Silver

• Conditions
• Friendship
• Gold
• How to perfect and sanctify yourself
• Love
• Love of neighbor
• Loving God
• Material wealth
• Silver

• Comfort - Relief
• Gold
• How to perfect and sanctify yourself
• Material wealth
• Poverty - Misery
• Silver
• Words of wisdom

173.2«Peace be with you all!

Yesterday I spoke of prayer, of swearing, of fasting. Today I want to instruct you in other perfections. They are also prayer, trust, sincerity, love, religion.

The first thing I will speak to you of is the right use of riches, changed into as many treasures in Heaven by the goodwill of the faithful servant. The treasures of the earth do not last. But the treasures of Heaven are eternal. Are you fond of what is yours? Are you sorry to die because you will no longer be able to look after your property and you will have to leave it? In that case transfer them to Heaven. You may say: “What is of the earth will not enter Heaven and You have taught us that money is the filthiest thing on earth. How can we transpose them to Heaven?” No. You cannot take money, material as it is, into the Kingdom where everything is spiritual. But you can take the fruit of money.

When you give a banker your money, why do you do it? That he may make it bear interest. You do not deprive yourselves of it, not even temporarily, so that he may give you back the same amount. But out of ten talents you want him to give you back ten plus one or even more. Then you are happy and you praise the banker. Otherwise you say: “He is honest, but he is a fool”. And, if instead of ten plus one, he should give you nine, saying: “I lost the rest”, you would denounce him and send him to prison. What is the fruit of money? Does the banker sow your money and water it to make it grow? No. The fruit is given by a skillful handling of business, so that by means of mortgage deeds and interest loans, the money is increased by the premium rightly requested for the loan of the gold. Is it not so?

Now listen. God gives you earthly riches. To some people he grants a great deal, to some only as much as they need to live, and He says to you: “Now it is up to you. I have given them to you. Gain by these means an end as My love wishes for your own good. I have entrusted you with them, but not that you may turn them into evil. Make your wealth bear interest, for this real Fatherland, both because of the reputation I hold you in, and out of gratitude for My gifts”.

173.3And here is the method to reach this end.

Do not accumulate your treasures on the earth, living for them, being cruel for them, cursed by your neighbour and by God on account of them. It is not worth it, They are never safe in this world. Thieves can always rob you. Fire can always destroy your houses. Diseases of plants and animals can exterminate herds and orchards. How many things undermine your property! Whether it is real estate and unassailable, such as houses and gold; whether its nature is liable to be damaged, such as all living things, vegetables and animals, or precious cloths, they can be ruined. Thunderbolts, fire and floods can destroy houses; thieves, blight, dry weather, rodents and insects can damage fields; catching diseases, fever, crippling, murrain can destroy cattle; moths and mice can ruin valuable pieces of cloth and precious pieces of furniture; oxidization can corrode vases, chandeliers and artistic gates; everything is subject to destruction.

But if you turn earthly welfare into supernatural good, then it becomes free from all damage by time, men and calamities. Store your treasures in Heaven, where thieves cannot break them, and where no calamities occur. Work with merciful love for all the miseries of the earth. You may caress your money and kiss it if you wish so, you may rejoice at the plentiful crops, at the vineyards laden with grapes, at the countless number of olives which bend the branches of the olive-trees, and at your prolific sheep with turgid udders. You may rejoice at all that, but not in a sterile or human way. Rejoice with love and admiration, with supernatural delight and foresight.

“Thank You, my God, for this money, for these crops, plants, sheep and for this business! Thank you, sheep, plants, meadows, business, which serve me so well. May you all be blessed, because through Your goodness, o Eternal Father, and through yours, o things of mine, I can do so much good to those who are hungry, or are naked, homeless, sick, alone… Last year I did it for ten. This year — as I have more money, although I gave away much as alms, and the crops are more plentiful and the flocks larger — I will give twice, three times as much as last year. So that everybody, also those who have no wealth of their own, may partake of my joy and bless with me the Eternal Lord”. That is the prayer of a just man. A prayer, which joined to your deeds, transfers your wealth to Heaven, and not only keeps it eternally for you, but you will find it increased by the holy fruit of love.

