Relationship with God

Endeavour to understand My need to love and to be loved. I have but this solace on the earth: to love and do the will of God.

• Divine Will
• God's love
• Who is Jesus? How Christ defines himself

«Are You an Israelite?» asks the man.

«Yes, I am.»

«I, too, or almost, although I do not look like one. But I lived a long time abroad and I got into many habits, of which these fools here disapprove. I am better than the others. But they say that I am a demon, because I read a great deal, I breed poultry which I sell to the Romans and I can cure people by means of herbs. When young, because of a woman, I quarrelled with a Roman – I was at Cintium then – and I stabbed him. He died, I lost one eye and all my wealth and I was sentenced to life imprisonment. But I knew how to cure people, and I cured the daughter of one of the guards. I thus won his friendship and some freedom… I used it to escape. I acted badly, because the man certainly paid for my flight with his life. But freedom seems so beautiful when one is a prisoner…»

«Is it not really beautiful afterwards?»

«No. Jail, where one is alone, is better than being in contact with men who do not allow you to be alone and come around us to hate us…»

«Did you study philosophy?»

«I was a teacher at Cintium… I was a proselyte…»

«And now?»

«Now I am nothing. I live according to the reality of facts. And I hate, as I was and am still hated.»

«Who hates you?»

«Everybody. And God is the first. She was my wife… and God allowed her to be unfaithful to me and ruin me. I was free and respected, and God allowed me to become a convict serving a life sentence. God abandoned me, men were unfair. Both He and they destroyed me. There is nothing left here…» and he strikes his forehead and his chest. «Rather, here, in my head, there are my thoughts, my knowledge. It is in here that there is nothing» and he spits contemptuously.

«You are wrong. You still have two things there.»

«Which?»

«Remembrance and hatred. Remove them.

188.4

Become really empty… and I will give you something new to put in there.»

«What?»

«Love.»

«Ah! Ah! You make me laugh. I have not laughed for thirty-five years, man. Since I had the proof that the woman was unfaithful to me with the Roman wine merchant. Love! Love to me! It is like me throwing jewels to my chickens! They would die of indigestion, unless they passed them out with their excrement. The same would happen to me. Your love would be a burden to me, if I could not digest it…»

«No, man! Do not say that!» Jesus lays His hand on the man’s shoulder, He is deeply and openly distressed.

The man looks at Him with his only eye and what he sees on that most sweet and beautiful face causes him to be struck dumb and to change his expression. From being sarcastic he becomes very serious and then really sad. He lowers his head and with a different voice he asks: «Who are You?»

«Jesus of Nazareth. The Messiah.»

«You!!!»

«I. Did you not know about Me, since you read so much?»

«I knew… But I did not know that You were alive and… above all, I did not know this. I did not know that You are good to everybody… thus… to murderers too… Forgive me for what I said… about God and love… Now I understand why You want to give me love… Because without love the world is hell, and You the Messiah want to make a paradise of it.»

«A paradise in every heart. Give Me the remembrance and the hatred that make you ill and let Me put love into your heart!»

«Oh! I wish I had known You before!… then… But when I killed, You were certainly not born yet… But later… when I was free, as free as a snake in a forest, I lived to poison people with my hatred.»

«But you did some good as well. Did you not say that you cured people by means of herbs?»

«Yes. To be tolerated. But how many times I had to struggle against my desire to poison people by means of potions!… See? I took refuge here because… it is a place where the world is ignored and which the world ignores. A cursed place. In other places I hated and was hated and I was afraid of being recognised… But I am wicked.»

«You regret having harmed the prison guard. Do you not see that there is still some goodness in you? You are not wicked… Your only trouble is that you have a large open wound, which nobody is curing… Your goodness runs out of it as blood from a wound. But if someone would cure your wound and heal it, My dear brother, goodness would increase in you, because it would no longer vanish as it forms…»

The man weeps with a bent head trying to conceal his tears. Only Jesus Who is walking beside him notices them. He notices but does not say anything else.

• God's love
• Hate
• Love
• Messiah
• Places - Cintium
• Prisoners
• Romans

Give Me the remembrance and the hatred that make you ill and let Me put love into your heart!

• Conversion
• Hate
• Illness - Disability - Handicap
• Offer everything to God
• Repentance and contrition
• Words of wisdom

Son, do not stretch your hand towards the forbidden fruit. It is imprudent even to go near it. Do not be curious to know ultramundane things, lest its satanic poison should conquer you. Avoid the occult and what cannot be explained. One thing only is to be accepted with holy faith: God.

• Curiosity
• Faith
• Fighting temptation
• God
• Imprudence
• Words of wisdom

Why do you wish to amaze people by means of obscure prodigies? Amaze them through your holiness, which should be as bright as things coming from God.

• Holiness
• Light
• Light from God
• Miracle
• Power
• Power
• The powerful man
• Words of wisdom

They come out of the ruins and they begin to descend the path they had walked up previously. The man blind in one eye is still there.

«Are you still here?» asks Jesus pretending that He does not notice that his face is flushed because of the many tears he has shed.

