This text forms part of Elizabeth Wang's Falling in Love: A Spiritual Autobiography (1999). It tells the story of her life and of her spiritual journey as she came to know Christ and His Church.
You can find the other sections here on the main WRITINGS page.
Please note that some of the text formatting has not transferred from the printed copy to this website.
PART THREE
CHAPTERS SIXTEEN TO TWENTY
PART THREE
CHAPTERS SIXTEEN TO TWENTY
CHARITY:
WITH GOD THE FATHER:
THE SOURCE OF ALL GOODNESS
“Do not let your hearts be troubled …” (Jn 14:1)
“Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them
will be one who loves me;
and anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I shall love him and show myself to him” (Jn 14:21).
“If anyone loves me he will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we shall come to him
and make our home with him …” (Jn 14:23)
“I shall not call you servants any more,
because a servant does not know
his master’s business;
I call you friends,
because I have made known to you
everything I have learnt from my Father.
You did not choose me,
no, I chose you;
and I commissioned you
to go out and to bear fruit,
fruit that will last …” (Jn 15:15-16).
16 CO-OPERATION
(1995-1996)
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NEGLECT OF GOD. CHRIST. GOD’S WORK.
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Christ, with His Immaculate Mother.
Many times, in the 1990’s, Christ had shown me what Glory and joy await all who love and serve Him - and yet how few of His followers are wholehearted in His service. Then one day in 1995 Christ explained to me yet again how urgently-needed are His reminders of the truths of the Faith. It is a terrible thing that so few of those who call themselves His friends are faithful to His wishes.
Daily, I made fervent efforts to serve Christ better, sorry that my whole life hadn’t been spent in loving Him, and sorry that - as He has shown me - many people today don’t care a scrap for what He’s done for us: or for what His Mother has suffered to bring us this wonderful Saviour.
When I showed God the Father how weak I am, and what struggles I have to carry earthly burdens gracefully, I was enormously comforted when He assured me that He was at work in my weakness.
Because of this kindness, and many others, I prayed with especial gratitude at the Vigil Mass of the feast of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception - on December 8th 1995. During the prayer for the Church, I poured out my thanks to God for Our Lady: for her willingness to give her whole life to God, and for having given us Christ Who is flesh from her flesh. Then, suddenly, Christ appeared to me. He stood before me, bathed in Glory; and He revealed to me His extraordinary purity and simplicity (T:1734A). He was stately and majestic, and awesomely beautiful; and yet He was longing to share, even with me, and in great detail, the good news about His perfection, and about His plan of Salvation, His Love for us, and the infinite value of His redeeming Sacrifice.
An Immaculate Mother of an Immaculate Son.
At the very moment that Christ appeared to me in all His Glory, He told me, soundlessly:-
Don’t be afraid.
It is I, your Risen Saviour,
dazzling your eyes with My radiant beauty,
sharing My Glory on this feast day
because of your prayer,
when you thanked My holy Mother
- the Immaculate Virgin -
for willingly giving her whole life to My service:
for giving the world its Saviour, Myself:
flesh from her flesh.
Don’t be afraid.
Look bravely towards Me.
As you can see
- in astonishing Light and grace -
I am
the Divine Son Who took to Himself
a human nature.
Every cell of My Sacred Body, and
every thought of My Heart and Mind
is irradiated
by Glory, Grace and Divine Light.
This is what it is to be glorified
and Risen.
(T:1734A #1)
Consider how glorious,
and how necessary for My own conception
- and how simple for you to understand -
was My Mother’s purity of soul and body.
She whom you call “Our Lady”
- the purest of all pure virgins,
and rightly called “Immaculate” -
was then
and is now
wholly pure, virginal, simple and holy.
I too, your Saviour,
was then
- in youth and in maturity -
and am now
wholly pure, virginal, simple and holy;
and the perfect purity of My human nature
stemmed from the astonishing purity
of My only human parent:
the holy Virgin, Mary;
and that is why
- by My Divine Will and plan -
she whom I chose to be My Mother
was conceived “Immaculate”, with
her soul pure and glorious,
free from Original sin.
(WC:1734A) (T:1734 #2)
Christ’s purity.
Here, Christ began to explain what wonderful hope He offers to us all, and how perfect joy can be found, in the end, by all who have put their trust in Him. He told me:-
Don’t be afraid.
My Will for you
- even for you My sinful children -
is also astonishing and glorious!
This is My Will:
- that you be like Me,
- that you achieve, through My grace,
the same perfect sinlessness,
and so be fit for Heaven:
- that by My Divine generosity
you resemble me, in radiance.
(T:1734A #3)
Don’t be afraid.
Look bravely towards My Glory.
I, Jesus, am teaching you, further,
about the splendour of My purity:
it stemmed from My Divine nature
and also from My Mother’s perfection.
Here I am,
shining with a Heavenly radiance and beauty.
Here I am,
shining with a Light more like clear moon-light
than sun-light:
glowing, not searing, and
soothing, not scorching,
for you who are unafraid
to look upon Truth.
How painful is My Light
for those who shun not only Truth Itself
but also half-truths, truths veiled,
or even little glimpses.
Gaze more surely upon My truth.
Understand, now,
something which eludes those
who have no desire to be pure, simple and child-like:
that My purity is as marvellous and as beautiful
- and as astonishing, to you -
as My Divine Glory.
I, the Divine Son, Jesus,
am wholly pure and perfect
in every ‘movement’, every aspect:
wholly ‘transparent’ in purity,
with the quality of pure water
or a perfect crystal.
No shadow of imperfection
obscures the depth of My Being.
(T:1734A #4)
Don’t be afraid.
Describe for others what you see before you:
the figure of a man, in Glory: Myself, your Redeemer.
Yet tell them what you see “in” Me:
you see the clear, patient intelligence
of the Divine Person Who knows all truth
and Who Is Truth: One Who, therefore,
- like a pure child, direct and simple -
is unwilling, indeed unable
to condone or to co-operate with
half-truths, flattery, conversational ploys
or wrong insinuations,
in the conversations between men
or when they address Me in prayer.
I, Whom you approach in prayer,
am Divine, perfect and holy,
living in unsullied and glorious purity.
Yet if My purity is infinite and perfect,
so too is My compassion
which pours out ceaselessly upon My children.
Through that compassion for sinners,
I, Jesus Christ, the Son of God
- son, also, of the pure and holy Virgin Mary -
sacrificed Myself to save you:
to offer salvation to mankind.
(T:1734A #3)
By My obedience I bridged the gulf
which kept mankind from the Father.
I, the sinless, paid the ‘price’ of sin.
I paid the ‘price’ throughout My life on earth,
but I paid the whole ‘ransom’
on Calvary.
(T:1734A #5)
The price of sin.
Here, in this extraordinarily vivid and generous teaching, Christ began to explain to me the way in which He had redeemed us and therefore the meaning of the Atonement by which God and mankind were reconciled. As I gazed at Christ in wonder as He stood before me in glory, I understood, all-at-once, and in astonishing depth, why Christ’s obedience during earthly life should have opened Heaven’s door.
Christ explained the meaning of ‘Redemption’, and revealed to me His immense love for us - for His true brothers and sisters; and He helped me to see more clearly the astonishing importance of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, through which His saving Work of Calvary is marvellously re-presented before us. Then He continued to instruct me.
“All Doctrine Is One”.