Store your treasure in Heaven so that your heart may also be there, above and beyond the risk that not only your gold, your houses, fields and herds may suffer damage, but that your very heart may be attacked and robbed, corroded, burnt and killed by the spirit of the world. If you do that, you will have your treasure in your heart because you will have God within you until the blessed day when you will be in Him.

173.4But in order not to diminish the fruit of charity, take care to be charitable in a supernatural spirit. What I said with regards to prayer and to fasting applies also to charity and to any other good action you may do.

Keep the good you may do free from the violating sensation of the world, keep it immune from human praise. Do not profane the scented rose of your charity and of your good deeds, as it is a true censer of perfumes agreeable to the Lord. Good is profaned by a proud spirit, by the desire to be noted when doing good and by the quest for praise. The rose of charity is then dribbled and eaten away by the big slimy snails of satisfied pride and the censer is filled with the fetid straw of the litter on which the proud man basks like a well fed animal.

Oh! Those deeds of charity accomplished to be pointed out by people! It would be better, much better, if they had not been performed at all! He who does not do them, commits a sin of harshness. He who does them, letting people know both the amount given and the name of the person to whom it was given, and begging for praise, commits a sin of pride by making the offer known, as he says: “See how much I can afford?”, he sins against charity because he humbles the beneficiary by making his name known, and commits a sin of spiritual avarice as he wants to accumulate human praises… It is straw, nothing but straw. Let God and His angels praise you.

When you give alms do not have it trumpeted before you, to draw the attention of passers-by and win their praise, as the hypocrites do, who want to be praised by men and thus give alms only where they can be seen by many people. They, too, have received their reward and will not have another one from God. Do not commit the same sin and do not be so presumptuous. But when you give alms your left hand must not know what your right is doing, so secret and modest is your almsgiving and then forget about it. Do not linger admiring your deed, swelling with it like the toad that contemplates itself with its veiled eyes in the pond and sees also the clouds, trees and a chart near the bank reflected in the still water and when it sees that it is so small as compared to them, which are so large, it swells up with air until it bursts. Also your charity is nothing as compared to the Infinite, which is the Charity of God, and if you wanted to become like Him and make your small charity so big as to be equal to His, you would fill yourselves with the wind of pride and would end up by perishing.

Forget about it. Forget about the action itself. A light, a sweet voice will always be present with you and will make your day bright, sweet and happy. Because that light will be the smile of God, the honey will be the spiritual peace, which still comes from God, and the voice will be the voice of God, the Father Who will say to you: “Thank you”. He sees the hidden evil and the concealed good and will give you a reward for them.»

• Doing Good
• Gold
• Material wealth
• Silver
• Spiritual wealth

The third man comes: «Master, my father died. We thought he had some money. But we did not find any. That would not matter as my brothers and I are not short of bread. But I lived with my father as I am the eldest. The other two brothers are now accusing me of stealing the money and they want to sue me for theft. You can see my heart. I did not see one single coin. My father kept his money in a coffer in a metal case. When he died we opened the coffer but the case was no longer there. They say: “Last night, while we were sleeping, you took it”. It is not true. Help me to restore peace and esteem among us.»

Jesus stares at him and smiles.

«Why are you smiling, Master?»

«Because your father is the guilty one, the guilt of a child who hides his toy lest someone should take it.»

«But he was not a miser. Believe me. He was charitable.»

«I know. But he was very old… It is the disease of old people… He wanted to preserve things for you, and out of too much love, he caused you to fall out with one another. But the case is buried at the foot of the cellar steps. I am telling you so that you may be aware that I know. While I am speaking to you, by pure chance. your younger brother, by striking the ground angrily, caused it to vibrate and so they discovered it and they are now embarrassed and sorry for blaming you. Go back home with a quiet mind and be good to them. Do not reproach them for their lack of esteem.»

«No, my Lord. I will not. But I am not going home, I am staying here to hear You. I will go tomorrow.»

«And if they take that money?»

«You say that we must not be greedy. I do not want to be so. It is enough for me if there is peace amongst us. On the other hand… I did not know how much money there was in the case and thus will not suffer for any information contrary to the truth. And consider that that money might have been lost… I will live now, as I lived before, should they deny me it. It is enough if they do not call me a thief.»

«You are well advanced on the way of God. Proceed and peace be with you.»

And also that man goes away happily.

