Love Crucified

In the Unity of the Trinity, Jn 17

Lourdes Pinto, 5/20/21

John 17 is a unique opportunity to see the nature and heart of Jesus. 

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you” (17:1)

• It is the cross (see John 12:27-33, 13:30-33, 21:18-19) that will glorify the Son. The cross was utter humiliation to the world, but it was an instrument of glorification in God’s eyes. This is an aspect of the foolishness and weakness of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18, 1:23-25).

“And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.” (17:19)

• Jesus sanctifies (consecrates) Himself for us, meaning He sacrifices Himself to the Father for us. This perfect consecration of Jesus opened the curtain so that we can participate in the oneness of the Trinity. Yet, this entering into the unity of God is only possible if we, as the Body of Christ, voluntarily choose, for love of God, to participate in His consecration which is His sacrifice. Only through, with, and in Jesus crucified can we enter the inner chamber, which is the Heart of Christ, to live in the embrace of the Father with the Holy Spirit.
•  “To men, the cross appeared an instrument of shame. To Christ it was the means of true glory.” (Morris)
• “But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:13)

“I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Col.1:24)

“I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (17:26)

The prayer of Jesus in John 17 reveals Divine Love, the Trinity. It is the Holy Spirit, received from the pierced Heart of Jesus crucified, that brings us to KNOW the love of the Son and the Father. It is the Holy Spirit that brings me to PARTICIPATE in the deepest prayer and longing of the Son as I also pray: 

• “Father, glorify your daughter as one with your Son so that your daughter may glorify you.”
• “And for their sakes I sanctify myself through Christ, with Christ and in Christ, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.” 

I listen in SA at times to brothers and sisters complaining of their suffering, a tendency that I also see in myself. Yet the Spirit always moves me in spiritual accompaniment to see the glory of that suffering in Christ. If I am suffering great mental and physical exhaustion and this suffering in Christ is bringing graces to my LC family, is it not worth it to me? Is it not an opportunity to glorify the Father and Son? If someone is suffering physical ailments and that suffering saved their soul, is it not worth suffering in gratuitous love? If that physical suffering suffered through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ is saving the souls of their family, is it not an occasion to rejoice? Then why is it so difficult for us? 

We are complicated because of sin, and God is SIMPLE. The way to unity is simple, but for us, it’s difficult because of our brokenness, woundedness, self-centeredness, etc.  

Let’s journey the Simple Path from its beginning to the summit of unity in the Trinity to understand how God has been guiding us through His Spirit to union in Him—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

• My Gaze Penetrates All Darkness,   –Simple Path 16, p.59 (ch.2)
• My desire for you, My thirst for each of you, is to make you My living icons. My little ones, suffer all with Me, gazing upon My crucified love so that your suffering can perfect your faith and you can become My living chalices poured upon the world, redeeming, restoring, and purifying with Me.
• Love on Earth Must Be United to Suffering —#29, p.87
• My daughter, the purest love on earth must be united to suffering. I came from heaven to earth to suffer in expiation for the sins of the world. This is love.
• Pure love gives itself solely because of love. The love of the Trinity is pure love; therefore, the Father gives His life by giving to the world His only begotten Son. The Holy Spirit—this most pure love—flows, igniting the hearts to suffer with Me, so that they can enter in Love.
• The Cross, without My Sacred Heart, is useless suffering brought about by sin. But suffering united to My Cross is new life; it is participation in the work of redemption, which is participation in the life of the Trinity.
• These mysteries can be grasped only by a humble heart… Suffer all with perfect faith in My crucified love. (1/13/11)
• Martyrdom of the Heart —# 39, p. 139
• The martyrdom of the heart is the martyrdom of suffering with Love and for Love. My daughter, if you could only understand the fruit of the martyrdom of suffering, you would desire nothing else on earth. The hidden life of suffering with Love and for Love is of far greater worth than great and small works tainted with human recognition. Believe in the hidden force contained in the martyrdom of the heart. This is the purest fragrance of love that has the power to conquer the enemies of God. (11/9/12)
• I Give Myself to the Good and the Bad —#49. Simple Path p. 162
• The Eucharist is the power of God in the world. The love of God is the Eucharist and is transmitted through the Eucharist. 
• Learn about the hidden life by contemplating My Eucharistic life. I am hidden from your human eye but completely present. I am verbally silent, yet My soul speaks to your soul. I am humble, pure, simple, silent, generous, forgiving, merciful, patient, and tender. I give Myself fully to the good and the bad, to the deserving and the undeserving, to those who love Me and to those that persecute Me; for when one is not obedient to the precepts of My Church, I am persecuted. I continue to love those who do not love Me.I continue to love those who use Me. I continue to love the unfaithful. I continue to love those indifferent to My love. I am left alone in the Tabernacles of the world with few who come to be with Me, to adore Me, and to give Me thanks. I cry, but My tears are hidden. I intercede continuously before the throne of our Father for all. My hidden life in the Eucharist is seen by Abba and blessed by Him Who sees all.
• Your ordinary and hidden life through the Cross becomes united to My Eucharistic life. Your hidden life takes on the same power as My hidden life because we are no longer two but ONE. These are My living hosts. In this union of love, you enter and live in the realm of God. Through Me, with Me, and in Me, your most ordinary life is the power of God. Your thoughts, words, deeds, but most especially your tears and sorrows of heart, possess the power of God to bless the world. Your hidden life not seen by anyone is seen by God and, through Me, with Me and in Me, He blesses many. Your life, as ONE with My Eucharistic life, moves beyond time and space.
• Ponder My Eucharistic life with the Holy Spirit and Mary. I desire for you to help Me form many living hosts to shine the light of God and to pierce the darkness. You grow in holiness as your hidden life is lived to greater perfection in My hidden life. (7/5/12)

John 17:4 “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.”

• Participate in My Body and Blood — p. 168
•  In order for you to become ONE BODY, ONE BLOOD in Me, you must respond to become My victim of love, a victim united as ONE to The Victim. What is required of My creature is her response, her “Fiat,” then the power of My Spirit, the Holy Spirit, brings about this perfect union.
• The Ecstasy of the Love of God Transforms the Pain into the Sword of the Spirit —#72 p.217
• Some saints received the stigmata with the physical pain of the nail wounds, but ALL My saints were crucified with Me mystically through My nails. The mystical crucifixion is no less real and painful than the physical one, just as the white martyrdom is no less real and painful than the red martyrdom.
• Unity in the Holy Trinity is the fruit of becoming one with Me in My crucifixion, for this is perfect love. The ecstasy of the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit transforms the pain into the Sword of the Spirit that pierces the darkness of Satan. This union of Love is achieved by few because of a lack of perseverance and selfless love.
• A saint who becomes one in My crucified love has the power to transform an entire society. I am raising up My saints for the decisive times at hand to fight My holy war and usher in the era of peace. (12/28/14)

• The Fusion of Hearts Is the Kiss of Union —#79 p.230
• The fusion of hearts takes place through the sword of suffering as ONE. It is through the union in suffering that you die more-and-more to self until it is no longer you who live but I Who live in you… The fusion of hearts is the kiss of union, the embrace of the Holy Spirit, the embrace of Love. (12/3/12)

• Abandon Yourselves —#80 p.231
• Abandon yourself simply by accepting all the way that it is given to you… Give yourself completely, serving all for love of Me. The mission will move forward according to My plan and Will. You are called to be love by sacrificing yourself completely for Love. This simple abandonment in each of the circumstances of your lives that I have placed you in will produce the hidden force needed to conquer the darkness covering the earth. Abandon yourselves to love the most difficult ones closest to you. Kiss My pierced feet each morning; and set yourselves out like warriors on a mission to serve with love, patience, tenderness—be slow to anger. (2/26/11)

• Silence —#82, p. 233
• In the fire of My Sacred Heart, you come to know personally the Holy Spirit. Now you have ascended into the silence of the Trinity. In the Holy Spirit, you possess Me and the Father as One. The Spirit now lives in you and you in Him. You are ONE.
• This divine dimension is SILENCE. When you enter this divine union in silence, the soul must be careful to nurture it. Careless speech and careless activity can bring the soul out of this divine dimension of silence. (7/22/11)

•  Drawn into the Unity of the Trinity -- 85, 86, 87

• What Is True Unity? #85 P.240
• The Father and I are ONE; the Father in Me and I in Him with the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 17). The union of the Trinity is pure love. I came upon the earth to draw you into union with the Most Holy Trinity through the Cross—no longer two but ONE.[1] It is in this union that love exists.
• Only from this union of love with your Triune God can unity exist in My Body, the Church. It is through My life in the Eucharist that I become One with you, but it is only through your participation in My Eucharistic life that you become One in Me.  This participation can take place only by entering the Cross of new life, My crucified love. (11/23/11)

• How to Respond to Christ’s Desire for Unity —#87. p.241
• I desire to draw you into true unity, the unity of the love of the Most Holy Trinity. The union of sorrows will bring you into the union of Love. The gaze of the Father is upon you. Be love. Live solely for Love, forgetting yourself.
• My Lord, how do I live solely for Love, forgetting myself?
• Live to please Me. To live in the unity of the Trinity is to live gazing at the Father, through the Son, to please Him in all things. (3/18/12)

Living Hosts, The Hidden Force Which is the Eucharist  8-2-12

During cenacle I saw a Host as if suspended in the sky. Then the Host was filled, consumed w the Light of Jesus. Then I felt the gaze of the Father upon His Son in the Eucharist, and the Light of the Father came as a beam of radiant Light to His Eucharistic Son. Then the Light of the Holy Spirit issued out of the Eucharist. Then I saw a human body. It was not any one person in particular, so I understood that this person represented all of us. The Light of the Eucharistic Jesus penetrated fully and was consumed in this person. I felt the gaze of the Father upon His Son fully one with this person. This human person was the living tabernacle containing the life and light of Jesus. Then the light and power of the HS issued forth from this person.

