is it that such a seemingly simple sin could be the origin of so many evils?

In fact, do you want to know why Adam sinned? Because he forgot that I loved him, and he forgot to love Me. This was the first seed of his fall. Had he thought that I loved him very much and that he was obliged to love Me, he would never have decided to disobey Me. So, love ceased first, and then sin began; and as he ceased to love his God, true love toward himself also ceased. His members and powers rebelled against him; he lost dominion, order, and became fearful. Not only this, but true love toward other creatures ceased, while I had created him with the same love which reigned among the Divine Persons, by which one was to be the image of the other, the happiness, the joy and life of the other. This is why, in coming upon earth, the thing on which I placed greatest importance was that they love one another as they were loved by Me, in order to give them my first love, to let the love of the Most Holy Trinity hover over the earth.
Vol. 16, September 6, 1923

Again in another discussion on this topic Jesus continues to explain how in removing his gaze from God, which should have always been the focus of his love, and instead focusing on the fruit given to him by Eve he did not just commit a simple sin but in doing so partook in all the seven deadly sins giving birth to them all.

Why did Adam sin? Because he removed his gaze from the divine attraction, and as Eve presented to him the fruit to let him eat of it, he looked at the fruit, and his sight took pleasure in looking at it, his hearing took delight in hearing the words of Eve - that if he ate the fruit he would become like God; and His palate took pleasure in eating it. So, taste was the first act of his ruin. On the other hand, had he felt displeasure in looking at it, tedium and bother in hearing the words of Eve, disgust in eating it, Adam would not have sinned. On the contrary, he would have done the first heroic act of his life, by resisting and correcting Eve for having done that; and he would have remained with the everlasting crown of faithfulness toward the One to whom he owed so much, and who had all the rights for his subjection. Oh! how careful one must be with the different tastes that arise in the soul. If they are purely divine tastes, one must give them life; but if they are human tastes, or of passions, one must give them death; otherwise there is the danger of falling into the current of evil.”
Vol. 15, June 6, 1923

This extrapolation of the seven deadly sins hidden in original sin was explained by Fr. Robert and I will try to recall it.  When Adam turned his gaze from God to the apple he sinned in pride by trying to see and understand with his own powers without the humble disposition of seeing in and by the light of God.  He contemplated it and took pleasure in it, thus sinning with lust.  Greedily wanting it for his own when he heard Eve tell him he would become like God if he ate it.  He envied God and wanted to become like Him without going through God thereby sinning with sloth.  And he distrusted the love of God believing God was holding out on him or lying to him and sinned with anger.  And in taking pleasure in eating something which he should not eat he sinned with gluttony.  So indeed all seven sins were given birth in original sin

So (Adam) remained as a darkened city; his relations, his electric lines of communication no longer functioned.  The source of light had retreated from him, because he himself had broken off communications, and was left as a rejected king, dethroned and without dominion.  Every light of his city was turned off, and he was wrapped in the darkness of his own will.

Vol. 21, April 12, 1927



Adam was left blinded.  He had rejected the source of light and his understanding and intellect could no longer see without it.  His dominion as King was overthrown because He who kept order and kept him enthroned was ousted and now Adam was ruled by passions and became a slave.  He was left fearful and unhappy with no peace because he was now in contrast with He who is peace and had done all good for him.  Indeed he put himself in contrast with the order of the universe and could rightly be afraid of all creation.

I was thinking to myself:  ‘Before sinning, my first father Adam possessed all these bonds and relations of communication with all Creation, because by possessing the Supreme Will as whole, it was as though natural for him to feel within himself all the communications, wherever It operated.  Now, in withdrawing from this Will so holy, did he not feel the tearing he made from all Creation? - the snapping of all communications and of all bonds, broken from It as though in one single breath?  If by just thinking of whether I must do an act or not, and by just hesitating, I feel that the heavens tremble, the sun withdraws, and all Creation is shaken and is in the act of leaving me alone, so much so that I myself tremble together with them, and, frightened, immediately, without hesitating, I do what I must do - how could he do that?  Did he not feel this tearing, so harrowing and cruel?’