• Esteem
• Greed
• Jesus' omniscience
• Seniors
• Silver

Woe to you, rich and fast living people! Because it is amongst you that the greatest impurity thrives and idleness and money are its bed and pillow! You are now sated. The food of concupiscence reaches your throats and chokes you. But you will be hungry. And your hunger will be terrible, insatiable and unappeasable forever and ever. You are now rich. How much good you could do with your wealth! Instead you do so much harm both to yourselves and to other people. But you will experience a dreadful poverty on a day that will have no end. You now laugh. You think you are triumphing. But your tears will fill the ponds of Gehenna. And they will never cease.

• Concupiscence
• Damnation - Perdition - Hell and the damned
• Laziness - Idleness
• Material wealth
• Reproaches of Jesus Christ
• Sensuality - Pleasure of the senses - Enjoyment
• Silver
• The rich man

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are in debt to us”.

There are material debts and spiritual ones. There are also moral debts. The money or the goods that one has received as a loan and must give back, are a material debt. Esteem extorted and not given back and love wanted and not returned are a moral debt. To obey God, from Whom one would exact much giving Him very little, and to love Him are a spiritual debt. He loves us and is to be loved, as a mother, a wife, a son, from whom so much is exacted, are to be loved. A selfish man wants to receive, but does not give. But an egoist is poles apart from Heaven. We are in debt to everybody. From God to a relative, from a relative to a friend, from a friend to our neighbour, to a servant, to a slave, because they are all beings like ourselves. Woe to him who does not forgive! He will not be forgiven. God, out of justice, cannot remit the debt of a man who is in debt to Him, the Most Holy One, if man does not forgive his fellow man.

• Esteem
• God's mercy and forgiveness
• Love
• Love of neighbor
• Loving God
• Mercy and forgiveness
• Obedience
• Silver

Are there no more servants of God in Israel? Yes, there are, But they are “idols”.

In Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles, the following is written among many other things. And I am drawing your attention to it because every word of the Book is a lesson that, as the Spirit had it written for a current event, refers to an event that will take place in the future. So it is written: “… When you enter Babylon you will see gods made of gold, silver, stone, wood… Be on your guard, do not imitate the foreigners, do not have any fear of their gods… Say in your hearts: ‘Lord, it is You only that we must worship’”. And the letter describes the details of those idols whose tongues are made by a craftsman and they do not make use of them to reproach their false priests, who strip them of their gold to clothe prostitutes with it and later they remove the same gold, desecrated by the perspiration of prostitution, to reclothe the idol; idols can rust and woodworm can corrode and are clean and tidy only if man washes their faces and clothes them, whereas they can do nothing by themselves, although they have sceptre and axe in their hands. And the Prophet concludes: “Therefore be not afraid of them”. And he continues: “Those gods are as useless as broken pots. Their eyes are full of the dust raised by the feet of those who enter the temple, and they close them tight, as in a sepulchre or like a man who has offended the king, because anyone can steal their precious robes. They cannot see the light of the lamps, so they are like temple beams, and the lamps serve only to blacken them with smoke, while owls, swallows and other birds fly over their heads and soil them with excrement, and cats nestle among their clothes and tear them. So you must not be afraid of them, they are dead things. Neither is their gold of any use to them, it is only a display, and if it is not polished, the idols do not shine, as they did not feel anything when they were made. Fire did not awake them. They were bought at fabulous prices. They are carried wherever man wants to take them because they are shamefully powerless… So why are they called gods? Because they are worshipped with offerings and a show of false ceremonies, which are not felt by those who perform them, nor believed by those who see them. Whether they are treated badly or well, they are incapable of paying back either treatment, as they are incapable of electing or overthrowing a king, they can give neither wealth nor evil, they cannot save a man from death or deliver a weak man from an overbearing one. They feel no pity for widows and orphans. They are like the stones of the mountains”… This is more or less what the letter says.

211.7

Now, we also have idols, no more saints, in the ranks of the Lord. That is why Evil can rise against Good. The evil that soils with excrement the intellects and hearts of those who are no longer saints, and nestles among the false robes of goodness.