I understood that the Lord was giving me an interior vision of the spiritual reality of a living host. It is only the love of God that can penetrate the darkness. God was revealing to me the life and unity of the Trinity through their Light. The love of God is a continuous flow and unity of love between the Father, Son, and HS. 

As our hidden life becomes one with Jesus’ hidden life in the Eucharist, He becomes one with us. The gaze of the Father is always on His Son. Therefore, His gaze is then set upon us, for we are one with Jesus. Then the love of the Father and the Son, which is the HS, can consume us and flow from us to the world.

As living hosts, our lives enter the realm of God and, therefore can affect the world according to the desire of God Himself. Our hidden and ordinary lives become the hidden force of the Light and love of the Trinity. This is the hidden force which is the Eucharist, and the hidden force which has the power to penetrate the darkness of Satan.

[1] Cf. Eph 2:15-16.

Mystical Incarnation, Fullness of the Holy Spirit

Lourdes Pinto, 5/13/21

“Unless one is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:5)

Abba, our beloved Father, did not send us His only begotten Son only to forgive our sins; He did not send Him only to open our eyes to see the Kingdom of God, but also to take us, through Christ crucified, into the Kingdom of God. 

It is not enough to want to see Jesus.

John 12:21 – “They came to Philip and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

Jesus answers in a way that can seem odd to us: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” (Jn 12:33)

It is not enough to see Jesus. Many people saw Jesus; they saw Him perform great miracles, and yet they didn’t become “witnesses.” They didn’t follow Him. “Though he had done so many signs before them, yet did not believe in him.” (Jn 12:37).

To partake in the hour of Jesus is to ALLOW the Holy Spirit to unite us to His crucified love.

The Holy Spirit desires to purify us so that we can ENTER the Holy of Holies; enter the union of Love.

• Jesus to Love Crucified: This mission is My thirst in the depth of My Sacred Heart for unity in Love. That is, unity in the love of the Most Holy Trinity. 6/12/12

A thick curtain separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place. This curtain was known as the “veil.” The word “veil” in Hebrew means a screen, divider, or separator that hides. What was this curtain hiding? Essentially, it was shielding a holy God from sinful man. The presence of God remained shielded from men behind a thick curtain during the history of Israel. However, Jesus’ sacrificial death on the Cross changed that. When He died, the curtain in the Jerusalem temple was torn from the top to the bottom.

We can now boldly enter God’s presence, “the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf.” (Hebrews 6:19-20)

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body …let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.” (Hebrews 10:19-22)

The Catechism CC #1239 teaches us concerning baptism: 

• It (baptism) signifies and actually brings about death to sin and entry into the life of the Most Holy Trinity through configuration to the Paschal mystery of Christ. 

It is the Holy Spirit that brings us into the Holy of Holies by uniting us to Jesus crucified. As we become one with The Crucified, which is becoming one with Love, through Him, with Him, and in Him, we enter the Holy of Holies into the Father’s loving embrace. We begin to possess the Trinity through Christ’s mystical incarnation in us. This is what it means to “enter the Kingdom of God.” This is “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”

 Jn 12:32 “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 

The era of the Holy Spirit is approaching 

Message of Jesus to LC:4/21/21

The Holy Spirit is not known yet, but the era of the Holy Spirit is approaching. He is one with the Incarnation of Jesus on earth. The incarnation takes place through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and Son; they are inseparable. When Jesus is Incarnated in Mary’s womb, the Holy Spirit is present as one in Christ. It is through the incarnation that Mary receives the fullness of the Trinity. She is the first to live the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The Incarnation of Jesus brings the mystical (indwelling) of the Trinity on earth. This reality of the Holy Spirit is still not known, yet it is the reality that God’s saints of the end times will live to usher into the world the Kingdom of God.

Jn 16:24 – “Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.”

This JOY is the fruit of the Spirit mentioned by St Paul to the Galatians (Gal. 5:22-23). In fact, joy comes 2nd between love and peace. This supernatural joy comes from living in the unity of the Trinity. Experiencing the love of the three Persons of the Trinity and remaining in the embrace of the Spirit brings forth the joy that remains even amidst persecution, hardships, trials.

Mystical Incarnation –Blessed Conchita: Conchita a Mother’s Spiritual Diary,

Jesus tells Conchita: The mystical incarnation is a grace of transformation in view of an assimilation of the creature with its model Jesus, who I am. It is a transforming grace of union. (p.157)

 Jesus goes on to tell her, The Word became flesh and becomes flesh again in souls only to be crucified. It is the purpose of all mystical incarnations. (p.159)

The Holy Spirit will reign (a new Pentecost) the day when My sacrifice of suffering will also reign: the Cross in hearts. In so far as the Cross will not reign in souls, the Holy Spirit, He too will not reign. (p.252)

In the mystical incarnations of the Word, do not believe that I am alone, rather all the Trinity of Divine Persons is present, but each person operating according to its properties: The Father, as Father, engendering, the Word as Son being born; and the Holy Spirit fertilizing this divine action in the soul.     (Diary T. 49, p. 5-6, Sept. 22, 1927).

Ask for the MYSTICAL INCARNATION and receive, that your joy may be full!

The Spirit at Work in the Shake-Ups of Life- part II

Lourdes Pinto and Fr. Jordi Rivero 5/3/21

The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to us from His pierced Heart on the Cross where He hung as a total failure in the eyes of the world. The Holy Spirit is our closest divine Companion. He is our guide, teacher, spiritual director, friend, help, light … He is the Transformer. He is the one that consumes us in His fire of love bringing forth our death in Christ crucified so that we can then be raised with Christ as a new creation. 

As long as we hold on to our expectations about what constitutes our success, our being useful, even our holiness, we are blocking the Spirit.  

Think of your lives as a candle. Until the wick is lit, it is useless; its true purpose has not begun. When we “rekindle the gift of God that is within” (2 Timothy 1:6), we are set on fire with the Holy Spirit. He begins to consume us as a candle is consumed before the Blessed Sacrament. The Holy Spirit melts our pride, self-love, vanity, desires, plans, expectations, control, and attachments until our self has melted. We no longer live, it is Christ who lives through us, with us, and in us. The Holy Spirit transforms us into living hosts, and the Eucharistic Reign of Christ triumphs in us and through us. This is the great gift of the Holy Spirit.

Our shake-ups, crisis, trials, burnout, whatever we wish to call it, is a BLESSING. 

A priest may be tempted to think that his greatness is measured by his abilities as a homilist, administrator, counselor, healer….   that, to be born again, to be a great priest, he must achieve the expectations of his superiors, or most often, his own disordered expectations. Yet God calls all of us to excel in a different way, by humbly embracing our misery, our brokenness, by accepting humbly our limitations. 

St. Faustina believed she was offering Jesus everything when she said:

1318  O my Jesus, in thanksgiving for Your many graces, I offer You my body and soul, intellect and will, and all the sentiments of my heart. Through the vows, I have given myself entirely to You; I have then nothing more that I can offer You. Jesus said to me, My daughter, you have not offered Me that which is really yours. I probed deeply into myself and found that I love God with all the faculties of my soul and, unable to see what it was that I had not yet given to the Lord, I asked, “Jesus, tell me what it is, and I will give it to You at once with a generous heart.” Jesus said to me with kindness, Daughter, give Me your misery, because it is your exclusive property.

Perhaps that is the hardest to give the Lord. Yet the Lord loves us as we are. He knows our brokenness and will make us saints through our trusting surrender. 

To receive the gift of the Holy Spirit is to allow Him to complete this work of redemption in us with no resistance as the candle allows itself to be consumed by the fire. 

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.” Acts 7:51

Holy Spirit, consumes all, transforms all, into Love, Message of 2/16/12          

I Am the Light of God. The Fire in the burning bush that Moses saw was the Fire of the Spirit of God, the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. It is My Fire of Love that consumes all and draws all into union with the Father through the Son. The gaze of Jesus is My Light penetrating your heart and being. The Words of Jesus are My Fire consuming you in Love and blessing you with wisdom, understanding, knowledge and fear of the Lord. I Am the breadth of the Son, that is why He breathed on His apostles My life. I Am the Fire of Love in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I Am the Love of the Father and the Son. I, the Holy Spirit, consumes all, transforms all, into Love... It is I Who sets on fire every particle of your being in the Love of the Father and Son...