And Jesus, moving in my interior, told me:  “My daughter, Adam felt this tearing so harrowing, but in spite of this he fell into the maze of his will, which gave him no more peace, either to him or to his posterity.  All Creation withdrew from him as though in one single breath, and happiness, peace, strength, sovereignty - everything withdrew.  He remained alone with himself.  Poor Adam, how much it cost him to withdraw from my Will.  Just by feeling isolated, no longer surrounded by the cortege of the whole Creation, he felt such fright and horror, that he became the fearful man.  He was afraid of everything – even of my very works; and with reason, because it is said:  ‘One who is not with Me is against Me’.  Since he was no longer linked with them, by justice they were to put themselves against him.  Poor Adam, there is much reason to have compassion for him.  He had no example of anyone else who had fallen, and of the great evil that had occurred to him, so that he might be watchful in order not to fall.  He had no idea of evil.  In fact, my daughter, the evil, the sin, the fall of someone else has two effects:  for one who is evil and wants to fall, it serves as example, as a spur, as an incentive to fall into the abyss of evil; for one who is good and does not want to fall, it serves as antidote, as deterrent, as help and defense so as not to fall.  In fact, seeing the great evil, the misfortune of someone else, serves as an example in order not to fall and not to follow that same path, so as not to find oneself in that same misfortune.  So, the evil of someone else causes one to be watchful and on guard.  Therefore, the fall of Adam is for you a great help, a lesson and a call, while he had no lesson from evil, because, then, evil did not exist.”

Vol. 20, November 10, 1926

Adam, in sinning, was lost in the darkness of his own will but he could now see the difference of before and after and so he could truly understand the difference between good and evil, between living in the Will of God and living of his own will.  And he strove as best he could to do the little good he could for the rest of his life but always in the sorrow of knowing what he was before and all that he had lost.  It is from this great repentance that God pitied him and worked towards his redemption and the return of the Kingdom which he had so casually rejected.

From this you can comprehend how the good produced by the human will, though it cannot form the day, is always a good for man; and creatures receive the utility of light in the night of the human will. It serves them so as not to die in the thick darkness of sin. Those lights, though small, direct their steps, allow them to see the dangers, and draw my paternal goodness toward them, seeing that they make use of the night of their human will to form at least little lights, so as to direct their steps along the path of salvation.
It was precisely this that drew all Our tenderness and Our paternal goodness toward Adam. He had comprehended what living in Our Divine Will meant, and with his littlest acts, just as with the greatest, he ran inside Our creative virtue, and they were invested by the Sun of the eternal Fiat which, being Sun, had the virtue of being able to form as many suns as he wanted. And in seeing himself emptied of this creative strength, he could no longer form suns; and so - poor one - he tried as hard as he could to form little lights; and in seeing the great difference between his original act and that after sin, he felt such grief as to feel himself dying at each act of his. The Supreme Being felt touched, and admired the industriousness of poor Adam who, no longer able to form suns, did his best to form little lights with his acts; and because of this, He kept for him the promise of the future Messiah.” 
Vol. 23, November 2, 1927

 

It was in virtue of all the acts which Adam had done in the Divine Will in his state of innocence which enabled him to strive to do what little good he still could after the fall.  These acts originally done in the Divine Will continually draw the eye of God to the creature and the creature to God.

“My daughter, you should know that the acts done in my Divine Will are imperishable and inseparable from God, and they are the continuous memory that the soul has had the good to work together with a Divine Will, and that God has held together with Him(self) the creature in order to make her work with his same Divine Will.  This happy memory, operational and holy makes us always hold God and the soul in sight, in a way that the one and the other remain unforgettable, so much so that if the creature might have the misfortune to go out from our Will, to go roaming, she will turn distant, but she will feel the eye of her God over herself that sweetly calls her, and her eye toward He who looks at her continually.  And that although she goes roaming she feels the irresistible need, the strong chains that pull her between the arms of her Creator.  This happened to Adam, because the beginning of his life was done in my Divine Will, in spite that he sinned, he was chased from Eden, he went doing all his life, but perhaps he was lost?  Ah, no! because he felt over himself the power of our Will in which he had worked, he felt our eye that watched him and that pulled his eye to look at us, and the dear memory that his early acts had had life in our Will.  You can not understand all the good and what it means to work in our Will; with working in Him the soul acquires so many pledges of infinite value for how many acts she does in our Fiat, and these pledges remain in God himself, because the creature doesn’t hold the capacity nor post where to hold them, so much is the value that they contain, and can you ever believe that while we hold these pledges of infinite value of the creature, we should permit that she might become lost, she to whom these pledges so precious belong?  Ah, no, no!...  Therefore do not fear, the acts done in our Volition are eternal bonds, chains not subject to break.

