Do you think these bones will live again?

(CEV) “The Notebooks 1945-1950”, p. 61
Jesus says: “I ask you, as the Lord asked Ezekiel, ‘Do you think these bones will live again?’

Like Ezekiel, I answer, “You know, Lord God,” for I understand the meaning of the word “bones” when used to say “men”-that is, I understand that Jesus is not asking me if the dead will rise again on the Last Day. This is faith, and there is no question about it.

But He is applying the term “bones” to this poor humanity at present, so entirely material and not at all spiritual. I understand this because, as I have already explained to you so many times, when God takes me so that I will be his spokesman, my intelligence is amplified and raised to a power far superior to that permitted to human beings. And I “see,” “hear,” and “understand” according to the spirit.

Jesus smiles because He sees I have understood his question and explains:

That’s the way it is. Humanity is now nothing but bones, calcined, heavy, dead ruins sinking into the fetid furrows of vices and heresies. The spirit no longer exists. The spirit that is life in flesh and life in eternity. The spirit that is what differentiates man from animals. Man has killed himself in his best part. Is he a machine? Is he a beast? Is he a corpse? Yes, he is all of this.

A machine, for he goes through his day with the mechanicalness of a device that works because it must work by virtue of its parts set in motion, but does so without comprehending the beauty of what it is doing. Man, too, rises and goes to bed after having eaten, drunk, worked, strolled, and spoken without ever grasping the beauty and ugliness of what he does. Simply because, deprived as he is of spirit, he no longer distinguishes beauty from ugliness or good from evil.

He is a beast because he contents himself with sleeping, eating, and accumulating fat on his body and reserves in his lair, exactly like a beast that makes these operations its life goal and the joy of its existence, and justifies everything -selfishness and ferocity- through this base and brutal law of the need to plunder so as to be sated.

He is a corpse because what enables a man to be called ‘alive’ is the presence of the spirit in the flesh. When he breathes his last, man becomes a corpse. In reality, man at present is a corpse kept upright and in motion by the sorcery of mechanics or the devil. But he is a corpse.

Well then, I tell you, ‘Behold, I will infuse the spirit into you, dry bones, and you shall live again. I will make your nerves rise up again upon you and your flesh grow again and your skin spread out again over you, and I will give you the spirit and you shall live again and know that I am the Lord.’ Yes, I will do this. The time shall come when I will have a people of the ‘living’ once more and not corpses.

In the meantime, behold that to the best ones, not dead, but reduced to skeletons for lack of spiritual food, I give the nourishment of my word. I do not want your death by consumption. This is the substantial manna which gives you strength with sweetness. Oh, feed upon it, children of my love and my sacrifice! And why must I see that so many are hungry and there is so much food prepared for them by the Savior and it is not drawn upon for those who are hungry? Take nourishment, get to your feet, and come out of your graves. Come out of inertia, come out of the vices of the age, and come to knowledge, come to ‘recognize’ the Lord your God.

I told you at the beginning of this work and in the middle of this tragic war (WWII) and I repeat, This is one of the wars paving the way for the times of the Antichrist. Then the era of the living spirit will come. Blessed are those who prepare to receive that age.

Do not say, ‘We won’t be here.’ You won’t, not all of you will be here. But it is foolishness and a lack of charity to think only of oneself. Atheistic children are born of atheistic fathers. Lifeless children, of lifeless fathers. And they, your children and the children of your children, will greatly need spiritual strength for that hour!

At heart the law of human love is to provide for the good of one’s children and grandchildren. Do not be inferior, as regards what is spiritual, to what you are in regard to the things of this world, and as you give wealth to your children or endeavor to provide it so their days will be happier than yours, work to give them an inheritance of spiritual strength that they can develop and multiply in order to have an abundance when the hailstorm of the world’s and Lucifer’s last battles scourges Humanity so fiercely that it will wonder whether Hell is not better.

Hell! Mankind will experience it. Afterwards, for those faithful to the spirit, Paradise shall come, the earth which is not earth shall come: the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Maria Valtorta: The Notebooks

“These Notebooks belong to a category of mystical literature which the Catholic Church has long been familiar with: that of so-called “private revelations.” A private revelation is not binding for the faith of Christians, but its value is to be measured by its capacity to instruct and inflame souls, spurring them to love God more and apply divine teachings to their everyday lives. In the confidence—and the conviction—that this work superabounds in these inspired qualities, we offer it for the spiritual nourishment of readers. —David Murray

Content taken from the works of Maria Valtorta with the permission of the “Centro Editoriale Valtortiano Srl”- Viale Piscicelli, 89/91 – 03036 Isola del Liri, (FR – Italy), www.mariavaltorta.com, which has all the rights upon Valtorta’s Works.