Notes for this theme
Reading comfort
GRM 174.8 · Volume 3
Do not say to Me: “Satan tempts us” as an excuse for descending towards the low path. Also God tempts with His love, which is very strong, with His words, which are most holy, with His promises, which are most alluring! Why then should you allow yourselves to be tempted by one only of the two, by the most undeserving one to be listened to? Are God’s words, promises, love not sufficient to counteract Satan’s poison?
GRM 174.8 · Volume 3
[Resist] to the allurements of senses, of the world, of science, of the demon. Leave half faiths, compromises, pacts with two people, one opposed to the other, to the men of the world. They, too, should avoid them, if they are honest. At least you, men of God, must shun them. You cannot have them either with God or with Mammon. You must not have them with yourselves either because they would be of no value. If your actions are a mixture of good and evil, they are of no value whatsoever. The entirely good ones would be cancelled by the bad ones. The evil ones would lead you straight into the Enemy’s arms. Therefore do not indulge in them. Be loyal in your service. No one can serve two masters with two different minds. He will either love one and hate the other or viceversa. You cannot be both of God and of Mammon. The spirit of God cannot be conciliated with the spirit of the world. The former ascends, the latter descends. The former sanctifies, the latter corrupts.
GRM 174.9 · Volume 3
Watch your eyes, men. Both the eyes of your bodies and the eyes of your minds. If they are corrupt, they can but corrupt all the rest. The eye is the light of the body. Your thought is the light of your heart. But if your eye is not pure — because since the organs are subject to thought, a corrupt thought will corrupt also senses — everything in you will become obscure, and a seducing haze will create impure phantasms in you. Everything is pure in him who has a pure thought which causes a pure look, and the light of God descends as a master where there is no obstruction of senses. But if out of ill will you have accustomed your eyes to disorderly visions, everything will become darkness in you. In vain you will look at the most holy things. In the darkness they will be nothing but blackness and blackness will be the deeds accomplished by you.
Gospel of Matthew 6, 22-23
Mt 6, 22-23 : The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be in the light; but if your eye is evil, your whole body will be in darkness. So if the light in you is darkness, how great will be the darkness!
This point has already been made in EMV 6.7.
GRM 174.10 · Volume 3
I beg you: while I say to you: “Never do that”, I also say to you: “Do not be inflexible with those who make mistakes”. Remember that you are all brothers, made of one flesh and one soul. Consider that there are many reasons why one is led to sin. Be merciful towards sinners and kindly help them and take them back to God, showing them that the path they have followed is full of dangers for the flesh, the mind and the spirit. Do that and you will receive a great reward… Because the Father Who is in Heaven is merciful to good people and He knows how to give you one hundredfold to one.
GRM 174.15 · Volume 3
We can firmly believe that He [God] and not Satan is the Master. The Evil One could not create even a blade of grass. But God can do everything. This should comfort us.
GRM 174.17-18 · Volume 3
«Master, I would like to remind You that today is Friday and that these people… I do not know whether they will be able to get food in time for tomorrow or reach their homes» says Bartholomew.
«That’s true. It is Friday!» several of them say.
«It does not matter. God will provide. But we will tell them.»
Jesus stands up and goes to His new place, in the middle of the crowds spread in the thickets. «First of all I wish to remind you that today is Friday. I say that those who are afraid they cannot reach their homes in time and are not in a position to believe that God will provide food for His children tomorrow, should go away at once, so that they will not be still on the road at sunset.»
Of all the crowd there, about fifty people get up. All the others stay where they are.
174.18
Jesus smiles and begins to speak.
The scribe John is in the crowd mentioned in this extract (as he will confirm in the next chapter).
It's the eve of the Sabbath, and the law of Sabbath rest forbids travel after 6 p.m., the start of the following day. The scribe John is among those who go, as he explains in the next chapter.