«Yes, I am still here. I will follow You if You allow me. I have something to tell you…»

«Come with Me, then. What do you want to tell Me?»

«Jesus… I find that to have the strength to speak and to work the holy magic of changing myself, of conjuring up my dead soul as the necromancer evoked Samuel for Saul, I must pronounce Your Name, which is as sweet as Your eyes, and as holy as Your voice. You have given me a new life, but it lacks form and energy, like the life of a new-born baby after a difficult birth. It still struggles in the grip of wicked old habits. Help me to come out of my death.»

«Yes, My friend.»

«I… I have realised that there is still a little humanity in my heart. I am not entirely a beast, and I can still love and be loved, forgive and be forgiven. Your love, which is forgiveness, has taught me. Is it not so?»

«Yes, My friend.»

«Then… take me with You. I was Felix! What irony! But give me a new name. That my past may be really dead. I will follow You like a stray dog, which finally finds a master. I will be Your slave, if You wish so. But do not leave me alone…»

«Yes, My friend.»

«What name will You give me?»

«A name dear to Me: John. Because you are grace granted by God.»

«Will You take me with You?»

«Yes, for the time being. Later you will follow Me with My disciples. But what about your house?»

«I have no house any longer. I will leave what I have to the poor. Just give me love and bread.»

«Come.»

• Coming to God and Jesus
• God's mercy and forgiveness
• Mercy and forgiveness
• Name of Jesus Christ
• Repentance and contrition

I would like to be able to help you all, also materially, but I cannot, and I am sorry for that. I can but point Heaven to you. I can only teach you the great wisdom of resignation and promise the future Kingdom to you. (...) It is better to be Lazarus than Dives, believe Me. Believe it and you will be blessed.

• Beatitudes
• God's promises
• Heaven - Paradiso
• Kingdom of God - Kingdom of Heaven
• Material wealth
• Poverty - Misery
• Resignation
• Saints and blessed
• The poor man
• Words of wisdom

In the desolation of these fields you cannot hear one word of hatred, even if facts could have justified it. Do not misunderstand the miracle. I am Love and I would not have struck. But seeing that Love could not bend cruel Doras, I abandoned him to Justice which avenged the martyr Jonah and his brothers. This is what the miracle teaches you. That Justice is always vigilant, even when it seems to be absent and that since God is the Master of creation, in pursuance of Justice, He can also make use of the lesser beings, such as caterpillars and ants, to punish the hearts of cruel and greedy people letting them die choked by a regurgitation of their own poison.

• Animals
• Ants
• Caterpillars
• Creation
• God's justice
• Jonas of Bethlehem (shepherd of the Nativity) and martyr of Esdrelon
• Justice and Mercy
• Miracles of Creation

«Well! Let us go on. Towards the Holy City. We must arrive there tomorrow, towards evening. Why such a hurry? Can you tell me? Is it not the same if we arrive the day after tomorrow?»

«No. It would not be the same. Because tomorrow is Parasceve and after sunset one can walk only for six stadia. You are not allowed to go farther because the Sabbath and its rest have begun.»

«So one idles about on the Sabbath.»

«No. You pray to the Most High Lord.»

«What is His name?»

«Adonai. But saints can pronounce His name.»

«Also good children. Tell Me if you know.»

«Jaave» (the boy pronounces it thus: a very soft G, which is almost a J, and a very long ‘a’).

«And why does one pray to the Most High Lord on the Sabbath?»

«Because He told Moses, when He gave him the tables of the Law.»

«Oh! Did He? And what did He say?»

«He said that we must keep it holy. “For six days you shall labour, but on the seventh day you shall rest and make others rest, because that is what I did, too, after the creation”.»

«What? Did the Lord rest? Did He become tired creating? And was it He Who created? How do you know? I know that God never tires.»

«He was not tired, because God does not walk and does not move His arms. But He did it, to teach Adam and us, and to have a day on which we think of Him. And He created everything, most certainly. The Book of the Lord tells us.»

«But was the Book written by Him?»

«No. But it is the Truth. And one must believe it unless one wants to go to Lucifer.»

«You said that God does not walk and does not move His arms. How did He create then? What is He like? A statue?»

«He is not an idol: He is God. And God is… God is… let me think and remember what my mother said, and even better than she did, that man who, in Your name goes to visit the poor people at Esdraelon… My mother used to say, to make me understand God: “God is like my love for you. It has no body, but it exists”. And that little man, but with such a gentle smile, would say: “God is an Eternal Spirit, One and Triune, and the Second Person became flesh for the sake of us, poor people, and His name is… “ Oh! My Lord! Now that I think of it… it’s You!» The child, dumbfounded, prostrates himself on the ground adoring.

They all run thinking that he has fallen, but Jesus with His finger on His lips beckons them to be silent and then says: «Stand up, Jabez. Children must not be afraid of Me!»

The boy looks up reverently and looks at Jesus with a changed expression, almost of fear.

But Jesus smiles and stretches out His hand saying: «You are a wise little Israelite.»

