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Notes for this theme

Relationship with Heaven and the invisible world

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GRM 181.4-5 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

In the universal sense the purport of the parable is as follows: the field is the world. The good seed is the children of the Kingdom of God sown by God in the world, while they wait to reach their end and be cut by the Mower and be taken to the Master of the world Who will store them in His granaries. The subjects of the Evil one are the darnel, which has also been spread in the field of God for the purpose of causing grief to the Master of the world and damage to the corn of God. The enemy of God has sown them deliberately, through witchcraft, because the demon really perverts the nature of man making him a creature of his own and then sows it to lead astray other people whom he has not been able to enslave otherwise. The harvest, that is the tying of the sheaves and carrying them to the granaries, is the end of the world and that is accomplished by the angels. They are given instructions to gather together the creatures which have been cut, to separate the corn from the darnel, and as in the parable the darnel is burnt, so the damned will be burnt in the eternal fire, at the Last Judgement.

The Son of man will have all scandalmongers and performers of iniquity removed from His Kingdom. Because the Kingdom then will be on the earth and in Heaven and many sons of the Enemy will be mixed among the citizens of the Kingdom on Earth. And, as prophesied also by Prophets, they will reach the perfection of scandal and abomination in every ministry on the earth and will be of great annoyance to the children of the spirit. The corrupt will have already been driven out of the Kingdom of God in Heaven, because no corruption will enter Heaven. And now the angels of the Lord, brandishing their sickles among the group of the last harvest, will mow down and separate the corn from the darnel and will throw the latter into the burning furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. The just, instead, the chosen seed, will be taken to the eternal Jerusalem, where they will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of My Father and yours.

That is the universal sense.

Detail

Jesus has just given the parable of the good grain and the tares and explained it to the apostles. The gospel text is available as an annotation.

Annotation

They will reach, as the prophets announce, the perfection of scandal and abomination in all their earthly activity. For example: Daniel 9:27; 11:31,36; 12:11.

Dan 9, 27: He will make a firm covenant with a great number for a week; and in the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and on the wing of abominations will come a destroyer, and that until destruction and what has been decreed are poured out on the devastated.

We have not been able to find any convincing verses in the other references given.

Dn 11, 31.36 : Troops sent by him will stand there; they will profane the sanctuary, the fortress; they will make the perpetual sacrifice cease and set up the abomination of the devastator.

Dan 12:11: From the time when the daily sacrifice is stopped and the abomination of the destroyer is set up, there will be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.

This is the universal meaning: Jesus had already commented on the meaning of the Parable in his catechesis of October 27, 1943.

Gospel of Matthew 13, 23-30; 36-43

Mt 13, 23-30; Mt 13, 36-43: The one who received the seed into the good soil is the one who hears the Word and understands it: he bears fruit at the rate of a hundred, or sixty, or thirty to one." He offered them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who has sown good seed in his field. But while the people were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went away. When the stalk grew and produced an ear of wheat, the weeds also appeared. The master's servants came to him and said: "Lord, is that not good grain you have sown in your field? Where did the tares come from?" He said to them, "An enemy has done this." The servants say to him, "Do you want us to go and remove it?" He replies, "No, by removing the tares, you risk uprooting the wheat at the same time. Let them grow together until harvest time; and, at harvest time, I'll say to the reapers, First remove the tares, bind them in bundles to burn; as for the wheat, gather it up to bring it into my granary."""

Then, leaving the crowds, he came home. His disciples came up to him and said, "Explain to us clearly the parable of the tares in the field." He answered them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world; the good seed are the sons of the Kingdom; the tares are the sons of the Evil One. The enemy who sowed it is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; the reapers are the angels. As the tares are taken away and thrown into the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will remove from his Kingdom all those who cause stumbling and do evil, and throw them into the furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father's kingdom. He who has ears, let him hear!

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 181.6 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

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.

Annotation

"God does not allow us to oppose, any more than is useful, the triumph of his will of love". On a leaf inserted in the typed copy, Maria Valtorta wrote:

"God has given man the intellect to understand, the reason to guide himself as a reasonable creature, the conscience to advise, the law to know how to regulate himself, the freedom to deserve what he wants to deserve: God and glory, or Hell and damnation.

Moreover, He gave him grace, or predestination to grace, so that it might be a stimulus, or a means, to raise the things listed below to a level capable of giving him a holy taste for the supernatural and for God.

Now, in the man who is intelligent, reasonable, conscious, free, and above all instructed in the Faith, knowing his final end and the divine Law, there should be only such actions as the Law prescribes and the knowledge of the end incites us to practice, even as reason and conscience indicate them as good to all, even to those who do not know revealed religion, in order toto obtain the eternal reward that the human intellect, all the more so when enlightened by Grace, is infinitely superior to all conceptions a believer can imagine.

But it sometimes happens that man, acting against reason, turns his freedom into a yoke of the cruellest of slavery: that of the devil and sin, preferring Evil to Good.