It is I, consumed in the Son as ONE with the Father and Son, who moves the Son to lay down His life for Love. It is I Who moves you to lay down your life as ONE with the Son. Remain in Me as I desire to remain in you. Allow Me, like Mary, to consume you. Do not give Me any resistance.

To live totally docile to the Holy Spirit with no resistance is to accept all, the good and what we perceive as bad, with complete abandonment and trust, believing in God’s love for us expressed in His passion and cross.

Faith Perfected —Diary of a MOC. The Simple Path p310 #115.

Your faith is perfected in suffering and trials. Perfect faith is complete abandonment to My Father’s Will in all things through your union in Me. Therefore, your growth in faith is dependent on the abandonment of your will to Me and also on your knowledge of My perfect love for you.

The shedding of layers of attachments to your will, which is self-love, takes place as you begin to trust in My love for you. This is why suffering all your sorrows with Me is so beneficial for your soul, because, in that process, you touch the open wounds of My love for you. This perfects a soul quickly in abandonment and trust until you come to experience all, the good and what you perceive as bad, as a gift of My love for you.

The gift of knowing with your mind, heart, and soul that the love of God only desires to make of you the new creation you were created to be from the beginning of time, a creation in the image and likeness of God as holy sons and daughters of the Most High. This is why I came upon the earth: to set you free from the bondage of sin, to make of you a new creation, and draw you into the ONENESS of the Most Holy Trinity to experience holy bliss for all eternity. What greater love is there than this? (12/14/11)

Lyrics for Song:

CRISTO ROTO

Broken Christ

Text and music: Maria Hickein 

Soy el Cristo roto, mutilado por el pecado... 

I am the broken Christ, maimed by sin...

¿Quién Me quiere consolar?

Who wants to comfort Me?

Todo flagelado, desfigurado, tan maltratado...

All flagellated, disfigured, so mistreated ...

¿Quién Me viene a acompañar?

Who comes to accompany Me?

Como un mendigo implorando compasión...

Like a beggar seeking compassion...

Soy ese amigo que te dio Su corazón...

I am that friend that gave you His heart...

Soy el Cristo roto, olvidado, tan despreciado...

I am the broken Christ, maimed by sin...

¿Quién Me quiere ir a buscar?

Who wants to go looking for Me?

Vivo encadenado, amordazado, encarcelado...

I live chained, gagged, imprisoned ...

¿Quién Me pone en libertad?

Who sets Me free?

Muero de frío por no hallar un corazón

I'm dying of cold for not finding a heart.

que busque al Mío y Me abrigue con su amor...

who looks for Mine and who shelters Me with his love...

Soy tu Cristo roto, rechazado,

I am your Christ - broken and rejected-

fui traicionado con un beso sin amor

I was betrayed with a kiss without love

Soy tu Cristo herido, humillado, abandonado,

I am your Christ - wounded, humiliated, abandoned-

¿Quién repara esta traición?

Who repairs this betrayal?

Busco al amigo con quien compartir Mi sed

I am looking for a friend to share My thirst with

 y que Conmigo se crucifique también...

and that, with Me, also crucifies himself...

Otro Cristo roto...

Another broken Christ...

The Spirit at Work in the Shake-Ups of Life- part I

Lourdes Pinto and Fr. Jordi Rivero, 5/3/21

John 3:1-15

“Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” (3:3)

“Unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” (3:5)

To see and to enter the Kingdom of God is our greatest desire. We pray daily, “Thy Kingdom Come!” But, like Nicodemus, we are tempted to doubt that we can really see or enter the Kingdom, given our brokenness and our sins. We have tried for years only to find ourselves frustrated and disillusioned. 

Jesus tells us that we enter the Kingdom by being born anew of water and Spirit. But we have been baptized, confirmed, ordained… and still do not seem to experience the promised new life. Those sacraments are essential, but something else is needed. We received the Holy Spirit through them, but we now need to allow a spark of His grace to release all that power. 

We learn from the saints who also had their trials, struggled, and experienced defeat. It was when their human efforts were exhausted, including their well-intended hard work for the sake of the Kingdom, that they finally abandoned themselves to God in a way that they were previously unable to do. God permits the shake-ups for a powerful release of the Spirit.

You have suffered trials, and you may feel defeated. You are in good company. Look at Saint Ignatius of Loyola. He had lofty dreams, but his good plans were rooted in his ego, just like it happens to us. God blesses him with a great “shake up” and his life dreams are shattered. At first, he lived in anger, blaming, resentment and self-pity, but eventually, through the grace of God, he opens his heart for the Spirit of God to start a fire within him. A new vision, a new direction in life. The graces of his sacraments begin to be released in a new powerful way. He is “born anew.” His Spiritual Exercises, which you know well, are his experience of the process of dying to self y rising to a new life in the Holy Spirit which transforms him into a new creation in Christ. His Spiritual exercises are not a technique. St Ignatius believed that the Spirit guides the process and we need to learn to be attentive, listen and to let go of our expectations and control. It is a path of faith towards being born anew, to receive the first fruits of seeing and entering the Kingdom.  

The key to holiness is to trust in the Lord as He allows our own crisis in life to shake us up. Another exemplar of this grace is St. Alfonso Rodriguez. He was inconsolable when his wife and three children died. Then he lost his business and saw himself as a failure. The widower spent sad and lonely years in prayer, not knowing what good could come from his life. But God used this crisis to draw Alfonso into an intimate relationship with Him. He then wanted to give himself to God as a Jesuit but was rejected due to his poor health and limited education. He spent two years seeking the education necessary to become a priest, but again the fathers who examined him came to a negative conclusion. Finally, the provincial recognized his holiness and permitted him to enter the Society of Jesus as a brother. Did he finally achieve recognition in an influential position? No. Instead, he spent the rest of his life as a humble doorkeeper at a school. As St Alfonso abandoned himself to accept God’s will for his life, his daily seemingly monotonous and tedious work gave glory to God. Alfonso saw everyone who knocked at the door as the Lord himself. By letting go of his expectations for his life, he allowed the Lord to transform him according to God’s desire for his life and not his own. He became a saint who influenced many, including St. Peter Claver. God allowed St. Alfonso to be recognized as a saint so that we could discover the value of trials and the hidden life that all of us live, yet many times we reject it because our egos desire greatness according to our standards. In the ways of God, the hidden life is the path to holiness and greatness. 

    Perseverance in the Ordinary. — Simple Path p.154

It is in the most ordinary and hidden life that a soul encounters the face of God. I disguise Myself in what the world sees as tedious. That is why all the Mothers of the Cross have begun to encounter Me in the laundry, cleaning, cooking, nursing…

You Always Resist the Holy Spirit (Acts7:51)

Cenacle 4/22/21

 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.” Acts 7:51.

St. Stephen, like Moses (Ex Ch 33-34), calls the Israelites “stiff-necked people.” They think they are God’s people because they are circumcised in the flesh, but Stephen points out that they have uncircumcised hearts. That is why they resist the Holy Spirit. The same is true for us. To be able to receive the Holy Spirit, our hearts must first be circumcised.  

God has given His mustard seed The Simple Path as the path for the circumcision of our hearts. This is the only way to become and grow as God’s people. A circumcised heart is open, exposed, and docile to the guidance of the Holy Spirit that can then take us into the Kingdom of God (JN 3:5), into the Holy of Holies, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to be consumed in the Trinity. 

It is the heart within us, not the exterior flesh, that needs to be circumcised. That is why God has not formed us with many exterior practices, such as endless novenas, consecrations, 40-day fasts, etc. It does not mean that we do not benefit from those practices. In fact, to begin The Simple Path, we prepare for 33 days for our consecration to Mary. Many in our community are consecrating themselves to St. Joseph. All these are indeed beneficial but are not enough. 

The Pharisees had many exterior practices, many prayers, cleansing rituals, fasts ... yet, Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, calls them “stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in the heart that resist the Holy Spirit.” In our broken humanity, we can perform many exterior pious practices and live opposing the Holy Spirit because, interiorly, our hearts remain hardened and in darkness.  All of us, to some extent, resist the Holy Spirit because of our self-willfulness, even though we are not conscious of it.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” Mt 23:25

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.” Mt 23:27

“‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.” Mt 15:8-9

To live totally docile to the Holy Spirit with no resistance is to accept all, the good and the bad that comes to us, with complete abandonment and trust. This is to live in the will of God. We can only do this when we believe in God’s love for us, expressed in His passion and Cross. 

“The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Jn 3:8

JN 6:35 “I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst.”

 It is beautiful and significant that the Church united these two scripture passages, Acts 7:51 and Jn 6:35, in the liturgy of the Mass. What do they have in common? In order for us to believe that Christ IS the Bread of Life, we each must ALLOW the Holy Spirit to circumcise our hearts.

The Holy Spirit desires to prepare our hearts so that the “Bread of Life” can enter our hearts. 