• Adam and Eve
• Commandments
• Creation
• God
• Jonas of Bethlehem (shepherd of the Nativity) and martyr of Esdrelon
• Lucifer - Satan
• Moses (biblical character)
• Sabbath
• Sunday rest
• Who is God?
• Word of God - Law of God
• You shall not take God's name in vain
• You will sanctify the feasts

My Mother had dedicated Herself to virginity for love. But, since She was a perfect creature, maternity was in Her blood and spirit. Because woman is created to be a mother and it is an aberration, if she is deaf to such sentiment, which is love of second power…»

Also the others have come near slowly.

«What do You mean, Master, by love of second power?» asks Judas Thaddeus.

«My brother, there are many loves and various powers. There is the love of first power: the one given to God. Then there is the love of second power: the love of a mother or of a father, because if the previous one is entirely spiritual, this one is spiritual by two parts and carnal by one. It is true that human affection is mixed in it, but the superior sentiment prevails, because a father and mother, who are such in a wholesome and holy way, do not only feed and caress the body of their child, but they also give nourishment and love to the mind and the spirit of their creature. And what I am saying is so true, that those who devote themselves to children, even if only to educate them, end up by loving their pupils as if they were of their own flesh.»

«In fact I was very fond of my pupils» says John of Endor.

«I understood that you must have been a good teacher by the way you deal with Jabez.»

The man of Endor bows and kisses Jesus’ hand without speaking.

«Please go on with Your classification of loves» begs the Zealot.

«There is the love for one’s wife: love of third power because it is made – I am always talking of wholesome and holy love – half of spirit and half of flesh. A man, besides being the husband of his wife, is a teacher and a father to her; and a woman is an angel and a mother to her husband, besides being his wife. These are the three highest loves.»

196.5

«And the love for our neighbour? Are You not wrong? Or have You forgotten it?» asks the Iscariot. The others look at him dumbfounded and… furious because of his remarks.

But Jesus replies placidly: «No, Judas. Watch. God is to be loved because He is God, so no explanation is required to convince one to have such love. He is He Who is, that is Everything; and man: Nothing, who participates of Everything, because of the soul infused in him by Eternal God — without which soul man would be one of the many animals that live on the earth, or in water or in the air — he must adore Him out of a sense of duty and to deserve to survive in Everything, that is to deserve to be part of the holy People of God in Heaven, a citizen of the Jerusalem that will know neither profanation nor destruction forever.

The love of man, and particularly of woman, for their offspring, is indicated as an order in the words of God to Adam and Eve, after He had blessed them, seeing that He had made a “good thing”, on a remote sixth day, the first sixth day of creation. God said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…” I can see your tacit objection, and this is My reply to you: Since before sin everything in creation was regulated by and based on love, that multiplication of children would have been a holy, pure, powerful, perfect love. And God gave it as His first commandment to man: “Be fruitful and multiply”. Therefore, love your children after Me. Love, as it is now, the present procreator of children, did not exist then. There was no malice nor the detestable thirst for sensuality. Man loved woman and woman loved man, naturally, not naturally according to nature as we understand it, or rather, as you men understand it, but according to the nature of children of God: supernaturally. Sweet were the days of love of the Two who were brothers, because born of one Father, and yet were husband and wife, who loved and looked at each other with the innocent eyes of twins in a cradle; and man felt the love of a father for his wife “bone from his bones and flesh from his flesh”, what a son is for his father; and the woman experienced the joy of being a daughter, protected by a very high love, because she felt that she had in herself something of the wonderful man who loved her, with innocence and angelical ardour, in the beautiful meadows in Eden!

Later, in the sequence of commands that God, smiling, gave to His beloved children, there comes what Adam himself, gifted by Grace with an intelligence inferior only to God’s, decreed speaking of his wife and of every woman through Eve, a decree of the thought of God, which was clearly reflected by the spotless mirror of Adam’s spirit, a flower in thought and in word: “Man will leave his father and his mother and will join himself to his wife and they will become one body”.

If there had not been the three pillars of the three above mentioned loves, could there have been love for one’s neighbour? No. It could not have existed. The love of God makes God a friend and teaches love. He who does not love God, Who is good, cannot certainly love his neighbour who in most cases is faulty. If there had been no conjugal love and paternity in the world, there could have been no neighbours, because a neighbour is the son of man. Are you convinced?»

«Yes, Master. I had not thought of that.»

«It is difficult indeed to go back to the sources. Man has been stuck in mud for thousands of years, and those sources are so high up on the summits! The first one, above all, is a source that comes immense from an immense height: God… But I will take you by the hand and lead you to the sources. I know where they are…»

196.6

«And the other loves?» ask together Simon Zealot and the man from Endor.

«The first one of the second series is the love for our neighbour. In actual fact it is the fourth in power. Then comes the love for science. Finally the love for work.»

«Is that all?»

«That is all.»

«But there are many more loves!» exclaims Judas of Kerioth.

«There are other hungers. But it is not love. They are the negation of love. They deny God, they deny man. It cannot be love because it is negation and Negation is Hatred.»

• Bible - Book of Genesis
• Family
• God's love
• Husband and wife - Husband and wife
• Love
• Love of neighbor
• Loving God
• Parents and children