Notes for this theme
Reading comfort
GRM 40.6
It is to Him, and not to poor men, that we must apply for light, and it is not possible to have light if there is no justice and loyalty to God. That is why men sin, and God, in His anger, punishes them.
GRM 41.6
Jesus reads in His clear voice: «Be consoled, my people. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her that her time of service is ended… A voice cries in the wilderness: ‘Prepare a way for the Lord… then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed…»’
Shammai: «See that, Nazarene. It refers here to an ended slavery, but never before have we been slaves as we are now. And there is the mention of a precursor. Where is he? You are talking nonsense.»
Jesus: «I tell you that the admonition of the Precursor should be addressed to you more than anyone else. To you and those like you. Otherwise you will not see the glory of the Lord, neither will you understand the word of God because meanness, pride and falsehood will prevent you from seeing and hearing.»
Shammai: «How dare You speak to a master like that?»
Jesus: «I speak thus. And thus I shall speak until My death, because above Me there are the interests of the Lord and the love for Truth of which I am the Son. And I add, rabbi, that the slavery of which the Prophet speaks, and of which I am speaking, is not the one you think, neither is the royalty the one you consider. On the contrary, by the merits of the Messiah, man will be made free from the slavery of Evil, which separates him from God, and the sign of Christ will be on the spirits, freed from every yoke and made subjects of the eternal kingdom. All the nations will bend their heads, o household of David, before the Shoot born of you and which will grow into a tree that covers the whole world and rises up to Heaven. And in Heaven and on the earth every mouth will praise His Name and bend its knee before the Anointed of God, the Prince of Peace, the Leader, before Him Who by giving Himself will fill with joy and nourishment every disheartened and famishing soul, before the Holy One Who will establish an alliance between Heaven and earth. Not like the Covenant made with the Elders of Israel when God led them out of Egypt, treating them still as servants, but infusing a heavenly paternity into the souls of men with the Grace instilled once again by the merits of the Redeemer, through Whom all good people will know the Lord and the Sanctuary of God will no longer be demolished and destroyed.»
Shammai: «Do not blaspheme, Child! Remember Daniel. He states that after the death of Christ, the Temple and the Town will be destroyed by a people and a leader who will come from afar. And You declare that the sanctuary of God will no longer be demolished! Respect the Prophets!»
Jesus: «I solemnly tell you that there is Someone Who is above the Prophets, and you do not know Him and you will not know Him because you do not want to. And I tell you that what I said is true. The true Sanctuary will not be subject to death. But like its Sanctifier it will rise to eternal life and at the end of the world it will live in Heaven.»
GRM 41.6.7-8
The slavery of which the Prophet speaks, and of which I am speaking, is not the one you think, neither is the royalty the one you consider. On the contrary, by the merits of the Messiah, man will be made free from the slavery of Evil, which separates him from God, and the sign of Christ will be on the spirits, freed from every yoke and made subjects of the eternal kingdom. All the nations will bend their heads, o household of David, before the Shoot born of you and which will grow into a tree that covers the whole world and rises up to Heaven. And in Heaven and on the earth every mouth will praise His Name and bend its knee before the Anointed of God, the Prince of Peace, the Leader, before Him Who by giving Himself will fill with joy and nourishment every disheartened and famishing soul, before the Holy One Who will establish an alliance between Heaven and earth. Not like the Covenant made with the Elders of Israel when God led them out of Egypt, treating them still as servants, but infusing a heavenly paternity into the souls of men with the Grace instilled once again by the merits of the Redeemer, through Whom all good people will know the Lord and the Sanctuary of God will no longer be demolished and destroyed.»
Shammai: «Do not blaspheme, Child! Remember Daniel. He states that after the death of Christ, the Temple and the Town will be destroyed by a people and a leader who will come from afar. And You declare that the sanctuary of God will no longer be demolished! Respect the Prophets!»