As I remained in prayer, my heart open to Christ’s teaching, I saw with the eyes of my soul a scroll being let down from Heaven. I saw that there was some writing on the scroll; and straight away Christ taught me about Truth: about the truth that just as the Godhead contains no parts, but is one, so all doctrine about God and about His Work of Salvation is one. Christ showed me how, by His Will, we have had revealed to us what seems like a ‘procession’ of doctrines, culminating in the great revelation of Divine Love given through Christ’s Incarnation; and yet all doctrine is one; Truth is indivisible (T1734B #1).
Then Christ explained precisely why His own Sacrifice on Calvary surpassed all other sacrifices for sin: and why we have been reconciled to the Father in Heaven through that perfect Offering; and He also spoke about the woman who bore Him and who therefore made possible, in one sense, His Work of Salvation. He spoke once again about His Mother’s special privilege: of how she had been conceived free from Original Sin, so that Christ our ‘Immaculate’ and incarnate God would be born from an ‘Immaculate’ mother.
A symbol of purity.
It’s impossible to say enough about Christ’s generosity. Even after such a teaching as the last one, He hadn’t finished with the subject. It was at the same celebration of Mass, but after Holy Communion, that I was astonished to see not only Christ - who frequently reveals Himself to me - but also His Holy Mother. She was cloaked from head to foot in a white winter dress and a cloak - like a Queen, in a wintry landscape. Christ stood beside her, holding her hand; and as He stood there, He showed me how much He delights in our sincere and fervent prayers. He told me:-
Accept My thanks for your greeting
on My Mother’s special feast-day.
She stands beside Me today
- as you can see -
cloaked in white, and wrapped in beauty:
a true Queen, in a hushed and snowy landscape.
Understand, about My Mother:
I delight in the beauty of her holiness.
Her purity is astounding.
The whiteness of a wintry snow-fall
is a true and radiant symbol
of the purity of My Virgin Mother.
So great is My Love for her, and
so tremendous is My respect
for her Motherhood, her sanctity,
and her immaculate soul, that
“I bring My Mother only to pure hearts.”
(T:1734C #1)
Understand the reason for this teaching;
share My joy;
I delight in your struggles to be holy!
It is the Will of My Father
that all who receive Me in Holy Communion
- men, women, and children too -
should strive to be worthy of My Presence.
We have come to encourage you,
and, through you, others. Tell them:
it is the Will of the Father
that all who are called the ‘children of God’
be pure, which means:
devoted to Me, entirely,
loving My Will,
determined to fulfil My wishes,
contrite, faithful, chaste and obedient, and
longing to give Me Glory.
Thus, they can be worthy of their title.
(WC:1734C) (1734C #2)
Sharing my life.
Then Christ reminded me of the blessings which are lavished upon all who freely choose to be reconciled and so to live ‘in Christ’; and He urged me to be braver about sharing this good news. He told me:-
Consider My Work on the Cross, which, long ago,
reconciled Mankind to the Father;
that same Work, My Self-Offering
- when offered to the Father
through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass -
reconciles you now!
What a cause for hope!
How wonderful are the gifts which I offer
to My children.
Share the good news;
let Me remind My People
- through you -
what great peace and fulfilment are given
to you who are incorporated ‘into’ Me,
and who share My Life, even here on earth.
(T:1734D #1)
Transformation through Christ.
Consider the gifts which I long to share
with you, My children,
for your joy and transformation.
I offer to you
My own great purity and holiness!
You can live in innocence,
after the forgiveness of your sins.
You can allow My pure Life and virtues
to flow through you,
because of our union.
You can be ‘indwelt’ by My Spirit.
You can ‘share’ Him.
You can be One with Me, in the Holy Spirit
Who already inspires
all your prayers.
You can pray to the Father
- since you live ‘in’ Me -
just as I prayed from the Cross.
(T:1734D #2)
Consider the work to which I invite
My true brothers and sisters
of every generation: those of you
who have been Reconciled
and so have been delivered from sin.
This is the Work:
it is to pray to the Father as I pray:
praising, thanking, submitting,
asking, and interceding, joyfully,
with a pure heart,
yet with that heart burning:
devoured by a longing for the Father’s Glory.
(T:1734D #3)
Rejoicing in my weakness.
It was impossible for me to absorb Christ’s teachings about sinners with thinking of times when I myself had turned away from Christ; but He was always tender and thoughtful. I was comforted when He explained why there was no reason to think He should have chosen someone impeccable to do this work. He told me:-
Don’t allow yourself to be made despondent by the new onslaught of spiritual trials and temptations which is disturbing your present peace-of-soul. I delight in your efforts to please me, amidst these trials; I am not in the least disturbed by your little weaknesses. Far from making you unfit to do My work, they are contributing to this ‘project’: to this continuing demonstration of ‘life-in-Christ’. That is the point of them: that other people are going to be encouraged, one day, to love Me more fervently because of the example which will be given to them, through you, of ‘faith-in-weakness!’ (T:1773 #1)
Never give up your struggles to be holy; but accept the fact that you are a weak person whom I have chosen, nevertheless, to do My work; and understand how powerfully the knowledge of this fact is going to help other people. It is part of My plan that when, later on, people examine the whole of the task that you are doing for Me, and the whole of your life, and that when they consider My great Love for you and for mankind, they will praise My Infinite wisdom. They will observe that I did not ask a ‘good’ person to serve Me and to do My work, which is the work of praying, suffering, and recording My teachings. No! They will see that I invited a sinful person to serve Me, and that I planted within her soul some ‘seeds’ of hope and love, and also planted the wonderful gift of faith by which she would cling to Me and would allow Me to change her! The wisdom of My plan lies in the fact that people who come to know about your failures - as well as encountering this tremendous work - will realise that I am delighted above all in seeing a meek and contrite heart. I am more pleased, they will understand, with a weak person’s patience and obedience than with ‘great’ self-chosen exploits. (T:1773 #2)
See how marvellously I reward you for your efforts to please Me; I assure you even now that many people are going to be helped when they learn of the spiritual assaults and temptations against which you have battled during past years. (T:1773 #3)
Christ explained why trust was important, and not a longing for visible results, as I continued to produce one book of teachings after another in obedience to His wishes. He urged me:-
Recognise, in your life, the benefits which have sprung from a long period of ‘gestation’. You can see how the whole collection of paintings and teachings - with your own reflections, understanding and knowledge - has been ‘maturing’ and growing towards a moment of ‘birth’. (T:1774 #3)
Put your trust in Me, once again. I assure you that your work for Me is like a child which still ‘hides’ within its mother’s womb. Our joint work - My teachings - is like a vigorous child who is bursting with life, ready to make a new cry of hope in the world: a cry which will astound others by its vigour! (T:1774 #4)
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Human and Divine inter-play and action.
After a further few weeks, in which I had worked and prayed as usual, and had learned much more in prayer about the purpose of my work, I became more determined than ever to keep on praising and thanking God even in pain and turmoil; and suddenly, the Father taught me that “Suffering is the seal” which He Himself places upon a life which is being truly lived ‘in Christ’. It is a privilege through which that person is made to have a greater resemblance to the Saviour Whom he or she serves, and is also a sign for others (T:1782)
Despite having been reassured about this ‘sign’, it seemed to me that I had so many faults to conquer that I was holding up God’s work in my life: and so on January 30th in the New Year - in 1996 - I renewed my promise to Christ that I would try to live and work at all times in simplicity and humility.
