The Virgin Mary tells the story of the Nativity (I)

In The Gospel as Revealed to Me by Maria Valtorta, the Virgin Mary returned many years later to the grotto of Bethlehem with Jesus and his Apostles, where she told the story of the Holy Family’s arrival at night, shortly before the birth of her Son:

"Joseph made some light when I came in. It was only then, when I got off the donkey that I felt how tired and frozen I was ... An ox greeted us; I went to him to feel a little warmth and lean against the hay.

Where I was, Joseph stretched out some hay to make me a bed, and dried it for me and for you, my son, with the flame lit in this corner, because, out of love, this angel that was my husband was good like a father. And holding each other by the hand, like two brothers lost in the darkness of the night, we ate bread and cheese, then Joseph went there to stoke the fire, and took off his cloak to close the opening.

In reality, he placed a veil before the glory of God who was coming down from heaven, you, my Jesus ... and I stayed on the hay, in the warmth of the two animals, wrapped in my coat and in the woolen blanket.

In this hour of anxiety when I was alone before the mystery of my first maternity, always filled with the unknown for a woman and, for me, in my only motherhood, also filled with the mystery that was going to be the vision of the Son of God—God emerging from a mortal flesh—he, Joseph, acted as a mother for me; he was an angel, my comfort, at this time and always."

From The 20 mysteries of the Rosary in the writings of Maria Valtorta - Centro Editoriale Valtortiano, p. 53 and 54, and The Gospel as Revealed to Me, 207,2 / 8; 29.7 / 12