Easter - Murder and Resurrection of Jesus Christ
Compiled by Joseph Costa, primarily from the writings of the Italian mystic, Maria Valtorta (1897-1961). This religious article should be read slowly, in order to understand it in its full truths.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, in Deuteronomy, real prophet Moses said to his fellow Hebrews:
"The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like myself, from among your own brethren; to Him, to every word of His, you must listen." (Deut.18.15)
Listen to Him...??! First they bashed Him. Then they crucified Him!!! And finally they bribed a couple of Roman soldiers to lie, to say that Jesus did not resurrect from the dead.
The Jews wanted a military commander who would conquer the world for them for their bodies, not someone who would help them conquer Heaven for their souls.
There are of course many other quotes in the Old Testament of the Bible, from Hebrew real prophets themselves, that point to Jesus Christ being the Messiah of the Lord.
Pursuant to the Gospel that Jesus dictated to Maria Valtorta, Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, Infinite Mercy, Perfect, Infinite, Almighty, says to us:
"I am God and I am your Servant, and I stay here [on the Cross] waiting for each of you to say to Me: 'I hunger' in order to give Myself - Bread - to you. I am God and I expose Myself to your eyes, naked and cursed, on a piece of wood [Cross] that was an infamous gibbet. I am God and I implore you to love My Heart. I implore you. For love of you: because if you love you do yourselves good. I am God. With or without your love I am always God. But you, no. Without My Love you are nothing: dust."
[Jesus Bread = Jesus Eucharist, that nourishes + Jesus' Words, that instruct.]
In order to understand the Easter story better, we have to start a little before Good Friday, the day when Jesus was murdered at the behest and rabid insistence of the Jews then in Jerusalem, Judah. Nearly all of them are now in the eternal tortures and fires of Hell. The fifth immutable Commandment of God has always stood firm, the one given to real prophet Moses: "Thou shalt not kill." That divine Command is pretty clear, simple, and unambiguous. Killing is forbidden, including suicide.
At the time of Jesus' three years' evangelisation on earth, circa the end of the second year or early in the third, Jesus went to Kedesh, which was then a Levitical town, and a city of refuge in the nature as specified in the Old Testament of the Bible. There, inside the crowded synagogue, at the end of Jesus' sermon, the usual hissing snakes, the scribes and pharisees, a mob of them, said that they would believe in Him as being the Messiah and the Son of God if He were to recompose and revive an already decomposed body, saying further that only God could create a living body from mud. And then they went further again, additionally wanting a further proof: a sign. Those snakes weren't satisfied with the countless miracles that Jesus had already worked, nor with the beauty and truthfulness of the Doctrine He espoused and propagated: the Gospel. In reality, though, they were merely looking for a loophole, an excuse, any pretext whatsoever in order to discredit Him and what He stood for, to destroy Him.
As we now all know, Lazarus of Bethany, son of Theophilus, was to be the decomposed body to be recomposed and rise again, and that's why Jesus delayed His return to Bethany when Lazarus was dying in pain with holy resignation, without rebelling, rotting and smelling somewhat while yet still alive. And the sign to be given by Jesus was the sign of real prophet Jonah. Those hissing snakes could not possibly know that Jonah was the figure of Jesus' own Death and Resurrection. Jonah was in the belly of a whale for three days and three nights, and then spewed out alive intact on a beach; and then went on to obey the mission ordered by God, to tell the inhabitants of Nineveh to stop sinning and repent, under pain of imminent divine destruction. They duly obeyed, did penance, and so averted destruction. Incidentally, Sodom and Gomorrah, the sinful cities destroyed by God, lie at the bottom of the Dead Sea, never to rise again. The Great Flood that once covered the whole earth came about because man was irreparably sinful with all kinds of sins, especially carnal lust, insatiable in sex, including same-sex sex and sex with animals, otherwise known respectively as homosexuality and bestiality, which are horrid abominations in the eyes of the Lord our God: One and Three. Only Noah and his family, from whom we all descend, 8 men and 8 women, were saved by the ark, together with the selected animals.
When Lazarus was duly recomposed and brought to life after being dead and rotting in the tomb for 4 days, most of the hostile hissing snakes, the scribes and pharisees, became even more hostile and furious, enraged, and so arranged for a special meeting of the Sanhedrin, the then Jewish governing body which was composed mainly of clerics and of some elders, under the head of the then High Priest, the Pontiff, Caiaphas, for the purpose of killing, not only Jesus, but Lazarus as well as he was living proof of Jesus' divinity. So the Sanhedrin issued a warrant for the arrest of Jesus, and He thus became the Legally Persecuted One, and so had to flee to, and seek sanctuary in, Ephraim in then Samaria. His apostles accompanied Him. At the time, Samaria and Judah, both part of Palestine, shared little love for each other. Jesus' Mother, Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, naturally became even more distressed when She learned of His flight to Ephraim. She was already distressed by the hate and hostility of the then Jewish upper classes for Her divine Son, Jesus.
Jesus' final period of evangelisation, therefore, commenced from Ephraim and ended with His Death on the Cross on the mount of Golgotha, Jerusalem: the "Jerusalem, Jerusalem still murdering the prophets." On this particular journey, Jesus was accompanied by His sorrowful Mother, Virgin Mary, who knew that much pain and suffering were soon coming to Her and to Her beloved Son, and knew that from the Annunciation. Also with Jesus were His twelve apostles and other disciples, including, by now, well-converted holy Mary Magdalene and her holy sister Martha - the sisters of holy Lazarus, the man raised previously from the dead. Mary Magdalene, Mary of Magdala, the sinful woman at the banquet of Simon the pharisee, and the woman who poured oil over Jesus' Head in Lazarus' house (Simon's house), are all the same one woman: Mary Magdalene, a divorcee and a rather beautiful young woman with long blond hair down to her knees. Sometime after the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven, she went on to live, to expiate her forgiven many sins, as a hermitess and a holy penitent in the mountains somewhere, doing penance, after having disposed of all her wealth, and thereby becoming a great saint of the Catholic Church, the jewel of Redemption. Jesus, our gentle and adorable Lord our God, always forgives the sins of a truly repentant sinner, except sins against the Holy Spirit. The key words here are... "truly repentant." There cannot be any asked-for pardon without genuine repentance. God can never be fooled, though some may fool themselves into thinking or acting so. Woe to those who do evil using His Holy Name, God.