In the evening, after my usual domestic chores, I sat at my desk to write out some of the teachings; and as, usual, I made the Sign of the Cross; but this time I asked with great confidence: “Most Holy Spirit: guide me!” Then I was shown, all at once, the clear sight of the ways in which God has helped and adorned me; and I was shown an image of two joyful figures who were soaring through the universe; and this image, I was told, represented the way in which a frail human being acts with the Holy Spirit, in the universe, in free-will and delight, but also with Divine power. I was shown how God is ceaselessly at work for our benefit - and also how He draws good from our every good thought and action - and many other things; and the lavish explanation continued for a long time, as the Father gave me the privileges of true friendship, instead of hiding things from me in the way that some things are kept hidden not from family or friends but from employees.
The region of the spirit.
This was all so astonishing that I turned to the Father to praise and thank Him; and at every sincere word from my heart, I was rewarded. He explained to me about union with Him, about who can achieve it, about the true meaning of love, and many more things. And I was so overjoyed that I wrote some of those things even as He was still teaching me; but He didn’t mind. Quite the opposite; He delighted in my trust, and each time, continued afterwards to teach me. Such is the courtesy of our God even to His creatures! And since it was in this teaching that the Father ‘convinced’ me of the extent of His tender love for me, I must include several pages, in order to share my joy, and to convince others of His goodness.
Through Christ, I was taught in the following way - after that lengthy teaching from the Holy Spirit about our work:-
Listen to your Heavenly Father, Who delights in your expressions of gratitude for the gift of the Spirit’s teaching. He delights, too, in your gratitude for the life and work of Mary, My Virgin Mother, through whose obedience you were able to know Me and to receive My Holy Spirit. Listen, as your Father pours His Bliss into your heart, and teaches you about faith and union:
HERE I AM, MY CHILD,
GIVING YOU LIGHT , PEACE, WISDOM, JOY AND GLORY
IN OUR LIFE OF UNION.
I DELIGHT IN SHARING MY GIFTS
WITH MY FRAIL AND BELOVED FRIENDS.
MANY MORE OF MY PEOPLE
COULD ENJOY MANY MORE OF MY BLESSINGS
AND ENJOY MUCH MORE OF MY LOVE,
YET
THERE IS SO LITTLE FAITH UPON EARTH,
EVEN IN HEARTS WHICH BELONG TO ME.
HOW FEW ACHIEVE TRUE UNION WITH ME,
A UNION THROUGH WHICH I LAVISH UPON THE SOUL
- EVEN DURING EARTHLY LIFE -
LIGHT, PEACE AND BLISS.
HOW FEW ACCEPT MY INVITATION TO AIM FOR TRUE UNION.
HOW FEW, THEREFORE, CAN ENTER THE ‘REGION’ OF THE SPIRIT,
A REGION FOUND FAR ABOVE EARTHLY DESIRES.
HOW TERRIBLE THE LOSS, FOR THOSE WHO
- THROUGH IGNORANCE, LUKE-WARMNESS OR DESERTION -
NEVER ENTER THE REGION ABOVE.
HOW FEW SOULS ARE WILLING
TO PASS THROUGH THE NARROW ‘CHANNEL’
WHICH IS CHRIST’S WAY
- A WAY THAT LEADS FROM EARTHLY LIFE TO HEAVEN’S GLORY -
ON A JOURNEY THAT REQUIRES WILLING HEARTS, AND ALSO
FAITH AND SELF-SACRIFICE.
THE ‘WAY’ IS SO NARROW,
AND HEAVEN IS SO FAR ABOVE EARTHLY LIFE
THAT WITHOUT FAITH, AND WITHOUT SELF-SACRIFICE,
NO-ONE CAN ENTER.
(T:1794 #11)
DON’T BE AFRAID, MY DAUGHTER.
I AM LISTENING.
ACCEPT THE JOY WHICH I AM POURING UPON YOU.
I WANT YOU TO SEE THAT YOUR EVERY GOOD EFFORT
- YOUR EVERY PRAYER OF FAITH, LOVE AND HUMILITY -
DRAWS UPON YOU, THROUGH MY GOODNESS,
EVEN MORE FAITH AND EVEN MORE BLISSFUL CHARITY.
THUS DO I WORK,
WHO AM LOVING.
YET THIS IS MY GIFT, ALSO, FOR A SPECIAL REASON:
SOMETHING LONG-PAST.
TODAY IS THE ANNIVERSARY OF YOUR GIFT TO ME:
THE ANNIVERSARY OF YOUR TOTAL SELF-GIVING.
ALTHOUGH YOU HAD FORGOTTEN IT, I HAD NOT.
DON’T BE SURPRISED BY MY GIFTS.
WHY BE ASTONISHED BY MY GENEROSITY:
BY THE GOOD DESIRES WHICH I PLACE WITHIN YOUR HEART
OR BY MY TEACHINGS?
YOU LONG TO KNOW AND LOVE ME;
YOU LONG TO GIVE ME GLORY;
AND THIS IS MY ‘ANSWER’ TO YOUR LONGINGS:
TO ASSURE YOU, MY DAUGHTER,
THAT I AM POURING MY GRACES UPON YOU, LAVISHLY.
SINCE YOU TRY TO DO MY WILL,
I NOW DO YOUR WILL.
“As you gave all you have
to Me,
now do I give all
to you:
all My riches!
Such is the fulfilment of your generosity to Me!”
(T:1794 #12)
Life within the ‘whole ‘Trinity’.
Here, I was so overjoyed at the Father’s goodness that I begged Him for gifts for other people too; and He answered, very tenderly:-
CONTINUE IN PRAYER.
HERE I AM, LISTENING,
DELIGHTING IN YOUR LOVE,
GRANTING YOUR REQUESTS,
AND POURING MY JOY INTO YOUR TRUSTING HEART.
SEE HOW I WORK!
HOW GREAT IS MY LOVE!
BUT SEE HOW MUCH CLOSER IS OUR UNION
PRECISELY BECAUSE OF YOUR INTERCESSIONS
FOR OTHER PEOPLE.
A WONDERFUL PROGRESS IS MADE BY YOU
THROUGH EACH ACT OF CHARITY.
BY EVERY SUCH ACT, YOU ARE DRAWN MORE FULLY
INTO MY LIFE,
THAT IS:
INTO THE LIFE OF THREE DIVINE PERSONS:
ONE GOD.
THE ‘WHOLE’ TRINITY IS AT WORK
DURING YOUR PRAYER.
IF YOU SPEAK WITH THE MOST HOLY SPIRIT
AND ARE TAUGHT BY ME, YOUR FATHER,
CHRIST IS NOT ABSENT.
INDEED,
YOU ARE ‘HELD’ IN CHRIST’S EMBRACE,
IN THIS LOVING PRAYER, THIS UNION.
YOU ARE ‘TURNED’ TOWARDS ME, YOUR FATHER
WHO DWELL ABOVE.
YOU ARE UNITED WITH US
BY THE LOVE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
TO WHOM YOU TURNED, INITIALLY, FOR GUIDANCE!
(WC:1794C) (T:1794 #13)
BELIEVE IN MY LOVE FOR YOU.
DELIGHT IN THE TRUTH!
TRULY, YOU ARE NOW ENJOYING A LIFE OF UNION
WITH LOVE ITSELF: MYSELF, YOUR GOD.