Jesus: «I solemnly tell you that there is Someone Who is above the Prophets, and you do not know Him and you will not know Him because you do not want to. And I tell you that what I said is true. The true Sanctuary will not be subject to death. But like its Sanctifier it will rise to eternal life and at the end of the world it will live in Heaven.»
(...) Gamaliel: «Tell me, Jesus. How can the peace of which the Prophets speak be hoped for, if destruction is going to come to these people by war? Speak and enlighten me as well.»
Jesus: «Do you not remember, master, what those said who were present on the night of Christ’s birth? That the angels sang: ‘Peace to men of goodwill’ but these people are not of goodwill and will not have peace. They will not acknowledge their King, the Just Man, the Saviour, because they expect Him to be a king with human power, whereas He is the King of the spirit. They will not love Him, because they will not like what Christ preaches. Christ will not defeat their enemies with their chariots and their horses, He will instead defeat the enemies of the soul, who endeavour to imprison in hell the heart of man which was created for the Lord. And this is not the victory Israel is expecting from Him. Your King will come, Jerusalem, riding a ‘donkey and a colt’, that is, the just people of Israel and the Gentiles. But I tell you, that the colt will be more faithful to Him and will follow Him preceding the donkey and will grow in the ways of Truth and Life. Because of its evil will, Israel will lose its peace and suffer for centuries and will cause its King to suffer and will make Him the King of sorrow of Whom Isaiah speaks.»
41.8 Shammai: «Your mouth tastes of milk and blasphemy at the same time, Nazarene. Tell me: where is the Precursor? When will we have him?»
Jesus: «He is. Does not Malachi say: ‘Here I am going to send My messenger to prepare the way before Me; and the Lord you are seeking will suddenly enter His Temple, and the angel of the Covenant Whom you are longing for’? Therefore the Precursor immediately precedes Christ. He already is, as Christ is. If years should elapse between him who prepares the ways for the Lord and Christ, all the ways would become obstructed and twisted again. God knows and arranges beforehand that the Precursor should precede the Master by one hour only. When you see this Precursor, you will be able to say: ‘The mission of Christ is beginning’. And I say to you: Christ will open many eyes and many ears when He comes this way. But He will not open yours or those of people like you, because you will be putting to death Him Who is bringing you Life. But when the Redeemer sits on His throne and on His altar, higher up than this Temple, higher than the Tabernacle enclosed in the Holy of the Holies, higher up than the Glory supported by the Cherubim, maledictions for the deicides and life for the Gentiles will flow from His thousands and thousands of wounds, because He, o master who are unaware of it, is not, I repeat, is not the king of a human kingdom, but of a spiritual Kingdom and His subjects will be only those who for His sake will learn to regenerate in the spirit and, like Jonah, after being born, will learn to be born again, on other shores: ‘The shores of God’, by means of a spiritual regeneration which will take place through Christ, Who will give humanity true Life.»
Jesus spoke to Shammai and said:
GRM 43.1-2
The infancy, childhood, adolescence and youth of my Son are only briefly mentioned in the vast picture of His life as described in the Gospels. There He is the Master. Here He is the Man. He is the God Who humiliates Himself for the sake of man.
43.2 And He works miracles also in the humbleness of a common life. He works them in Me, because I feel that My soul reaches perfection by the contact with My Son Who is growing in My womb. He works them in the house of Zacharias by sanctifying the Baptist, by helping the labour of Elizabeth and by giving speech and faith back to Zacharias. He works them in Joseph opening his spirit to the light of such a sublime truth which he could not understand by himself, although he was just.
Marie says:
GRM 43.4
43.4 My Jesus works His miracles of grace in the shepherds. The Angel goes where the shepherd is, whom a fleeting meeting with Me predisposes to Grace and leads him to Grace that he may be saved by It for eternal life.