GRM 174.20 · Volume 3
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 175.3-5 · Volume 3
The people throng around the Master, forming a circle which does not want to open at any cost. But the sun has set and the Sabbath rest begins. The villages are far away. But the people do not pine for their villages, their food or anything else. But the apostles are worried about it and they tell Jesus. Also the elder disciples are worried. There are women and children, and while the night is mild and the grass of the meadow is soft, the stars are not bread. Neither do stones become food.
Jesus is the only one who does not trouble. The people in the meantime eat the remains of their food without any worry and Jesus points it out to His apostles: «I solemnly tell you that these people are worth more than you are! Look how thoughtlessly they are finishing everything. I said to them: “Those who cannot believe that God will provide food for His children tomorrow, may go away”, and they stayed. God will not belie His Messiah and will not disappoint those who hope in Him.»
The apostles shrug their shoulders and do not show concern for anything else.
It is nightfall after a placid, beautiful red sunset and the silence of the country spreads over everything after the last choir of birds. There is a light whispering of the wind and then the first mute flight of a night bird, the first star appears and a frog croaks.
The children are already asleep. The adults are talking among themselves and now and again someone goes to the Master asking for clarification of some point or other.
175.4
So no one is surprised when a person, imposing by look, garments and age, is seen coming from a path between two corn fields. Some men are following him. Everybody turns around to look at him and they point him out to one another whispering. The whispering spreads from one group to another, it revives and fades away. The groups that are farther away come near drawn by curiosity.
The noble looking man reaches Jesus, Who is sitting at the foot of a tree listening to some men, and bows down before Him. Jesus stands up at once and responds with equal respect to the greeting. The people present are watching attentively.
«I was up on the mountain and perhaps You thought that I did not have faith as I went away for fear of having to fast. But I went away for another reason. I wanted to be a brother among brothers, the eldest brother. I would like to speak to You aside. Can You listen to me? Although a scribe, I am not Your enemy.»
«Let us move away a little…» and they go into the corn field.
«I wanted to provide some food for the pilgrims and I came down to tell the baker to bake bread for a large crowd. You can see that I am at a legal distance, because these fields belong to me, and it is lawful to walk from here to the top on a Sabbath. It was my intention to come up tomorrow with my servants. But I found out that You are here with the crowd. I beg You to allow me to provide for the Sabbath. Otherwise I would be very sorry that I had to forego Your words for nothing.»
«For nothing, no, never, because the Father would have compensated you with His light. But I thank you and will not disappoint you. I only wish to point out that the crowd is very large.»
«I asked them to heat all the ovens, also the ones used to dry foodstuffs and I will succeed in having bread for everybody.»
«I did not mean that. I was referring to the quantity of bread…»
«That does not trouble me. Last year I had a good crop of corn. You have seen what the ears of corn are like this year. Let me do it. It will be the greatest protection for my fields. After all, Master… You gave me such bread today… You really are the Bread of the spirit!…»
«Let it be done as you wish. Let us go and tell the pilgrims.»
«No. You said so.»
«Are you a scribe?»
«Yes, I am.»
«May the Lord take you where your heart deserves.»
«I understand what You mean but do not say, You mean: to the Truth. Because great are our errors… and our ill-will.»
«Who are you?»
«A son of God. Pray the Father for me. Goodbye.»
«Peace be with you.»
175.5
Jesus goes slowly back to His apostles while the man goes away with his servants.
«Who was he? What did he want? Did he say something unpleasant to You? Has he sick people?» Jesus is flooded with questions.
«I do not know who he is. Or rather, I know that he is goodhearted and that…»
«He is John, the scribe» says one of the crowd.
«Well, I know now, because you said so. He only wanted to be the servant of God with His children. Pray for him because tomorrow we shall all have food, thanks to his goodness.»
«He is really a just man» says one.
«Yes, indeed. I do not know how he can be the friend of others» remarks another one.
«He is swathed in scruples and rules like a baby, but he is not a bad man» concludes a third one.
«Do these fields belong to him?» ask many who are not from this part of the country.
«Yes, they do. I think that the leper was one of his servants or peasants. But he allowed him to stay around here and I think that he also fed him.»
