Our Lord to Maria Valtorta


– I I I –
[December 29, 1945]

JESUS :

"His primeval name was Lucifer: in the Mind of God it meant 'banner-bearer' or light-bearer,' that is, of God, because God is Light. Second in beauty among all that exists, Lucifer was a pure mirror that reflected the intolerable Beauty of God. In missions to men he would have been the executor of God's Will, the messenger of the decrees of Goodness which the Creator would have transmitted to His blissful, faultless children, to bring them always higher into His likeness. This light-bearer, with the rays of Divine Light which he carried, would have talked with men. And they, lacking any faults, would have understood these flashes of harmonious words full of love and joy.

Seeing himself in God, seeing himself in himself, seeing himself in his angelic companions -- for God enveloped him with His Light and took delight in the splendor of His archangel, and the angels venerated him as the most perfect mirror of God -- Lucifer admired himself. He should have admired God alone. But in the being of everything created, all forces both good and wicked are present, and these interact until one of the two sides conquers in order to produce good or evil: as in the atmosphere all the gaseous elements exist, because they are necessary. Lucifer attracted arrogant pride to himself. He cultivated it, expanded it. He made a weapon of it for himself, and a means of seduction. He wanted more than he had. He wanted all: he who was already so great. He seduced the less attentive among his companions. He distracted them from contemplating God as the supreme Beauty. Knowing the future marvels of God, he wanted himself to be in the place of God. With his troubled thought, he saw himself as head of future mankind, adored as a supreme power. He thought: 'I know the secret of God. I know His words. His plan is known to me. I can do all that He wants to do. As I presided at the first creative works, I can go ahead. I am.' That word which only God can say was the shout of ruin for this proud one. And he was Satan.

He was 'Satan.' Truly I say to you that the name of Satan was not given by man who, even by the order and will of God, gave a name to all that he knew existed. And man still christens his discoveries with a name he has created. Truly I tell you that the name 'Satan' came directly from God, and it is one of the first revelations that God made to the spirit of His poor son 5 wandering over the earth. And as My most holy Name has the meaning which I said to you once, now listen to the meaning of this horrible name. Write as I tell you:
 


       S                         A                          T                    A                      N

   
Sacrilege                 Atheism                 Turpitude         Avaricious          Negation
Supercilious             Adversary           Tempter          Anti-Charity        Nefarious
                                                           Traitor                          


   

          
This is Satan. And this is what those who are sick with Satanism are. And again he is: Seduction, Astuteness, Tenebrosity, Agility, Nefast. The 5 accursed letters that form his name, written with fire on his lightning-struck forehead. The 5 accursed characteristics of the Corrupter against which My 5 blessed Wounds flame out and which, with their suffering, save whoever wants to be saved from that which Satan continually infects.

The name of "demon, devil, Beelzebub" can be used of all the dark spirits. But this name Satan is "his" alone. And in Heaven he is only named with that name because there one speaks the language of God in a fidelity of love, even when indicating whatever one wishes, in accordance with God's thought of it.

He is the "Opposition." That which is opposed to God. That which is the opposite of God. His every action is the antithesis of God's actions. And his every pursuit is to bring men to be opposed to God. This is what Satan is. He is the 'setting-himself-against-Me' in action. To My three theological virtues he opposes the threefold concupiscence. And to the four cardinal virtues and all the others which issue from Me he opposes the serpentine hatchery of his horrible vices.

But as it is said that of all the virtues the greatest is charity, so I say that the greatest and most repulsive to Me of his anti-virtues is arrogant pride. Because through it all evil has come. For this reason I say that, while I still have pity on the weakness of the flesh that yields to the heat of lust, I also say that I cannot have pity for pride which, like a new Satan, wants to compete with God.

I seem unjust to you? No. Consider that lust is, after all, a vice of one's lower part which, in some, has so voracious an appetite, satisfied in moments of stupor, that it dazes them. But arrogant pride is a vice of one's higher part, consummated with an acute and lucid intelligence, premeditated, perduring. It wounds that part which is most like God. It tramples on the gem given by God. It communicates likeness with Lucifer. It sows more suffering than the flesh. Because the flesh can make a spouse, a woman, suffer. But pride can make victims in whole continents, in every class of persons. From arrogant pride man has been ruined and the world will perish. From pride the faith languishes. Arrogant pride: the most direct emanation of Satan.

I have forgiven the great sinners of the senses, because they were without pride of spirit. But I was unable to redeem Doras, Giocana, Sadoc, Eli and others like them, because they were the "proud."