Observing Holy Days

(CEV) “The Poem of the Man-God,”, Vol. 1, p. 676

Jesus says: “It is said: “Do an honest work and devote the seventh day to the Lord and to your soul”. That is the commandment of the Sabbatical rest.

Man is not greater than God. And yet God created the universe in six days and He rested on the seventh.

Why then does man take the liberty of not imitating the Father and breaking His commandment?

Is it a foolish commandment?

No. It is truly a beneficial commandment to the body, to morals and to the spirit.

A tired body needs rest, like every other being in creation. An ox, which has worked in the field, rests, and we let it rest, so that we may not lose it. Likewise, the donkey that carries us and the sheep that gives birth to a little lamb and gives us milk, need a rest.

Also the soil of the field rests, and we let it rest, so that during the months that it is deprived of seed, it may be nourished and become saturated with the salts that are contained in rain or emerge from the earth. Also animals and plants, which obey the eternal laws of wise reproduction, rest well, also without our consent.

Why then does man not want to imitate the Creator, Who rested on the seventh day, whereas inferior beings, both vegetable and animal, which only received an instinctive order, know how to comply with it and obey it?

It is a moral commandment, besides being a physical one. Man for six days belongs to everybody and everything. Like a thread in a loom he moves up and down, without being ever able to say: “Now I am going to attend to myself and to my dear ones. I am a father and today I belong to my children, I am a husband and today I will devote myself to my wife I am a brother and I will rejoice with my brothers, I am a son and I will look after my old parents.”

It is a spiritual commandment. Work is holy. Love is holier. God is Most Holy.

So we must remember to devote at least one day out of seven to our good and holy Father, Who gave us life and keeps us alive. Why should we have less respect for Him than for, our fathers, our children, brothers, wives and our bodies?

Let the day of the Lord be His. Oh! It is pleasant to take shelter in a loving home in the evening, after a day’s work! It is pleasant to come back to it after a journey!

Why then not take shelter in the house of the Father after six days’ work?

Why should we not be like the son who comes back after a six day journey and says: “Here I am, I want to spend my day of rest with you”?

But now, listen. I said: “Do an honest job”.

You know that our Law orders us to love our neighbor. Honest work forms part of our love for our neighbor. An honest working person does not steal in business, does not defraud a workman of his pay, does not exploit him guiltily, he remembers that a servant and a workman are made of body and soul like himself, and he does not treat them like lifeless pieces of stone which it is lawful to break or strike with one’s foot or an iron rod. Who does not do that, does not love his neighbor and therefore commits a sin in the eyes of God. His earnings are cursed, even if he offers part of them as alms to the Temple.

Oh! What a false offer! And how can anyone dare place it at the foot of the altar when it drips the tears and blood of an exploited subordinate or its name is “theft”, that is, betrayal of one’s neighbor, because a thief is the betrayer of his neighbor?

Believe Me, one does not keep a holy day unless one makes use of it to examine and improve oneself and make amends for the sins committed during the previous six days.

That is the observance of holy days, not the merely exterior observance, which does not change one jot of your way of thinking. God wants living deeds, not sham deeds. A false respect for His Law is a mere sham. And a mere sham is the false observance of the Sabbath, that is a rest taken to show obedience to the commandment in the eyes of men, when the hours of idleness are spent in vice, in lust, in orgy, in planning how to exploit and damage one’s neighbor in the oncoming week.

The observance of the Sabbath is a sham, when the material rest is not coupled with an inner, spiritual, sanctifying examination of oneself, with the humble avowal of one’s misery, with the firm determination to improve oneself during the oncoming week.

You may say: “And if one falls into sin again?” What would you say of a child, who, having fallen once, should not wish to take another step, that he may not fall again? That he is foolish. That he must not be ashamed if his steps are uncertain, because we were all like that when we were little ones, and our fathers did not stop loving us because of that. Who does not remember the profusion of maternal kisses and paternal caresses we received every time we fell?

The most sweet Father, Who is in Heaven, does the same. He bends over His little one who is weeping on the ground and says to him: “Do not weep. I will raise you. Next time you will be more careful. Come into My arms now. Here all your troubles will cease and you will go away strengthened, cured and happy”.

That is what our Father, Who is in Heaven, says. And that is what I say to you. If you could have faith in the Father, you would succeed in everything. A faith, mind you, like the faith of a child. A child believes that everything is possible. He does not ask whether and how something may happen. He does not measure the depth of things. He believes in those who inspire confidence to him and does what they tell him.

Be like children with the Most High.

How He loves those stray angels which are the beauty of the earth! In the same way He loves the souls that become as simple, good and pure as a child.

Maria Valtorta: The Poem of The Man-God

Evaluation of the Work of Maria Valtorta by Padre Livio Fanzaga, Catholic priest (Radio Maria):
“So I would say just that, dear friends, because I read The Poem of the Man-God, three times, 5 volumes ( CEV, ed), and then I am able to evaluate it in its complexity and its value, I feel like saying, dear friends, I do not know any more commentary on the Gospel more orthodox, more uplifting, more stimulating than this, and I would like, dear friends, that all of you would accept the invitation from the Virgin Mary to read this books because it’s all true (They do not contain errors against faith and morals of the Catholic Church…) . Then read these books, my dear friends, because we would surely gain great benefits for your souls. It is not difficult to get them, and they do not cost a lot, 5 books that can be for you an indispensable spiritual nourishment”

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), which has all the rights upon Valtorta’s Works.