@Armour of God, regarding the claim that I “have a problem accepting other people’s opinions”: accepting someone’s opinion does not mean agreeing with it; it means acknowledging their freedom to hold it. I have repeatedly affirmed that everyone is free to accept or reject Maria Valtorta’s non‑canonical writings as inspired, and I have never demanded assent, argued aggressively, or refused to listen. Disagreement with someone’s reasoning is not the same as refusing to accept their opinion.
@Debp, for clarity, I do not “idolize” Maria Valtorta. Idolatry means placing a creature above God or giving divine worship to someone other than Him. I have never done that, nor have I ever suggested that her inspired writings are Scripture or binding on anyone. Appreciation is not idolatry, and quoting a source is not worship.
And since you say I “seem obsessed” with quoting from Maria Valtorta's inspired writings, I think it’s only fair to explain
why I do at all. It is not because I demand others accept her writings as inspired, but because of how I first encountered them and the role they played in answering sincere questions about the Gospel that Scripture does not explicitly address.
The first forum website I ever joined was called
A Christian and an Atheist back in 2014. I regularly conversed with several atheists there—mainly KeeptheReason (KTR), Darkumbra, and searchengineguy (SEG). They often asked thoughtful questions about Gospel characters, events, or seemingly contradictory accounts, and related topics. Even then, as now, I understood that Scripture is not a comprehensive knowledge source, nor was it intended to be, and so there were times when certain answers simply could not be found explicitly—or at all—within the scriptural text. Still, I always answered as best I could with the knowledge I had.
One day, they began asking questions about the Virgin Mary. And as most of us recognize, while Jesus is sufficiently described in the Gospels—the minimum necessary for the salvation of hearts—Mary remains far less detailed. What we have is an outline, beautiful but incomplete, leaving much of Her life and person in shadow. As had happened many times before, despite my best efforts, the atheists were dissatisfied with my responses. I was dissatisfied too—not with them, but with the fact that I couldn’t give them the fuller answers they were seeking, whether or not their curiosity was sincere.
So I went to my mom. I relayed their questions about Mary and the answers I had given. She encouraged me, but also suggested that I read
The Poem of the Man-God (also known as
The Gospel as Revealed to Me), adding that I would likely find the specific details they were asking about there, and that my grandmother had been an avid reader of it.
Immediately afterward, I found a
publicly available PDF and began reading. Very early in my reading, my soul recognized the Voice of the Work’s Author—years before I learned about the
extensive evidence, including scientific studies, supporting its supernatural origin. That was the beginning of a much deeper engagement with private revelation, and with understanding of Mary’s life beyond the sparse outlines preserved in Scripture—as well as the lives of Jesus and other Gospel characters. And suddenly I found myself able to give detailed answers to my atheist acquaintances’ questions—even the ones that had seemed difficult or impossible.
The joy I felt was not because they accepted the answers—they didn’t. The joy came from discovering, almost overnight, this unexpected flood of divine love and wisdom. It fulfilled not only my desire to draw souls closer to God by answering the questions that kept them in doubt, but also their own thirst to know and understand.
As Jesus promised...
"ask and you shall receive" (Matthew 7:7-8).
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised, confused, and frustrated by their immediate rejection of what they had asked for—especially when they offered no reasonable explanation for doing so, if they offered one at all. And they didn’t simply say,
“One either believes these visions and dictations came from Jesus or they don’t. You do. We don’t.” Instead, they became irrationally riled:
- personal attacks against me, without basis
- baseless accusations against Maria Valtorta—claiming mental illness without any medical evidence
- refusing objectivity, searching only for critics and ignoring primary sources
- twisting our words, both hers and mine
But their attempts to discredit Maria Valtorta and detour others from her were embers compared to the blazing flame of holy peace, joy, love, and wisdom I received from God in the words I read. And God won out. I've continued to read and have discovered more of her inspired writings, quote them alongside Scripture when applicable, leave each person free to do with it what they will, and familiarize myself with both her critics and her supporters.
Here I am, twelve years into this online ministry—unmarried, childless, and therefore free to devote myself to this work. It often feels like traversing a desert, where the rare oasis—such as
@St. SteVen,
@quietthinker, and others—appears only occasionally, yet refreshes the soul when it does.
A few days ago, I prayed to Jesus:
“I only want to do Your will. If You want me to continue what I’ve been doing, please give me a sign I will understand.”
The very next day, while spending time with my sister, I asked her—completely unprompted—“Do you think I’m meant to be doing what I’ve been doing? I feel that I am.” She replied, “It’s funny you should ask. I was just thinking the other day that you are—and that if the Lord wanted something different for you, He would let you know.” That’s when I told her what I had said to Jesus, and I recognized her response as an answer to my prayer.
So, if I have an "obsession" with anything, it is with doing His will.
Where, then, do we draw the line on obsessiveness for God?
If responding to people's many questions by quoting passages from inspired writings—Scripture,
God Calling,
The Poem of the Man-God (also known as
The Gospel as Revealed to Me), and others—in the hope of drawing their souls closer to God is considered “too much,” then what do we make of the lengths to which the first Christians went for God? They traveled the world on foot, wrote down and copied Jesus’ words by hand when they weren’t proclaiming them aloud, and did so under threats of brutal torture and death—threats that, for many, became reality.
The only forms of persecution that apply to my mode of ministry are typed personal attacks, censorship, and banning—and I have experienced all three, because:
- I'm a Catholic
- Maria Valtorta was a Catholic
- It is assumed that God does not grant visions or dictations outside those mentioned in the canon
These reactions often seem less about the content itself and more about a prejudice against anything associated with Catholic spirituality or Catholic visionaries and mystics. But disagreement with Catholic theology is not a justification for hostility toward Catholics, nor for dismissing something
solely because a Catholic is affiliated with it.
Remember, too, that God is a living being—eternal, personal, and active. His knowledge, His speech, His illumination, and His works are not confined to a fixed number of books, to certain groups of people, or a single historical moment. The canon is complete, but God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—is not silent, nor limited in ability to enlighten souls in any age.
Therefore, do not be so quick or so confident in dismissing any private revelation. The question is not whether God
can speak—of course He can—but whether He
has spoken in a given instance. And all that you do must be done in love, including discernment (1 Corinthians 16:14). For if you do not discern with love, then God Who
is love, as John says, does not abide in you; and if He does not abide in you, then the One who gives wisdom, knowledge, and understanding cannot illuminate your discernment. And if He does not illuminate you, then you cannot recognize His presence—or His absence—in anything you examine (Proverbs 2:6; 1 John 4:7-8).
"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." (James 3:17)
None of us should commit the sin against love for any reason, including disagreement.