They can no longer speak the words of God. Of course! Their tongue is made by man and they speak the words of man, when they do not speak Satan’s. And they can only foolishly reproach the innocent and the poor, but they are silent where they see the corruption of powerful people. Because they are all corrupt and they cannot accuse one another of the same crimes. They are greedy, not for the Lord, but for Mammon, and they work accepting the gold of lust and crime, bartering it, stealing it, seized with immoderate desire exceeding every limit and imagination. They are covered with dust, which rots on them and if they show clean faces, God sees their filthy hearts. They are corroded by the rust of hatred and the worm of sin and they cannot react to save themselves. They brandish maledictions as if they were sceptres and axes, but they do not know that they are cursed. Isolated in their thoughts and their hatred, like corpses in a sepulchre or prisoners in jail, they remain there, clinging to the bars lest somebody might take them away from there, because those dead people are still something: mummies, nothing else but mummies looking like human beings, while their bodies have turned into dry wood, and outside they would be old-fashioned articles in a world seeking Life, in need of Life as a child needs a mother’s breast, a world that wants one who can give it Life and not the stench of death.

They do live in the Temple and the smoke of the lamps, that is of honours, blackens them, but no light descends upon them; and all passions nestle in them like birds and cats, while the fire of their mission does not give them the mystical torture of being burnt by the fire of God. They are refractory to Love. The fire of Charity does not inflame them, as Charity does not clothe them with its golden brightness. The dual Charity in shape and source: charity of God and of neighbour, the form; charity from God and from man, the source. Because God withdraws from a man who does not love, and thus the former source ceases; and man withdraws from a wicked man, and also the latter source ceases. Charity deprives a loveless man of everything. They allow themselves to be bought at a cursed price, and to be led where it suits profit and power.

No. It is not right! No money can buy a conscience, particularly the conscience of a priest or a teacher. It is not right to acquiesce in the mighty things of the earth when they induce acts contrary to God’s commandments. That is spiritual inability and it states[3]: “A eunuch is not to be admitted to the assembly of the Lord”. Thus, if a man, impotent by nature, cannot belong to the people of God, can a spiritually impotent man be His minister? Because I solemnly tell you that many priests and masters are suffering from guilty spiritual barrenness, as they lack spiritual virility. Many. Too many!

211.8

Meditate. Observe. Compare. You will see that we have many idols, but few ministers of the Good, which is God. That is why the sanctuary towns are no longer a sanctuary. Nothing is now respected in Israel and saints die because those who are not saints hate them.

But I invite you: “Come!”. (...) Come to serve God. The time is near. Do not be unprepared for Redemption. Let the rain fall on the sown ground. Otherwise it will fall in vain. (...) Salvation means to follow the Voice of the Lord and believe in His Word. (...) Come in a body to the service of God. I am passing and I call you. Do not be inferior to prostitutes, for whom one word of mercy is sufficient to persuade them to abandon their previous life and come on to the way of Good.

I was asked upon My arrival: “But do You not bear us a grudge?” Grudge? No, I have love for you! And I hope to see you in the multitude of My people, whom I lead to God, in the new exodus towards the true Promised Land: the Kingdom of God, beyond the Red Sea of sensuality and the deserts of sin, free from all kinds of slavery, to the eternal Land, which abounds in delight and is saturated with peace… Come! This is Love passing by. Whoever wishes can follow Him, because only goodwill is required to be accepted by Him.

• Anxiety - Fear - Fearfulness
• Bible - Book of Baruch
• Bible - Book of Jeremiah
• Gold
• Idolatry
• Paganism and pagans
• Priests
• Prostitution
• Silver
• Thou shalt have no other gods before me

Our great ones in Israel really look like the wild she-asses mentioned by the Prophet. They are accustomed to the desert of their hearts, because, believe Me, as long as one is with God, even if one is as poor as Job, even if one is alone, even if one is naked, one is never alone, poor or naked, one is never a desert, but they have rejected God in their hearts and thus they are an arid desert. Like wild she-asses they sniff in the air the smell of males, which in our case, because of their lust, are named power, money, as well as true and proper lechery, and they follow that smell, as far as crime. Yes. They follow it and will follow it even more so in future. They do not know that their hearts, not their feet, are exposed to the darts of God Who will avenge their crime. How confused kings, princes, priests and scribes will be, because they really said and still say to what is nothing, or worse, is sin: “You are my father. You have begotten me”!

• Crime
• Desire
• God's justice
• Leaders and heads of state - Kings and monarchs
• Lust
• Passions
• Power
• Scribes
• Silver
• Sin
• The wicked man

• Silver

• Silver