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| The mystic Maria Valtorta, affectionately known as the "Pen of Jesus" |
So Jesus made his final journey from Ephraim to Jerusalem and preached along the way, until he arrived in Jerusalem about a week before Good Friday, and preached there. Although the warrant for the arrest of Jesus was still in force, the Sanhedrin was afraid to move against Jesus and arrest Him in public for fear of the multitude that still lauded Him for the time being. That's why He was finally arrested at night on Holy Thursday when He had only His apostles with Him in Gethsemane (mount of olives) where He could easily be arraigned. Judas Iscariot had previously left the Last Supper room alone, went to the leaders of the Sanhedrin, and informed them that Jesus could easily be arrested at Gethsemane, and so led them there for that purpose and for the money he was given. The so-called "soldiers" who arrested Jesus were mostly disguised bandits in the pay of the Sanhedrin, then headed by the High Priest, Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas. Judas was by now a long confirmed demon.
Almost immediately after Judas Iscariot had kissed Jesus' Face - the infamous betrayal with a kiss - Judas succumbed to satanic delirium [derangement], in the course of which, among other things, he was bitten on the right cheek of his face by a "dog," corresponding exactly where he had previously kissed Jesus' Face. That same "dog" also attacked Judas, and seemed to have been Satan himself in that form. Maria Valtorta said that the vision of Judas' satanic delirium was dreadful to see, and she hoped to be able to forget it quickly. And it's rather dreadful indeed; and so I will not mention anything else about it.
Judas Iscariot, Jesus' apostle and friend, whom Jesus loved the most among all His apostles, is currently in the tortures and fires of Hell for all eternity as the greatest sinner, additionally belching blood and inhaling blood because he betrayed the Blood of a God. What is perplexing, at least to me, is that Jesus once did severe penance for Judas Iscariot and He even asked His other eleven apostles to pray for him, but, further perplexingly, always knowing as God what Judas' final ending was to be. Maybe Jesus wanted to demonstrate to the Father that He, Jesus, had done all things possible in order to bring Judas to justice [to holiness]. Jesus additionally says that we ourselves make our own ending or destiny. For example, we know precisely what we each did yesterday of our own free will. It's just that Jesus has known from eternity that that would happen to each of us on that day. And He knows from eternity all the other days' happenings, seen and unseen, of every man... even his thoughts. So destiny or fate are really sham concepts, rather useless, but very useful to philosophers and religious theorists to help them while away the hours. The Jewish Essenes, very austere type monks, at the time when they existed, also had similar erroneous views. A belief in those views implicitly cast the true only God as being unjust, and of course the true only God, the God of the Bible, One and Three, can never ever be unjust as He is love. Sometimes, however, that love can be severe, "tough love," as when He dealt with Pharaoh in Egypt in ancient times in relation to the killing of all the first-born there. It was severe love, but still love, as the first-born were spared sinning like their fathers, and those fathers given time to repent of their sins. It was only after Pharaoh had lost his army in the Red Sea pursuing the Hebrews, that that loss finally convinced him absolutely that the God of the then Hebrews, of the Old Testament of the Bible, was the only true God, One and Three, and that there was no other god outside of Him; then, as still now, as in the future, for all eternity. False gods still abound, though, that men have fashioned for themselves to suit their tastes and Satan's. And how observant and reverential some people are in adoring those false gods!! And here's the proof: not even one of those false gods has ever performed a miracle. Never, ever! And not even one of their followers has ever remained incorrupt after earthly death. They all putrefied. The Catholic Church has many followers of Jesus Christ, many Christians, who have remained incorrupt after earthly death, which Jesus has explained is the separation of the soul from the body.
For the betrayal of his Master, Jesus, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God, Judas Iscariot received 30 pieces of silver, which amount was the market price for an ordinary lamb during the then Jewish Passover festivities. Judas had wanted more money for his betrayal of Jesus, but some members of the Sanhedrin, in cynical 'ha, ha, ha, ha' laughing response, wanted to comply faithfully with the Scriptures, with what the Hebrew prophets had said, and so were determined to pay no more than what was specified: 30 silver pieces. They knew absolutely well, and admitted it explicitly, that Jesus was the Expected One, the Messiah, but rejected Him simply because they feared losing their cushy jobs by the Doctrine, by the Gospel being propagated by Jesus. To no avail: their magnificent Temple in Jerusalem was later destroyed, the Jews dispersed, they were supplanted by Christianity, and the centre of the knowledge of the true only God transferred from Jerusalem to Rome, among the very people they then vehemently hated the most: their rulers, the Romans [Luke 20.14-18]. The then Jews openly detested the Romans. But Jesus had advised the then Jews to be kind to the Romans, as they, the Romans, would in turn have become kind and protective of them. Jesus condemned violence in no uncertain terms. [Rome has always been called Roma in Latin and in Italian.]
When Jesus was finally arrested on holy Thursday night, He subsequently underwent sham trials, unfair trials, corrupt trials, in the extreme: before the Jewish Sanhedrin that was drunk with hate for Jesus and wanted Him dead at all costs; before lecherous king Herod who tried to amuse himself and his court by attempting to incite Jesus to carnal lust; and before procurator Pontius Pilate who was bored, indifferent, and seemed to view the affairs of the then Jews as an irritation. Pilate told them explicitly that Jesus was not guilty, but they did not want that: they wanted Jesus dead... dead, dead. [On a previous occasion, Pilate had called the then members of the Sanhedrin... "masters of falsehood."]
Now Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of all then Palestine (Judaea). But Pilate was weak, as he seemed to have gotten the job possibly through the obvious connections of his wife, Claudia, who was part of the then powerful Roman family, the Claudi.
Before Pilate assumed control of Palestine, of which Judah was part, he changed most of the Roman garrison there, due principally to a recent Jewish tumult, and seemingly appointed battle-hardened no-nonsense Roman centurion, Longinus, as its commander or to a senior post. You didn't mess with Longinus. So Pilate was not going to tolerate tumults. When he was in Jerusalem, his residence and offices were in the Tower of Antonia, a fortress. It has been unclear to me whether it was just inside the walls of the then Jewish Temple, or just outside.