The comments continue but Jesus does not pay attention to them. He calls the Twelve near Him and asks them: «And what should I say now with regards to your incredulity? Did the Father not put bread for all of us into the hands of one who, by caste, is an enemy of Mine? Oh! men of little faith!… Go into the soft hay and sleep. I am going to pray the Father that He may open your hearts and to thank Him for His kindness. Peace be with you.»
And He goes to the lower slopes of the mountain. He sits down and collects His thoughts in prayer. When He raises His eyes He sees the myriad of stars crowding the sky, when He lowers them. He sees the crowd of people sleeping on the meadows. Nothing else. But such is the joy in His heart that His face seems to become transfigured by a bright light…
Jesus has come down from the Mount of Beatitudes and a crowd is following him. The apostles are worried about how to feed them. This chapter shows a practical case of trusting in Providence and in the goodness of the Father.
Meanwhile, the sun has gone down. This is the beginning of Sabbatical rest. Sabbatical rest begins at 6 p.m. on Friday. From the horns of Hattin to the plain, they covered 5 to 6km, or about an hour and a half's walk. We determined in the previous chapter that they left at around 3.00 pm / 3.30 pm. So it's about 5 p.m.
I said to them: "Let those who cannot believe that tomorrow God will give food to his children, withdraw", and they stayed. God will not deny his Messiah or disappoint those who hope in him." Cf. previous chapter. Maria Valtorta even notes that only about fifty people left at the time.
I am not hostile to you, even though I am a scribe. Scribes who are not hostile to Jesus are rare. Of the 24 members of this college, only 5 were secretly in favor of Jesus. The other 19 were overwhelmingly hostile or indifferent.
You see I'm in the legal space because these fields belong to me, and from here to the top it's a path you can make on the Sabbath. So they're right at the entrance to the plain, about 1 km from the summit of Arbel. The practical rules for applying the Sabbath distance were, and remain, complex. However, the basic condition, laid down in Solomon's time, remains the prohibition on moving more than 2,000 cubits (around 900 meters) from the limits of one's property or a town. As Maria Valtorta points out, the summit is the last acceptable limit for the scribe.
GRM 175.3.5 · Volume 3
The people throng around the Master, forming a circle which does not want to open at any cost. But the sun has set and the Sabbath rest begins. The villages are far away. But the people do not pine for their villages, their food or anything else. But the apostles are worried about it and they tell Jesus. Also the elder disciples are worried. There are women and children, and while the night is mild and the grass of the meadow is soft, the stars are not bread. Neither do stones become food.
Jesus is the only one who does not trouble. The people in the meantime eat the remains of their food without any worry and Jesus points it out to His apostles: «I solemnly tell you that these people are worth more than you are! Look how thoughtlessly they are finishing everything. I said to them: “Those who cannot believe that God will provide food for His children tomorrow, may go away”, and they stayed. God will not belie His Messiah and will not disappoint those who hope in Him.»
The apostles shrug their shoulders and do not show concern for anything else. (...)
[The scribe John came to their aid and Jesus said:]
«And what should I say now with regards to your incredulity? Did the Father not put bread for all of us into the hands of one who, by caste, is an enemy of Mine? Oh! men of little faith!… Go into the soft hay and sleep. I am going to pray the Father that He may open your hearts and to thank Him for His kindness. Peace be with you.»
Although none is specifically named, the Twelve are present in this chapter. Faced with their lack of faith and trust in the Father's Providence to feed the crowd, Jesus tells them this in EMV 175.5, after the scribe John has come to their aid.
GRM 175.5 · Volume 3
« Go into the soft hay and sleep. I am going to pray the Father that He may open your hearts and to thank Him for His kindness. Peace be with you.»
And He goes to the lower slopes of the mountain. He sits down and collects His thoughts in prayer. When He raises His eyes He sees the myriad of stars crowding the sky, when He lowers them. He sees the crowd of people sleeping on the meadows. Nothing else. But such is the joy in His heart that His face seems to become transfigured by a bright light…