The Holy Spirit desires to empty our hearts so that the “Bread of Life” can fill our hearts. 

The Holy Spirit, according to our docility, consumes us in Himself so that we can love and desire Jesus Eucharist with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Trinity that performs the circumcision of our hearts, thus preparing our hearts to be transformed through Jesus Eucharist into His living hosts.

“He who believes” (Jn 6:35)

 What is required? To BELIEVE with all our heart and mind in Christ fully present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist. A belief consumed in the fire of the Spirit so that we NEVER move out of God’s peace. Everything, the good and the perceived bad, the storms and trials of life, are lived in perfect peace and joy, for we possess the LIVING BREAD! 

Belief opens the way to trust beyond our expectations. The Spirit takes us beyond the sphere of what we had considered God’s will and reveals the truth in a deeper way. The truth does not change, but the Spirit takes us deeper into it. If our hearts are not circumcised, they cannot grow. We reject any new understanding. 

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.

116. What it Means to Believe —Diary of a MOC. P.311

What does it mean to believe in the One sent by God to the world? In order to believe in the Word of God, your heart must be pure. It is only through the Spirit that you can believe My Word, not with your mind but with your heart. My Word is My life that must touch the depth of your heart. A hardened heart cannot feel the touch of My living Word. The intellect can receive My Word and manipulate it, but the Spirit penetrates a heart with My Word and transforms it.

To believe is to abandon yourself to Me so that I can make you a new creation through My Spirit. What is required to believe? Humility and simplicity. That is why I say you must be like a child to truly come to believe and follow Me. You believe with the heart as you encounter the living God before you, as you hear His voice and gaze into His eyes. That is why it is only the pure of heart who can see, hear and truly know God. 

Therefore, My daughter, tell My sons to be humble as I am humble, to rely on My Spirit teaching them and not on their own understanding, for their understanding is very limited, but My understanding will bring them to encounter the living God and possess the life of the Most Holy Trinity. (4/25/11)                                           

The condition of our hearts is directly related to our capacity to believe. The purer our hearts become, the greater our faith.

Jesus teaches us that to believe with our intellect is not enough. We need to believe with our hearts. Believing with our hearts draws us to ENCOUNTER the living God. It is in the heart that we can feel the touch of Christ and hear His voice.

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by reason but by the heart.” - Blaise Pascal.

It is the Holy Spirit that PENETRATES our hearts if we allow Him to transform us in Christ.

Holy Spirit consumes all, transforms all, into Love

Message of 2/16/12             

I Am the Light of God. The Fire in the burning bush that Moses saw was the Fire of the Spirit of God, the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. It is My Fire of Love that consumes all and draws all into union with the Father through the Son. The gaze of Jesus is My Light penetrating your heart and being. The Word of Jesus is My Fire consuming you in Love and blessing you with wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and fear of the Lord. I Am the breadth of the Son, that is why He breathed on His apostles My life. I Am the Fire of Love in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I Am the Love of the Father and the Son. I, the Holy Spirit, consumes all, transforms all, into Love... It is I Who sets on fire every particle of your being in the Love of the Father and Son...

It is I, consumed in the Son as ONE with the Father and Son, Who moves the Son to lay down His life for Love. It is I Who moves you to lay down your life as ONE with the Son. Remain in Me as I desire to remain in you. Allow Me, like Mary, to consume you. Do not give Me any resistance.

See Text

The Virtue of Poverty VI

Poverty of Persecution

Holy Week 2021

Lourdes Pinto & Fr. Jordi Rivero

We have a Choice

The rich young man, we read, “went away sad.” He had good reason to be. He had been loved by Christ, sought out by Him. He had received from Christ a silent declaration of love, in a single glance: “looking at him, Jesus loved him” (Mk10:21). His wealth prevented him from receiving it. (Poverty p.52)

The choice is still open. The living, risen Christ is still walking by and calling people. It is up to us to choose between the two destinies: that of the rich young man or that of the apostles. (Poverty, p.53)

“You cannot serve God and wealth.”

In the account of Jesus’ birth, we see two starkly contrasting worlds: one symbolized by the inn, the other by the stable where He is born. The first world is all light, comfort, and activity; people are eating, drinking, enjoying themselves. Rich people dressed in lavish clothes, with heavy purses on their belts, dismount from their horses and come and go at will. In the Second World, on the other hand, all is poverty, darkness, cold, and discomfort. A young woman, silently accompanied by her husband, is about to give birth to her first child. They are forced to share bed and board with the animals. (p.59)

Christmas is a mystery. His presence alone reveals two different worlds. And we are called to take a stand, to decide which of the two worlds we wish to belong to. (p.60)

The Gospel never condemns earthly goods and riches in themselves. One of Jesus’s friends is Joseph of Arimathea, “a rich man” (Mt 27: 57). What Christ condemns is attachment to money and goods, trust in them as if “one’s life depended on them” (Lk 12: 15). Such wealth is variously called “deceptive” (Mt 13: 22), “foolishness” (Lk12: 20), an obstacle that brings the threat of “woe” (Lk6: 24). (p.62)

An English businessman wrote: “Money is a tainted thing, and the only way in which I will not be tainted by it is to use it honestly and generously. I must see it as a means to do good for others and not as the foundation of my own happiness and security. I am only a steward called by God to use the talents and wealth that he has loaned me to build his Kingdom here on earth. I shall be judged for my stewardship and not for my wealth. I cannot use money to pay for a better lawyer, nor to bribe the judge. I can only use it to lay up treasure for myself in heaven by every little act of love and unselfishness towards the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters whom he sent to me for help.” (p.70)

We must live the virtue of poverty and let it challenge and judge us. 

Spiritual Poverty of “First World” 

“You say: ‘I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing” (Rv 3:17) Today, behind that “you” lies an entire civilization glorying in its breathtaking technological achievements. It too is tempted to think of itself as rich, in need of nothing, not even God. This is why the risen Lord’s reply is for our world to: “you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked” (Rv 3:17). This is exactly the spiritual poverty of our so-called “First World”! (Poverty, p.85)

·      5/31/2010 Memorial Day 

Prophecy for USA/ Missionaries of the Cross

You, My nation of the USA, have forsaken Me, your God.  You have made materialism your god.  You have made yourselves your own God.  You have slaughtered My innocent little ones and their precious blood cries out to Me.  You have turned your face from Me.  Now I will turn My face from you during the time of the great chastisement. My daughter, raise up My army of holy ones.  You must speak My words of warning, for I, your Lord and your God, loves you.  You must tell them to open their eyes to Love Crucified, to unite themselves to Love Crucified, for it is only in this way that the power of My Cross will triumph over the evil that prevails…

Persecution

Pope Francis, On the path of poverty, Thursday, October 18, 2018

The passage from the Gospel of Luke (10, 1-9), points out that, “when the Lord sends his seventy-two disciples, he sends them “in poverty”, he gives them advice on poverty». It is "the poverty of the disciple: the path of the disciple, the Lord wants him to be poor." If a disciple is attached to money, to wealth, he "is not a true disciple"

"There is another form of poverty" that we can recognize in Jesus' own words: "Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves." (v3) It is "the poverty of persecutions, the disciples of the Lord persecuted because of the Gospel: even today there are many slandered."

“Yesterday, in the Synod hall, a bishop of one of these countries where there is persecution, spoke of a Catholic boy kidnapped by a group of young people who hated the Church, fundamentalists; He was beaten and then thrown into a cistern and then they threw mud and at the end, when the mud had reached his neck, they asked him for the last time: "Do you renounce Jesus Christ?" And he said: "No!" So they "threw a stone and killed him."

"But there are other persecutions," the Pope continued. Beginning with the "persecution of slander, rumors and Christians are silent, they tolerate this" poverty "". Yes, he added, "sometimes you have to defend yourself so as not to cause a scandal." There are "small persecutions in the neighborhood, in the parish: small, but they are proof of poverty." And “it is the second mode of poverty that the Lord asks of us: humbly receive persecution, tolerate persecution. This is poverty.

·      1/30/18 –Diary of a MOC, “Mission of the 12”

 All who are chosen by God to fulfill His plan on earth are hated by some, rejected by others, ill-treated, persecuted, for I came upon the earth to set one against another, for the ways of God will never be accepted nor appreciated by those who live for the things of this world.

Mathew 10

Verses 5-15 – Mission of the Twelve

Verses 16-25  – Coming Persecution:

–21 Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.

–34 Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36 and a man’s foes will be those of his own household.

• Will you continue to love and be faithful to My mission when you are persecuted and misunderstood, many times by those closest to you? (Simple Path, p37, #9)

• 42. Grace Through the Hidden Life of Suffering —Diary of a MOC.p145

My little ones, do not be discouraged, for I am doing something new. You are My little servants of love despised and misunderstood by the world. Remain in Me and I in you so that the power of God will flow as living water to My Church. Do not be afraid or discouraged for being rejected and not accepted. Do you not see that this is the way of love, the way of the Cross? It is precisely on this path of rejection and humiliations that you will purchase for the world many graces.