So Pilate, at the insistence of the then howling Jews in Jerusalem before the Antonia fortress, initially balked at ordering that Jesus be crucified as repeatedly demanded by them. "Crucify Him!' they roared, again and again. But Pilate instead had Jesus initially scourged, hoping that that alone would have sufficed and satisfied and quietened down the then rabid multitude, and thus obviate the need for a crucifixion, as he did not really want to order it, and additionally was urged by his wife Claudia not to do so. She, together with some of her Roman lady friends in her circle, was by this time nearly fully converted to Jesus, to Christianity. Claudia in fact provided some of the spices that Mary Magdalene was going to use on early Easter Sunday morning, as both knew one another and appeared to be friends.
After having Jesus scourged, Pilate finally bowed, cowed to the insistent demands of the then Jews and ordered that Jesus be crucified. Pilate knew well it was patently unjust, absolutely wrong, having already previously pronounced that Jesus was not guilty, but ordered it just the same. Ha, sure, Pilate washed his hands visibly in public in an attempt to exculpate himself from the dastardly deed. But not so! Pilate's consent to obey the demands of the then roaring mob and his order to crucify Jesus were condemnable, as he thus became an accomplice of the then Jews' evil:the Crime. There was absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever, not even the slightest, that could possibly have justified killing innocent Jesus, let alone to do it by cruel inhumane crucifixion. Pilate was part of the greatest military machine that ever existed, at the height of Rome's power and domination, and so he had the power and the means and the authority to refuse the demands for the unjust crucifixion of Jesus, by teaching the then recalcitrant Jews a lesson in obedience to the rule of Rome. Instead, Pilate chose the easy way out, as he was probably keen to return to his comforts. Some time much later, Pilate suffered some detriment, which has not been specified. But he was punished by God. Jesus says in His discourse on Temptation: "One can be tempted without one's consent thereto. One becomes a sinner only by one's consent." In essence, we are tempted without our consent, but we sin with our consent. Even Jesus was tempted, variously, no different from the various temptations we ourselves face daily, including that temptation. He never consented to sin, nor ever sinned... never!
When Jesus duly arrived at the Golgotha mount, on a hot day, He was crucified with three big nails: one through each Hand with one near His Wrist, and the third one through his crossed Feet. He had already lost a lot of weight through loss of Blood, and loss of Water through perspiration. It was a hot day. The Cross was the cross He carried, and it was properly mortised. A real cross, not the abominable misrepresentations we see today in order to mask that horror. Roman centurion Longinus kept a clear space of some metres around the actual Crucifixion site in order to keep the then maddened Jews well away, and so let no one near except Virgin Mary and St John, who at the time was probably about 20-22 years old. That exception was a mercy of Longinus, who had previously promised Jesus at the outset that he would not make Him suffer more than what was necessary. A hardened warrior that he was, and previously accustomed to slaughters in battle fields, I doubt he was able to stop his eyes from welling with tears later on. He was tough, sure, but not callous. It was he who forced the reluctant strong man from Cyrene to go and help Jesus when He collapsed exhausted on the road in a heap, amid Cross, ropes, and board. When the Cyrenean initially refused to obey Longinus' order, attempting to trifle with him, Longinus then gave the man two choices: to either go and help Jesus as ordered, or get 10 lashes and have his donkey confiscated. The man then obeyed the order. It seems that the Romans always gave a warning before inflicting punishment on recalcitrants.
Reading Maria Valtorta narratives of Jesus' scourging, Way of the Cross, and Crucifixion, is heart rending and it's impossible not to shed a tear or two or three or more on reading those narratives, on how man can be so mean, cruel, and satanic, for Jesus said: "He who is without charity is a brute and a demon."
Jesus, therefore died on the Cross at 3.00 PM on Good Friday, due mainly as a result of the extreme pain He suffered from the beatings, the scourging, and from the nails and crucifixion, which pain then additionally engendered tetanus that resulted in still further accompanying pains. The earth responded to Jesus' Death with a frightening rumble, an apocalyptic groan, bemoaning the murder of its Creator: with a more darkening of the clouds, with a cyclonic tornado, with many streaks of lightening, and with earthquakes. Many Jews were hit by the lightening bolts, or swallowed up in the fissures that opened in the ground. Golgotha was mayhem, with the Jews maddened in terror and panic. The Roman soldiers, still disciplined, made do the best they could, though tossed about as well. Even dwellings in Jerusalem proper caught fire.
By an "eternal decree," but unbeknown to Longinus at the time, it was to be he who in due course had to pierce Jesus' Heart with a lance. Longinus, a Roman warrior who must surely have seen much blood and gore in battles, in an act he perceived in his Roman way of thinking as being only an act of human dignity and mercy, did in fact pierce Jesus' Heart, while Virgin Mary was temporarily not looking at Jesus, saying as he did so: "It is done my friend. Better so. As for a knight. And without fracturing bones... He was really a Just Man!" You see, the then Jews convinced (or bribed) Pilate to order breaking the legs of Jesus and of the two thieves who were crucified alongside Him, so that they would already be dead before the morrow, the Passover Sabbath for the then Jews.
The Legs of Jesus were therefore not broken. The repentant thief's name was Disma. Jesus, Infinite Mercy, would also have forgiven even His traitor, Judas Iscariot, had he repented and sought forgiveness from Him. But Judas refused, despite being presented with three opportunities to do so, including one opportunity where he was lovingly urged to do so by Jesus' own Mother, Virgin Mary, and She did so in a voice so imploringly that it should have converted even the most hardened demon. Instead, Judas ran away... to hang himself. His own mother, yes, Judas had a mother, hard to believe, Mary of Simon, a widow, a holy woman and a disciple of Jesus, broke down completely when she came to learn of her son's betrayal of Jesus. But Jesus had already arranged, well beforehand, for her to be cared for by a close friend of hers who was told that that betrayal was to transpire and additionally was told not to reveal it to Judas' mother before it actually happened. Mary of Simon was one of those whom Jesus appeared and spoke to after His Resurrection, to comfort her still ongoing grief. She was still inconsolable.
