In the summer of 1956, when the first volume of her work was published, Maria Valtorta’s progressive and mysterious psychic estrangement began. With the passage of time she became inactive, abandoned to a sweet apathy, in a contemplative state. For a certain period she resumed writing, but only to fill holy cards and slips of paper with the words “Jesus I trust in you”, repeated countless times in minute script. She no longer spoke, but repeated the last words of the sentences that were addressed to her, and every now and then she exclaimed: “What a sunshine is here!”. On two or three occasions, as if coming to her senses for a moment, she answered crucial questions in succinct and sensible words. The vividness of her gaze never went out in her face and the serenity of her expression was never altered.