Even if God allows man to do what he chooses of his own free will, in order to judge and confirm him in grace, or to judge that he deserves punishment, nothing lessens man's guilt. For while it is true that man, at God's prompting or Satan's instigation, can do good or evil, it is no less true that man should follow God alone and his loving invitations, for it is from him that he has received all those natural, moral and supernatural gifts capable of making him a child of God, heir to the Kingdom."

GRM 182.2 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

He [Jesus] goes straight to caress a little shepherd, who is standing towards the centre of the woolly bleating mass of sheep. He asks the boy: «Are they yours?» Jesus knows very well that they are not the boy’s, but He wants him to speak.

«No, Lord. I am with those men. And the herds belong to many owners. We are all together for fear of the bandits.»

«What is your name?»

«Zacharias, the son of Isaac. But my father died and I work as a servant because we are poor and my mother has three more sons younger than I am.»

«Has your father been long dead?»

«Three years, Lord… and since then I have never smiled because my mother always weeps and I have no one who caresses me any more… I am the first born and my father’s death has made a man of me, while I was still a child… But I must not weep but earn some money… But it is so difficult!» Tears stream down his face which is too serious for his age.

The shepherds have drawn near and so have the apostles. A group of men in the midst of moving sheep.

«You are not fatherless, Zacharias. You have a holy Father in Heaven, Who always loves you, if you are good, and your father has not ceased loving you because he is in Abraham’s bosom. You must believe that. And because of such faith you must endeavour to become better and better.» Jesus speaks kindly and caresses the boy.

Detail

A real-life case of a child who lost his father three years ago and now looks after flocks of sheep.

GRM 182.4

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

«You said: “Up there, where we are, only the winds speak, and sometimes the wolf speaks and slaughters”. What happens up there, happens in men’s hearts through the work of God, of men and of Satan. You may, therefore, have up there what you would have in any other place.

Do you know the Law well enough and its ten commandments? And you, too, boy? In that case you know enough. If you faithfully practise what God commanded, you will be holy. Do not complain of being far from the world. That will preserve you from much corruption. And God is not far from you, but closer in that solitude, where you can hear His voice in the winds, which He created, in the herbs and in the water, whereas you would not hear it among men. Your flock teaches you a great virtue, or rather, many great virtues. It is meek and obedient. It is satisfied with little and grateful for what it has. It loves and knows those who take care of it and love it. Do likewise saying: “God is our Shepherd and we are His sheep. He watches us. He protects us and grants us not what is the source of vice, but what is necessary to live”. And keep wolves away from your hearts. Wicked men are wolves: they seduce you and incite you to evil actions by Satan’s order and it is Satan himself who induces you to sin so that he may tear you to pieces.

Be watchful. You shepherds know the habits of wolves. They are shrewd, as sheep are simple and innocent. They steal close to you, after watching from above the habits of the herd, they sneak closer through bushes and lie as still as stones to avoid drawing your attention. Do they not look like huge stones which have rolled down on to the meadows? Then, when they are sure that no one is watching, they spring and bite. That is how Satan behaves. He watches you to find out your weak points, he roams about you, he seems harmless and absent, concerned with something else whereas he is watching you, and then he suddenly leaps to induce you to sin, and sometimes he is successful.

But close to you there is a doctor and a compassionate spirit. God and your angel. If you are wounded, if you have been taken ill, do not go away from them, as a dog which has become rabid does. On the contrary, while weeping shout to them: “Help!”. God forgives those who repent and your angel is ready to implore God with you and for you.

Detail

Jesus speaks of the wolf that shepherds sometimes hear.

Annotation

You shepherds know the habits of the wolf. Wolves are not rare in Palestine. There are two breeds: the common wolf (canis lupus), which lives in Galilee and the Basan mountains, and the Egyptian wolf (canis lupaster), much smaller and with spindlier limbs, which inhabits the south(source).

GRM 182.4 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

Your flock teaches you a great virtue, or rather, many great virtues. It is meek and obedient. It is satisfied with little and grateful for what it has. It loves and knows those who take care of it and love it. Do likewise saying: “God is our Shepherd and we are His sheep. He watches us. He protects us and grants us not what is the source of vice, but what is necessary to live”. And keep wolves away from your hearts. Wicked men are wolves: they seduce you and incite you to evil actions by Satan’s order and it is Satan himself who induces you to sin so that he may tear you to pieces.

Detail

Jesus speaks of a flock of sheep.

GRM 182.4 · Volume 3

The Gospel as revealed to me

Quotation

That is how Satan behaves. He watches you to find out your weak points, he roams about you, he seems harmless and absent, concerned with something else whereas he is watching you, and then he suddenly leaps to induce you to sin, and sometimes he is successful.

But close to you there is a doctor and a compassionate spirit. God and your angel. If you are wounded, if you have been taken ill, do not go away from them, as a dog which has become rabid does. On the contrary, while weeping shout to them: “Help!”. God forgives those who repent and your angel is ready to implore God with you and for you.