Month: November 2015

That mellow, persuasive, friendly voice you hear sometimes when you need to decide between good and evil.. That’s the devil’s poison trap

Jesus says in response to some of my thoughts: “Lucifer is intelligent as well as cunning. Uses cunning to undermine, but intelligence to think about whether and when and how to give Me pain and ruin a creature. Believe Me that he never wastes his time unnecessarily.

So, given that, as he is ubiquitous on earth, has much to do with the many men who inhabit the globe. Man’s little attention and resistance to do good, make the power of Lucifer, which is already big, even bigger. However, I say to you, he must still calculate his time well and not lose a moment to work with profit. With his nefarious purpose that is to fatten his hell of stolen treasures to God: souls. He is truly a tireless worker. In Heaven, the Tireless works in your best interest. In Hell, the tireless works evils against you. And I say to you that he has more luck than God: his conquests (Editor: of souls), are more numerous than mine. But, you can well understand from My premise, that, being cunning, intelligent, and busy, He cannot afford the luxury of dealing with all souls equally. And he does not. Oh! His evil is an ascetic idea that he pursues, all voted to it, and he does not get distracted, nor by transactions, nor fatigue! If just you, men, pursued the good with the same intensity with which Satan pursues the evil! But you don’t.

Lucifer, as a human being starts growing in intelligence, initially cares very little, it only looks at them as probable future goats of its infernal flock; as a creature starts to know how to think, that is when older than seven years, it increases its attention and begins its teaching. The angelic ministry instructs and leads spirits with words of light. The satanic ministry instructs and instigates spirits with words of darkness. It is a struggle that never ends. Winner or loser one, winner or loser the other, the angel of light and the angel of darkness fight around a spirit to the last mortal blow, to tear him away from the other, returning that soul to his Lord, in the light, after he has had her in protection all of earthly day, or drag her into darkness if it was the other to eventually win. But between the two that fight, there is a third and the most important character. There is the man for whom the two fight. The man, who is free to follow his own will and is endowed with intelligence and reason, has the incalculable force of Grace that Baptism has given him and that the Sacraments maintain and increase.

Grace, you know that, is the union of the soul with God. So it should give you a lot of strength and make you unbreakable and incorruptible to satanic pitfalls and corruptions, because the union with God should make you like semi-gods. But to remain as such, one must want it. You need to tell Satan and to yourself: “I belong to God, and I want to belong to God only”. Thus obedience to precepts and counsels, thus continuous effort to follow and chase and achieve the good, and an ever growing good, thus absolute loyalty and constant vigilance, thus heroism to win themselves and the outside in the seductions of threefold concupiscence and its multiple faces. Few, very few, too few souls know how to do these things. So? So to these souls, so easy to take whenever he wants, so inert to escape when they have been taken, Satan gives little care. He does like the cat with the mouse. He takes them, strangles them a little, stuns them and then lets them go, then simply gives them another hit and bite if they show signs of a timid escape. Not more than that. He knows that they belong to him and does not waste much time with them, nor much intelligence.

But with “My” people! Oh! With my own he is different! They are the prey that most tickles his livid hunger. They are the impossible to take. And Satan, like an experienced hunter, knows that there is merit in capturing a difficult prey. They are the “joys” of God. And Satan makes great party when he can give pain to God, and make Him feel hurt and disappointed. He lives of hatred. Just like God lives of love. He is Hatred. As God is Love. Hatred is his blood. Like Love is mine. Here he is then, multiplying care and monitoring around a soul that is “mine.” Entering into a fortress which is already dismantled is a child’s play. He, the fierce king of hell, does not want that. He wants God’s strongholds, the clean and smooth fortresses, clear as crystal, strong as steel, which on all sides show the most holy Name: God, carved deep into its recesses – indeed it is as fluid that leaks out from the recesses, which emanates from the inside to the outside. The name they love, serve, speak with the spirit of adoration, with every beat of their heart. Pick them up, pick you up, tear you away from Me, erase from your threefold being of spirit, flesh and reason, that Name; make you, flowers of My garden, uncleanness for his hell; and laugh, throwing his blasphemous laughter against the divine throne, laugh for his victory against men and God. This is Satan’s joy.

The closer you are to Me, the more he ranges to make you his. And since you are constantly alert and your will is strong, he, the cunning, does not pursue you with the same method used for the others. Instead, he assaults you treacherously, with longer and longer distances in time, at the most unexpected moment and the most unthinkable reasons. He takes advantage of pain, need, abandonment, disappointment, and leaps like a panther on your amazed, heartfelt weakness of the moment, hoping to defeat you then and make up for all the times you’ve defeated him.

Which means does he use? Countless. Which method? Just one. That of a benevolent, liar gentleness, a rational and peaceful word, an appearance of friendship that helps, that wants to help.

Have you been assaulted? And you’ll still be, and many times, and in more and more cunning ways. Oh! What hatred he has for Me and for you! You will have increasingly more assaults; and so cunning as to mislead even the most alert. Alert humanly speaking, though. Because, smile soul whom I love, because simplicity in God, and which is kept as such, is impenetrable to every subtlety. He will scratch you on the outside. But it is an honor for a soldier the scar that marks the flesh and says: “This sign is proof of manly battles”. And the more scars a soldier has, the more the world gives honor to the brave. The same thing happens in spiritual battles. And your wounds, which do not affect the spirit, but only scratch that which is housing of the spirit-king, are your honor. And because of them, you will be honored in Heaven.