Judas Iscariot, an only child and heir to his family's property, was already somewhat of a scoundrel, incorrigible, and seemingly a debauchee, when he originally joined Jesus, though discouraged by Him, because he saw His power in action and hoped to be a "minister" in His "Administration" that he thought would soon realise the then Jews' ongoing dream of world domination. Judas even had the audacity to go to a "daughter of Rome," to Pilate's own wife, Claudia, as she was thought to have the greater power, and to demand the release of Palestine from Roman occupation and rule... demanded a lessening of world domination from the ruling Romans...? from those who thought that they alone were born to rule and dominate the world...? If it weren't so serious it would be hilarious. Judas was obviously blinded by his temporal ambitions! The quest for "world domination" is an "infectious disease" that can never be eradicated from the face of the earth. Throughout history, there's always been a joker wanting to be the "top dog" of the world. The Romans used the eagle as their standard or symbol of power and domination, something that has been copied and adopted by some countries around the world, including Indonesia, Germany, and the United States. The eagle has such powerful eyesight that, from its lofty height, it can distinguish small objects on the ground, and so is able to select and devour its chosen prey. Who has not copied from the Romans? Even the Scots' bagpipes and kilts were copied from them.
When Judas finally realised that Jesus was not going to establish a temporal power, an "Administration," and the burden of appearing good became much too heavy for Judas to bear, Judas switched sides in secret and joined the camp of the Sanhedrin, which welcomed him with open arms and promised him money, power, honour, and glory, which he craved oh so badly, so badly. Ahhhhh... it promised, not gave him! Unbeknown to him, he too was placed on its hit list, to be killed after Jesus' Death to silence him, to stop him from disclosing the Sanhedrin's cabal. Judas' suicide made his murder by the Sanhedrin obviously unnecessary.
Jesus was already dead when Longinus pierced His Heart with a lance, as Blood and Water trickled down His Chest. Had Jesus been alive then, the Blood and Water would have spurted out from a pulsating Heart.
Had Jesus not been killed, He would have brought peace throughout the world. The Blood He shed from His circumcision would have sufficed for Redemption.
Jesus' dead Body was taken off the Cross by St John, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea. Virgin Mary and the women disciples stood by (by a special grace, otherwise those women disciples would previously have fled as well). When Jesus' Body was finally pried off the Cross, Virgin Mary was waiting at the foot of the Cross to receive It, and placed the Body on Her lap in the manner as depicted famously by Michelangelo's masterpiece statue, "La Pietà." [La Pietà - Italian for "The Pity"]. Mary removed the crown of thorns from the Head, stinging Herself doing so, and then attempted to tidy up the lifeless Body of Her dead Son, and clean the Body with Her many tears and with the end of Her veil that was around the loins of the Body. Mary's deep, very deep distress was heart rending. She reluctantly let go of the Body of Jesus from Her lap, It was placed in a shroud and carried to a plot of ground nearby owned by Joseph of Arimathea, and placed on a slab-stone-table in the rock tomb there. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea then faithfully cleansed the Body of all the filth, including animal excrement, that was still stuck on It, that was thrown at Jesus by the then Jews as He wearily carried the Cross, and then applied spices on the Body in accordance with the Jewish traditions at the time. They then wrapped the Body in another clean shroud [Shroud of Turin], closed the tomb entrance by rolling the rock door over it, and then they all returned to the house of the Last Supper room, the property of Lazarus or of his sister, Mary Magdalene. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea soon left, and John and the rest remained, with Virgin Mary going to Her separate room and commenced to pray there alone, oh so sorrowfully: Our Lady of Sorrows.
The Virgin Mary was the only one who retained belief that Her Son would rise from the dead. She also made the perplexing statement that, had She not believed in the Resurrection of Her Son then, Redemption would have been nullified. This was not explained and therefore remains a mystery, like the countless other mysteries that concern the true only God, One and Three. God sometimes does not allow man to know or understand certain things. Those who want more than what God gives, Jesus has warned, repeat the imprudence and the errors of primogenitor Eve who, simply as a curiosity, went to the "apple-tree" of test to see what was so special about it, but instead found the Unknown One there, Satan disguised as an alluring jewel, as a serpent coiled around the tree, and led into sin. Yes, Adam and Eve also had sex under that tree ("to create like God, to be like God"), and sins of the flesh are the royal road to Hell. Satan gets many converts to come his way by showing them the allure and beauty of that road, but not, obviously, Hell sitting at the end of it, otherwise few would use it. Satan's not a dummy, eh? He's smart. He deftly mixes truths with lies and thereby gains countless converts. He still has the high intelligence he once had when he was magnificent Lucifer, till he got too smart by half, wanted to supplant his Boss, but instead got the boot... into Hell. So Satan's many converts take that royal road and, before they realise it, they soon walk off its edge and... drop into the Abyss, to remain down there forever. Satan also gets many of his faithful followers to say that neither he nor Hell exists, in order to deceive people into thinking and believing that sinning has no accompanying punishments, and so gets them to sin with abandon. Many people don't perceive or feel the existence of Satan, and that's because they and he have merged into one unit, and of course it's therefore patently understandable that they can't see or perceive him outside of that unit.
According to Jesus, among Satan's other sufferings, Satan burns with desire, with remorse, with nostalgia for what he has lost, suffering not only for not being an angel, but also for not being the head of the angels, then inferior in splendour only to God. Another of Satan's punishments, his thirst to be adored, is unbearable to him. At Jesus' agony in the "garden" of Gethsemane, where Satan tormented Jesus so cruelly and mercilessly that Jesus sweat Blood, Satan even asked Jesus to change him into a man. Satan is Deceiver, Liar, among all his other countless evil titles. Never believe him. At the time of their rebellion, Satan and all the other fallen angels failed the test to adore God by refusing to do so - obviously a sin against the Holy Spirit: "denying the known Truth." During his rebellion, Satan even taunted Jesus, saying to Him that if He didn't want a rival then He should not have created him, Satan, so powerful... the created taunting the uncreated. Satan is a name and an acronym for all things evil, ascribed by God to Lucifer after his fall.
