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Selfishness

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GRM 180.6 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

The last are the dusty barren fields full of roads. Those of worldly selfish people. Their comfort is their law, enjoyment their aim. Their ambitions: to do no work, to slumber, to enjoy themselves, to feast… The spirit of the world is their king. The dust of worldliness covers the soil which becomes mouldy. Birds, that dissipation, rush onto the thousand paths which have been built to make life easier. The spirit of the world, that is, of the Evil one, picks up and destroys all the seed that falls on this soil open to all sensuality and laxity…

Detail

Jesus explains the parable of the sower.

GRM 184.8 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

You may rest assured that God sees your efforts and He will grant you a greater reward for overcoming your selfishness, for holding back a rude word, for satisfying a necessity without being ordered to do so, than if, fighting in a battle, you killed the enemy. The Kingdom of Heaven, which you will possess if You live as just people, is built with the little things of everyday. With goodness, moderation, patience, with being satisfied with what one has, bearing with one another, and with love, love, love.

GRM 203.11 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

A selfish man wants to receive, but does not give. But an egoist is poles apart from Heaven.

GRM 209.7 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

Sorrow is a cross, but it is also a wing. Mourning divests to reclothe. Rise, you who are weeping! Open your eyes, get rid of nightmares, of darkness, of selfishness! Look… The world is the barren land where one weeps and dies. And the world shouts: “help” through the mouths of orphans, of sick, lonely, doubtful people, through the mouths of those who are made prisoners of hatred by treason or cruelty. Go among those who are shouting. Forget yourselves among those who are forgotten! Recover your health among those who are sick! Be hopeful among those who are despairing! The world is open to those willing to serve God in their neighbour and to gain Heaven: to be united to God and to those whom we mourn. The gymnasium is here. The triumph there. Come. Imitate Ruth in all your sorrows. Say with her: “I will be with you until I die”. And even if those misfortunes, which consider themselves incurable, should reply to you: “Do not call me Naomi, call me Mara, for God has marred me bitterly” you must persist. And I solemnly tell you that those misfortunes one day, because of your persisting, will exclaim: “Blessed be the Lord Who relieved me of my bitterness, desolation and solitude, by means of a creature who knew how to make his sorrow bear good fruit. May God bless him because he is my saviour”.

Annotation

If these unfortunate people, who believe themselves incurable, reply: "Don't call me Naomi anymore, but Mara, for God has filled me with bitterness", persist. Cf. Ruth 1, 1-22.

Book of Ruth 1, 1-22

Rt 1, 1-22: In the days when the Judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. A man from Bethlehem of Judah went with his wife and two sons to sojourn in the fields of Moab. The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahalon and Cheljon; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem of Judah. They went to the fields of Moab, and settled there.

When Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, she was left alone with her two sons. They took Moabite wives, one named Orpha and the other Ruth, and lived there for about ten years. Mahalon and Cheljon also both died, and the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. Then she and her daughters-in-law arose and left the fields of Moab, for she had heard in the countryside of Moab that Yahweh had visited his people and given them bread. So she went out from the place where she had settled, with her two daughters-in-law, and they set out to return to the land of Judah. Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law: "Go, return each to your mother's house. May Yahweh show kindness to you, as you did to those who died and to me! May Yahweh make you each find rest in the house of a husband!" And she kissed them. They raised their voices and wept, and said to her, "No; we will return with you to your people." Naomi said, "Return, my daughters; why should you come with me? Do I still have sons in my womb who can become your husbands? Go back, my daughters, go. I'm too old to remarry. And when I say: I have hope; when I would be this very night to a husband and would bear sons, would you wait for that until they were grown up? would you refrain for that from remarrying? No, my daughters. It is very bitter to me because of you, that Yahweh's hand has fallen upon me." And, raising their voices, they wept again. Then Orpha kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

Naomi said to Ruth, "Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god; return with your sister-in-law." Ruth replied, "Don't press me to leave you by returning away from you. Where you go, I will go; where you dwell, I will dwell; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God; where you die, I will die and be buried there. May Yahweh deal with me in all his severity, if anything but death separates me from you!" Seeing that Ruth was determined to accompany her, Naomi ceased her entreaties.

The two of them set off until they reached Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town was moved by them, and the women said, "Is this Naomi? "20She said to them, "Don't call me Naomi; call me Marah, for the Almighty has filled me with bitterness I went away with full hands, and Yahweh is bringing me back empty-handed. Why would you call me Naomi, after Yahweh has testified against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?"

So Naomi returned, and with her her daughter-in-law, Ruth the Moabitess, who had arrived from the fields of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

GRM 209.7 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

Every good deed is the origin of great things, which you do not even imagine. And the effort man makes against his own selfishness can cause such a wave of love, capable of rising higher and higher, supporting in its limpidity him who caused it, until it lifts him to the feet of the altar, to the heart of God.

GRM 211.1 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Detail

«Avenger of the oppressed! I really am. But in a supernatural way. None of those who see Me with sceptre and axe in My hands as king and executioner according to the spirit of the earth, is right. I certainly came to free people from oppression. From the oppression of sin, which is the most serious, of illness, of desolation; from ignorance and selfishness. Many will learn that it is not fair to oppress people, simply because one has been placed by fate in a high position, and that, on the contrary, a high position should be used to raise up those who are down at the bottom.»

GRM 212.5 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

Idolatry has not yet died in the hearts of men, and will never rest, on the contrary it will rise, like yeast in flour. Almost every man now has his own golden calf. The earth is a forest of idols, because every heart is an altar, but hardly ever there is God upon it. He who is not a slave of one evil passion, is slave of another and he who has not one wicked desire, has another with a different name. He who has no greed for gold, has a greed for positions, he who has no lust for the flesh, is an utter egoist.