Maria Valtorta and The Poem of the Man-God
The Poem of the Man-God has made such a huge impact among the believers of Catholic Church that many consider it as a key to enter into the unexplored realms of the life of the Son of God. The monumental work is in fact the record of visions Maria Valtorta, an Italian mystic, had during her many years stuck to bed due to an abiding illness.
A Franciscan tertiary and a lay member of the Servants of Mary, Maria Valtorta was born in Caserta, Italy, as the only child of Giuseppe, her father and Iside, her mother. Her father being in the Italian cavalry, her family often had to move around Italy and she received a classic education in various parts of Italy and focused on Italian literature.
A crucial incident occurred in 1920, while she was just 23 years old, when a delinquent young man struck her in the back with an iron bar for no apparent reason. This mishap eventually caused her to confine to bed for 28 years of her life, during which Maria had visions of Jesus and personal conversations with the Son of God.
In 1925 at the age of 28, Maria read the autobiography of St Thérèse of Lisieux, which had a long lasting influence on her life and spirituality. Inspired by the book, she offered herself to God as a victim soul.
The Visions and the dictation
The great visions began on Good Friday in 1943, April 23rd. Valtorta later said that on that day morning she heard a voice suddenly speaking to her and asking her to write. Lying on the bed, Valorta at once called for Marta Diciotti, showed her the sheet in her hands and said that “something extraordinary” had happened. Marta Diciotti informed Father Migliorini about the ‘dictation’, and the priest asked Maria to write down anything else she “received”
and over time provided her with notebooks to write in.
From 23rd April 1943, until 1951 Maria is reported to have written down over 15,000 pages in 122 notebooks, mostly detailing the life of Jesus as an extension of the gospels. The notebooks contain about 700 episodes in the life of Jesus, which was later published in the form of a book titled, ‘The Poem of the Man God.’
The Poem of the Man-God
The Poem of the Man-God, the Gospel as dictated to Maria Valtorta, is a multi volume book of about five thousand pages on the life of Jesus Christ. It was first published in Italian in 1956 and has since been translated into 10 languages and is available worldwide. The first copy of the book was presented to Pope Pius XII, and the three Servite priests who attended the 1948 papal audience stated that he gave his verbal approval to “Publish this work as it is. There is no need to give an opinion about its origin, whether it be extraordinary or not. Who reads it, will understand. One hears of many visions and revelations. I will not say they are all authentic; but there are some of which it could be said that they are.”
Testimony of Virgin Mary at Medjugorje
The Medjugorje visionairies Marija Pavlovic and Vicka Ivankovic have stated that Maria Valtorta’s records of her conversations with Jesus are truthful. According to a statement Ivankovic made on January 27, 1988, the Virgin Mary told her at Medjugorje in 1981: “If a person wants to know Jesus, he should read Maria Valtorta. That book is the truth”.
