Poem Of The Man God The Gospel As Revealed To Me

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    Purity of Heart

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    Notebook 1944
    Chapter Purity of Heart
    Page: 473

    Jesus says:

    “Love, mercy, prayer, mortification, and the desire to possess God’s gifts and holiness—undeniably praiseworthy sentiments—can be stained with impurity which ruins them and makes them unacceptable to God.
    “Purity of heart does not consist of having a heart enclosed in a virginal body or the heart’s desire to remain like this. Purity of heart is so delicate that physical purity is nothing in comparison to it. The latter is a massive wall against which Satan’s attempts bounce back without serious damage. It is enough for people not to desire and not to arrive at violating themselves. But the former is a silvery cobweb, and even a blue bottle’s wing can break it. A blue bottle’s wing. The recklessness of a spirit ceasing to watch over itself constantly and carefully. It is then very easy for the holiest things to be stained with human rust, decomposing or at least being disfigured in their essence of goodness.

    “Love for God is impure when you offer God worship whose purpose is this: ‘I love You because I want a lot from You.’ You may request and hope for everything from God, who loves you. But how much more beautiful it is to say, ‘Father, I love You and want what you want. I ask only to do what You want. I want only what You send me, for, if You send it to me, it is certainly for my good. You are my Father, and I abandon myself to your love.’ It is impure when it is to receive compensation. God should be loved above all calculation. Loved for Himself and for his own sake. If I said, ‘Love with no hope of compensation,’ when referring to one’s neighbor, (568) with greater reason shouldn’t this love free from calculation be given to God?

    “Similarly, love for one’s neighbor is impure when, among your neighbors, you love only those who love you, serve you, or are in any way useful to you.

    “I have placed no limitation on love for one’s neighbor. I said, ‘Love your neighbor as yourselves.’ (569) And, aware of your tendency to proclaim yourselves to be good, kind, pleasing, holy, and so on, as well as your subtlety in distinguishing what it benefits you to distinguish—which would have led you to love very few, for in all you would have found defects, as compared to your virtues, defects which in your eyes would have justified your severity towards your neighbor—I specified, ‘Turn the other cheek to those who have already struck you and to those who have taken away your tunic with overbearance hand over your mantle as well. Love and do good to those who hate you and pray for those who cause you suffering.’ (570)

    “I know the world’ intelligence calls these counsels ‘foolishness.’ Pigs call pearls filthy stones and prefer the foul-smelling swill on which excrement and refuse floats to them. The world’s intelligence has a lot of affinity to the tastes of pigs. But what is foolishness to the world is knowledge for the children of the Most High; it is intelligence and grace.

    “Follow this knowledge, intelligence, and grace, and you will receive a great reward in Heaven and supernatural comforts on earth, those comforts at all hours which the worldly seek in vain to find among the things of the world, and the more they plunge in, the more bitterness and disgust penetrate their hearts. There in nothing but God that gives peace. God and a good conscience. Two things which sinners are not on good terms with.

    “Mercy is also beautiful. But to be truly beautiful and pure, like a happy virgin going to the altar, it is necessary for it to lean on upright intention, as on the arm of a loving bridegroom to whom one’s word is given. It otherwise becomes vanity and pride, and even giving is futile, as if you were to throw your offerings between Satan’s jaws.

    “I said, ‘Be merciful, as my Father and I are merciful.’ (571) But does God the Father perhaps sound a trumpet or appear at the height of Heaven to say, ‘Listen! Listen! Today I have given bread and life to some many creatures; I have defended so many others from dangers; I have forgiven so many others? No. He acts and is silent. He acts with such modesty, with such reserved care, that you, O fools of the world, do not even consider that what you enjoy is granted to by God, always too good to you; and you, that are not fools, but are, however, still very far from being Christians as you should be, say, ‘God gave it to me. But I deserved it.’ Oh! Oh! He deserved it! And isn’t this arrogance already a source of demerit? And who can say this with the implication ‘If God had not done so, He would have erred?

    “From dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn God is merciful and beneficent towards you, and only some who are very rare exceptions among the children of God raise their gaze and heart to say to Him with a smile, ‘Thank You, good Father. I recognize your hand in this gift.’ When you show mercy, do so only out of love—for God, to imitate the good Father’ for your neighbor, to obey my word and my example.

    “Prayer! Oh, what a good thing prayer is! God has placed it in man’s heart, like the need to breathe. Isn’t it in fact the breathing of the soul? Without breath, the movement of the blood also ceases, and the body dies. Prayer is what keeps the spirit alive, always maintaining it in the sight of God. Two who see one another cannot forget each other. Isn’t that true? Well then, prayer is to place oneself in the sight of God, as a son or daughter, and say, ‘Here I am. I know that You are my Father, and I thus dear near to You. Who can I speak to in the certainty of being understood if not to Him who has taught me the Word, His Word?’

    “But prayer, like other things, must be pure. Not done for human gain. Among the billion prayers said on earth every day, 999 Million are said to request human joy, money, and health, and sometimes they even arrive at asking for death to gain freedom from someone who is hateful to you, requesting misfortune for one of your fellow men who, rightly or wrongly, is guilty of not being to your liking. Can God do evil to make someone who hates content?