He works them wherever He passes, both when in exile and when He came back to His little country in Nazareth. Because wherever He was, holiness spread out like oil on a linen fabric and the perfume of flowers in the air, and whoever was affected, if he was not a demon, became eager for holiness. Wherever this eagerness is, there is the root of eternal life, because he who wants to be good will reach goodness and goodness leads to the Kingdom of God.
Mary speaks of the miracles that took place during the Infancy Gospel.
GRM 43.5
We always act so that you may receive solace from us, not dismay and increased sorrow. All we need is that you trust us. It is enough if you say with Joseph: ‘If Jesus is left with me, I have everything’ and we will come with heavenly gifts to comfort your spirits.
Marie says:
GRM 44.8
44.8 I have planned to alternate your contemplations and My consequent clarifications with true and proper dictations to comfort you and your spirit, granting you the beatitude of seeing, and also because in this way the difference in style between your composition and Mine will be obvious.
Furthermore, with so many books dealing with Me and which after so many revisions, changes and fineries have become unreal, I want to give those who believe in Me a vision brought back to the truth of My mortal days. I am not diminished thereby, on the contrary I am made greater in My humbleness, which becomes substantial nourishment for you, to teach you to be humble and like Me, as I was a man like you and in My human life I bore the perfection of a God. I was to be your Model, and models must always be perfect.
In the contemplations I will not keep a chronological order corresponding to that of the Gospels. I will select the points which I find more useful on that day for you or for other people, following My own line of teaching and goodness.
GRM 45.4-5
John, after scrutinising Him with his piercing eyes, exclaims: «Here is the Lamb of God. How is it that my Lord comes to me?»
Jesus replies calmly: «To fulfil the penitential rite.»
«Never, my Lord. I must come to You to be sanctified, and You are coming to me?»
And Jesus, laying His hand on the head of John, who had bowed down in front of Him, replies: «Let it be done as I wish, that all justice may be fulfilled and your rite may become the beginning of a higher mystery and men may be informed that the Victim is in the world.»
45.5 John looks at Him with his eyes sweetened by tears and precedes Jesus towards the bank of the river. Jesus takes off His mantle and tunic, and is left with loin cloth. He then descends into the water, where there is John, who baptises Him, pouring on His head some water taken from the river by means of a cup, tied to his belt. It looks like a shell or a half pumpkin dried and emptied.
Jesus is really the Lamb. A Lamb in the whiteness of His flesh, in the modesty of His gestures, in the meekness of His appearance.
While Jesus climbs onto the bank and after putting on His clothes concentrates on praying, John points Him out to the crowd and testifies that he recognised Him by the sign that the Spirit of God had shown him as an infallible means to identify the Redeemer.
But I am enraptured in watching Jesus pray, and I can only see His bright figure against the green of the river bank.
Jesus has come to the Jordan and John senses the Master's presence. He goes to him and contemplates him.
GRM 45.8
45.8 The manifestations of Christ have been numerous. The first, after His Birth, was the Magi’s, the second was in the Temple, the third on the banks of the Jordan. Then there was an endless number of them, which I will let you know, because My miracles are manifestations of My divine nature, down to the last ones: My Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven.
My fatherland was full of My manifestations. Like seed scattered to the four winds, they took place in every social condition and place in life: to shepherds, powerful people, scholars, sceptical men, sinners, priests, rulers, children, soldiers, Jews and Gentiles.
And they take place even now. But, as in the past, the world does not accept. It does not accept the present manifestations and forgets the past ones. Well, I will not give up. I will repeat Myself to save you and to persuade you to have faith in Me.
GRM 46.14
It is useless to debate with Satan. He would win, because he is strong in his dialectics. Only God can beat him. And so you must have recourse to God, that He may speak for you, through you. You must show Satan that Name and that Sign, not so much written on paper or engraved on wood, but written and engraved in your hearts. My Name, My Sign. You should answer back to Satan, using the word of God, only when he insinuates that he is like God. He cannot bear that.