Notes for this theme
Reading comfort
GRM 18.10
18.10 Entrust God with the protection of your reputation and affections. If you deserve God’s protection with a holy life, you can proceed safely. Even if the whole world is against you, He will defend you with regard to those who love you and will cause the truth to be known.
GRM 26.5
Jesus is coming to us, poor people, to make us rich in God.
GRM 27.7
No event can happen unless God allows it. Are you powerful? You became so, because God permitted it. Are you a subject? You are such, because God permitted it. Endeavour, therefore, powerful one, not to turn your power to your own detriment. It would always be ‘your detriment’, even if at the beginning, it may appear detrimental to others. Because if God allows, He does not over-allow, and if you go beyond the mark He will strike you and crush you. Endeavour, therefore, o subject, to make of your condition a magnet that will draw the protection of Heaven upon you. And never curse anyone. Leave that to God’s care. It is for Him, the Lord of all, to bless and curse His creatures.
GRM 35.9
‘Greatness’ is not to be found in criminality. It is in goodness, in honesty, in love, in justice.
GRM 36.9
The house is a gift of God as well as the clothes and the furnishings. The Providence of God is shown in everything, of God Who supplied wool to sheep, feathers to birds, grass to meadows, hay to animals, grains and branches to birds, Who weaves the dress of the lily of the valley. The house, the dresses, the furnishings are accepted with gratitude, blessing the divine hand that supplies them, looking after them with respect as gifts of the Lord, without any bad humour because they are poor, without ill use, without abusing Divine Providence: material order.
GRM 43.6
Translation in progress
GRM 49.6
The first temple is in the heart of every man and that is where holy prayers should be said. But a prayer cannot be holy unless the heart first amends its way of living and with his heart man also amends his habits, affections, the rules of justice towards the poor, servants, relatives and God.
GRM 49.6
Now look. I see rich hard-hearted men who make rich offerings to the Temple, but they never say to a poor man: “Brother, here is a piece of bread and a penny. Take them. From man to man, and let not my help discourage you as my offering may not make me proud”. I see people who, in their prayers, complain to God because He does not hear their prayers promptly; then when a poor wretch, very often a relative, says to them: “Listen to me”, they reply heartlessly: “No”. I see you crying because your money is squeezed out of your purses by your ruler. But then you squeeze blood out of those you hate and you are not filled with horror when you take the blood and life away from a body.
O Israel! The time of Redemption has come. Prepare its ways in hearts with goodwill. Be honest, good, love one another. The rich must not despise the poor; merchants must not defraud; the poor must not envy the rich. You are all of one blood, and you belong to one God. You are all called to one destiny. Do not shut with your sins the Heavens that the Messiah will open for you. Have you erred so far? Err no longer. Abandon all errors.
The Law is simple, easy and good as it goes back to the original ten commandments, illuminated by the light of love. Come. I will show you which they are: love, love, love. God’s love for you. Your love for God. Love for your neighbours. Always love, because God is love, and those are the Father’s children who know how to live love.
I am here for everybody, and to give everybody the light of God. Here is the Word of the Father that becomes food for you. Come, taste, change the blood of your spirits with this food. Let every poison vanish, let every lust die. A new glory is offered to you: the eternal one, to which all those will come whose hearts will truly study the Law of God.
Start from love. There is nothing greater. When you know how to love, you will already know everything, and God will love you, God’s love means help against all temptations.
May the blessing of God be on those who turn to God with their hearts full of goodwill.
GRM 49.10
When you succeed doing some good, do not boast about it, as if the merit were entirely yours. Praise God, the Lord of the apostolic workers, and have a clear eye and a sincere heart to see and give each the praise they deserve. A clear eye to discern the apostles who sacrificed themselves and are the first real incentive for the work of the others. Only God sees them: they are timid and seem to be doing nothing, whereas they draw from Heaven the fire that urges daring workers. A sincere heart in saying: “I work. But this fellow loves more than I do, he prays better than I do, I am not able to sacrifice myself as he does and as Jesus said: ‘… in your private room with the door closed pray secretly.’ Since I am aware of his humble holy virtue, I want to make it known and say: ‘I am an active instrument; he is a power that inspires me, because, joined as he is to God, he is a channel of celestial energy for me’”.
And the Blessing of the Father, that descends to reward the humble man, who secretly sacrifices himself to give strength to the apostles, will descend also on the apostle who sincerely acknowledges both the supernatural and silent help of the humble one, and his merits that superficial men do not notice.
It is a lesson for everybody.
Jesus tells us:
GRM 50.7
Deuteronomy states what is to be done, nothing else was necessary. But do not judge those who acted for other people, not for themselves. Do what God commands. And above all, strive and be perfect in the two main precepts. If you love God with all your souls, you will not sin, because sin gives pain to God. Those who love do not want to give pain. If you love your neighbours, as you love yourselves, you will be respectful children to your parents, faithful husbands to your wives, honest merchants in your trade, without any violence against your enemies, truthful in bearing witness, without envy of wealthy people, without any incentive of lewdness for another man’s wife. And as you do not want to do to other people what you do not wish should be done to you, you will not steal, or kill, or slander, or enter someone else’s nest like cuckoos.
In fact, I say to you. “Carry to perfection your obedience to the two precepts of love: love also your enemies”.
How much the Most High Will love you, since He loves man so much. Although man became His enemy because of the original sin, and because of his personal sins, He sent man the Redeemer, the Lamb Who is His Son, that is I, Who am speaking to you, the Messiah promised to redeem you from all your sins, if you will learn to love as He does.
Love. May your love become a ladder by which, like angels, you will ascend to Heaven, as Jacob saw them, when you hear the Father say to each and everybody: “I will be your protector wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this place; to Heaven, the Eternal Kingdom”.