THIS IS THE LOVE OF WHICH THE RAPTURE IS SO WELL EXPRESSED
IN SACRED SCRIPTURE,
AT THE END OF THE ‘SONG OF SONGS.’
THIS IS THE LOVE OF WHICH THE FERVOUR IS SO WELL EXPRESSED
IN THE IMAGE WHICH WAS MY GIFT TO YOU,
THIS EVENING:
THE IMAGE OF CARE-FREE, CHASTELY-UNITED FIGURES
WHO TUMBLE THROUGH THE UNIVERSE
IN JOYFUL CO-OPERATION:
SUCH IS THE FERVENT AND LOVING TRUE UNION OF YOURSELF,
BELOVED CREATURE,
WITH ME, YOUR GOD.
(WC:1794D) (T:1794 #14)
Special gifts and mercies.
It was impossible for me to listen any more without thanking the Father for His goodness - and for some special blessings of recent times. Then He continued:-
DON’T BE AFRAID. I AM LISTENING.
DON’T BE SURPRISED BY MY GIFTS.
SINCE I LOVE YOU,
SHALL I NOT LAVISH MY GIFTS UPON YOU?
YES, IT IS RIGHT THAT YOU THANK ME
FOR ALL HELPS, AND FOR SPECIAL MERCIES;
YET DID YOU BELIEVE THAT I COULD ALLOW YOU
- A BELOVED FRIEND -
TO ENDURE PROLONGED SUFFERING, WITHOUT ASSISTANCE?
REJOICE IN THE GIFT WHICH TOUCHES YOU SO DEEPLY.
(T:1794 #15)
DON’T BE AFRAID. I AM LISTENING.
YES, IT IS TRUE THAT CHRIST MY SON
SUFFERED TO THE VERY END, IN AGONY.
NO FRIEND OF HIS SHOULD DEMAND AN ‘EASY’ LIFE
OR SPECIAL PRIVILEGES,
BUT, RATHER, SHOULD FOLLOW WHERE CHRIST LEADS.
THINK ABOUT MY SON, HOWEVER, AND HIS SUFFERINGS:
“HE HAD A SHORT LIFE.
YOU HAVE MUCH WORK TO DO.”
DIFFERENT TYPES OF WORK DEMAND, FROM ME,
DIFFERENT GIFTS , PLANS, HELPS AND ARRANGEMENTS.
NO TASK IS AS PIVOTAL AS WAS CHRIST’S TASK,
YET EVERY HOLY TASK IS TRULY MY WILL:
MY WILL BEING WORKED OUT
IN THE LIFE OF ONE WHO ACCEPTS A SPECIAL VOCATION:
ONE OF MY TRUE FRIENDS.
(T:1794 #16)
Feeble love.
Here, I said that I long to make God known, but “I’m so uncharitable.” Yet the Father then told me:-
DO NOT BE ANXIOUS.
HERE I AM, LISTENING,
HEARING YOUR CONFESSION OF WEAKNESS,
WITH YOUR CONFESSION OF NEED,
AND YOUR EXPRESSION OF LONGING
TO SHARE THE GOOD NEWS OF MY LOVE.
DO NOT BE ANXIOUS.
YOU CAN BE SURE THAT AT YOUR EVERY ADMISSION OF NEED,
MY CHARITY
- THE ‘GOLD’ OF DIVINE AND FIERY-WARM CHARITY -
POURS WITHIN YOUR HEART.
DO NOT WORRY ABOUT YOUR FEEBLE LOVE FOR OTHER PEOPLE.
“LOVE WITH MY LOVE!”
MY DIVINE LOVE, WITHIN YOUR HEART, IS MORE THAN ENOUGH
TO LOVE THE MANY PEOPLE
WHO NOW FILL YOUR HEART AND MIND.
(T:1794 #17)
ACCEPT MY LOVE AND JOY AND PRESENCE.
I AM ALWAYS HERE;
AND YOU ARE WHOLLY MINE
WHEN YOU ARE PRAYING IN GRATITUDE AND THANKSGIVING.
THE HUMAN BODY, HEART, SOUL AND MIND ARE HELD IN BLISS
- ACCORDING TO MY HOLY WILL -
WHEREVER AND WHENEVER I CHOOSE TO POUR MY POWERFUL AND DIVINE LOVE
UPON A FRAIL CREATURE.
MY LOVE IS FOUND TO BE CEASELESS AND UNENDING
BY YOU WHOSE HEARTS ARE OPEN TO RECEIVE IT:
YOU IN WHOM TRUTH - HUMILITY - KEEPS OPEN THE ‘DOOR’ OF THE HEART.
AT EVERY ACT OF FAITH IN ME
YOU CONSENT TO MY ACTION.
I INCREASE YOUR FAITH AND, FURTHERMORE,
I INCREASE YOUR JOY!
(T:1794 #18)
SHARE THE GOOD NEWS WITH OTHERS:
MY LOVE IS TREMENDOUS
AND MY TENDERNESS INFINITE.
YOU YOURSELF KNOW THIS; YET
MANY PEOPLE WILL LONG FOR TRUE AND PERPETUAL UNION
WITH ME, THEIR GOD,
IF THEY HEAR YOUR NEWS:
IF THEY HEAR ABOUT AND SO YEARN FOR
THE STATE-OF-SOUL WHICH IS YOURS:
A STATE OF FERVENT OBEDIENCE
AND OF LOVING SURRENDER TO MY WILL:
IN PERPETUAL JOY.
CELEBRATE THE BLESSINGS
WITH WHICH I DELIGHT YOUR HEART.
REMAIN IN MY LOVE,
IN A STATE OF BLISSFUL FRIENDSHIP,
WITH FREEDOM FROM FEAR,
WITH GRATITUDE FOR MY GOODNESS,
WITH A CONVICTION OF MY POWER,
AND WITH CERTAINTY ABOUT THE FULFILMENT OF MY PROMISES:
PROMISES TO MY PEOPLE, AND PROMISES TO YOU
ABOUT YOUR WORK.
TAKE MY JOY TO OTHERS.
(T:1794 #19)
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17 CONTEMPLATION
(1996)
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A SACRED WAY. TRUTH. GOD OUR ORIGIN AND PARADISE.
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A sacred way.
By the middle of February, 1996, every moment of prayer was so full of peace and joy that, whenever I thought about this, it was as though I should pinch myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming - as the old phrase says. Part of my mind was wondering: “How can this last?” - even as I realised that several good things had happened at once, or had come together.
Since my trust in God had grown, I turned to Him more frequently, therefore I received greater help, which made me more determined to go to Him with every joy, problem or query; and so, inevitably - by His grace - I had become even more joyful. But there was another reason. This was a new stage. I knew this, because the Father told me.
It was when He had wonderfully answered one of my queries (in T:1811) that I was so thrilled that I exclaimed: “Who is like You!” Suddenly, He showed me that such a conversation takes place almost as a matter of course in what was now a new way of life, in which I walked along in light and joy on a ‘sacred way’: as if through a beautiful valley, high up in the mountains of the spiritual life, and far above the twisting path of earlier days. (T:1811)
Two vessels, meeting.
