[Sundaycommunity] After Christmas

[Mario Calla]

Hi Brian,

I find the excerpts of Maria Valtorta's writings fascinating because they
take me back to my childhood in Southern Italy in the 1950's where I
experienced the type of Catholicism of which she speaks. I don't want to
misrepresent Catholic life of the time because for the most part it was
woven into our daily lives in a positive way as every day was a Saint's Day
whose life we would celebrate.  People would stop at noon to pray the
Angelus Domini as the church bells would announce the moment. My little
friends and I would collect clay from the creek and make little statues of
the saints and we would make up stories about them. They were our
superheroes. But there was a darker side that is represented by the line
you quote from Valtorta: "Suffer Maria, and tell the good to suffer.
Everyone of those who immolate themselves is granted to save a few souls."
There were people in my town who made sacrifice and piety a central part of
their religion, the expression of which manifested itself in
disturbing ways.  Some would march in Good Friday processions bleeding
profusely from the crowns of thorns embedded on their heads. Men would
march bare-chested with a bundle of thorny branches swinging down from
their heads, flagellating them as they walked. And then there were
those who would crawl from the back of the church to the front dragging
their tongue on the floor.  Some did this as penance or as a promise kept
for a divine favour received.  Not surprisingly, Maria Valtorta is from
Southern Italy and was still alive during my childhood there. The focus of
this type of Catholicism is on the Passion of Jesus, the crown of thorns
and the Crucified Christ.

I find that focusing on the Resurrection and Jesus' commandment to love God
and our neighbours to be more fulfilling. There is so much more hope and
promise in those messages. I think about how our Sunday Community has lived
Jesus' commandment to love our neighbour by sponsoring a Syrain refugee
family just three years ago. I think of the three children in that family
who are doing brilliantly in school and are full of plans and dreams for
their future. That's how we bring light into our often disturbing and
disturbed world, by reaching out, by playing a part, by small acts of
kindness.

Valtorta says that "human beings have preferred hell to Heaven." Brian,
don't believe it there is evidence of much goodness all around us.

God bless,

Mario


On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 4:58 AM Brian Shaughnessy via Sundaycommunity <
sundaycommunity at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:

> JOHN's POST ABOUT "OUR WORK TO BE DONE AFTER XMAS"
>
> It would be great if Dr. Howard Thurmon's reflection was do-able, but
> contrast it with this:
> ________
>
> "The first time My Father, to purify the earth, sent a cleansing by
> water.  The second time He sent a cleansing by blood, and by what Blood!
> Neither the first cleansing nor the second has availed to turn the human
> beings into children of God.
>
> Now the Father is weary, and to make the human race perish He lets the
> chastisements of hell go wild.  Because human beings have preferred hell to
> Heaven, and their Ruler, Lucifer, torments them to make them blaspheme Us,
> so as to make them completely his children.
>
> Oh, if people could turn to Me who am salvation!  I desire only that and I
> weep, because I see that nothing can make them raise their heads towards
> Heaven from where I stretch out My arms toward them.
>
> Suffer Maria, and tell the good to suffer.  Everyone of those who immolate
> themselves is granted to save a few souls.  *Only a few.*  It should come
> as no surprise that only a few souls be granted to every little redeemer if
> one thinks that I, the divine Redeemer, on Calvary, at the hour of My
> immolation, of all the thousands of people present at My death, I managed
> to save the thief, and Longinus, and very few others."
>
> ________
>
> aptYLJC,Twbd,ttM
>
> [image: image.png]
>
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 2:53 AM John MacMillan via Sundaycommunity <
> sundaycommunity at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:
>
>> *Second Reading *(Patricia Bradley)
>>
>> *The work of Christmas,   *a reflection from Dr. Howard Thurman
>>
>> *When the song of the angels is stilled,*
>>
>> *when the star in the sky is gone,*
>>
>> *when the kings and princes are home,*
>>
>> *when the shepherds are back with the flocks,*
>>
>> *then the work of Christmas begins:*
>>
>> *to find the lost,*
>>
>> *to heal those broken in spirit,*
>>
>> *to feed the hungry,*
>>
>> *to release the oppressed,*
>>
>> *to rebuild the nations,*
>>
>> *to bring peace among all peoples,*
>>
>> *to make a little music with the heart…*
>>
>> *And to radiate the Light of Christ,*
>>
>> *every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say.*
>>
>> *The work of Christmas begins.*
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sundaycommunity mailing list
>> Sundaycommunity at lists.integralshift.ca
>>
>> http://lists.integralshift.ca/listinfo.cgi/sundaycommunity-integralshift.ca
>>
>
>
> --
> aptYLJC,Twbd,ttM
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> Sundaycommunity at lists.integralshift.ca
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>
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