Vol. 29, April 16, 1931

After sinning Adam, even though he did not sin again and sought always to do what little good he could by doing the Will of God, he could not reclaim the gift of living in the Divine Will on his own.  Redemption was needed first as preparation.  But now with the fullness of the Kingdom of Redemption it is possible for us to possess the gift of the Divine Will once again but always through the merits of Jesus.



I said to Him: ‘My Love, Jesus, so, your eyes have shed also my tears, as well as those of our first father Adam. And I want You to pour them upon my soul, to give me the grace not only to do your Most Holy Will, but to possess It as my own thing and my own will.’ At that moment, Jesus shook His head, and from His face tears flowed onto my poor soul; and He added: “Daughter of my Will, indeed I shed your tears, so that, as they would pass through my eyes, I might give you the great gift of my Will. That which Adam could not receive with his tears, even though they too passed through my eyes, you can receive. In fact, before sinning, Adam possessed my Will, and with the possession of my Will he grew in the likeness of his Creator; and he grew so much as to form the enchantment of all Heaven, and all felt honored in serving him. After sin, he lost the possession of my Will, and even though he wept over his fault and he sinned no more, he was able to do my Will, but not to possess It, because the Divine Offended One was missing, who was to form the new divine graft between the creature and the Creator, in order to let him cross again the thresholds of the possessions of the Eternal Volition.
Vol. 18, December 20, 1925



Only universal acts can recall a universal good such as the Kingdom of the Divine Will.  Acts which flow everywhere, everywhen and in everyone.  Adam's first acts were such echoing the love of God in all things, and in all the Creation.

“When a good is universal, universal acts are needed to obtain it; and only in My Will are there these acts.  As you love in It, you love everywhere It is found; and My Will feels your love everywhere.  In every place It feels your love following It.  Therefore, It feels in you the prime love as had been established for the creature to love It in the beginning of creation.  It feels in your love Its echo, which does not know how to love with little and finite love, but with infinite and universal love.  It feels the first love of Adam who, before sinning, did nothing other than repeat the echo of his Creator.  And by these universal acts which follow It everywhere, it feels drawn to come and reign once again in the midst of creatures.

Vol. 21, March 16, 1927


That which Adam lost for all generations can be reclaimed.  As a king is dethroned it is possible for his posterity to reclaim the kingdom of their father.  So too is it now given to us to reclaim the lost Kingdom of the Divine Will.  All of Creation stands ready as a mighty army to guard, restore, and maintain the order, decorum and glory of the Kingdom of God, that is the Kingdom of the Divine Will.

“My daughter, you must know that before he sinned Adam did his acts in the Divine Fiat.  This means that the Trinity had given him the possession of this Kingdom, because to be able to possess a kingdom there must be one who forms it, one who gives it, and one who receives it.  The Divinity formed It and gave It to man, and he received It.  Adam, in the first period of creation, possessed this Kingdom together with the Supreme Fiat, and because he was the head of all human generations, all creatures received this right of possession.  And Adam, withdrawing from Our Will, lost the possession of this Kingdom, because by doing his own will he placed himself in a state of war with the Eternal Fiat.

“Poor thing, not having enough strength to do combat, and not having an army capable enough to battle with such a Holy Will - a Will which has invincible strength and a formidable army - he lost the battle and the Kingdom which We had given him.  What a great loss, because the strength which he possessed before [the fall] was Our own, and with [this] strength he also had our own army at his disposition.  As he sinned [that] strength returned to Us, its source, and the army retired from him, placing itself at Our disposition.  All of that did not take away the rights of his descendants to possibly once again take over the Kingdom of My Will.

“It is similar to that which happens to a king who, because of war, lost his kingdom - but is there not the possibility that one of his children could win back with another war, his father’s kingdom which is already his?  It is [even] more likely [for the Kingdom of My Will] because I, as the Divine Winner, came to earth to recover man’s losses; and, having found one who would want to receive this Kingdom, I restored these forces to him by once again putting My army at his disposition to maintain the order, the decorum, and the glory of [My Kingdom].

