Maria Valtorta was a woman who from 1943 to 1950 saw, spoke with, and heard from Jesus often, as well as received from Him visions of scenes of His public life, which she wrote down. With God's help, I've come to own all of her writings, and I'm eternally grateful to Him for these gifts. Her writings are full of content, but I wanted to make a thread sharing excerpts that describe some of His traits and physical features:
..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 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's 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 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>>."
"And I got lost contemplating His face (of Jesus) and observing the smallest details. And I repeat them once again. Hair parted in the middle of the head and falling in long locks to the shoulders. Wavy for a good palm, then ending in true curl. Shiny, thin, well combed, a blonde color that especially in the final curl has decided shades of copper. Very high forehead, beautiful, smooth as a band, the slightly sunken temples on which the blue veins bring slight indigo shadows showing through the white skin, of the special white of certain individuals of red-blond hair, a white milk just a shade tending to ivory but with a faintest touch of light blue, delicate skin that seems made of petals of white camellia, so fine that the lighter thin vein shows through and so sensitive that every emotion shows with more intense pallor or redness.
But Jesus I have seen more and more pale, just a little tanned by the sun taken freely in his 3 years of preaching through Palestine. But Mary is white because she was more withdrawn at home, and is a more pinkish white. Jesus is an ivory white with a slight hint of the blue. Nose long and straight, with just a slight curve upward toward the eyes, a beautiful nose thin and well shaped. Eyes received, beautiful, the color that I have so often described as very dark sapphire. Eyebrows and eyelashes thick, but not too long, beautiful, shiny, dark brown but with a tiny spark of gold at the top of each hair. Those of Mary are of a very light brown, thinner and more sparse. Perhaps they appear so because they are more clear, so clear as to be almost blond.
Smooth mouth, tending to small, well-shaped, very similar to that of the Mother, from the lips of the right size, neither too thin to appear like a snake, not too pronounced. At the center are rounded and are accentuated in a beautiful curve, the sides almost disappear, making the mouth appear smaller than it is. The mouth is of a beautiful healthy red that opens onto the teeth which are regular, strong, rather long and very white. Mary’s teeth are small, but also regular and equally spaced.
Cheeks are thin but not skinny. An oval very narrow and long but beautiful, not too high cheekbones nor too elusive. The beard, thick chin and bisected into two curly tips, surrounds, without covering, the mouth up to the lower lip and then goes shorter and shorter to the cheeks where, at the height of the mouth’s corners, it becomes very short, simply putting as a shadow of dusting copper on the pallor of his cheeks. It is, where it is thick, of a dark copper color: blond-red. And so also the mustache, which is not very thick and kept short, so that it barely covers the upper lip between the nose and the lip, and is limited to the corners of the mouth. Small ears well shaped and very united to the head. They do not protrude at all." (The Notebooks: 1944)
Jesus says:
“Keep in mind that Galilee was not a big place and that the Galileans were relatively few, they almost always married among themselves and therefore there were two or three types of physical features that for centuries could be found on their faces. It would not be wrong to say that in all the small countries, if you went back to the origins, there would be two or three original family roots, who married or remarried among themselves, giving a pronounced physical character across the Galilean race. That John [the apostle] also had a physical resemblance with Me should not come as a surprise. He was a blonde Galilean. That was a more rare type than the darker Galilean, but it existed. But his resemblance with Me was even more marked in regard to the spirit."
"The Living Face of Jesus" by the artist Lorenzo Ferri,
based on the writings of Maria Valtorta
The image on the The Shroud of Turin is also one of Jesus
..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 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's 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 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>>."
"And I got lost contemplating His face (of Jesus) and observing the smallest details. And I repeat them once again. Hair parted in the middle of the head and falling in long locks to the shoulders. Wavy for a good palm, then ending in true curl. Shiny, thin, well combed, a blonde color that especially in the final curl has decided shades of copper. Very high forehead, beautiful, smooth as a band, the slightly sunken temples on which the blue veins bring slight indigo shadows showing through the white skin, of the special white of certain individuals of red-blond hair, a white milk just a shade tending to ivory but with a faintest touch of light blue, delicate skin that seems made of petals of white camellia, so fine that the lighter thin vein shows through and so sensitive that every emotion shows with more intense pallor or redness.
But Jesus I have seen more and more pale, just a little tanned by the sun taken freely in his 3 years of preaching through Palestine. But Mary is white because she was more withdrawn at home, and is a more pinkish white. Jesus is an ivory white with a slight hint of the blue. Nose long and straight, with just a slight curve upward toward the eyes, a beautiful nose thin and well shaped. Eyes received, beautiful, the color that I have so often described as very dark sapphire. Eyebrows and eyelashes thick, but not too long, beautiful, shiny, dark brown but with a tiny spark of gold at the top of each hair. Those of Mary are of a very light brown, thinner and more sparse. Perhaps they appear so because they are more clear, so clear as to be almost blond.
Smooth mouth, tending to small, well-shaped, very similar to that of the Mother, from the lips of the right size, neither too thin to appear like a snake, not too pronounced. At the center are rounded and are accentuated in a beautiful curve, the sides almost disappear, making the mouth appear smaller than it is. The mouth is of a beautiful healthy red that opens onto the teeth which are regular, strong, rather long and very white. Mary’s teeth are small, but also regular and equally spaced.
Cheeks are thin but not skinny. An oval very narrow and long but beautiful, not too high cheekbones nor too elusive. The beard, thick chin and bisected into two curly tips, surrounds, without covering, the mouth up to the lower lip and then goes shorter and shorter to the cheeks where, at the height of the mouth’s corners, it becomes very short, simply putting as a shadow of dusting copper on the pallor of his cheeks. It is, where it is thick, of a dark copper color: blond-red. And so also the mustache, which is not very thick and kept short, so that it barely covers the upper lip between the nose and the lip, and is limited to the corners of the mouth. Small ears well shaped and very united to the head. They do not protrude at all." (The Notebooks: 1944)
Jesus says:
“Keep in mind that Galilee was not a big place and that the Galileans were relatively few, they almost always married among themselves and therefore there were two or three types of physical features that for centuries could be found on their faces. It would not be wrong to say that in all the small countries, if you went back to the origins, there would be two or three original family roots, who married or remarried among themselves, giving a pronounced physical character across the Galilean race. That John [the apostle] also had a physical resemblance with Me should not come as a surprise. He was a blonde Galilean. That was a more rare type than the darker Galilean, but it existed. But his resemblance with Me was even more marked in regard to the spirit."
"The Living Face of Jesus" by the artist Lorenzo Ferri,
based on the writings of Maria Valtorta
The image on the The Shroud of Turin is also one of Jesus
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