Have you ever wondered what the expression on Jesus’ face looked like during his time on Earth? That is, the countenance of the Son of God, who when He was man, was joined in hypostatic union with the Father?
We catch a glimpse of this most perfect union, shining on the face of the Man-God during his public ministry, through they eyes of Catholic mystic Maria Valtorta.
“… the apostles speak to one another recapitulating and commenting on the latest events, questioning now and again the Master, Who in general speaks very little, just not to be unkind, making such effort only when it is the case of teaching the crowds or His apostles, or correcting wrong ideas, or comforting unhappy people.
Jesus was the “Word,” but He certainly was not a “chatterbox!” As patient and kind as nobody else, He never appeared to be bored when He had to repeat a concept once, twice, ten times, a hundred times to make it enter the heads hardened by pharisaical and rabbinical precepts, neglecting His own tiredness, at times so exhausting as to be painful, in order to relieve the moral or physical suffering of a person. But it is clear that He prefers to be silent, keeping aloof in quiet meditation which may last for many hours, if He is not distracted by someone questioning Him.
He generally walks ahead of His apostles, with His head slightly bent, raising it now and again to look at the sky, the country, people, animals. I said to look. But that is wrong. I must say: to love. Because it is a smile, God’s smile that from His eyes pours forth to caress the world and creatures: a love-smile. Because it is love that shines forth, spreads, blesses and purifies the light of His eyes, which are so bright, most bright, when He comes out of intense concentration.
What are His concentrations like? I think – and I am sure that I am not mistaken, because it is enough to watch His countenance to see what they are – I think that they are much more than our ecstasies in which a human creature already lives in Heaven. They are the “sensible reunion of God with God”.
Divinity is always present and united to the Christ, Who is God like the Father. On the Earth as in Heaven the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father, They love each other and by loving each other They generate the Third Person. The power of the Father is the generation of the Son and the act of generating and being generated creates the Fire, that is, the Spirit of the Spirit of God. The Power turns to the Wisdom Whom It generated and Who turns to the Power in the joy of being One for the Other and of knowing each other for what They are. And since all good reciprocal knowledge creates love – even our imperfect knowledge does – there is the Holy Spirit… There is the One Who, if it were possible to add perfection to divine perfections, ought to be called the Perfection of Perfection. The Holy Spirit! The simple thought of Him fills one with light, joy, peace…
In the ecstasies of the Christ, when the incomprehensible mystery of the Unity and Trinity of God was renewed in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, what complete perfect, bright, sanctifying, joyful, peaceful production of love must have been engendered and must have spread like heat from a blazing furnace, like incense from a burning thurible, to kiss with the kiss of God the things created by the Father, made by means of the Son-Word, made for the Love, for the only Love, because all the operations of God are Love?
And that is the look of the Man-God when as Man and as God He raises His eyes, which have contemplated in Himself the Father, Himself and the Love, to look at the Universe, admiring the creative power of God, as Man; rejoicing, as God, at being able to save it in the royal creatures of such creation: men.
Oh! no one can, no one will ever be able, neither poet, nor artist, nor painter, to make visible to the crowds that look of Jesus, when He comes off the embrace, from the sensible reunion with the Divinity, always united to the Man hypostatically, but not always so deeply sensible to the Man, Who was the Redeemer and Who thus, to His many sorrows, to His many annihilations had to add this one, this very deep grief, of no longer being always able to be in the Father, in the great vortex of the Love, as He was in Heaven: almighty… free… joyful. Wonderful is the power of His look in regard to miracles, most kind is the expression of His eyes as man, very sad the light of sorrow in the hours of grief… But they are still human, although perfect in expression.
This look of God, Who has contemplated and loved Himself in the Triniform Unity is beyond comparison, there is no adjective for it… And the soul prostrates itself before Him, worshipping, having become a mere “nonentity” in the knowledge of God, but blessed in contemplating His infinite love.
The torrents of delight are flowing into my soul… I am blessed! All grief, every memory is made void under the waves of the love of Jesus God… and these waves raise me to Heaven, to Heaven, to You!…
Thanks, my adorable Love!… Thanks!… Now I still serve You… The creature has become a woman again, she is once again the mouthpiece after being for an instant a “seraph.” She is once again a woman, a martyr, perhaps another torment is already behind my back… But the light You gave me is shining in my spirit, the blissful light of contemplating You; neither flood of tears nor cruel tortures will be able to put it out. Thank You, my Blessed One! You alone love me!