“And. what is this army?  It is all of creation, more than a wondrous and formidable army; it is the life of My Will which is bilocated within each created thing, [put] there to maintain the Life of this Kingdom.  How could man lose hope of again possessing this Kingdom?  If he had seen this invincible army of creation totally disappear, then he could have said that God had withdrawn from the face of the earth His Will which vivifies, beautifies, and enriches this Kingdom, [and] there is no longer any hope that It may return into [man’s] possession.  But as long as this [army] exists, We must wait until the times are right to find those who will want to receive It.

Vol. 21, March 19, 1927

So it is up to us to rally this army, the army of the Divine Will.  An army of all the acts of the Father in the Creation from its first moments and which he continues to conserve to this day.  It is an army of all the acts of the Son that he accomplished in the Redemption from the moment of his incarnation and which he continues in all the sacraments and his bride, the church.  It is an army of all the acts of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies and restores with an ardent and tender love his beloved creature to return the beauty and majesty and sanctity that was mans before the fall.  As we open ourselves up to the works of the living Love of God through living in his Divine Will we restore the perfect echo of his love and all the loving communications are renewed.  As we go doing our acts and recalling His acts done in Creation, Redemption and Sanctification we echo his love throughout all of them and rally this mighty army to storm the gates and reclaim this Kingdom. 

Innocent Adam





I've had this post in draft form for a long time now.  It's a topic I've been wanting to explore for some time but only recently did I feel like I received the piece I needed to fit it together and begin.

While reading the Poem of the Man God, aka The Gospel as Revealed to Me, Jesus, in response to a mother who is mourning the divided love of her son now that he is married and occupied with his wife, says to her, referring to Adam:

 

But does Genesis not say:  "This at last is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh...This is why a man will leave his father and mother and will join himself to his wife and they will become one body."  You may object:  "It was the word of a man."  Yes, but of what man?  He was in the state of innocence and grace.  He thus reflected without any shadow the Wisdom which had created him and he was aware of its truth.  Through Grace and his innocence he possessed also the other gifts of God in full measure.  As his senses were subdued to his reason, his mind was not obscured by the fumes of concupiscence.  And because science was proportionate to his state, he spoke words of truth.  So he was a prophet.  Because you know that prophet means a person who speaks in the name of another person.  And as true prophets always speak of matters concerning the spirit and the future, even if relating apparently to the present time and the body - because in the sins of the flesh and in the facts of the present time are the seeds of future punishments, or facts of the future have roots in ancient events:  for instance the coming of the Savior originates from Adam's sin, and the punishments of Israel, foretold by the prophets, were brought about by the behavior of Israel - so He Who urges their lips to speak things of the spirit can but be the Eternal Spirit Who sees everything in an eternal present.  And the Eternal Spirit speaks through saints, because he cannot dwell in sinners.  Adam was a saint, because justice was complete in him and every virtue was present in him, because God had instilled the fullness of His gifts into His creature,.  Man has to work hard now, to attain justice and possess virtues, because the incentives of evil are in him.  But such incentives were not in Adam, on the contrary Grace made him little inferior to God his Creator.  So his lips spoke words of grace.  And his is a truthful word:  "A man will leave his father and mother for a woman and he will join himself to his wife and they will become one body."  And it is absolutely true, that the Most Good Lord in order to comfort mothers and fathers included the fourth Commandment in the Law:  "Honor you father and your mother."  A Commandment that does not end with the marriage of man, but lasts beyond marriage.

Pg. 321, Vol. 7.  The Gospel As Revealed To Me, by Maria Valtorta.

Often when I thought of Adam it only went so far as how he blew it for all of us with original sin but we forget that Adam, in his innocent state was filled with Grace and holy.  His words were Truth and he reflected the love and the wisdom of God with all the fullness of God's gifts.  "Justice was complete in him."  This is the same concept the Catholic Church refers to as "Original Justice" which our innocent parents, Adam and Eve, lived in the state of.



375 The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original “state of holiness and justice.”250 This grace of original holiness was “to share in . . . divine life.”251 376 By the radiance of this grace all dimensions of man’s life were confirmed. As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die.252 The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman,253 and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called “original justice.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church



Maria Valtorta speaks in another section of the perfection of Mary which she witnessed and sensed through a simple exchange between Jesus and Mary:

It is impossible to say what there is in this sentence.  "you are Jesus."  A simple sentence.  But all the love of the Mother, of the disciple, of the ancient Hebrew women for the Promised Messiah, of the Hebrew women of the blessed time in which Jesus lived, is in those few words.  If the Mother had prostrated Herself worshipping Her Son as God, Her veneration would have been of a limited form.  But Her words express something which is  more than the formal adoration of knees that bend, of a back that bows, of a forehead that touches the ground:  here it is Mary's whole being, Her flesh, blood, mind, heart, spirit, love, adoring the God-Man completely and perfectly.