When we choose to live our lives as Christ’s disciples in purity lived out daily by chaste lives, listening to pure music, watching TV shows and movies that are pure, dressing in modesty, speaking words always that bring peace and never gossiping, etc., we will be misunderstood, criticized… When we live simply and poor, we will annoy those around us choosing and desiring the excess and riches of the world. As Jesus has taught in the Gospel, those living in His Light agitate and anger those choosing to remain in the darkness of the world. 

This persecution is also lived in community when you encounter envy in the hearts of brothers and sisters when your good intentions are judged and criticized.

  • V.24 A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master; 25 it is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household

• A victim soul must fix his eyes on Christ, must desire with all his being to become one with his Master. (1/30/18)

Verses 26-33 – Fear Not

Verses 34-39 – Take Up Your Cross

•V.37 He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

This is the poverty of surrendering all –– children, spouses, community, parents, apostolates…–– to follow Christ, to place all our hope in the God who loves us and sent us His only begotten Son. 

• 70. As They Persecuted Me… —Diary of a MOC.

As they persecuted Me, they will persecute you. As they hated Me, they will hate you. This last nail fuses your heart to My Sacred Heart: you love as one with Me all the enemies of God, and thus complete your crucifixion in Me, and the triumph of God’s love is manifested through you in the unity of My Body. Prepare yourself in silence and prayer to live the last stage of My Divine Path. (5/26/14)

• 71. All Will Be Called to Suffer Persecution —Diary of a MOC.

The time is at hand when all will be called to suffer persecution for My sake. This time of persecution will divide My followers into two camps: those with Me and those against Me. Few will remain with Me in the time of the great tribulation. You, My little ones, are being prepared for this time. Your lives lived in humility and purity of heart, united to Me, will be the light in this darkness. Your lives hidden and transformed in My crucified love will usher in the New Pentecost for the world. (2/25/14)

St. Paul writes to the Hebrews 10:32-36 regarding persecution:

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on the prisoners, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised.

3/29/11 Missionaries of the Cross (expose the darkness)  

You have learned to suffer with Me by allowing the Holy Spirit to use your own suffering to enter My suffering. Through the gold of precious repentance, your heart has been purified, thus allowing you to suffer the sick condition of your brothers and sisters’ hearts with Me. But there is still the deep suffering of My persecution that you must suffer with Me. I am preparing your hearts for this most difficult suffering. When you preach what I desire, you will be condemned and persecuted by many.

6/29/12

You have been chosen by the Father as My prophet of light. The light shines and pierces the darkness. As My prophet of light, you are called to expose the darkness in the hearts of My ministers. You are called to expose their impurity, their lack of holiness, for they seek places and titles of honor. How many seek poverty? How many seek exhaustion? How many seek Truth by spending hours daily with Me, Truth itself? How many seek to serve the poor? 

My Missionaries of the Cross are My Apostles of Light during this time of great darkness. They will expose the darkness of sin in the hearts of My ministers and bring them to repentance at the foot of My Cross. They will lead them through the Cross to transformation in Me. Do not be afraid of rejection and persecution, for you each are called to be ONE with the Crucified...

11/3/19

My little one, much will have to take place on earth before the establishment of My Eucharistic Reign. You (plural) are My saints of the end times united as one with the holy saints in heaven. Because My saints on earth are united to My sacrifice of love in your abandonment to suffer with Me, your prayers are powerful before the throne of Abba. Know, My little one, that your prayers are continuously before the throne of our Father as pure incense. He delights in your prayers, and He hears the cry of the poor. The poor are not only the poor of body but also the poor of spirit – those who have died to themselves so that I can live in them and through them. Much affliction must take place on earth because of the rebelliousness of the human heart, but God, in His infinite mercy and goodness, will bless the prayers of His saints –past, present, and future -- and establish His Kingdom on earth. Be at peace with complete abandonment to the God who loves you and listens to the cry of the poor. Persevere in your own crucifixion for the glory of God and the establishment of His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Go in peace to be My Light in the world.

The Virtue of Poverty V

“Follow the naked Christ in nakedness”

5th week of Lent 2021

Lourdes Pinto & Fr. Jordi Rivero

1/30/18  Diary of a MOC, “Mission of the 12”: Mt 10:1-24

My disciples wear My yoke – the wood of the Cross, united to Me. I am their All.

Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, Poverty:

Poverty and the Cross

Poverty has followed Christ even unto the cross. It was here that He really “espoused” poverty. Henceforth one cannot choose the one without the other: neither Christ without poverty, nor poverty without Christ. (p49)

If we observe the lives of the greatest lovers of poverty in the history of the Church, we see at once that love for Christ- the desire to “follow the naked Christ in nakedness”- as The Imitation of Christ says- lies at the heart of everything. (p50)

In the light of all this, poverty appears not so much as a virtue or a council, or an aesthetical ideal, or even only as a charism, but as an intimate sharing in the mystery of the person of Christ, and by that very fact, in the mystery of His Bride, the Church. (p50)

96. As a Spouse, Your Life Must Be Lived to Console Him —Diary of a MOC. p.269

During the Consecration of the Mass, I felt God the Father speak in my soul. He said, “Are you now ready to become My Son’s sacrifice of love? …You can no longer be concerned about what others think of you nor your reputation; you can be concerned only with pleasing My Son. You are no longer His handmaid but His spouse. As His spouse, your life must be lived to console Him and to be faithful out of love to His desires.” (2/19/11)

Poverty, the treasured Pearl

·      “the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in the field which someone has found … he goes off joyfully, sells everything he owns and buys the field” (Mt 13:44). Jesus says that the man sold everything, not in order to look for treasure, but because he had found it. Poverty is not the price we must pay in return for the Kingdom. It is the effect, not the cause, of the Kingdom’s arrival. (P.44, Poverty)

·      I have found the Pearl of great value- poverty. 

Jesus Christ, our God, becomes poor. The perfect expression of His poverty is his obedience unto the Cross. He is crucified naked. His nakedness is the ultimate expression of his poverty. He voluntarily allows Himself to be stripped of all his glory and power. The poverty of his nakedness reveals our pride, vanity, sensuality, self-love…

When the treasured pearl of poverty is found in Jesus crucified, the soul must be willing to sell everything in order to possess this pearl. I must allow and cooperate with the Holy Spirit to strip me of everything that is mine – material things as well as the more difficult interior things: desires, expectations, securities (worldly as well as talents…), opinions, plans, reputation, knowledge, a total abasement. This can only happen through the burning flame of the Holy Spirit.

–   St John of the Cross calls spiritual poverty “nakedness,” which he defines as the renunciations of those goods which can remain in the soul, such as desires, appetites, and consolations. (p113, Poverty)

–   2nd Nail of Purification: Simple Path To Union With God

*  Now we no longer feel His consolations as we used to, and we must walk in the darkness of faith in perfect trust. We still have emotions, but now, having experienced profound intimacy with God, our union is no longer contingent on consolations (2nd degree of poverty). (p.209) 

*  You now live in peace in the darkness of faith without My sweet consolations… (Simple Path # 67, p.209)

*  69. Desolation United to Me —Diary of a MOC.

In times of desolation, your life has the greatest power and is most fecund. In My desolation on the Cross, My life shone most brilliantly the love of God the Father. My desolation made My faith in My Father radiate its perfection. 

–Through My desolation, I gave birth to My Church and all her sacraments. 

–Through My desolation, I gave birth to all My sons, My priests. 

Through My desolation, the Holy Spirit expanded the maternal Heart of My Mother to embrace all of humanity.

–It is in your times of desolation that the Holy Spirit and My Mother wish to unite you more intimately to Me. 

–It is in your times of desolation that you are given the opportunity and grace to suffer with Me. 

–It is through your desolation that you can come to know the pain, suffering, and love of My Heart. 

–It is through your desolation united to Mine that your life will also be most fecund.

My desolation was so important for the salvation of the world that the Father willed for My Mother to continue suffering My desolation on earth. Her suffering of solitude was her continuation of My desolation, and it produced and continues to produce a shower of graces for the world. 

I desire for the souls who love Me to live their times of desolation united to Me and completely abandoned to the Holy Spirit. In this way, My hidden force will acquire the power of God to overcome the darkness in the world. My Cross is not My Cross without the power of desolations lived with perfect faith. (3/2/11)

Why is poverty the most treasured Pearl? Through poverty, the soul’s nakedness becomes clothed in God, in His Light!

It is the Flame of Love, the Holy Spirit, that brings us to discover the pearl of great value, poverty, and exclaim: “I HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH POVERTY!!!!!”

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mt 5:3)

110. Spirit of Poverty —Diary of a MOC. p303 (Simple Path)

I wish to teach you about poverty, the spirit of poverty. There is physical poverty, but the spirit of poverty is much more beneficial for your soul. It saddens Me greatly when My sons (priests) and religious live physical poverty but remain only there and do not allow the Holy Spirit to bring them to live the spirit of poverty… The spirit of poverty is lived when you allow the Holy Spirit, My Blessed Mother, and Myself to strip you of everything interiorly: your desires, expectations, plans, attachments, securities, consolations in friendships, even consolations from Me so that you are left completely empty. It is a soul that has been stripped of everything, that is empty and can be filled with My life…

My Lord and my God, what can I do to participate in this work?