In truth I tell you that you call “martyrs” only those who were killed by tyrants. But all my saints are martyrs. Because, to be saints, they had to suffer persecution of Satan and remain faithful. Glory to the winner! Palms are for you in Heaven.

Source: “Notebook #32”, Maria Valtorta

 

Why good works not done in a state of grace are not profitable for eternal life

Jesus speaks: “Do you not know, dear daughter, that all the sufferings, which the soul endures, or can endure, in this life, are insufficient to punish one smallest fault, because the offense, being done to Me, who am the Infinite Good, calls for an infinite satisfaction? However, I wish that you should know, that not all the pains that are given to men in this life are given as punishments, but as corrections, in order to chastise a son when he offends; though it is true that both the guilt and the penalty can be expiated by the desire of the soul, that is, by true contrition, not through the finite pain endured, but through the infinite desire; because God, who is infinite, wishes for infinite love and infinite grief. Infinite grief I wish from My creature in two ways: in one way, through her sorrow for her own sins, which she has committed against Me her Creator; in the other way, through her sorrow for the sins which she sees her neighbors commit against Me. Of such as these, inasmuch as they have infinite desire, that is, are joined to Me by an affection of love, and therefore grieve when they offend Me, or see Me offended, their every pain, whether spiritual or corporeal, from wherever it may come, receives infinite merit, and satisfies for a guilt which deserved an infinite penalty, although their works are finite and done in finite time; but, inasmuch as they possess the virtue of desire, and sustain their suffering with desire, and contrition, and infinite displeasure against their guilt, their pain is held worthy. Paul explained this when he said: If I had the tongues of angels, and if I knew the things of the future and gave my body to be burned, and have not love, it would be worth nothing to me. The glorious Apostle thus shows that finite works are not valid, either as punishment or recompense, without the condiment of the affection of love.”

Of the evils which proceed from the blindness of the intellect; and how good works not done in a state of grace are not profitable for eternal life. “[…] Their virtues are dead because all their works are dead, having been performed in mortal sin, and without the light of Faith. They still have the form of holy baptism, but not its light, of which they deprived themselves, through the cloud of sins they have committed, through self-love which has covered the pupil of their eye. To such as these is it said, Those who have faith without works are dead. Wherefore as the dead do not see, neither can such a man see, because the pupil of his eye has been darkened, as I have told thee, nor does he know that he remains in the sins which he has committed. He does not recognize in himself My goodness, whence he has received being and every other grace that he possesses. Therefore, not recognizing Me in himself, he does not hate his own sensuality, but rather loves it, seeking to satisfy his appetite, and so brings forth the dead offspring of many mortal sins.

He does not love Me, and not loving Me, does not love what I love, that is to say, his neighbor, and does not delight in doing what pleases Me, wherein consists true and real virtue, which it pleases Me to see in him, not because such virtue profits me, for nothing can profit Me, I being He without whom nothing is done except sin (which is nothing, inasmuch as it deprives the soul of grace and of Me, Who am Every Good.) It is rather on account of their own profit that the virtues of men please Me, for I have the wherewithal to reward them in ever lasting life. Thou see, then, that the faith of these wretches is dead, because it is without works, those which they perform not meriting for them eternal life, because they are deprived of the life of grace.

Nevertheless, a man should not leave off doing good, either with or without grace, for, just as every sin is punished, so is all good rewarded. The good which is done in a state of grace merits eternal life, and the good done out of grace is rewarded in various ways, as I told thee above; for sometimes I lend them time for repentance, or put into the hearts of My servants to continue intercessions for them, by means of which they often escape from their sins and miseries.

Sometimes, through the disposition of My grace, they receive neither prayers nor time, but are rewarded with temporal things, being treated like animals that are fatted for the slaughter. Therefore such as these, who, having always kicked against My goodness, nevertheless do some good, not in a state of grace, but in sin, and have not profited in their works either by time, or by prayers, or any of the other ways in which I have called them, being reproved by Me for their sins, (My goodness wishing nevertheless to reward their works, that is, that little service which they have done), they are rewarded by Me with temporal things on which they fatten, and, not correcting themselves, they come to eternal punishment.

See, then, how they deceive themselves! Who deceived them? Themselves, because you have taken away the light of living faith, and go on as blinded, groping and clinging to what they touch. And since they do not see that with the blind eye and have placed the affection in transitory things, so are deceived, and do as fools, who look only to gold [Scorpion] and not to the poison.

Know therefore that the things of the world, all its delights and pleasures, if they have them taken, acquired and held, without me, with disordered self-love. They rightly remind of scorpions, that carry the gold in front and behind the poison. There is no poison without gold nor gold without poison; but the first to be seen is the gold, so that no one defends himself from the poison except who is illuminated by the light of faith.”

Source: “The Dialogue of Saint Catherine of Siena”