I have never seen anything greater, more absolute than these adorations of Mary for the Word of God, Who is her Son, and Who She always remembers is her God.  None of the people whom I see worship their Savior, after being cured or converted by Jesus, not even the most fervent ones, not even these who inadvertently behave theatrically in their transport of love, have anything like this.  They love completely, but always as creatures lacking something to be perfect.  Mary loves, I dare say, divinely.  She loves more than a creature.  Oh!  She really is the daughter of God free from sin!  That is why She can love thus!...And I think of what man lost through the original Sin...I think of what Satan stole from us by overwhelming our First Parents.  He deprived us of the power of loving God as Mary loved Him...He deprived us of the power of loving well.

Pg. 374, Vol. 7.  The Gospel As Revealed To Me, by Maria Valtorta.



Maria Valtorta sensed that Mary loved completely and divinely in a way that was lacking to any other creature.  Mary, the full of grace, possessed Original Justice and did complete acts worthy of God while on the earth as Adam's were before the fall.  The perfect harmony of love, echoing and reciprocating love for love.  In the Volumes Jesus refers to this state of innocence, of Original Justice, as Living in the Divine Will.

“Such was Adam’s condition before he withdraw from the Divine Will.  It (the Divine Will) was given to him by his Creator as the greatest of gifts because It contains all goods together.  Adam possessed It, dominated over It, and made himself the supporter of this Divine Will, because God Himself had given him the right to rule over It.  Thus he was lord of the power, light, sanctity, and happiness of this Eternal Fiat.  But when he withdrew from the Divine Will, Adam lost the possession and dominion - and was reduced to not possessing as his own, but only receiving the effects of My Will according to his dispositions.  And whoever finds himself in the condition of only receiving is always poor, never rich, because the rich possess and are not forced to receive, and are in a position to be able to give some of their own goods to others.”

Vol. 21, May 8, 1927



But even though Adam fell from this state of innocence this does not take away all the acts he did before the fall.  Acts of beauty and harmony, filled with grace.  Complete acts done in the Divine Will which continue to exist in the eternal present.

 My daughter, how many unforgettable things there are in this Eden. Here Our Fiat created man, and made such display of love, that It poured Itself in torrents upon him; so much so, that We still feel the sweet murmuring with which We poured Ourselves over him. Here began the Life of Our Fiat in the creature, and the sweet and dear memory of the acts of the first man done in It. These acts exist still now in Our Volition, and are as though pledges for him to be reborn in order to have the Kingdom of Our Fiat again. In this Eden there is the sorrowful memory of the fall of man, the exit he made from Our Kingdom. We still hear his steps when he went out of Our Divine Fiat; and since this Eden had been given to him so that he would live in It, We were forced to put him out, and We had the sorrow of seeing the work dearest to Us without his Kingdom, wandering and sorrowful. Our only relief were the pledges of his acts, which had remained in Our Will; these called for the rights of humanity to enter again the place from which it had gone out. This is why I await you in Eden to receive your small interest, to renew what We did in the Creation, and to receive the return for a love so great, not understood by creatures, and to find a loving pretext to give the Kingdom of Our Divine Will. Therefore, I want this Eden to be dear to you as well, that you may pray Us and press Us that the beginning of Creation, the Life of Our Fiat, may return into the midst of the human family.”
Vol. 26, June 14, 1929

Jesus affirms that Adam initially possessed the Kingdom and did his acts in the Divine Will.  By doing so all generations received the right of the possession of this Kingdom.  Now even though Adam lost this Kingdom he did not lose the rights of his descendants to one day reclaim this Kingdom of the Divine Will.

“My daughter, you must know that before he sinned Adam did his acts in the Divine Fiat.  This means that the Trinity had given him the possession of this Kingdom, because to be able to possess a kingdom there must be one who forms it, one who gives it, and one who receives it.  The Divinity formed It and gave It to man, and he received It.  Adam, in the first period of creation, possessed this Kingdom together with the Supreme Fiat, and because he was the head of all human generations, all creatures received this right of possession.  And Adam, withdrawing from Our Will, lost the possession of this Kingdom, because by doing his own will he placed himself in a state of war with the Eternal Fiat.