That same month, when I remained in church one Saturday after the morning Mass, I turned to the Father in prayer, showing Him every facet of my heart and soul; and then I was made ‘speechless’ as He suddenly showed me a glimpse into the depths of His own Being. (T:1814)
This was so awesome for me, and the Father, I learned, was so wholly desirous of showing me the reason for this ‘reciprocity’ of truths, that a simple image was given to me, even as the Father soundlessly explained what was happening in our prayerful ‘meeting’.
I saw an image of two stone vases which were side by side, yet each tilted towards the other until the lip of one almost touched the lip of the other; and a stream of shining liquid was pouring from one jar into the other. At the same time the Father explained to me that as I show my truest and most private thoughts to Him in prayer, and at the same time am utterly
devoted to Him, trying to live only for His Glory, He can therefore show me something of His own infinite depths - by which He meant His knowledge of Himself.
It is when my heart is willingly ‘open’ to His gaze, and when it is thoroughly empty at last of all that is foolish and earthly - when I have banished former impediments to true spiritual union - that my heart is wholly ‘open’ to God’s Will. It is open, therefore, to receive the precious spiritual drink which is Divine Life and Love as it pours from the vessel which represents the Godhead; and the two ‘vessels’ shown to me are joined, therefore, in two ways: first by their
proximity to one another, and secondly by the ever-generous stream of life, love and wisdom which pours between them.
There was more reassurance, in the very same teaching. Further teachings followed, on every sort of relevant subject, day after day; and yet each day was busy, too, with meals, mishaps, visits to friends, with the usual services at church - and with extra, unexpected tasks to do for Our Lord.
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Christ’s loving purpose.
Just before Easter, in 1996, I was preparing to spend a few days with my family in Rome at the English College, where our elder son was at Seminary. Only days before we left, about to encounter for the first time a much broader ‘picture’ of life in the Catholic Church, with deeper insights into the ministerial Priesthood, I was given a broader knowledge by Christ, in prayer, about my own role in His Church. He taught me precisely why He had chosen to ask a weak and handicapped lay-person like myself to speak out boldly about the Faith; and part of the reason was because not all members of the Clergy who should be speaking out today are willing to proclaim and to defend Catholic teachings.
Christ explained, to my amazement, just why it is that I’m suitable for this task. He told me:-
Follow My inspiration and write down what I am showing you about the work which I have asked you to do, and about My purpose. This is what I want you to explain, for other people:
I, Jesus your Saviour
- God and man -
wish to teach all nations.
I long to save My people from their sins.
I long to teach Truth, through My holy Church;
It is true that I can teach,
through My bishops and priests,
and also through parents, religious, and teachers
and theologians,
if they will faithfully hear Me,
and will faithfully teach others.
Yet many of these people,
- through whom I would teach -
do not hear Me and therefore do not teach!
Some choose to ignore the teaching and guidance
which I Myself offer to you all
through Saint Peter’s successor.
That is why I have chosen, to do My work, yourself:
a foolish, emotional woman,
who was passionately attached
to the good things of this world,
and was undisciplined, and was ignorant of the doctrines
which some of My teachers fail to teach.
Your sinfulness and ignorance
have served My loving purpose.
I chose you because of your weakness! (T:1840A #1)
Ablaze with gratitude.
Then Christ explained to me:-
Remember when you prayed to Me,
long ago, and with great faith,
but with a burning need for My Love
and for hope and reassurance;
I poured My gifts upon your thirsty soul,
pouring them in such abundance
that your startled heart
- through every trial and set-back -
has remained ablaze with gratitude:
which fuels your determination
to take My gifts to others:
to share the Good News
about My Love for you,
about the forgiveness of sin, and
about the hope of Heaven. (T:1840A #2)
The gift of faith.
Next, Christ urged me to look upon His gifts with gratitude, and to see how appropriate they are for my special task. He made me see what good things had been made possible by my eventual surrender to His wishes, telling me:-
Notice how carefully I have led you forward:
I have given you the gift of faith.
I have given you the gift of repentance.
I have given you a contrite heart.
I have given you a horror of sin
in an age when some protest
that sinful thoughts and acts
neither harm the soul nor displease Me.
I have given you a delight in the truths
which many neglect.
I have given you a love of obedience
in an age when obedience is seen
as demeaning,
as if My obedience to the Father’s Will
and My Crucifixion
were foolish, and also
were unnecessary for your Salvation.
When you surrendered yourself, therefore,
entirely to My keeping,
in true love, and intimate friendship,
I gave you a glimpse, at last,
of the Heart of My Life:
of the One Glorious Divine Life
which is radiant with Light in its Three-fold wonder:
a Life from which some exclude themselves
by their careless neglect of Truth:
which is one of My Names. (T:1840A #3)
See what a simple task is yours,
now that you have consented to serve Me,
and to follow My instructions!
At My invitation,
you are making a record of My graces:
a record of the gifts, truths and instructions
which you have has found ‘in’ Me,
in prayer.
None of these truths is ‘new’.
But, sad to say, I ‘need’ someone
to remind the Shepherds,
to guide the parents,
to warn the teachers, and
to say to the theologians:
“Love your neighbour! But also
remember the first Commandment.
Love, revere and obey your Heavenly Father!
Listen to His Son, your Saviour.
Be faithful to His teaching,
which is proclaimed
- now as yesterday -
through His Holy Catholic Church.” (T:1840A #4)
Don’t be afraid to speak.
You have been appalled at the task,
seeing its magnitude and your ignorance;
but I am bringing something worthwhile
out of your obedience. (T:1840A #5)
With Christ’s Mind and Heart.
There was very much more I needed to know, at that stage, if I was to be able to fulfil Christ’s plan; and Christ was eager to help me. One day in prayer, He gave me a warning, and also a glimpse ahead. He urged me:-
Understand your grave responsibility, as I invite and permit you to speak out on My behalf; “Never forget: you speak for One Who has the whole Universe in His care.” You must take special care, therefore, always to think with My Mind, and to love with My Heart, and also never to be partisan. Cast aside all prejudice. All men, women and children are your brothers and sisters, in need of love, and in need of My Light - as and where I Will to shine upon certain people, through you! (T:1853 #4)
Remain here, in prayer, upheld in My Light. I have something more to show you. Surrender to My Will; look towards Heaven. Here I am, enthroned at the edge of Heaven, showing you something of My Majesty. True God and man, I reign in majesty in Heaven, in radiant Light, in royal dignity and power; yet I am also your Priest: your intercessor, clothed as a priest - and powerful and holy. But the reason for this sight is not to make your heart quail before My Glory, but to reward you. (WC:1853D) (T:1853 #5)
Know that I am deeply touched by your new determination to banish every sin and failing so that you might be worthy to serve Me. You proclaim that you are willing to bear mockery for Me; but I know, already, what My service has cost you. See how tenderly I am greeting you as I clothe you anew for My service. “You have borne mockery for My sake. That is why I will now give you Glory;” and in saying ‘Glory’ I am speaking about the praise which is going to be heaped upon you and upon your work - our work - in the times which lie ahead. (T:1853 #6)
Then Christ continued to instruct me on every facet of the work:-
Be confident about your progress, as I teach you about the spiritual life, and encourage you to be more single-minded and loving in My service. I assure you that when the time comes for Me to reveal more widely the extraordinary things which I have achieved through your life - for the purpose of strengthening faith in other souls - I shall have made you ready for your task. And by ‘extraordinary’ I mean both an astonishing amount of work, all produced at My prompting, and also an astonishing verbal ‘picture’ or revelation of Myself, and of My loving Nature. By our joint work, you and I are providing a consoling reminder, for many, of what has already been revealed, long ago: the Good News of My Love for you all: the Love of My tender and merciful Heart. (T:1867 #1)
Don’t worry about future reactions to My work in your life. I assure you that, when the work is more widely revealed, you will be able to accept the praise which will be lavished upon you because of this work; you will accept it as peacefully as you have come to accept indifference or scorn; and this will be possible because you have not sought that praise for yourself, since all you seek - even now - is Me, your Saviour, and the joy of hearing Me praised. (T:1867 #2)
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A new title.