On Holy Saturday, Longinus, visiting Virgin Mary in his civilian clothes in order to give Her the spear-head (still Blood stained) that he used to open the Heart of Her Son, that She had requested through Joseph of Arimathea, said to Her that the whole matter of the Crucifixion was a "terrible thing," inferring that all the blood and gore battles he had once been involved with were mere trifles in comparison, and praised the heroism of Her Son, and regretted not having had the opportunity to know about His Doctrine while He was still alive and so thought that everything was now all finished with His Death. But She responded by introducing him to some of Jesus' apostles who were then present (only Peter and John), as being His continuators and invited him to be part of the Church. Before leaving, Longinus, who was accompanied by a soldier also in civilian clothes, said to Mary: "I will come. A religion that has as its head such a Hero can be but divine. Ave, Domina!" [Ave Domina - Latin for "Hail She-Lord" or "Hail Lady"]. Longinus, together with the same or another Roman soldier and some of Claudia's Roman lady friends, went on later to be present at the first or a Mass celebrated by St Peter. Longinus was therefore converted to Christianity, as well as the soldier who accompanied him. The Roman ladies were already so. Longinus went on to become a saint.
Golgotha was the first Mass, the first sacrifice of the Mass. The Blood of Christ was indeed materially mixed with actual Water: with the tears of Jesus' own Mother, Virgin Mary. The cloth around the loins of Jesus on the Cross was Her tears-soaked veil. The decree of the Father, and known to Mary, was that She had to be there to celebrate the first Mass, however so painful. She obeyed, as She always obeyed throughout Her whole life, the will of God, and it was that absolute obedience to the Will of God that made Her great, not solely because She was the Mother of God, although that too. And the sacrifice was offered by the then howling or silent demons there: by men who were really under demonic possession. Demonic possession can be either loud or silent. People generally know about the former, but mostly not about the latter kind: silent demonic possession, and it still exists today, albeit not known. Jesus says to leave the mystery, of this first Mass being offered by demons, to God... as a mystery.
Jesus resurrected by His own Power in the very early morning of Sunday, Easter Sunday, and soon appeared in His glorified Body and glorified Stigmata to His still sorrowful Mother who was then alone in Her room on Her knees, praying. On hearing a sound and turning around on Her knees and seeing glorified resplendent Jesus, She humbly said: "Lord My God." But He replied:"Mother!" as Jesus still viewed Her to be His most sweet Mother (and ours), who then sprang up to Her feet in joy and rushed to embrace and kiss Her Son and His glorified Stigmata countless times. She could see and touch Jesus' glorified Body because She was absolute Purity and without sin, without even the lightest. Jesus says to us about His most sweet Mother and ours: "Who seeks Mary finds Jesus. Listen to Her word, it is the same as Mine only made sweeter." Longinus was obviously one of the few lucky ones to savour that sweetness. Just as Mary brought forward the coming of the Messiah by Her prayers, so too did She bring forward the Resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus, by Her prayers. She would have died through deep sorrow had Jesus not resurrected when He did. She's the only One who can stop the punishing decrees of the Eternal Father, not because She has great or greater powers, but because the Holy Trinity will never refuse a request from their Flower. By Her absolute Purity, by Her absolute Obedience, and by Her absolute Humility, She nullified the sins of primogenitor Eve who did the opposite. And Jesus nullified the sins of primogenitor Adam. But it was imprudent and careless Eve, though highly intelligent and full of knowledge, who first rebelled and sinned and, thereby enrolling in the service of Satan, led Adam to rebel and sin, and so bore the greater condemnation when they were both kicked out of the wonderful Garden of Eden, which was then sited around Engedi, next to the now Dead Sea, about 10 miles north of Masada. Jesus says that we must not succumb to pride, as Eve did by going to the forbidden tree: the pride of believing that we can place ourselves in situations of sinning and concurrently believe that we will be strong enough not to do so. Pride invariably precedes the fall.
Jesus then showed Himself to Mary Magdalene, the first of His disciples and apostles to see Him resurrected. It is unclear whether He showed himself to her in the form of Jesus of Nazareth or in His glorified Body. But it's more likely in the former. And then in due course He appeared to many others, many concurrently: multi-location. Altogether about 500 persons or more saw, or spoke with, Jesus after His Resurrection.
It would be too long a task to give further particulars about Jesus' Way of the Cross and His Crucifixion, but I can give some particulars about His scourging, as the narrative is relatively short, and the material evidence of it is impressed on the Shroud of Turin, the real burial cloth of Jesus, though hotly disputed by some captious [fault-finding] disbelievers: today's pharisees! There's always a tribe of them around, always disputing or disparaging the truths. The journal of the Messenger of St Anthony once commissioned a team of scientists to examine the Shroud, and they found that the Shroud indicated many lashing marks with ending hammer blows. These are obviously consistent with the scourging of Jesus as narrated by Maria Valtorta below.
The so-called "scientific" study (Carbon-14 dating) which was putatively done on the Shroud in 1988 by so-called "experts" was totally and fatally flawed. Careless! Hopeless! The sample of cloth which they got putatively cut out of the Shroud, was instead cut from an attached patch added to the corner of the Shroud many centuries in the past. So while the Carbon-14 dating was indeed correct, it was not done on the Shroud proper, but on a later-day patch added thereto by a master of invisible repairs. Wrong airport.
Below, Maria Valtorta narrates the flogging of Jesus, Who was already previously bashed up by the then Jews. Note carefully that the lashing marks on the Body of Jesus in the Shroud, are fully consistent with Valtorta's description of the flogging of Jesus, hereunder:
"Jesus is led by four [Roman] soldiers to the court-yard beyond the hall [where Pontius Pilate was]." In the middle of that court-yard, which is all paved with coloured marbles, there is a high column like the one in the porch. At about three metres from the floor it has an iron bar protruding at least a metre and ending with a ring, to which Jesus is tied, with His hands joined above His head, after He has been undressed. He has on only short linen drawers [underpants] and sandals. His hands tied at His wrists are raised up as far as the ring, so that, although tall, He rests only the tips of His toes on the floor... And even that position is a torture.