I now understand Paul as never before! “Who will be able to separate us from the love of Christ?… We triumph through these trials by the power of Him Who loved us… I am certain that neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, no virtue, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord”. It is the victorious jubilant paean blaring from the groups of the winners, of the lovers, of those saved by love, because this is holiness: salvation received because one has been loved and has loved. It is already blaring! And the spirit, even here, a prisoner on the Earth, hears it and sings its joy, its trust, its certainty… And light, even more light comes, and the luminous words of the Apostle brighten even more, even more… «… the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord”.
Indeed, now I understand the words of Azariah [Maria’s guardian angel], last winter: “Jesus is the compendium of the love of the Three.” Indeed! All Love is in Him. We men can find this love of God without waiting to go back to God, without awaiting Heaven, by loving Jesus. Yes! Springs of living water, sources of light, sources of love open for those who believe, because those who believe go to Jesus, because those who believe, believe that Jesus is in the Eucharist with His Body, Blood, Soul, Divinity, as He was on the Earth, as He is in Heaven, with His Heart, with His Heart! And in Jesus’ Heart there is the love of God. And when a man receives the Most Holy Body of Jesus, he receives in himself the Heart of Jesus. Thus he has in himself not only Jesus, but he has the Love of God, that is, he has God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, because the Love of God is the Most Holy Trinity that is one thing only: Love. The Love that divides into three flames to make us trebly happy. Happy to have a Father, a Brother a Friend. Happy to have who provides, who teaches, who loves. Happy to have God!
Oh! I can no longer bear this!… Lord, Your gift is too great! Who obtains it for me from Heaven? Is it You, Most Blessed Mother, contemplated in Your splendour of Queen of Heaven, where You have been bodily received? Is it you, lover of Christ, kind John of Bethsaida, my friend? Is it you, amiable Patriarch protector of those who are persecuted, solicitous supplier of consolation, most venerable Joseph? Is it you, my great little sister, Therese of the Child Jesus, who obtain for me what I have been asking for these twenty-one years: that the waves of the Love may overflow into my soul? Oh! if it is you, complete the work. Obtain for me to die not in one of these assaults of love. I am a little soul, too, and I do not wish extraordinary things. But to die after one of these assaults of love, when I have become again a “little, very little soul”, made even smaller by the knowledge of what is the Infinite Love, after one of these assaults, because after, it is as if one were baptised again by love and no shadows of stains are left in us. Love bums… Or is it you, Azariah, my good friend, who have obtained this hour of blessedness for me, because of all the tears you collected from my eyes and you took to Heaven? If it is you, may you be blessed for that!
But I do not ask you, Therese, Joseph, John and the Blessed Virgin to let me have that ecstasy again, to fill me with joy and fire. But I ask and implore you to let other hearts have it, particularly those known to you, those hearts that torture mine and displease God, Whom they cannot perceive or obey. If those hearts have one instant only of those assaults of love, they will be converted to the Love, to the true Love. They will love. With their whole selves. Above all with their intellects that will reject the barriers of rationalism, of human science, which deny and hamper simple good faith and set limits to the power of God. And with their hearts in which the crusts of selfishness, of envy, of hatred will melt like wax near a fire…
Do that, my dearest ones. I accept to never place my lips again on the refreshing chalice of love, I accept to drink for ever, until my return to God, the bitter chalice of all renunciations, but let them go back to the bright path, let them be sanctified in all their actions to deserve the sight of Jesus-God, as I was granted to enjoy it today. To deserve it here, to possess it for ever in Heaven, as I, hoping in my Lord, confide to possess it as well…
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The same day at 12 o’clock.
I read it again. I am thinking of the theologians who will read these pages. Perhaps they will find errors in my description of the ecstasies and of Jesus’ concentration. Let them remember that I am a poor ignorant woman, that I know nothing about theology or theological terms, and that I strive to say what I see as best I can and with the sentences that my poor mind can construct…”
[From Poem of the Man-God, Maria Valtorta, Volume 4, pp. 383-387; used by permission of the publisher Centro Editoriale Valtortiano srl, Viale Piscicelli 89-91, 03036 Isola del Liri FR, Italy]