Week by week, Christ continued to enlighten me; for example, He explained the special relevance to this whole work of His Mother’s visit to my home, and of the picture of “Our Lady of Harpenden”.
I mentioned earlier that I’d been given a clear and privileged glimpse of the beauty of Our Blessed Lady. By about April 1993 I had completed an oil portrait of her which was as detailed and as accurate as I could make it. Then one day in May, 1996, Christ explained to me (T:1899) that I should share my joy about the love of “Our Lady of Harpenden”. He invited me to speak to my new parish priest about the visit, and about the title of the painting - so that having shown that courtesy to the head of the Church in our area I’d be free to speak more boldly about the same wonderful things to old friends and to new acquaintances. Christ had explained to me, at different times, that the knowledge of Our Lady’s kindness to me would affect other people so much that it would ‘soften’ many hearts, and so would prepare those hearts in the way that seedbeds are prepared, so that they’d receive a lavish ‘planting’ within them of the many ‘teachings’ which He’d given to me in prayer.
I suppose I should add that Our Lord also asked me to tell my priest, in connection with Our Lady’s visit, that there’s now a river flowing through our town, just as elsewhere, except that this river isn’t cold and crystal-clear; it’s the living water of Christ’s teachings, as it continues to pour out from my prayer and from my pen. Needless to say, I only repeated that to our priest in order to obey Christ, Who has explained to me that His teachings will continue to flow, so long as I am prayerful and faithful. It wouldn’t then have occurred to me to make grand descriptions of my work: but I’m not ashamed to do so, today, now that Christ has shown me what tremendous results will be brought about because of these teachings, and now that I’m longing for Him to be praised for His wisdom and goodness.
This is precisely what Christ has told me about Our Lady’s picture and its significance:-
Don’t be bashful about My gifts to you, and your good work for Me. On this wonderful feast of Pentecost, you have turned to My Holy Spirit, Who longs to help you in every aspect of your life. Listen to His guidance:
FOLLOW MY PROMPTING. DON’T BE AFRAID TO DO AS I URGE YOU, WHICH IS TO SPEAK TO MY PRIEST, AT GREATER LENGTH, ABOUT THE WONDERFUL VISIT WHICH YOU RECEIVED FROM CHRIST’S HOLY MOTHER, AND ABOUT THE PORTRAIT OF HER WHICH YOU HAVE PAINTED AND WHICH IS GIVING JOY TO SO MANY PEOPLE. I, YOUR GOD, DELIGHT IN THE BEAUTY AND HOLINESS OF THE MOST HOLY VIRGIN MARY; AND YOU CAN MAKE THIS KNOWN. “SHARE MY JOY” WITH YOUR PRIEST, AS WITH OTHER PEOPLE. LET HIM ENJOY THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE PICTURE WHICH IS ENTITLED “OUR LADY OF HARPENDEN” IS A TRUE REPRESENTATION OF YOUR GRACIOUS VISITOR: OF THE HOLY MOTHER WHO GAVE YOU COURAGE, AS WELL AS REASSURANCE AND GOOD ADVICE. (T:1899 #1)
SHARE THE GOOD NEWS THAT THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST’S HOLY MOTHER IS ESPECIALLY FRUITFUL, UNDER HER NEW TITLE, FOR DEPARTED SOULS, AND FOR THE SICK, AND FOR CHILDREN IN DISTRESS. (T:1899 #2)
TELL MY PRIEST, TOO, THAT A SPRING OF LIVING WATER IS NOW FLOWING IN YOUR TOWN; AND THAT ‘SPRING’ IS THE UNENDING ‘STREAM’ OF TEACHINGS WHICH IS MY GIFT TO YOU IN PRAYER - A ‘STREAM’ WHICH WILL BENEFIT VERY MANY PEOPLE. (T:1899 #3)
ACCEPT MY WILL FOR YOUR LIFE. YOU HAVE LONGED TO SHARE YOUR FAITH WITH OTHER PEOPLE; AND IT IS PRECISELY SO THAT MY GOODNESS SHALL BE MORE WIDELY KNOWN - AND ALSO THE HOLINESS OF THE MOST HOLY VIRGIN MARY - THAT YOU HAVE ALSO RECEIVED, IN PRAYER, SO MANY HUNDREDS OF TEACHINGS, AND HAVE RECEIVED SEVERAL VISITS FROM CHRIST’S HOLY MOTHER. I WANT YOU TO SHARE THE JOY OF THESE THINGS WITH OTHER PEOPLE, TO ENCOURAGE THEM IN FAITH AND TO SPREAD IN THEIR HEARTS MY DIVINE AND HEAVENLY JOY: WHICH IS MY GIFT TO THOSE WHO LOVE ME. (T:1899 #4)
KNOW THAT IT IS MY WISH THAT CHRIST’S HOLY MOTHER BE HONOURED EVERYWHERE, ALBEIT UNDER THE DIFFERENT TITLES WHICH ARE APPROPRIATE FOR DIFFERENT TIMES AND PLACES. I DELIGHT IN THE VIRTUES OF CHRIST’S HOLY MOTHER - AND IN HER PRESENCE IN HEAVEN; AND I ALSO ASSURE YOU THAT “OUR LADY OF HARPENDEN” IS A FITTING TITLE FOR THIS MOST HOLY OF MY SAINTS, AND FOR HER PICTURE. (T:1899 #5)
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Unfaithfulness, today.
In the following week, when I’d passed on the good news, as Christ had requested, I was shown once again why we are in need of spiritual help from Himself and from His Saints. He showed me how serious a matter is the unfaithfulness which He sees among many Catholics in our age. He urged me:-
Persevere in prayer for the Church. You are right to rejoice on this Feast of the Visitation, today, when My holy Mother praised the Father for the work of Salvation which was to be achieved through Me. Yet many of those who believe in Me - many of your spiritual brothers and sisters - face great dangers to their faith: dangers which stem even from fellow-members of My Church. (T:1909 #1)
Look upon truth, bravely.
Many of My people are in danger.
It is as though blood is flowing beside the highway
wherever a ‘haemorrhage’ occurs
from the life of My Church.
My own people are losing their life-blood
wherever
they contradict My Church’s teaching,
they mock the Holy Father,
they scorn obedience, and thus
they destroy religious orders, or when
they proclaim that Truth is falsehood, or when they explain that sin is virtue, or when
they leave the Church. (T:1909 #3)
Be sure that if blood were flowing
in the street,
good people would look for a body.
Be sure that when, in the Church’s life,
lack of faith is evident, and disobedience,
a disaster has occurred.