"Behind Him stands one who looks like an executioner, with a clear Jewish profile; in front of Him, another man, looking like the previous one. They are armed with scourges, made of seven leather strips tied to a handle and ending with small lead hammers. They begin to strike Him rhythmically, as if they were practising. One in front and one behind, so that Jesus' trunk is in a whirl of lashes and scourges. The four soldiers, to whom He has been handed, are indifferent and are playing dice with other three soldiers who have just arrived. And the voices of the players follow the rhythm of the sound of the scourges, which hiss like snakes and then resound like stones striking the stretched skin of a drum. They beat the poor body [of Jesus], which is so slender and as white as old ivory, and then becomes covered with stripes that at first are a brighter and brighter pink shade, then violet, then it displays blue swellings full of blood, then the skin breaks letting blood flow from all sides. They redouble their cruelty on His thorax and abdomen, but there are no shortage of blows given to His legs, arms and even to His head, so that no fragment of His skin may be left without pain.
"And not a moan [from Jesus]... If He were not held up by the rope, He would fall. But He does not fall and does not groan. Only His head hangs over His chest, after so many blows, as if he had fainted.
" 'Hey! Stop! He must be alive when He is killed,' shouts a soldier scoffingly.
"The two executioners stop and wipe their perspiration.
" 'We are exhausted,' they say. 'Give us our pay, so that we may have a refreshing drink...'
" 'I would give you the gallows! But here you are...' And a decurian [Roman officer] throws a large coin to each executioner."
Those soldiers then pressed down, after a few failed attempts, a crown of thorns on Jesus' Head - seemingly not ordered by Pilate - made up of branches of wild hawthorn that had long hard thorns.
The late Dr. Nicholas Pende, Italian physician and world renowned endocrinologist, who especially marvelled at Maria Valtorta's adroit narration of Christ's Crucifixion, said:
"As a physician, the greatest admiration and astonishment was aroused in me for the skill with which [Maria] Valtorta describes a phenomenon [Christ's Crucifixion] that only a few consummate physicians would have known how to explain. It is the scene of Jesus' agony on the Cross: the spasms of pain, the most atrocious suffering of the Redeemer [Jesus] from the wounds of His head, of His hands and feet supporting, in those punctures, the weight of His body. In Valtorta's account, these [sufferings]provoke rigid contractions of the whole body - tetanus-like stiffening of the trunk and limbs - which do not cloud the consciousness or the will of the Dying Man [Jesus], even though they are the expressions of the greatest physical pain, produced by the greatest of tortures. The whole phenomenal progression of the agony of Jesus, as described in this Work [Poem of the Man-God - the Writings of Maria Valtorta], shows that it had been the immense pain of His body which had stopped the breathing and heart of the Son of Man [Jesus]. The greatest pity and emotion invade the Christian reader on reading in Maria Valtorta's manuscript, this astonishing page, written in a truly medical style.
[Valtorta was not a physician. God, One and Three, had given her the ability to write well as she was to write the Gospel dictated by Jesus in Italian to her. Though highly proficient herself in Italian literature, she marvelled at the literary high standard of Jesus' dictations in Italian, as also did Blessed Gabriele Allegra (who translated the Bible in Chinese). Of course, it must be remembered that Jesus merely spoke in the language, Italian, that He Himself had once created. The English translations, though excellent and convey what they are supposed to convey, do not fully compare in literacy to the original Italian.]
Pursuant to the Gospel according to Christ as dictated by Him to Italian mystic, Maria Valtorta, Jesus Himself explains how His Shroud of Turin came into being, as follows:
"You [men] have seen the crown of bruises round My kidneys. Your scientists, to give proof to your incredulity with regard to that evidence of My suffering, which is the Shroud, explain how the blood, the cadaveric perspiration and the urea of an overfatigued body, when mixed with the spices [applied to His Body upon burial pursuant to then Jewish traditions], can have produced that natural drawing of My dead tortured Body.
"It would be better to believe without the need of so many proofs to believe. It would be better to say: 'That is the Work of God' and bless God, Who has granted you an indisputable proof of My Crucifixion and of the tortures preceding it!
"But as now you are no longer able to believe with the simplicity of children, but you need scientific proofs - how poor is your faith, that without the support and the spur of science cannot stand up straight and walk - you must know that the cruel bruises of My kidneys have been the most powerful chemical agent in the miracle of the Shroud. My kidneys, almost crushed by the scourges, were no longer able to work. Like those burnt by fire, they were unable to filter, and urea accumulated and spread in My Blood, in My Body, bringing about the suffering of uraemic intoxication and the reagent that oozed out of My corpse and fixed the impression on the cloth [Shroud]. But any doctor among you, or anyone suffering from uraemia, will realise what sufferings the uraemic toxins caused to Me, as they were so plentiful as to produce an indelible impression."
"The veil of Veronica [that has the image of the Face of Christ on the Way of the Cross] is also a goad [a sting] to your sceptical souls. Since you, O rationalists, O tepid people vacillating in your faith, proceed through arid examinations, compare the face of the Veronica with that of the Holy Shroud. One is the Face of a living person, the other of a dead one. But length, width, somatic types, form, distinctive features, are identical. Superimpose the images. You will see that they correspond. It is I. I Who wanted to remind you how I was and how I had become out of love for you. If you had not gone astray, if you were not blind, those two Faces should be enough to bring you to love, to repentance, to God."
The killers of Jesus Christ were punished by God. Except for a very, very few, the rest of the then Jerusalem Jews who killed Jesus in 33 A.D. [A.D. - Anno Domini - Latin for "Year of the Lord"] are now in Hell; and their magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, of which they were so fiercely proud, destroyed in 70 A.D. via the hands of the Romans, never to rise again.
Jerusalem was also reduced to ruins and, depending on which authority one uses, a flexible estimate is that, in all the revolt areas in Palestine, altogether about 1,000,000 Jews were killed and about 90,000 -250,000 of them enslaved. Israel as a nation therefore ceased to exist, and the Jews' persecution of Christians finally spent. Masada, a wicked fortress town in the time of Jesus, also suffered a terrible end, and perhaps an even more atrocious beginning in the afterlife. Its inhabitants, stiff-necked, rebellious, cocky, an ant having delusions of superiority, of being able to overpower an elephant that was then the mighty Roman military machine, rather than submitting to the rule of Rome, instead essentially committed suicide, by freely consenting to kill one another. A handful refused, hid in the water cisterns, and lived to tell the tale when the Romans finally took the fortress. Some years prior to this, circa 32 A.D., in one of His then journeys of evangelisation, Jesus and His twelve apostle went to Masada, but its inhabitants menacingly drove them all out of the town. Jesus and His apostles had to flee fast, running and fearing for their lives. So maybe Masada could actually have undergone Justice.
