Notes for this theme
Reading comfort
GRM 69.1
He who wishes to live for the spirit, and lead others to live the same life, must disregard the flesh, even more, I would say: kill it, to devote all his attention to the spirit. Everybody must do that, you know (...). You, too, if you really want to belong to God, that is to the supernatural.
GRM 69.1
I know it is difficult to amend one’s way of living. But I am here to help you. I am here to help man to become the son of God once again, to recreate himself by means of a new creation, of an autogenesis wanted by man himself.
GRM 69.2
Both our own and other people’s lives are the gift of God and only God, Who gives life, has the authority to take it.
GRM 69.2-3
«It is true that to kill oneself is the same as killing other people. Both our own and other people’s lives are the gift of God and only God, Who gives life, has the authority to take it. Who kills himself, confesses his own pride, and pride is hated by God.»
«He confesses his pride? I would say his despair.»
«And what is despair but pride? Just think, Judas. Why does one despair? Either because misfortunes persistently perturb him and he wants to overcome them by himself, but is unable to do so. Or because he is guilty and he thinks that he cannot be forgiven by God. In both cases, is not pride the basic reason? The man who wants to do all by himself, is no longer humble enough to stretch out his hand to the Father and say to Him: “I am not able, but You are. Help me, because I hope and wait for everything from You”. The other man who says: “God cannot forgive me” says so, because measuring God by his own standards, he knows that another person could not forgive him, if that person had been offended, as he offended God. So here again it is pride. A humble man understands and forgives, even if he suffers for the offence received. A proud man does not forgive. He is proud also because he is not capable of lowering his head and saying: “Father, I have sinned, forgive Your poor guilty son”. But do you not know, Judas, that the Father will forgive everything, if one asks to be forgiven with a sincere, contrite, humble, heart willing to rise again to new life?»
«But certain crimes are not to be forgiven. They cannot be forgiven.»
«That is what you say. And it will be true only because man wants it to be true. But, oh! I solemnly tell you that even after the crime of crimes, if the guilty man should rush to the Father’s feet – He is called Father, Judas, just for that, and He is a Father of infinite perfection – and crying, implored Him to be forgiven, offering to expiate, without despairing, the Father would make it possible for him to expiate and thus deserve forgiveness and save his soul.»
69.3 «Well, then, You say that the men quoted by the Scriptures who killed themselves, did wrong.»
«It is not lawful to do violence to anybody, not even to oneself. They did wrong. In their limited knowledge of good, perhaps in certain cases, they had mercy from God. But after the Word has clarified the truth and has given strength to spirits with His Spirit, then he who dies in despair will no longer be forgiven. Neither in the instant of the personal judgement, nor after centuries of Gehenna, on Doomsday, never! Is that hardness by God? No: it is justice. God will say: “You, a creature gifted with reason and supernatural knowledge, created free by Me, you decided to follow the path you chose and you said: ‘God will not forgive me. I am separated from Him forever. I think I must apply the law by myself to my own crime. I am parting from life to evade remorse without considering that you would no longer have felt remorse if you had come to My faithful bosom. And let it be done to you, as you judged. I will not violate the freedom I gave you”.
That is what the Eternal Father will say to suicide. Meditate on it, Judas. Life is a gift, a gift to be loved. But what gift is it? A holy gift. So love it holily. Life lasts as long as the flesh holds out. Then the great Life, the eternal Life begins. A Life of blissful happiness for the just, of malediction for the unjust. Is life a purpose or a means? It is a means. It serves for a purpose which is eternity. Then let us give life what is required to make it last and serve the spirit in its conquest. Continence of the flesh in all its lusts, in all of them. Continence of the mind in all its desires, in all of them. Continence of the heart in all human passions. Infinite instead is to be the ardour for heavenly passions: love of God and the neighbour, obedience to the divine word, heroism in good and virtue.
GRM 69.3
Life is a gift, a gift to be loved. But what gift is it? A holy gift. So love it holily. Life lasts as long as the flesh holds out. Then the great Life, the eternal Life begins. A Life of blissful happiness for the just, of malediction for the unjust. Is life a purpose or a means? It is a means. It serves for a purpose which is eternity. Then let us give life what is required to make it last and serve the spirit in its conquest. Continence of the flesh in all its lusts, in all of them. Continence of the mind in all its desires, in all of them. Continence of the heart in all human passions. Infinite instead is to be the ardour for heavenly passions: love of God and the neighbour, obedience to the divine word, heroism in good and virtue.
GRM 69.4
«(...) It is very difficult to do what I have understood. You can… because You are holy. But… I am a man, young and full of life…»
«I have come for men, Judas. Not for the angels. They do not need a teacher. They see God. They live in His Paradise. They are not unaware of the passions of men, because the Intelligence, which is their Life, makes them acquainted with everything, also those who are not guardians of men. But, spiritual as they are, they can have but one sin, as one of them had, and he drew to his side those who were weaker in charity: pride, the arrow that disfigured Lucifer, the most beautiful of the archangels, and turned him into the horrifying monster of the Abyss. I have not come for the angels, who, after Lucifer’s fall, are horrified even at the shadow of a proud thought. But I have come for men. To make angels of men.
Man was the perfection of creation. He had the spirit of the angel and the full beauty of the animal, complete in all its animal and moral parts. There was no creature equal to him. He was the king of the earth, as God is the King of Heaven, and one day, when he would have fallen asleep for the last time on the earth, he would have become king with the Father in Heaven. Satan tore the wings off the angel-man and he replaced them with the claws of a beast and with intense yearning for filth, and lured him into becoming a being which is better described as a man-demon, rather than simply a man. I want to eradicate the disfigurement worked by Satan, as well as the corrupted craving of the contaminated flesh. I want to give back to man his wings, and make him king once again, co-heir of the Father and of the Celestial Kingdom. I know that man, if he is willing, can do what I say, to become once again king and angel. I would not tell you things you could not do. I am not one of the rhetors who preach impossible doctrines.»
GRM 69.4 · Volume 1
Man, if he is willing, can do what I say, to become once again king and angel.
GRM 70.9
Accept everything, always saying as the apostle: “Everything You do, is well done, Master”, in order to deserve to always hear Me say to you: “You are My loving peace”. I need comfort as well, Mary. Give Me it. My Heart for your rest.
GRM 72.4
If He promises to dress our intellectual and spiritual misery with the brightness of the power His Father gives Him for us, we must be certain that He will do so and that we will be successful, not by ourselves, but through His mercy. All this will most certainly happen, providing our deeds are free from pride and human ambitions. I think that if we contaminate our mission, which is entirely a spiritual one, with earthly ingredients, then also Christ’s promise will no longer stand. Not because of any inability on His part, but because we shall strangle such ability with the rope of pride.
Simon the Zealot speaks of Jesus and says:
GRM 72.5
In the long hours of persecution, first, and then of isolation, when as a fugitive, I was compelled to hide in the dens of wild beasts, sharing food and a bed with them, to escape Roman power and above all the impeachments of false friends; or when, waiting for death I was already tasting the savour of the sepulchre, in the cave of a leper, how much did I meditate, and how much did I see: I saw the figure of the Messiah… Yours, my humble and good Master, Yours, Master and King of the Spirit, Yours, O Christ, Son of the Father, leading to the Father, and not to the royal palaces of dust, nor to the deities of mud. You… Oh! It is easy for me to follow You… Because, forgive my daring, which avows itself to be correct, because I see You as I thought of You, I recognise You, I recognised You at once. No, it was not a question of meeting You, but of recognising One whom my soul had already met…
Simon the Zealot says: