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Critical thinking and self-righteousness

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GRM 174.20 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

You are gifted with the faculty of reason and, if you are just, God will grant you all the light to make a better use of your reason.

GRM 177.2 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

« I have a servant who is ill, Lord. He is lying in my house, in his bed, paralyzed by a disease of the bones and he suffers dreadfully. Our doctors cannot cure him. Your doctors refuse to come. I invited them to come because it is a disease caused by the corrupt air of this area and they know how to cure it with the herbs of the feversome soil of the shore where the water stagnates before being absorbed by the sand of the sea. I am very sorry because he is a faithful servant.»

«I will come and cure him.»

«No, my Lord. I am not asking You to go to all that trouble. I am a heathen, filth, as far as you are concerned. If the Jewish doctors are afraid of becoming contaminated by coming to my house, all the more reason it would contaminate You, Who are divine. »

Detail

Pharisaism on the part of Jewish doctors, who fear contamination if they visit a Roman.

Keywords

GRM 179.1 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

Jesus says to me showing me the course of the Jordan, or rather, the mouth of the Jordan where it flows into Lake Tiberias, that is where the town of Bethsaida lies on the right bank of the river, with respect to those facing north: «The town nowadays no longer appears to be on the shore of the lake, but a little inland. And that puzzles scholars. The explanation is to be found in the earth that filled this part of the lake, as it was deposited there throughout twenty centuries by the river, by alluvia and landslides from the hills of Bethsaida. The town was then just at the mouth of the river and in fact the smaller boats, particularly in seasons rich in water, used to sail upstream, almost as far as Korazim; the river, however, was always used as a harbour and shelter for the boats of Bethsaida when the lake was very rough. I am not saying this for you, to whom it is of no interest, but for difficult doctors. And now go on.»

GRM 180.2 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

« I was rich and powerful. If God had not decided to preserve me for a purpose of His, I would have surrendered myself to despair and perished when I was persecuted and a leper. I would have acted harshly against myself… Instead a new wealth, which I had never possessed before, descended upon my desolation: the wealth of a conviction: “God exists”. First… God… Yes, I believed, I was a faithful Israelite. But mine was a faith of formalism. And I thought that the reward of my faith was always inferior to my virtue. I took the liberty of debating with God because I felt that I was still something on the earth. Simon Peter is right. I, too, was building a tower of Babel[1] by praising myself and satisfying my ego. When everything collapsed around me and I was like a worm crushed by the weight of all this human futility, then I no longer debated with God, but with myself, with my stupid self and I ended up by demolishing it. And as I did so, by making room for what I think is the God immanent in our earthly beings, I gained a new strength and wealth: the certainty that I was not alone and that God was watching over man defeated by men and by evil.»

«According to you, what is God, “the God immanent in our earthly beings” as you said? What do you mean? I do not understand you and I think it is a heresy. God is the One we know through the Law and the Prophets. There is no other God» says rather sternly Judas of Kerioth.

«If John was here he would tell you better than I can. But I will tell you as best I can. God is the One we know through the Law and the Prophets. That is true. But in what do we know Him? And how?»

Judas of Alphaeus exclaims: «Little and badly. The Prophets, who described Him for us, knew Him. The idea we have is a muddled one, as we can just see through a mound of explanations piled up by sects…»

«Sects? What do you mean? We have no sects. We are the children of the Law. We all are» the angry aggressive Iscariot says.

«The children of the laws. Not of the Law. There is a slight difference. Plural, not singular. In actual fact, we are the children of what we created, no longer of what God gave us» retorts Thaddeus.

«The laws derive from the Law» says the Iscariot.

«Also diseases originate in our bodies, but that does not mean that they are good» replies Thaddeus.

«But let me hear what this immanent God of Simon Zealot is.» The Iscariot, who cannot argue against the remark of Judas of Alphaeus, endeavours to take the discussion back to where it started.

Detail

Simon the Zealot speaks.

GRM 181.6-7 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

View in context

Quotation

The enemies come into the fields of the Master, that is to His disciples. They are many and Satan is the first one. The others are his servants, that is, men, passions, the world and the flesh. The disciple who is more easily struck by them is the one who is not entirely close to the Master, but is between the Master and the world. He is not capable and does not want to part completely with the world, the flesh, passions and demons, to belong entirely to Him Who wants to take him to God. And the world, flesh, passions and the demon scatter their seed in him: gold, power, women, pride, the fear of an unfavourable opinion of the world, the spirit of utilitarianism. “The great ones are the strongest. I will serve them so that they will be friendly to me”. And they become criminals and damned for such miserable things!…

Why does the Master, Who sees the imperfection of a disciple, not cast him away at once, even if He is not prepared to submit to the thought: “He will be My murderer”? That is what you are asking yourselves. Because it is useless to do so. If He did so he would not avoid having him as an enemy, a double and more dangerous enemy, because of his anger and his sorrow at being found out or at being found out or at being driven away. Yes, because of his sorrow. Because sometimes a bad disciple does not realise that he is such. The demon’s action is so subtle that he is not aware of it. He becomes wicked without even suspecting that he is subject to such action. And because of his anger, He is enraged at being known for what he is, when he is aware of Satan’s work and of his followers: the men who tempt weak people in their weak points, to remove from the world a saint who offends them, wicked as they are, when compared with his goodness. The saint then prays and trusts in God. “Let what You allow be done” he says. He adds only the clause: “providing it serves Your purpose”. The saint knows that the time will come when the wicked darnel will be rejected from the harvest. By God Himself Who does not allow more than what is useful to the triumph of His loving will.»

181.7

«If You maintain that Satan and his followers are always to be blamed… it seems to me that the responsibility of the disciple diminishes» says Matthew.

«Do not believe that. If there is Good there is also Evil and man is gifted with discernment and freedom.»

«You say that God does not allow more than what is useful to the triumph of His loving will. Therefore such an error is useful too, if He allows it, and it serves the triumph of the divine will» says the Iscariot.

«And you infer, as Matthew does, that that justifies the disciple’s crime. God created the lion without ferocity and the snake without poison, now one is ferocious and the other poisonous. That is why God separated them from man. Ponder over that and draw conclusions. »

GRM 186.4 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

The natural reason is not to stimulate the blood by means of food that causes a heat unbecoming of man, who is not forbidden also carnal love, but must always moderate it with the freshness of his soul tending to Heaven. Man must therefore make sure that the sentiment that joins him to his wife, in whom he must see a fellow creature like himself, not a female, is love, not sensuality.