Today's geographical Israel, in which the occasional suppressed bubbles of anti-Christianity surface from time to time, including the outrageous, disgraceful, ongoing anti-Catholic Christian slurs by the Jewish Yad Vashem museum, seems strong and invincible today, having a vast array of hundreds of nuclear missiles and of other lethal weapons, but it will fall again, for it carries the curse of God the Father for the Jews of 33 A.D. having killed His Son, whom they did not want nor guard that Gift. The Father is still waiting for the Jews’ crying repentance so that He may forgive them. Israel, meaning the Jews, will be the last to acknowledge Jesus as God and the Messiah, but then it will be too late as it will then be the end of the world, followed some time after that by the resurrection of the dead, and thence by the Last Judgement by Jesus Christ the Judge, Who will then have a face different to what people like to believe He will have: the Face of theJudge, not of the sacrificed meek Lamb of 33 A.D. when He was bashed, lashed, and then nailed and murdered on a Cross. After the Last Judgement, only two abodes will remain... eternally:Heaven and Hell.
Despite what the Jews of 33 A.D. did to Jesus Christ, Christians generally do not hate the Jews. Jesus taught us to love one another, even our own enemies. The Gospel of Jesus is one of love, not hate, and hate is censured by Jesus, as it's a cognate of Hate, that is Satan. Love and Hate cannot co-exist. Where Satan is present, God is absent. And, if one looks carefully around the world today, it will be immediately apparent where Satan is present and God is absent. War is hate!!!
Jesus says that the antidote to the Jews' predicament is found along the same lines as carried out by their murderous ancestors: the Body and Blood of Christ, meaning converting to (Catholic) Christianity and then eating the Body of Christ and drinking His Blood, meaning of course taking Holy Communion: the consecrated Host and the consecrated Wine, but only after Confession and in consequence of being admitted to the Catholic faith - as a free willing choice, without coercion or ill intent. Of course, the consecrated Host, the Eucharist, is the real Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ under the appearance of a piece of bread, and the consecrated Wine is the real Blood of Jesus Christ under the appearance of wine: the miracles of every day, of every hour, of every minute, in the Catholic churches throughout the world. Woe to those who profane the consecrated Host, the Eucharist, and the consecrated Wine! Woe to those who touch the Eucharist, the Body of God, with profaned hands or with hands polluted by carnal lust, by sex of any kind.
It must always be remembered that Jesus Christ is true God and true Man, and that nothing whatsoever is impossible to Him. When the Father asked Jesus to become a Man in order to redeem and save man, Jesus at no time ceased being the Son of God, even when He was being formed in the Womb of His human Mother, Virgin Mary. So obviously when He died on the Cross, He died only in His human nature, but not in His divine nature which lived on. God can never die, as He is eternal, as is also eternal the created soul of every man. The soul is a particle of God. Human death, Jesus says, is the separation of the soul from the body.
Additionally, it must never be forgotten that the true only God is One and Three: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit, three divine Persons, the Most Holy Trinity, yet only one God. Man has not been given the faculties to understand this holy mystery. But those in Heaven understand.
God the Holy Spirit explains the mystery of the Holy Trinity, God, in the following terms:
"There is no other God except Him: God the Father, Creator and Lord of Heaven and Earth, First Person of the most Holy Triad [Trinity] who was generated by no one because He is Eternal, and by Himself, through divine generation, He generated His Word [His Son, Jesus Christ] - through whom all things were made - the Second Person, divine, eternal, immense and perfect, equal in everything to the First [Person, God the Father] in whom He delights, just as the Son delights in the Father who generated Him, giving through this two-fold joy an origin to the Holy Spirit [Third Person] who proceeds from the Father and the Son and who is their same love, the bond which embodies them, the embrace which unites them, the fire who fuses them without creating a confusion of Persons, the peace in whom they tirelessly work and rest together in Love [Holy Spirit], through Love and with Love which proceeds from Them and which is the major attribute and the very essence of God."
[Generation does not mean created.]
Be careful, extremely careful at the outmost, in relation to the above Words of the Holy Spirit, because offending the Holy Spirit is a sin that is never forgiven throughout eternity, and that means going to Hell for the sinner of that particular sin. [(Matthew 12.32) (Mark 3.28-29) (Luke 12.10)]. Jesus has explained that one sins against the Holy Spirit by negating the known Truth, and thatthat sin is more prevalent than what many people may think. So be extremely careful, O you religious theorists! And also you, all you so-called philosophers! Maybe everyone might be better off if you all got yourselves a real job! Eh? Worth a try? Jesus' Doctrine, the Gospel, is not difficult nor convoluted. It's pretty simple: obeying the Decalogue, the immutable Ten Commandments, which He summarised in just 4 words: "Love God, love neighbour." He said that obeying the first 3 Commandments constitutes loving God, and obeying the other 7 Commandments constitutes loving one's neighbour, with the first neighbour to love is our own parents. The 7 Sacraments He instituted, as applicable, fortify man to obey the above Law... to be holy. Sorrow, He said, is the uninstituted 8th Sacrament, and the 9th Beatitude. A discussion on pain, suffering, and sorrow is beyond the scope of this religious article.
Man's purpose on earth is to conquer Heaven: boundless, so there's more than enough room there for everyone. Entrance therein is based solely on merit, not on pedigree, "arrogant right," or other fanciful entitlement such as being part of the "chosen people," whatever that "chosen people" may mean. Entrance is a long, hard, wearisome conquest. And to do so, God has given every man a free will, a length of time, and an easy roadmap to get there: obeying the immutable Ten Commandments, man's "apple-tree" test of obedience, no different in principle to what progenitors Adam and Eve once faced. Jesus says to us, break any of these Ten Commandments and you will lose eternal Life; follow His Counsels (4 Gospels) and you will grow in holiness. The 7 Sacraments, as mentioned above, provide extra strength to be holy.
