12/06/2026
🇬🇧 Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
Maria Valtorta writes:
«Yesterday I received no special dictation. I just suffered until thinking I was in agony.
The physical suffering—so violent, for it had already been going on for twenty-four hours, but, for me, who am able to endure so much, it was still unbearable—began on Wednesday night. And it went on growing at a constant pace until becoming unendurable. My peritoneum hurt and caused me all the disturbances of acute peritonitis to such an extent that I thought of a peritoneal perforation. I suffered until I was in a daze. I was no longer able to say anything but “Lord, it’s for my poor despairing brothers and sisters.” It was still Wednesday.
Yesterday, while continuing to suffer, I offered this whole agony for idolaters. I had nothing but that to offer because I honestly had no strength for anything else and had to make a real effort to perform my usual penances. I was then left in a swoon, feeling only the agony of my flesh. But it doesn’t matter. My soul was in peace, in Jesus’ hands…. And then nothing does harm…!
In the late afternoon the local priest came and found me with the face of someone agonizing. He wanted to console me because he is good at heart. But with a “goodness” of use only to Maria the creature, not Maria the soul.
I feel the painful absence of the one who directs me, who says he “does nothing.” I say, however, that he is air for my soul. My soul misses him the way my lungs miss sea air. And in spite of Jesus’ numberless acts of goodness, I lack this aid and suffer therefrom.
Last night I wanted to carry out the Hour of Nocturnal Adoration. But it was impossible for me. I was unable to read or think. And then Jesus had me…adore by giving me an appropriate vision.
I shall try to describe the environment, a difficult matter for me, who in the area of architecture am incompetent and have never set foot in a cloistered monastery.
I think, then, that I am in the internal church of a strictly cloistered monastery. I see a very high, wide arch which provides light for the external church. It provides light in a manner of speaking, for the thick grating filling it entirely is made even more impenetrable by a curtain of dark red cloth falling from the summit to within about a meter and a half of the ground—that is, as far as the point where a wall rises up to support the grating.
At the center of the grating there is a sort of window—that is, a section of movable grill which opens like a door on its hinges. This is not covered by the red curtain and allows one to see the tabernacle in the external church through the web of the grating. The sisters can thus worship and, I think, receive Holy Communion while kneeling on the bench which serves as a baluster in front of the little window and is raised above a platform with three steps to place it within comfortable reach of the level of the window. Nothing in the external church is visible except the tabernacle. Perhaps monastery choirs are built this way.
There is little light. From the high, narrow windows there rains down a dim light. I think it must be either evening or dawn, for there is only a faint glimmer. The choir—this is what I call it, but I don’t know if this is the right term—is empty. There are only the seats for the sisters and the bench in front of the grating. An oil lamp introduces a little yellow star alongside the grating.
A tall, and certainly very thin, sister comes in. For, in spite of her ample religious habit, she is very slender. She goes to kneel at the bench. She lifts up the veil with which she covered her face, and I see a youthful visage, not very beautiful, but graceful, very pale, and meek. Two light-colored eyes—they seem to be greenish brown—shine gently when she raises them to look at the tabernacle, and the small mouth opens into a soft smile. The face is a long oval between the white bands, which are slightly whiter than her countenance. The black veil flows down over her black robe, in such fashion that in the kneeling figure only the delicate face, the long, well-formed hands joined in prayer, and a silver cross shining on her breast, in addition to the wimple, are seen to be light in color. She is praying fervently, with her eyes fixed upon the tabernacle.
And now the beautiful part of the vision comes. The grating, the whole grating, shines as if beyond the velarium a very intense fire has been ignited. The lamp, which previously looked like a radiant star, is now canceled out in the growing light, which is increasingly becoming a very bright silver white. So bright that one’s eyes no longer see anything but this. The grating is wiped out in the brilliant radiance. And in this splendor Jesus appears. Jesus, standing upright in his white robe and red mantle, smiling, very handsome.
“Margaret!” He calls, to rouse the sister, who has remained in ecstasy, looking at Him. He calls her three times, more and more gently, and smiling with ever-greater intensity. He advances, walking high above the ground on the carpet of light which is under Him. “It is I, Jesus, whom you love. Do not fear.”
Margaret Mary looks at Him blissfully and, amidst her tears, asks, “What do You want from me, Lord? Why are You appearing to me?”
“I am Jesus, who loves you, Margaret, and I want you to make Me be loved.”
“How can I, Lord?”
“Look. And you will be capable of everything, for what you will see will give you strength and a voice to rouse the world and bring it to Me. This is my Heart. Look. It is the Heart which has so loved men, wishing to be loved by them. But it is not loved. And in this love the salvation of the human race would be found. Margaret, tell the world that I want my Heart to be loved. I am thirsty! Give Me something to drink. I am hungry! Give Me something to eat. I suffer! Console Me. This mission will be your joy and your sorrow. But I ask you not to refuse it. Come. Come to Me. Come close to Me. Kiss my Heart. You will no longer be afraid of anything….”
Margaret Mary rises and walks in ecstasy towards Jesus. The intense light makes her face even whiter. She prostrates herself at Jesus’ feet.
But He lifts her up and, supporting her with his left hand, opens his robe over his chest, and his flesh seems to open along with his robe, and his Divine Heart appears, alive, beating amidst torrents of light setting the poor choir aflame and making the human body of the beloved disciple shine, like an already spiritualized body. Jesus inclines his cherished one towards Himself and, with loving violence, brings her face up to the level of his Heart, against which he clasps it, holding up the ecstatic, who would collapse out of joy, and when He separates her, He continues to hold her up, with gentle care, and sets her back on the ground—for Margaret walked over the wake of light to reach Jesus—and does not let her go until He sees she is safely in her place. He then says, “I shall come back to tell you what I want. Love Me more and more. Go in peace.”
The light absorbs Him like a cloud and then fades out progressively, finally disappearing, and in the now darkened choir only the little yellow star of the lamp shines.
This is what I saw. And Jesus says to me, “You have carried out the adoration for Thursday, the eve of the First Friday. What do you want that’s better than this?” He smiles and leaves me.»
(Maria Valtorta, “The Notebooks. 1944”, June 2)
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[“The Sacred Heart of Jesus” by Pompeo Batoni from Wikimedia Commons]
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