Jesus answered, Allow yourself to be perfected through suffering. Suffer with greater trust in Me… Suffer with greater abandonment and love (7/8/2010).

Spiritual poverty and material poverty cannot be separated. Each requires the other. Christianity has never advocated a disembodied spiritual poverty that could dispense with real poverty altogether or even coexist with material excess. (p89, Poverty)

*   “nor two tunics”– My disciples must live simply as I did, poor, never in excess. (1/30/18, Mission of the 12)

The poor “in spirit” are the poor who are “believers.” It is as if Jesus had said: blessed are you poor, “because you have believed.” (p98, Poverty)

116. What it Means to Believe —Diary of a MOC. p.311 (Simple Path)

…The intellect can receive My Word and manipulate it, but the Spirit penetrates a heart with My Word and transforms it. To believe is to abandon yourself to Me so that I can make you a new creation through My Spirit. What is required to believe? Humility and simplicity. That is why I say you must be like a child to truly come to believe and follow Me…

Connection of poverty in spirit with humility & simplicity

St Augustine: “The humble man is poor in spirit.”

The poor in spirit see themselves as totally dependent on God for everything and can only relate to God as a debtor, in a spirit of pure gratitude. (p101, Poverty)

Two essential elements of the poor in spirit: humility and trust in God (trusting abandonment)

These two elements are joined in what is known as the psalm of spiritual childhood: (p102, Poverty)

Lord, my heart is not proud ….

as a child has rest in its mother’s arms, 

even so my soul. 

O Israel, hope in the Lord 

both now and forever

–(Ps 131: 2-3)

*   12/13/11, Simplicity

The spirit of poverty is far greater than physical poverty. It is detaching from your own ideas, desires, plans, dreams, goals... It is a complete abandonment to Me, your God and Savior. This requires great diligence and abandonment to My Spirit. I desire the simplicity of the innocence of a child with its mother... It is pleasing to the Father and to the Son to have you place your complete trust in Us. 

Return to Unity

The 2nd level of humility, desiring solely the Cross as one with Christ, and the 2nd and 3rd level of poverty walk hand-in-hand. They are the fruits of the nails of crucifixion from Chapter 4 of The Simple Path to Union With God.

Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, Poverty:

By giving humanity the commandment to “love God with all your strength” as the first commandment, God was inviting men and women to concentrate on one single love, thereby in a certain sense inviting them to renunciation and poverty. “To love God,” says St John of the Cross, “means divesting oneself of everything that is not Him.” (p112, Poverty)

To reach unity, we must take the opposite route and proceed by way of decrease, subtraction, and surrender… This is the way of poverty. (p112, Poverty)

Two movements in human beings:( p114)

1.     Movement within –towards the depths of the soul. Movement towards unity. 

2.     Movement outward – towards action (willing, knowing, having). Movement towards multiplicity. 

What happens at the conclusion of this journey back into interiority? A Nativity takes place, “the birth of God in the soul.” (p115)

And in what manner does all this take place? Precisely through spiritual poverty. A person cannot provide a more favorable environment in which God can act in this way than by detaching himself, not only from things but also from all his or her activities and ideas. 

And what is the subsequent fruit of all of this? Not only does the Father beget His Son within you, but you yourself are begotten as a child of God and receive power. 

St Augustine: (p119, Poverty): “Do not go outside. Go back inside yourself, for truth dwells in the inner man.” 

Having reached the center of himself, in the starkness of his own being, man finds not only himself, or silence, or the absence of everything, or emptiness. He finds instead the Being, the Word, the Presence, the Fullness. 

Therefore, the message from Eckhart and the Mystics, in general, is not that one should abandon one’s commitments and retire once more from the world, but that one should “reestablish the balance and the vital rhythm between exteriority and interiority, between unity and multiplicity. We need to rediscover the riches contained in the depths of the soul, so as to pour them into human relationships, which can only be saved through the inner renewal of individuals.” (p120)

*   I desire to draw you into the depth of My Sacred Heart to immerse you in Love. (Simple Path #36, p 126)

St Francis of Assisi: (p121, Poverty)

“There are many people who spend all their time at their prayers and other religious exercises and mortify themselves by long fasts and so on. But if anyone says as much as a word that implies a reflection on their self-esteem or takes something from them, they are immediately up in arms and annoyed. These people are not really poor in spirit. A person is really poor in spirit when he hates himself and loves those who strike him in the face.”

Blessed Angela Foligno: (p122)

“True poverty of spirit is such that the soul can perform works without any intention and without concern for any merit.” 

The beatitude of the poor in spirit leads to that of the pure in heart 

87. How to Respond to Christ’s Desire for Unity —Diary of a MOC.

I desire to draw you into true unity, the unity of the love of the Most Holy Trinity. The union of sorrows will bring you into the union of Love. The gaze of the Father is upon you. Be love. Live solely for Love, forgetting yourself.

My Lord, how do I live solely for Love, forgetting myself?

Live to please Me. To live in the unity of the Trinity is to live gazing at the Father, through the Son, to please Him in all things. (3/18/12)

The virtue of Poverty IV

Lourdes Pinto, 1/30/18

Diary of a MOC, “Mission of the 12” (Mathew 10:1-24)

My little one, I have chosen you to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God on earth. The mission is not easy, for the ways of God are never the ways of the world. All who are chosen by God to fulfill His plan on earth are hated by some, rejected by others, ill-treated, persecuted, for I came upon the earth to set one against another, for the ways of God will never be accepted nor appreciated by those who live for the things of this world. You have been asked by God to bring Him victim souls. A victim soul must fix his eyes on Christ, must desire with all his being to become one with his Master, must be willing to learn from Him and imitate Him. He must be willing to fight against all his disordered desires. This requires certain disciplines for my disciples:

1)    “take no gold, nor silver, nor copper”- that means detached from the riches of this world, trusting that God will provide.

2)    “no bag for your journey” –that means that My disciples must allow My spirit to detach them from all disordered attachments. (my Lord how do we know what a disordered attachment is?) Anything that weakens your desire for Me, distracts you from loving Me, takes your gaze from Me. 

3)    “nor two tunics”– My disciples must live simply as I did, poor, never in excess.  

4)    “nor sandals”– a life dedicated to sacrificial love, penance, renunciation. 

5)    “nor a staff”– My disciples lean on Me; I become their support; I lead the way. 

 My disciples wear My yoke-the wood of the Cross, united to Me. I am their All. My disciples are the men and women consumed in love and desire for Me. They choose to live this way of life for love of Me and the consuming desire to be made perfect- which is to become Love. Only in this way will My disciples reflect the face and light of God in the world. These are my victim souls that possess the power of God on earth.

Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, POVERTY

 The Old Testament introduces us to a God who is open “for the poor,” while the New Testament shows us a God who Himself becomes poor. Only the gospel tells us About God who makes Himself one of them, choosing weakness and poverty for Himself: “Though he was rich, Jesus Christ became poor for your sake” (2 Cor.8:9).

The two essential components of the ideal of biblical poverty are now made clear: to be “for the poor” and “to be poor.” John Paul II combined both aspects in his catechesis on poverty: “The Church feels ever more strongly the impulse of the Spirit to be poor among the poor, to remind everyone of the need to conform to the ideal of poverty preached and practiced by Christ, and to imitate Him in His sincere and active love for the poor.” (p27)

Poverty in the Life of Christ (p36)

-       “Although (Christ) was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.” ( 2 Cor 8:9)

-       St Thomas comments: “He endured material poverty in order to give us spiritual riches.”

Christ’s poverty is an aspect of His self-abasement in the Incarnation.  

-       “became a victim for sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21)

-       Blessed Angela Foligno explains Christ’s three kinds of poverty:

“Christ’s poverty was of three kinds: Christ, the way, the guide of our souls, exemplified the first degree of the most perfect poverty by choosing to live poorly and to be poor, bereft of all earthly possessions. He kept nothing for Himself: no house, vineyard, coins, money, estate, dishware, or any other possessions. He neither accepted any earthly goods nor wanted to accept anything but a life of extreme bodily neediness, with scarcity, hunger, thirst, cold, hard labor, austerity, and hardship … The second degree of poverty, greater than the first, was that He wished to be poor with regard to relatives, friends, and all earthly affections … The 3rd and supreme degree of poverty was that Christ stripped Himself of His very self, became poor with regard to His own power, wisdom, and glory.”  

-       Therefore, Jesus was poor in things, poor in supports, and poor in prestige.

o   Saint Angela of Foligno’s story:

Some saints show marks of holiness very early. Not Angela! Born of a leading family in Foligno, Italy, she became immersed in the quest for wealth and social position. As a wife and mother, she continued this life of distraction.

Around the age of 40, she recognized the emptiness of her life and sought God’s help in the Sacrament of Penance. Her Franciscan confessor helped Angela to seek God’s pardon for her previous life and to dedicate herself to prayer and the works of charity.