Jesus also wants us to make an effort to study and know the true only God: obviously the God of the Bible, One and Three, for knowledge of God is love of God, which knowledge gathering is prayer, as is also honest work, except that the former is the "better part" or "best part," as illustrated by Jesus when He refused holy Martha's request to draw away her sister, Mary Magdalene, from His side and to help do the catering, honest work, that was underway to feed Him and all his apostles and disciples who came along with Him. Martha was then honouring Jesus as a "man," as an honoured guest, whereas Mary Magdalene was honouring Him "better" as God, the better or best part. But soon after Jesus went and consoled Martha so that she would not suffer too much from His truthful Words. Martha was always an efficient "manageress," holy, motherly, and greatly loved by Jesus, Who said that she made up for the sweetness He missed from His Mother when He was away from Her.
Martha's sister, Mary Magdalene was Jesus' jewel of Redemption, and the parable of the lost sheep was specifically aimed at her who was then hiding nearby, weeping uncontrollably, bemoaning and genuinely repenting bitterly her life as a public sinner. And both women's brother, Lazarus, was holy and Jesus' best friend. Martha and Mary Magdalene became saints.
Before going to Jerusalem to meet His Death on the Cross, Jesus told Lazarus, who groaned, what was soon to happen to Him there, and told him to remain at his home in Bethany, and to make welcome all His apostles and disciples who would then flee in fear, but come to him seeking solace and sanctuary. Jesus also told Lazarus to forgive them in His name.
Lazarus was known as Lazarus of Bethany as well as Lazarus of Theophilus, and he seems more than highly likely to be the "Theophilus" mentioned by Luke at the beginning of his Gospel and of his Acts of the Apostles, and could have commissioned both Books as seems obviously the case. Lazarus was highly educated, had ample means, loved Jesus greatly, and obviously would have wanted to preserve in writing the memory of his best Friend, Jesus, God... Who brought him back from the dead. In due course Lazarus left Bethany, probably because the Sanhedrin still wanted him dead, and could possibly have gone to live, out of reach of the murderous Sanhedrin, at Antioch (in today's Turkey) where he had a large estate nearby and where Christianity had taken root as a result of the initial seeds of evangelisation planted there by Syntyche and Felix (John of Endor), both of whom were previously run-away slaves taken in and protected by Jesus, and soon converted to Him. The story of both personages, together with the involvement of yet another of Judas Iscariot's many treacheries, is another story beyond the scope of this one herein.
Jesus' continuators, His apostles and their continuators, have propagated His Doctrine, the Gospel, throughout the world. Now (April 2015), after 20 centuries of Christianity, society worldwide today seems just as pagan, if not even more so, as in the time when Jesus walked the earth, but with a very big difference: men now know clearly who Jesus is, know clearly what they are supposed to do, know clearly what they are disobeying, yet still strike Him just the same. Men are not obeying Jesus' Law and His Gospel, and many are striking Him or persecuting Him in His followers.
Jesus, addressing all the persecutors who "shed the blood of the good, whom they persecute because they are good," warns them of the dire consequences, clearly in the afterlife: "... that God will not one day force you to satisfy your hunger and your thirst with the blood you have shed..." Obviously, many persecutors are already doing so in Hell. Life in the eternal tortures and fires of Hell for those culprits who have persecuted Christians must indeed be so atrocious a horror as to be beyond verbal description, that will last for those persecutors throughout all endless eternity... without relief or end.... never ending! Don't go there!
Satan, the god and beloved father of all persecutors, including those who use or abuse or lie to the courts to persecute, is a shrewd "businessman," as he gets a mighty return on his "investment." He gives his followers a temporary pleasure on earth, whatever that pleasure might be, and in return gets their eternity in Hell. Satan is a hideous monster, repulsive, animal-like, both in looks and in action. Satan hates everyone, even his own followers who love him, as he is Hate. He can never love. Tell him to nick off: "Be gone Satan, in the Most Holy Names of Jesus and Mary."
In relation to His second coming, Jesus Christ says:
"Unfortunately, I will come [again]. I say, 'unfortunately' because My coming will be one of Judgement, and tremendous judgement. If I were to come to save you, I would not speak like this and would not seek to put off the times of My coming, but, on the contrary, would anxiously rush to save you still. But My second advent [coming] will be an advent of severe, inexorable, general Judgement, and for most of you it will be a judgement of condemnation [to hell]."
And so, will the Catholic Christian Vatican follow in the steps of its ancient predecessor, the Jewish Sanhedrin, and lose the faith? As already prophesised by Our Lady of La Salette, Virgin Mary? Whose apparitions have already been approved by the Catholic Church herself as being authentic? A Catholic bishop once tried to cast a slur on those apparitions by casting a slur on one of the two seers, Melanie, accusing her of suffering from a mental illness. Instead, that same bishop himself contracted that same mental illness and never recovered from it. Presumably he's now in Hell, for Jesus said: "... who treats him [someone] as a madman, and consequently has harmed him, will be condemned by God."
Never ever offend Jesus' Mother, Virgin Mary, the Flower of the Holy Trinity, who jointly created Her Soul immaculate as an exception.
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The foregoing is pursuant to various sources, including the Bible and mostly the Gospel that Jesus dictated to Maria Valtorta, which Gospel many religious theorists have rejected because It explains, in a clear way, the meanings of the 4 Gospels and many parts of the Old Testament. Those religious theorists, who fancifully call themselves theologians, today's pharisees, don't want their theories overturned by someone whom they seem to view as being an upstart. God will punish them, just as He punished the Jews for rejecting Jesus [Luke 20.14-18]. Who can dictate how Jesus, God, ought to manifest Himself? Or When? Or to whom? Who can presume to give instructions to God? Who is like God?... which is what St Michael the Archangel asked Lucifer [Satan] before thrusting him into Hell. Michael means: Who is like God? I doubt that Satan is the only one in Hell for thinking, believing, and saying he was God. There is no other God outside of the God of the Bible, the God that is One and Three: Perfect, Infinite, Almighty.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
Joseph Costa
This article is one of a trilogy of articles compiled from the writings of Maria Valtorta (1897-1961) by Joseph Costa. The three articles are:
-The Final Judgment of Humanity by Jesus the Judge
Also, for a short biography on the Italian mystic, Maria Valtorta see:
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Excerpts from the Writings of Maria Valtorta cited herein are with permission from the Italian publisher:
Centro Editoriale Valtortiano srl, Viale Piscicelli 89-91, 03036 Isola del Liri (FR), Italy.
http://www.mariavaltorta.com/
email: info@mariavaltorta.com
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