“Poor thing, not having enough strength to do combat, and not having an army capable enough to battle with such a Holy Will - a Will which has invincible strength and a formidable army - he lost the battle and the Kingdom which We had given him.  What a great loss, because the strength which he possessed before [the fall] was Our own, and with [this] strength he also had our own army at his disposition.  As he sinned [that] strength returned to Us, its source, and the army retired from him, placing itself at Our disposition.  All of that did not take away the rights of his descendants to possibly once again take over the Kingdom of My Will.

 Vol. 21, March 19, 1927



Adam did the same acts after the fall as before but having lost the life of the Divine Will they were no longer complete acts and holy by nature.  Now they were empty of Divine Grace and Life since man was now empty of God's Will reigning in him and his acts were now nauseating before God.  But even though Adam had rejected God's Will as his own life, God did not reject man.  Instead God bowed Himself to support him and help him in anyway possible, acting as medicine to heal him, food to nourish him, guide to support him, water to quench him.  Even if man rejected being a saint God would find a  way to at least save him from himself.

I was thinking about the Holy Divine Volition, and I thought to myself: ‘How can it be that Adam, after sin, having broken his will from that of God, lost strength, dominion, and his acts were not so pleasing to God as to form His delight? Indeed, before sinning, Adam had done his acts toward God, he had learned them; why then, in repeating them afterwards, they no longer sounded the same sound, they no longer contained the fullness of divine love and the complete glory of God?’ Now, while I was thinking of this, my lovable Jesus moved in my interior, and through a light that He sent to me, told me: “My daughter, first of all, before he withdrew from my Will, Adam was my son; he contained my Will as center of his life and of all his acts, therefore he possessed a strength, a dominion, an attractiveness which was all divine. His breath, his heartbeat, his acts, gave of divine; all of his being gave off a celestial fragrance, which drew Us All toward him. So, We felt wounded from all sides by this son; if he breathed, if he spoke, if he did even the most innocent, indifferent and natural things, those were wounds of love for Us. And We, amusing Ourselves with him, filled him more and more with Our goods, because everything he did came from one single point, which was Our Will; therefore We liked him all - We found nothing which might displease Us.

Now, after sin, Adam descended from the state of son and reduced himself to the state of servant; and as soon as he broke up with the Supreme Will, the divine strength, the dominion, the attractiveness, the celestial fragrance, went out of him. Therefore, his acts, his being, no longer gave of divine, but were filled with a human sensation, which, making him lose attractiveness, caused that We no longer felt wounded, but rather, we kept our distance – he from Us, and We from him. His repeating the same acts as those he did before sinning, as in fact he did, says nothing. But do you know what the acts of the creature are without the fullness of Our Will? They are like those foods without condiments and without substance, which, instead of being enjoyed, disgust the human palate; and so do they disgust the divine palate. They are like those unripe fruits, which contain neither sweetness nor taste; they are like those flowers without fragrance; they are like those vases, which are full, yes, but of old, fragile and ragged things. All this can serve a strict necessity of man, and maybe a shadow, a shade of the glory of God, but not the happiness and the complete well-being of the creature, and the fullness of the glory of God.

Now, on the other hand, with what pleasure does one not eat a food which is well flavored and nourishing? How it strengthens the whole person; the mere smell of its condiment whets one’s appetite and the eagerness to eat it. In the same way, before sinning, Adam flavored all of his acts with the substance of Our Will, and therefore he whetted the appetite of Our love to take all his acts as the most enjoyable food for Us; and We, in return, gave him Our delicious food – Our Will. But after sin, poor one, he lost the direct way of communication with his Creator; pure love was no longer reigning in him; love was divided by apprehension, by fear, and since he no longer contained the absolute dominion of the Supreme Will, his acts of before, done after sin, no longer had the same value. More so, since the whole Creation, including man, came out of the Eternal Creator as their source of Life, in which they were to be preserved only with the Life of the Divine Will. Everything was to be founded upon It, and this foundation of the Divine Will was to preserve all things as beautiful and noble, just as they had come out of God. And, in fact, all created things are just as they were created – none of them has lost anything of its origin; only man lost the life, the foundation, and therefore he lost his nobility, the strength, and the likeness to his Creator.