Just as a man’s blood flows, and he dies,
if he receives a mortal wound,
so do My friends ‘lose’ the life of their souls
whenever faith is not taught,
whenever disobedience is condoned,
whenever eternal hopes are replaced by earthly goals,
whenever proud souls mock the faith and the devotions
of My ‘little ones’ and
whenever worship is tarnished:
as when admiring attention is focused
- by worshippers who meet to pray in My Name -
not upon the Father
but upon themselves and their lives. (T:1909 #4)
Lingering fears.
This teaching about the Church’s ‘life-blood’ shocked me, but not by its content. I’d already learned on so many occasions in prayer how simple and straightforward is Our Lord, whether in His admiring comments or in His warnings; and so I wasn’t astonished to hear Him speak the plain truth about disobedience within His Church. What shocked me was the realisation that I was being invited, of course, to pass on to other Catholics - to members of the laity and also to members of the Clergy - not just earlier ‘spiritual’ teachings but also these very frank and perhaps unwelcome observations.
But it had to be done if I wanted to fulfil Christ’s plan; and so I recorded each new teaching carefully, determined to include even the ‘difficult’ teachings in the next volume of “Instructions from Christ.”
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[Disobedience and defeatism.
Which of us can claim to be serving God well? Yet as we’re struggling to be faithful, perhaps we should re-examine our attitudes and activities. Perhaps we should be more aware that by relentless peer pressure - even in religious circles - we can be led to do as much wrong as right. Unless we remain close to Christ and to His Church through firm faith, loyalty and prayer, we might find that we’ve succumbed to bad influences in things to do with doctrine and discipline, and also in devotion to God. Our attitudes to prayer, to Mission and to education will all undergo unhealthy changes, and we shall begin to imagine that we know better than Christ and His Church in a number of circumstances.
Most dangerously, perhaps, today, we are tempted to join with the majority whenever the Church’s constant teaching is derided - in a group or a conversation - or whenever the Holy Father is being dismissed as “old-fashioned”. It’s one thing to investigate matters of belief and conscience, but quite another to believe that we can legitimately have a different moral code from that which is founded upon the Commandments given to Moses and is now taught by the Pope and Bishops with the authority of Christ Himself.
It’s been suggested to many of us - even by persons within the Church - that an unswerving attachment to the Tradition as well as to Holy Scripture is evidence of a rigid piety. It’s suggested that people who struggle to be faithful in all things are uncreative and docile.
Here, within the Church, supporters of heterodoxy try to persuade us that rigid doctrine is something life-destroying. We’ve been urged to break free from a ‘threatening’ God, or a ‘male’ God in order to worship a non-judgmental God who would approve a new presentation of the Catholic Faith: a version which never suggests that anyone really needs saving, or that anyone could ever ‘perish’. It’s suggested that a healthy faith can free its adherents from the moralising of past ages, and can free them from the slavish obedience which is so unnecessary for enlightened, educated, modern Catholics who have now been made aware of their real needs.
Loyal and obedient membership.
Isn’t it sad that so many Catholics aren’t aware that our deepest yearnings, needs and hopes can be intelligently examined in the presence of God, and by the Light which He gives through His Spirit and His Church: and that the God Who longs for us to be eternally and blissfully happy most definitely arranges that we can ‘taste’ some of that happiness, even on this earth, through family joys and the fulfilment of our duties - and, supremely, through union with Christ in active, loyal and obedient membership of His Church, culminating in “Holy Communion.”
How deeply I’ve wished, sometimes, that I need only write about the joys of our Faith, and that I could shy away from problem areas; but I’m conscience-bound to write in the way which Christ requests of me; and so I must give a simple warning about false doctrine and dangerous attitudes. If I don’t do this, I shall be unfaithful to Christ, Who answered my request for guidance, last week, with a reminder of the words of His Apostle. Christ told me that it wasn’t “the Spirit of timidity” that had been given to me (2 Tm 1:7); and that’s why I must remind those who will listen that whatever is true remains true; and so we should believe that when many decrees were published for the benefit of the faithful, after the Second Vatican Council, the teachings of earlier Councils were not ‘cancelled out’, as in the way of the world when the minutes of former meetings are looked upon as nothing but historical records.
What marvellous changes have taken place within the Church this century; yet there have been no fundamental changes in matters to do with faith or morals.
I know, from the teachings of the Church, as well as from what Christ has taught me in prayer, that those theologians, teachers, religious and clergy who have spent half a life-time saying that “there are no easy answers” to question of faith will one day find that the answers are too ‘easy’ for suspicious or sophisticated minds. The answers were and are ‘easy’ enough for a child to understand - whether a child in years or a child in simplicity; and I’m speaking about answers to the age-old questions about how to ‘find’ God and how to please Him, and how to do right and avoid evil. The Church gives plain answers today, or rather, Christ does so, through His Church; and the answers to the main questions are simple, I know, because they come from God Whom we know to be pure, perfect, and simple: from God, of Whom we can say: “THERE IS NO DARKNESS IN HIM AT ALL” (1 Jn 1:5); and so the Way to which He points is also simple, for all who will rely on Christ’s strength and wisdom and not on their own.]
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An even greater joy.
What a cause for gratitude it is that I’ve spent so many years in a prayerful and faithful parish; in which our everyday worship has been well-ordered and fulfilling, with reverent liturgy and helpful homilies - as well as feast-day celebrations, and special treats.
I was especially joyful to be able to go to Lourdes on a parish pilgrimage in July 1996. Apart from being thrilled by that town’s association with Our Lady, I was very happy to be there with my husband, as well as with our grown-up children, our local priest, and some fellow-parishioners.
But an even greater joy was given only a week after our return home from the shrine. My husband decided to approach our priest and to ask to be received into full Communion. Plans were made that he would begin the forthcoming R.C.I.A. course in the autumn; and meanwhile, I relied on my husband’s generosity to continue to print successive volumes of teachings, in accordance with Christ’s requests.
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The Origin, the Home, the Paradise ...
But to return to the teachings from God the Father; since I’m writing about ‘stages’, I must mention the Feast of Corpus Christi, on June 6th, 1996. It was on that day that I turned to the Father in even greater trust, and with a new act of dedication to His Will; and then He spoke to me once more about His work in my life, and about our union. He said: “I shall set a seal upon your heart; and that seal shall be Joy!” He explained that this perpetual gift of joy is to be His sign to others of His dominion over my soul - or, I can say, of His acceptance of the ‘treasure’ which is a heart given wholly to Him (T:1917).
On the twenty-third of that same month, when I had solemnly and sincerely forsworn every selfish thought or yearning that would keep me from the perfect service of Christ, I was astonished to be given special help by Our Blessed Lady. Then, when I greeted Christ joyfully in Holy Communion, my heart was ‘lightened’ - by which I mean made entirely carefree and child-like; and I was suddenly enabled, through Christ’s Will and Presence and power, to direct the eyes of my soul ‘upwards’; and I ‘saw’ by spiritual knowledge that the Father was reaching out to touch me, in an awesome revelation of Himself to my attentive heart. This was the moment for which the Father had been preparing me, in prayer, for many years.
The Father said: “It is I!” And as I heard those words my heart nearly broke for joy. At the same time, I was shown that it’s by the power and work of the Holy Spirit, as I’m brought towards the Father through my prayer “in Christ”, that I receive Wisdom and Light in prayer, and achieve this sort of union with the Godhead: with the Most Holy Trinity. (T:1941)
But as the Father said those words to me, He revealed the Infinite Love to which all our loving efforts and sacrifices are directed; and He explained in great detail that the total fulfilment for which we yearn, as we serve Him, is eventually given to faithful souls as a bliss and a satisfaction beyond our wildest dreams.
