Newsletter N. 10/23 – The final resurrection
On the evening of January 29, 1944, Maria Valtorta saw the resurrection of the dead: the last chapter of the history of salvation before eternal life, that is, “the life of the world to come”. I invite you to read the pages of “The notebooks of 1944” (pp. 97-101), limiting myself to extracting only four images.
- “An immense expanse of land. As boundless as a sea. I say “land” because there is earth, as on fields and roads. But there is not one tree, stem, or blade of grass. Dust, dust, and more dust. I see this in a light which is not light”.
- “As I turn my gaze over this desolate scene, for which I do not grasp the need, I see Death, springing from I don’t know where, standing upright in the middle of the boundless plain. A laughing skeleton, with her teeth bared and empty eye sockets, the queen of the dead world, wrapped in her shroud as if in a cloak. She does not have a scythe. She has already cut down everything. She is turning her gaze over her harvest and leering”.
- “There are very beautiful bodies, with a perfection in shape and color which make them resemble artistic masterpieces. […] The very beautiful ones have laughing eyes, a serene visage, and a gentle appearance and give off a luminosity which forms a halo around their being from head to foot and radiates out on all sides. […] The luminosity not only endures, but increases, to the extent that I can observe everything. The very beautiful ones […] gather, smiling at one another and looking at the ugly ones with pity mixed with horror. And these lovely ones are singing- they are singing a slow, sweet chorus of blessing for God”.
- “There are other horrible , ones, not because of any real crippling or deformity, but because of their overall appearance, which is more proper to a brute beast than a man. Grim eyes, contracted faces, a savage appearance, and, what strikes me most, a darkness emanating from their bodies and increasing the lividness of the air surrounding them. […] If they were all like the former, the darkness would become total to the point of concealing every object. […] The ugly ones – concerning whose destiny of accursedness I harbor no doubt, since they bear this condemnation as a mark on their brows – remain silent, casting frightened, surly glances up and down around them, and group together on one side at an inner command which I do not understand, but which must have been given by someone and perceived by the risen ones”.
The solemnity of the Saints and the commemoration of the faithful departed has just passed. We all remembered that we are immortal and that we have heaven as the end point of our lives. It would be better to say that our goal is eternal life in God: to divinize ourselves. However, we often forget that there is a fundamental intermediate element, almost a hinge between our time and our eternity, and that is the resurrection of our bodies. In other words: this miserable body, with the thousand problems it has, will be resurrected to new and eternal life. Not all in the same way, though. There will be “the beautiful” and “the horrible”; the bearers of light and the bearers of darkness. It is up to us to freely choose which side we are on.
We repeat these truths in the Creed of every Sunday Mass, but then we almost find ourselves ashamed like a child and we don’t want to draw the consequences. To help us in faith, hope and testimony, Maria Valtorta transmits this vision to us. The sight she sees is both beautiful and tragic. Beautiful to the point of being amazed, but also tragic to the point of crying. All men will be resurrected, but with a different purpose. In these descriptions, Maria Valtorta transmits to us two images so vivid that they seem like small “videos” of what will happen at the end of the world. Let us also take it seriously by reading this summarized passage, which I invite not only to read, but also to meditate and contemplate it, praying about it. We will thus discover its usefulness for our daily life in view of the eternal one that necessarily awaits us.