But in spite of this, my Will did not leave man completely. Unable to still be his source of life and the foundation that would sustain him, because he himself had withdrawn from It, It offered Itself as medicine so that he might not perish completely. So, my Will is medicine, is sanity, is preservation, is food, is life, is fullness of the highest sanctity. In whatever way the creature wants It, so does It offer Itself. If she wants It as medicine, It offers Itself in order to take away from her the fever of passions, the weaknesses of impatience, the vertigo of pride, the sickliness of attachments; and so with all the rest of evils. If she wants It as sanity, It offers Itself to preserve her healthy, to free her from any spiritual illness. If she wants It as food, It gives Itself as food to make her strengths develop and grow more in sanctity. If she wants It as life and as fullness of sanctity – oh! then my Will makes feast, because It sees man returning into the womb of his origin, from which he came; and It offers Itself to give him the likeness of his Creator, the only purpose of his creation. My Will never leaves man; if It left him, he would resolve into nothing. And if man does not give himself to letting my Will make him a saint, my Will uses the ways to at least save him.”
Vol. 18, January 28, 1926

It is no coincidence that only now are the heights and beauty of Adam in his innocent state being revealed.  Before this point man was not capable of understanding and appreciating the sublime beauty of innocent Adam so God hid this from us, as sheltering Adam his own beloved from unwanted attention.  But it is God himself now who, wanting to restore creatures to the order, the place and the purpose for which they were created, that is to restore the Reign of the Kingdom of the Divine Will, now he is revealing the majesty of Adam in the first period of his life.  This to open our eyes to what God is calling us to and the heights he has ordained for us in his Kingdom.  So that we ourselves might want it and call God to complete his work. 

My daughter, the first period of the life of Adam is unforgettable for Us, for him, and for all Heaven. After he fell into sin, he remained like a blind person who, before losing his sight, has done so many beautiful works as to fill Heaven and earth. Who could ever say that those are not works done by him, only because he voluntarily lost his sight? And that, since he can no longer repeat them because he is blind, the ones he has done remain without value? Certainly no one. Or, if a person who applies himself to study science, in the middle of his studies no longer wants to continue, can anyone take away or destroy the good of the science he has acquired, only because he does not continue? Certainly not. If this happens in the human order, much more so, and with more validity and certainty, in the divine order.

So, by virtue of the first period of his life, innocent and carried out all in the unity of Our Fiat, Adam possesses such glory and beauty that no one can equal him. At the mere sight of him, all of the Blessed recognize how beautiful and majestic the creation of the first man was, enriched with so much grace. In looking at him, they can see, in him, the incalculable good of the Divine Will in the creature, and the joy and happiness that the creature can possess. In him alone, as though within a mirror, the Blessed can see how man was created, the exuberant love that We had for him, the abundance with which We enriched him. We gave him everything, as much as a creature could contain, to the point of overflowing outside and being able to flood the whole earth. If it were not so – if the whole magnificence of Our creative hands could not be seen in Adam – then the great things We did in the Creation, and that which the creature does and can do in Our Divine Will would not be known even in Heaven. It is Our love that demands this, and also Our justice that wants to keep, in Heaven, the reality of that image, as man was created – and not another man, but the very one who came out of Our creative hands, so that, if the earth does not know him, Heaven may know him. They look at their origin in Adam, and, grateful, they thank Me and pray that my Fiat may come to reign upon earth, and form more images, more beautiful than Adam, because he was not a complete work in my Divine Will, but a period of life. Only the Sovereign Queen possesses complete life and works in my Fiat, therefore there is no one who can equal Her. My Will wants to make more complete lives in It, so as to repeat what It did in the Creation, to make known to the earth the way and the order in which the creature was created, and the great, beautiful, holy things that my Divine Will can do in her.
Moreover, you must know that, up to now, I have not manifested to anyone either the great qualities of Adam, or his sublimity, greatness and sanctity as he lived his first period of life in the unity of my Will; and by virtue of his acts done in It, the great glory that he enjoys in Heaven. Many, on the contrary, believed that since he slipped into sin, he could at most have a glory common to all the other Blessed, or perhaps even less than the others. But wanting to restore again the Kingdom of my Divine Will, I feel within Me a necessity of love to manifest the first epoch of Creation, and the first period of the life of Adam - all of Divine Will - as well as the glory which he enjoys in Heaven by virtue of It, so that, as the other creatures come to know a good so great, they may dispose themselves and long for the Divine Fiat on earth as It is in Heaven.”
Vol. 24, September 10, 1928