THIS column comes out two days before Christmas day and I am devoting space to that post-birth-in-a-manger part of the story with Jesus as a toddler, according to the words of the Blessed Mother herself, as told to mystic Maria Valtorta (1897-1961).
To refresh readers about Valtorta: she spent most of her life ailing in bed, but encountering Jesus Christ who gave her the privilege of experiencing in detail the past and the future, especially Our Lord's life on earth. She put all these mystical experiences in writing, in volumes that her followers later compiled and titled initially as Poem of Man-God. Padre Pio had once ordered a follower to read Valtorta, and it is also known that St. Mother Teresa had read her works. Worth mentioning too are the findings of experts that her accounts were in perfect harmony with the history, mathematics, geography, biology, botany, etc. in the lifetime of Jesus.
Since many already have an idea of how it was during the first Christmas in Bethlehem, I am sharing the words of the Blessed Mother, telling Valtorta about Jesus the Toddler.
She said: "...I want to speak to you about My Child just as He was when without His Mother, He would not have been able to do anything: a tender, delicate, blond tot, slightly rose-colored and beautiful, beautiful like no other child of man and good, better than the angels whom His Father and ours had created. His growth was neither more nor less like that of a healthy child cared for by His Mother.
"My Child was intelligent. Very. As a perfect one can be. But His intelligence awakened day by day, following the rule common to all born of woman. It was as if the rising of a sun were opening a way for itself in His blond little head. The first glances, no longer indefinite, like those of the first days, began to rest upong things and especially on His Mother. The first smiles, uncertain and then increasingly certain when I would bend over His crib and take Him onto My lap to give Him milk, wash Him, dress Him, and kiss Him.
"The first words, confused, and then clearer and clearer. What blessedness to be the Mother teaching the Son of God to say 'Mother!' And the first time He pronounced this word correctly, which no one ever knew how to say with so much Love as He did and which He said to Me until His final breath, what a celebration for Me and Joseph and how many kisses on His little mouth, where the first small teeth were appearing!
"And His first steps on His tender little feet, pink like the petal of a flesh-colored rose, those feet which I would caress with a mother's love and the adoration of the devout and which they would later nail to the cross and I would see contracting in agony, growing leaden, and turning icy cold.
"And His falls when He started to move on His own. I would run to lift Him up again and kiss His bruises... Oh, I could do so then! One day, I would see Him fall under the cross, already agonizing, ragged, stained with blood and the filth hurled at Him by the cruel mob, and I would no longer be able to run to lift Him up again and kiss His bleeding contusions -- the poor Mother of a poor executed Son!
"And His first acts of attentiveness: a little flower picked in the small garden or along the road and brought to Me, a little stool dragged to My feet so that I would be more comfortable, the picking up of an object that I had dropped.
"And His smile. The sun of our house! The wealth which covered the naked walls of My little house with silk and gold! Whoever has seen My Son's smile has seen Paradise on Earth. A smile that was serene as long as He was a child. An increasingly pensive smile to the point of being melancholy as He became an adult. But always a smile. For everyone. And it was one of the reasons for His divine charm, on account of which the crowds followed Him, enchanted.
"His smile was already a word of love. When, moreover, the voice was joined to the smile, which was the most beautiful one in the world, even the sod and the stalks of grain trembled. It was the voice of God that was speaking, Maria. And it was a mystery, which only the inscrutable reasons of God account for, that Judas and the Jews, after having heard Him speak, were able to go so far as to betray and kill Him.
"His intelligence, more and more open until reaching perfection, aroused My admiration and respect. But it was so tempered with goodness that it never humilated anyone. My sweet Son, You were gentle to all, and especially to Your Mother!" (End of quote, as I greet readers, Merry Christmas!)
What's in store after this Christmas? The prophecies continue, and I am quoting below one given by the Blessed Mother to mystic Pedro Regis last December 19.
"Dear children, My Jesus awaits your sincere and courageous 'Yes'. Do not depart from His Grace. Do not leave what you need to do until tomorrow. I ask you to intensify your prayers. You are living in a time of great tribulations and the time has come for your return to the Lord. Open your hearts and accept God's Will for your lives. I have come from Heaven to call you to conversion. Give me your hands and I will lead you to Him who is your Only and True Savior.
"My Jesus loves you. Accept His Gospel and remain faithful to the teachings of the true Magisterium of His Church. The day will come when God's Truth will be despised by many of the consecrated.
"There will be great confusion and division in the House of God and few will remain firm in the faith. Whatever happens, stay beside Jesus. Onward without fear. I will pray to my Jesus for you. This is the message that I give you today in the name of the Most Holy Trinity. Thank you for having allowed Me to gather you here once more. I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Be at peace."