Shortly after her conversion, her husband and children died. Selling most of her possessions, she entered the Secular Franciscan Order. She was alternately absorbed by meditating on the crucified Christ and by serving the poor of Foligno as a nurse and beggar for their needs. Other women joined her in a religious community.

Diary of a MOC, “Mission of the 12” (Mathew 10:1-24)

A victim soul must fix his eyes on Christ, must desire with all his being to become one with his Master, must be willing to learn from Him and imitate Him. He must be willing to fight against all his disordered desires. This requires certain disciplines for my disciples:

·      63. The Purification of Your Desires —Diary of a MOC.

The purification of your desires is the first stage of purification in My Sacred Heart. You begin to move only according to My desires and not yours. You no longer do what you want to do, nor go where you want to go; but now, you go only where I take you. You choose to live each day according to what is most difficult, not what is easiest. This will require a greater discipline of your will, greater silence, and stillness of soul in Me. 

·      Hebrews 12:10-11 “For they (parents) disciplined us for a short time at their pleasure, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

1)    “take no gold, nor silver, nor copper”– that means detached from the riches of this world, trusting that God will provide.

2)    “no bag for your journey” –that means that My disciples must allow My spirit to detach them from all disordered attachments. (My Lord how do we know what a disordered attachment is?) Anything that weakens your desire for Me, distracts you from loving Me, takes your gaze from Me.  

3)    “nor two tunics”- My disciples must live simply as I did, poor, never in excess. 

·      12/13/11, Simplicity   

The call to simplicity is the call to detachment from the attachments of the flesh, both exterior and interior. As you grow in simplicity, you are emptied of all the attachments that prevent you from being filled with My life, My Blood. As you detach from material things you grow in the virtue of poverty. As you become poor in the things of the world, you become rich in the things of heaven. The poor in spirit are rich spiritually, thus gaining true happiness on earth. Thus, you see that the tactic of Satan is to make you desire richness in the things of the world. 

But the spirit of poverty is far greater than physical poverty. It is detaching from your own ideas, desires, plans, dreams, goals... It is complete abandonment to Me, your God and Savior. This requires great diligence and abandonment to My Spirit. I desire the simplicity of the innocence of a child with its mother... It is pleasing to the Father and to the Son to have you place your complete trust in Us. 

4)    “nor sandals”- a life dedicated to sacrificial love, penance, renunciation. 

o   Golden rose of Rosa Mystica – penance - acceptance of the little daily crosses - and also doing one’s work in the spirit of penitence.

5)    “nor a staff”- My disciples lean on Me; I become their support; I lead the way. 

Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, POVERTY

The third type of poverty is the most profound of all because it goes beyond the level of possessions and touches the sphere of being. (p37)

In Christ, poverty shines out in its most sublime form: not in the fact of being poor (which can be an imposed or inherited state), but of becoming poor and becoming so out of love, in order to enrich others. (p38)

o   “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col 1:24)

o   “Will you be My victim soul?” voluntary choice

Misunderstanding arises from attributing excessive value to the external, material manifestations of poverty. John the Baptist was much more rigid in terms of asceticism than He was. Jesus never fell into the trap some of his imitators later fell into of making material poverty absolute, using it as a measure of perfection and ending up being rich in the worst thing there is: in themselves and their own justice. (p39)

Reasons for Christ’s poverty, why He became poor: p.40-41

1.     “Since in the wisdom of God the world was unable to recognize God through wisdom, God decided to save those who believe through the foolishness of our proclamation” (1 Cor 1:21)

In other words: since the world did not recognize and honor God when He revealed Himself through creation, in splendor, power, wisdom, and wealth, so He has now decided to save fallen humanity by the opposite means: through poverty, weakness, humility, and foolishness. He has decided to reveal Himself “in the guise of his opposite” in order to challenge human pride and wisdom. 

o   “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18)

o   “but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness,” (1 Cor. 1:23)

o   “He became poor for your sakes, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).

 A gift is most precious when it is the result of self-denial when the giver deprives himself of what is given. And the Word, in some sense, deprived Himself of His divine wealth in order to share it with us. God’s poverty is an expression of His agape, of the fact that He is love. “Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us” (Eph 5:2).

2.     The second motivation for poverty is mission or Apostolic 

“Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money- not even an extra tunic” (Lk 9:3). Christ’s teaching contains two different levels or forms of poverty: one required of everyone in order to enter the Kingdom, the other required of a few in particular in order to announce the Kingdom.This second and more radical demand Jesus makes to those He calls to share in His work of proclaiming the Kingdom and being totally devoted to its cause: the apostles, that small group of disciples who followed Him. (P 47)

o   My little one, I have chosen you to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God on earth. The mission is not easy, for the ways of God are never the ways of the world... You have been asked by God to bring Him victim souls. (1/30/18, Mission of the 12)

o   Respond by suffering all with Me in My sacrifice of love. Respond with courage and zeal, believing that God has chosen you to participate in the triumph of My crucified love to save the world. 8/6/17

o   1/11/18

My little one, you are preparing the way for My Second Coming. It is My hidden martyrs of love, crucified through Me, with Me, and in Me, that will usher in the reign of My Kingdom on earth.

HOLY SPIRIT: Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, POVERTY  pp30-31

Only in the Holy Spirit can we live this new law of becoming poor, which Jesus Christ presents to us. John Paul II wrote:

The whole work of renewing the Church, which Vatican II so providentially proposed and initiated, can only come about in the Holy Spirit, in other words, with the help of His light and His energy.  –p.30

Wherein lies the difference between renewal “in law” and renewal “in the Spirit”? Positive law, being external to human beings, does not change the state of their hearts. In a word, it does not “give life”. It pushes a person to do or to avoid something by coercion, under threat of punishment or blame. It is based on fear.

The interior law, on the other hand, which is the Holy Spirit Himself (Rm.8:2), changes the heart. It not only commands you to do something, but it helps you to do it. The Holy Spirit creates that new heart which willingly does the things God commands because it loves God and trusts him. It is based on love and moves a person to act by attraction.

The Holy Spirit is able to renew the evangelical ideal of poverty in the Church, by infusing a love for poverty. More precisely: by infusing Christ’s love for poverty.

TESTIMONY of Lilian Giraldo

February 25, 2021

JESUS VISITS MY HEART

VIRTUE OF POVERTY

In the fourth week of our 2020 Lenten retreat, I had an enlightenment of sorts. I woke up one morning with great clarity about my wounds, took a notebook, and wrote sheets and sheets of them all. I was able to name each one and write down the lies and tendencies that stemmed from them. One wound, in particular, came to me with its disordered desires included.

Before going into it, I would like to comment that the Lord has healed me a lot in this wound because I no longer react from the flesh but in His Love. I react from compassion and charity, knowing that my parents were also wounded and their parents too, and so on. God desires to restore humanity wounded by sin, and through this process, He has not only healed me, but He has also healed them. The Lord is doing wonderful work in my parents, and my soul moves in love and much gratitude to our Lord for it.

This is the wound: It is called “I lost my voice.”

Description of the wound: I experienced abandonment, neglect, rejection, violence, fear of being unprotected, and insecurity. I grew up as a very quiet child, adolescent, and young woman who could not express my feelings, worries, frustrations, and fears. I learned to live my pains in silence and solitude.

The lies that stemmed from this wound are: No one listens to you, you have nothing important to say, no one cares about you, fend for yourself, be strong, don’t complain, don’t cry, you have to be someone in life, so you don’t depend on a man or anyone.

Tendencies from the wound: It bothers me that they don’t value what I do, that they ignore me, that they reject me, that they don’t recognize me, that they don’t listen to me, that they ignore my look when I talk to them.

Related disordered desires: I desire to be admired, recognized, seen, flattered, noticed, applauded.

In that same Lenten retreat in 2020, the Lord let me know that he was crucified for me. It was very painful and revealing. It was a very real and personal experience. The knowledge we have of this was really embodied in me.

During one of the retreat talks, Lourdes and Father Jordi spoke to us about Envy and Pride. I remember thinking “pride yes”; in fact, many times I have confessed it, but “envy no!” and when we were taught to all the unpleasant things that came out of it, I thought that I could suffer from it much less. 

These are the things we were told that a person feels in whom envy dwells in his heart:

·      Envy is a hidden reservoir of ingratitude and resentment that secretly applauds the downfall and sorrow of others. 

·      The envious person becomes resentful if he perceives that his peers receive preferential treatment.

·      He attacks others through slander or gossip.

·      Brings tension in families or communities.

·      It pits the person against God’s will.

So, after hearing this, I said to myself: no, not envious! And here, the Lord was beginning to show me my false identity.

The Lord has taught us that we have all made ourselves into someone we are not and that “The Simple Path to Union with God” leads us to find the truth of who we are.

I was then receiving the gift of deep self-knowledge in this regard. And here I would like to share the following from pg. 45 of The Simple Path to Union with God - volume I: 

“The soul that receives the gift of self-knowledge and sees the hardness of its heart comes to a decisive point: it accepts this gift, or it remains in darkness. Receiving the gift of self-knowledge hurts; it feels like a sting.” 