    “Only a million prayers are said to request supernatural aid which will enable you to rise to that perfection which you want to reach to do something pleasing to God, who wants you to be holy and reunited to Him. These million prayers rise up humbly and gratefully and say, ‘Father, help me to sanctify myself. My weakness needs You in order to be strong. Father, I want to love You perfectly and cannot. Teach me to do so. You, Love. Father, I know and remember what You have already given me. Without You, I would be wretched in body and even more in spirit. Thank You, Father, for everything. I say, “Continue, continue to your benefits.” But not out of a thirst for human well-being. More than for the flesh, I say, “Continue” for my spirit, to which I want to give back the eternal Country. O holy Father, your little creature is sighing at your breast. Support me on the way so that I will not be detoured onto other roads and will come to You, my Rest and Joy.’

    “The desire to possess the gifts of God and sanctity is almost an obligation. What would you say about the son of a king who did not wish to possess the gifts which the king, his father, offers him, having his messengers say to him, ‘Here there are incalculable riches for you, so that you may use them for your advantage and pleasure. When you need them, ask for them, and I will send them to you’? What about this son of a king who, knowing his father has destined the crown to him, does not wish to put it on so as to continue the kingship of his father? The crown which his father, the king, has prepared for him is a sign of paternal love in thinking of his heir, even when the latter is in a land of exile. To refuse or neglect it is a disrespectful lack of love for the father. The same applies to the son of the King of kings who dies in indigence in his spirit because, with a blameworthy apathy, he does not resort to the treasures of the Father and never thinks of that crown: the holiness which will make him a king in the eternal Kingdom.

    “But why holiness? And what gifts? Holiness to enjoy God. Not out of the vainglory of being praised among men.

    “In truth I tell you: in my Heaven there are sanctity and saints with the most varied characteristics, but there is no one who has obtained sanctity out of the desire to be known and celebrated among men for this reason. One is there because of martyrdom; another, because he was a hermit; another, because he was a tireless worker of hearts through preaching; and another, because he consumed himself in silence and prayer; this one, because he loved my childhood; and that one, because he loved my torture. And also those who were knights of the Most Pure Woman and those who were heralds of the great King. But there is no one, no one, who is holy because he thought of being such so as to bear a halo in the eyes of the world.

    “You do not see the saints on the day when their sanctity is proclaimed on earth. But if you could see them in that instant, you would see the amazement of children who, while already holding a costly toy or contemplating a very beautiful engraving, see a vulgar rag being put in their hands or a shredded drawing placed before their eyes and hear the adult offering such things to them to say, ‘See what a lovely present I am giving you!’ The child looks and is silent. But, with the accuracy in observation which children possesses, he thinks, ‘But there’s no comparison to what I already have.’ And they remain indifferent to the gift, continuing to observe and caress what they already had.

    “The saints have God. What would you have seduce them more? Does the halo increase their joy? They already have a complete, perfect one. They have God.

    “Moreover, a very good, truly good child—not a hypocrite—when he sees himself being praised for having been good, thinks, ‘Shouldn’t I have done so? My father always tells me I must be good, and I thus have not done anything deserving praise. I obeyed my father so he would be happy.’ In his humility, he does not understand how great it is to be able to obey out of love and to make those who love us happy.

    “The saints, too, humble because they are saints, think, ‘What did I do that was special? I obeyed the command of God my Father so He would be happy.’ And they are already so happy that that the earthly festivities leave them indifferent. I said ‘festivities,’ not prayers of the faithful. These are requests which far-off friends send to those who, because they are at God’s side, can speak of Him more directly about their needs. This is charity. And charity, practiced to perfection by them in life, has become even more perfect since it was fused to Charity itself.

    “Desire sanctity with purity, then, and the gifts which help you to possess it. But with purity of heart—that is, with the sole desire of reuniting yourselves to God as soon as possible so as to love Him more and to be of benefit to your brothers and sisters with your merits through the communion of the saints.

    “And mortification? Oh, let it be pure! How many useless mortification's you carry out! Useless and sinful. Why? Because they are impure. The ones stained with a desire for praise and anticharity are impure. To be good so as to be praised, to perform a penance to be noticed, and to sacrifice oneself in not eating a piece of fruit so that the world will admire you and then fail to be patient, humble, and merciful is really useless. What do you want Me to do with your uneaten fruit when you avenge yourselves for the sacrifice of not eating it by stinging one of your brothers with venomous words? What you do want Me to do with a penance of yours if you are later unable to endure even what life brings you? What merit is there in being good outside the home when you are vipers in your own houses? What merit is there in wearing a hairshirt if you are unable to wear the hairshirt of my will in silence?

    “Remember what I said, ‘When you do penance, anoint your heads and wash your faces.’ (572) Go ahead and appear to be unmortified in the foolish eyes of the world. It is enough for you not to occasion scandal, for scandal is always an evil. But if you seem like mere ordinary creatures and thus receive only indifference and no praise, while consuming yourselves secretly out of love for God and your brothers and sisters, your merit will be great in the eyes of God.

    “And if you are unable to impose penances on yourselves, oh, accept the ones in life itself! It is full of them! Accept by saying, ‘If this affliction comes from God, may Your will be done, O Lord; if it comes from a poor wicked brother, I offer it to You, Father, that You may forgive and redeem him.

    “Act like this, beloved ones. And everything in your will be pure. You will then purity of heart. And in a heart with purity God has his throne.

    “Go in peace, now. Proceed in my peace on the way of purity of heart, with the thought that the pure in heart will enjoy God.”



    Peace be with you always


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