Well, it took me almost a year more to accept this deep self-knowledge. The Lord continued to dig subtly in my heart, and in a recent accompaniment, he enlightened my companion so that we could deepen our understanding of Identity, and I heard from her this phrase: “The process of our sanctification consists in the process of the healing of our identity.” Then, I began to ask the Lord in every rosary, in every holy mass, in the daily routine of my daily life, and in the precincts of my heart, to restore my identity in Him, to heal me of my disordered desires and the fears that paralyze me. And it happened that the Lord showed me envy again and specifically with a person very close to my heart: my husband. Consequently, the rejection was stronger towards this feeling. The Lord was bringing it out, and I wanted to submerge it again in the depths of my heart. It could not be! Me, envious? And of my husband! No! I had built a false identity.

The Lord was showing me the hardness of my heart, and I began to recognize it.

At first, I said to myself: it is jealousy, but then I began to recognize that I was envious of my husband. And this truth was affirmed to me in an accompaniment. I had to take it to confession, and I began to experience a very strong spiritual and physical struggle. 

God sent me to a good priest, determined and strong-willed, who helped me, confessed me, and freed me! So much so that a few days later, I had a dream of a rat running scared back and forth inside a sewer; many people around the sewer saw it; then it came out of there with its eyes sparkling with anger and ran through a green, sunny field full of beautiful trees with shiny leaves. It was envy, and it was looking for a way in. I was not afraid. In its attempt to return to the sewer, the rat jumped on me, but the jump was short; it collided with my chest and vanished. It no longer had a place in my heart, God had occupied it, and my heart after confession was like an impenetrable wall made of the purity and love of God.

The rat was big because it was fed, not only by my envy but by the envy of all of us who were in that field. It no longer dwelled in our hearts because God, with his light, uses this testimony to enlighten and give self-knowledge to many souls.

Why did it take me almost a year to accept this profound knowledge?

Here I must refer to the homily of Pope Francis on Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2021. 

The first words of the homily moved me deeply:

“We hear an invitation that arises from the heart of God, who with open arms and longing eyes pleads with us: ‘Return to me with all your heart’ (Joel 2:12). Return to me.”

After feeling my heart tremble with these words, I felt the Lord’s call to continue living the Simple Path to Union with God with perseverance, transparency, constancy, and gratitude. 

Although I have accepted this marvelous call to be His victim soul of love and to allow myself to be transformed in His very love, I recognize that I have lacked much more dedication. As the Holy Father tells us in his homily, I have lacked to silence the exterior and interior noises to enter into silence, contemplation, vigilance, and stillness of soul, and to spend hours and hours at the silent cathedra of our God on the Cross. 

In his homily, the Holy Father speaks to us about wounds, vices, fears, hypocrisies, duplicities and confronts us with a series of questions. All this teaching of Ash Wednesday has been given to us by the Lord on our Path, in depth, week after week and month after month, in the silent, dedicated, and prayerful job of Father Jordi, Lourdes, Father Ron, and Mary through her songs made prayer and contemplation. The path that the Lord has given to our community is a true gift to the Church.

The purification of our disordered desires consists in recognizing that the Lord is taking us to a deeper level of purification, as He tells us in message 63 of the Simple Path of January 16, 2014 - Volume 1:

“The purification of your desires is the first stage of purification in My Sacred Heart ... You choose to live each day according to what is more difficult and not what is easiest. This will require a greater discipline of your will, a greater silence and stillness of soul in Me.” 

When we are being purified at this deeper level, we need silence, contemplation, going before the Lord, and surrendering our misery to Him. All this takes time, work, discipline, will, and we must choose to praise, surrender our misery, thank and bless. 

These words of the Lord through the homily of the Holy Father make great sense to me on this path of purification.

The Lord has taken me into the purifying fire of his heart. This process of circumcision takes time, it is difficult, but accepting it, I have accepted the call of the Lord, I have heard his voice, I have received his visit in my heart, I have decided not to stay in the darkness and see the hardness that is in it. And to the question, "What do you want from me, Lord?" He answers me, “Your misery.” It is the only thing I have to give him.

Through the circumcision that the Lord works in my heart, He frees me from sin (envy), crucifies my disordered desires (desire to be seen, recognized, applauded, flattered, etc. ...), and allows me to live in intimacy with Him, uniting my pure pain to His on the Cross, to Him, who is the great forgotten, ignored, rejected, disregarded, unloved. 

As the same reading of the Path refers to us on pg. 44: “The soul needs courage to admit its sins and the wounds caused by them and to go to the root of both.”

Courage is one of the five little stones that the Lord has given us on our path, and with it, I must struggle, allowing the Lord to continue to unveil all the misery and darkness of my heart. To enter into my identity in Christ is to recognize this darkness, to surrender it to Him, to love myself this way, and to show myself before Him as I am. 

The Lord desires that we accept ourselves in THE TRUTH because in my false identity, I had created a false image of what it was to be a saint, and if I recognized the feeling of envy in me, I ceased to be that false saint that I had made myself. God had mercy on me and, in his infinite goodness, visited me and showed me my darkness and my sin, stripped me of that false garment, tore out the root of envy, restored my identity, and pointed me to the path to true holiness. I recently heard from a great priest that the capital sins are the roots of every sin. Glory to God for this circumcision process that the Lord is working in my heart.

The most beautiful thing is that through this process, the Lord has introduced me to the virtue of poverty because my heart is no longer full of me but of Him. For this, I can only be grateful. To thank God for this Path made flesh in each one of us and for each of my brothers in the community who walk together with me, encouraging each other to let ourselves be found by the Lord to reach true holiness, which is the perfect union with Him. 

I was thinking of ending my testimony here, but I cannot help but add the following:

It had been almost a month after I shared this testimony to my Love Crucified community in one of our weekly meetings when I heard an edifying homily on March 18, 2021, from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Pierbattista Pizzaballa in which he said:

“The Apostle Peter would have preferred, perhaps, to forget his own betrayal; but the Lord seems to tell him that it is not his sin that is most important, but the relationship with Him, and that this relationship, if Peter accepts his own POVERTY, will never go away... There is no sin so great that it can hinder God’s desire to meet us. At that moment, here [Peter’s Primacy - Tabgha, Israel], Peter was born again and is reborn poor, humble, merciful because he no longer has to pretend before anyone. But only to be thankful.

Glory to God!

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Reflecting on the homily of the Holy Father for Ash Wednesday, Lilian read:

"There is an invitation that comes from the heart of God, who with open arms and eyes full of nostalgia pleads with us: « Turn to me with all your heart» (Jl 2,12). Come back to me."

Lilián tells us: I found the Holy Spirit telling the whole Church what The Lord has been teaching us through the Simple Path and the cenacles, week after week and month after month, for all these years.

This led me to ask myself a series of questions taken from the same text of the homily with which the Lord confronted my heart to start this Lent ... I am sure that each one can ask even many more questions and reflections. I share mine with much love.

1.    How many times have I said tomorrow, Lord, tomorrow? Tomorrow I will begin to enter into my heart; Tomorrow, I will place myself before you in the Most Holy. Tomorrow I will contemplate you on the Cross.

2.    Towards which direction is my heart oriented? Towards "You" or towards my "self"?

3.    Lord, have I turned off the noises of the world and the noises of my heart to enter into silence and heed Your call?

4.    What do I live for? To be praised, preferred, recognized, or held in the first place?

5.    Am I struggling with, or am I complacent with my hypocrisies or duplicities?

6.    Do I find it hard to leave my Egypt? Do I long for my past and temporary Glories?

7.    Have I worked on my attachments, vices, false securities of money, and appearance? Have I unmasked all these illusions? Have I bared my soul before You?

8.    Do I mourn and suffer to the point of paralysis? Or, do I suffer as ONE with You in Your Sacrifice of love?

9.    How long is it since my last confession? 

10. Have I come to You to be healed of my spiritual illnesses, of my ingrained vices, and of the fears that paralyze me?

11. Do I present my wounds to You? Do I ask You to heal me?

12. Have I returned like the leper whom You healed, to thank You for having healed me of my leprosy?

13. Do I implore Thee, Holy Spirit? Have I rediscovered the fire of praising Thee?

14. Do I understand that the Path is not based on my strength, my abilities, my merits, but in embracing Your Grace?

15. Have I understood that what makes us righteous is not the justice we practice before men but the sincere relationship with You? 

16. Do I recognize that I need Your Mercy and Your Grace?

17. Do I understand that what You desire in this Lent (in the Path You have given us) is a humble abasement within ourselves and towards others? It is not an ascent to Glory but an abasement out of love.

18. Have I gone before the Cross? Do I spend hours before Your silent chair?

19. Do I look at your wounds? Do I recognize my emptiness in your wounds? Do I recognize my faults, the wounds of sin, the blows that have hurt me?

20. Do I kiss your wounds? Do I kiss your feet? Do I allow myself to enter into your Sacred Heart? Do I let myself be watched by You?