This is what I learned, that day, as I turned to the Father “in” Christ, and was then invited by Christ:-
Listen to your Father, Who now speaks to you from Heaven as He opens Heaven’s ‘door’:
listen, my child;
“It is I”,
YOUR FATHER,
WHO AM REACHING OUT TO TOUCH YOU,
BECAUSE OF MY GREAT LOVE FOR YOU,
AND YOUR GREAT LOVE FOR ME.
I WHO AM LOVE AM THE LORD OF ALL THINGS: WORTHY OF YOUR DAILY SACRIFICES,
AS YOU, WITH CONTRITE HEART,
STRUGGLE TO PLEASE ME AND TO BE FIT FOR HEAVEN.
I ASSURE YOU, MY BELOVED,
THAT YOUR SURRENDER OF YOUR OWN WISHES
HAS BEEN WHOLLY WORTHWHILE.
I CANNOT FAIL TO REWARD YOU.
YOU CAN BE CERTAIN, THEREFORE,
THAT THROUGH YOUR UNION WITH CHRIST, MY SON,
AND THROUGH THE HELP OF HIS HOLY MOTHER, MARY,
YOU HAVE BEEN WELL-PREPARED
FOR OUR JOYFUL MEETING.
IT IS TRUE THAT I LIVE FAR ABOVE YOU, IN HEAVEN’S SPLENDOUR.
YOU CAN SEE THAT I DWELL IN THE HEIGHTS OF GLORY;
YET HERE I AM, MY CHILD, GAZING UPON YOU,
SHOWING YOU THE HEIGHT AND DEPTH OF OUR LOVING UNION;
AND SINCE YOU BELONG TO CHRIST
THERE IS NO NEED FOR YOU TO SEARCH FOR ME.
YOU CAN MEET ME WITHIN YOUR SOUL, IN PRAYER,
AS IF IN A TABERNACLE OR A TENT.
(T:1941 #3)
The Father: reaching out His hand.
DON’T BE AFRAID.
TRULY,
IT IS I, YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER
WHO NOW REACH OUT TO TOUCH YOU:
REACHING OUT FROM HEAVEN’S GLORY
TO TOUCH YOU WITH LOVE!
AS YOU CAN SEE
- IN THE FLEETING IMAGE WHICH IS MY GIFT TO YOU -
IT IS THROUGH THE OUTSTRETCHED ‘HAND’ OF MY HOLY SPIRIT,
IN PRAYER,
THAT I BRING MY LIGHT AND JOY TO YOU.
RECOGNISE MY TOUCH!
YOU AND I ARE ALREADY UNITED
IN MY SPIRIT’S POWER,
THROUGH MY SON, YOUR SAVIOUR,
AND THROUGH YOUR TRUSTING PRAYER.
HAVE CONFIDENCE IN OUR FRIENDSHIP;
IT IS THROUGH OUR UNION AND COMMUNION
THAT I CAN SHARE MY LIFE WITH YOU, FURTHER,
BRINGING YOU GREATER JOY,
AND TEACHING YOU MORE ABOUT MY NATURE:
ABOUT THE LOVE WHICH IS GENTLE
YET IMMENSELY POWERFUL.
TREASURE THE KNOWLEDGE
WHICH YOU CAN ‘SEE’ IN ME, TODAY.
(WC + OIL:1941B) (T:1941 #4)
Sweet, tender Love: cause of all true joy.
GAZE TOWARDS THE BRIGHTNESS OF MY GLORY
IN CONTEMPLATION.
GAZE, WITH THE ‘EYES’ OF YOUR SOUL.
LOOK BEYOND ALL EARTHLY THINGS
- THEN BEYOND ALL IMAGES -
AS MY HOLY SPIRIT BRINGS YOU UPWARDS
CLOSE TO THE FURNACE OF LOVE WHICH IS SHINING
AT THE HEART OF MY LIFE.
IT IS THUS, THROUGH MY INVITATION,
AND THROUGH MY LIGHT AND POWER, IN PRAYER,
THAT YOU CAN BEGIN TO FATHOM MY NATURE,
WHICH IS LOVE:
DIVINE LOVE, IN ITS BEAUTY AND PERFECTION.
TRULY,
I AM LOVE,
AND THEREFORE
I AM THE SOURCE
OF ALL TRUE LOVE.
I AM THE CAUSE
OF YOUR CONSTANT SPIRITUAL JOY.
I AM THE LIGHT
WHICH NOW ILLUMINES YOUR HEART AND MIND AND SOUL.
I AM THE BLISS
AT THE HEART OF ALL TRUE AND HOLY LOVE,
IN ITS BRIGHT, FIERY JOY AND EXHILARATION.
I AM THE BURNING LOVE
WHICH WARMS AND WOUNDS THE HEARTS
OF ALL WHO LOVE TRUTH, GOODNESS AND BEAUTY.
I AM THE SWEET LOVE
WHICH BINDS TOGETHER ALL TRUE FRIENDS,
FIRST, AMIDST THE JOYS AND TRIALS OF EARTHLY LIFE, AND THEN
ETERNALLY: IN HEAVEN’S GLORY.
I AM ALSO A TENDER LOVE.
I GAZE UPON YOU, NOW AND ALWAYS,
IN THE VERY WAY IN WHICH YOU GAZED
- WEEPING FOR JOY -
UPON YOUR NEW-BORN CHILD.
I AM DIVINE LOVE:
UNCHANGING YET ACTIVE: WARM AND EFFECTIVE.
I AM THE TREASURE
FOUND BY ALL WHO MEET TRUE LOVE, ON EARTH;
YET
YOU CAN SAY, OF ME,
WHO AM BLISS AND LIGHT AND LOVE, UNENDING, THAT
I AM THE ETERNAL PRIZE
OF ALL WHO PUT THEIR TRUST IN ME
- EVEN DENYING THEMSELVES LOVE
IN MY SERVICE,
BECAUSE OF THEIR LOVE FOR ME -
AND WHO REMAIN FAITHFUL.
HEARTACHE AND PAIN ARE SURRENDERED
BY ALL WHO ENTER THE HEART OF HEAVEN
FOR THE MARRIAGE-FEAST.
(T:1941 #5)
The bright flame of love.
Then the Father reassured me:-
DON’T BE AFRAID, MY CHILD.
HERE I AM: YOUR FATHER, ENLIGHTENING YOUR SOUL.
I AM THE BRIGHT FLAME
AT THE HEART OF YOUR PRAYER;
INDEED,
I AM THE FIRE
AT THE HEART OF EVERY MOMENT
OF TRUE LOVING UNION AND COMMUNION: WHETHER
BETWEEN OURSELVES,
OR BETWEEN YOU WHO ARE MY CHILDREN.
DON’T BE AFRAID.
I HAVE MUCH MORE TO TEACH YOU,
YET
REJOICE IN MY LOVE.
BE AT PEACE IN OUR PRAYER.
TRULY, IT IS I, YOUR FATHER,
WHO TEACH YOU,
TONIGHT,
REVEALING MY GLORY:
WHICH IS THE LIGHT OF YOUR SOUL
IN EACH HOLY COMMUNION:
YOUR DAILY DELIGHT.
(T:1941 #6)
Paradise.
DELIGHT IN MY GIFTS.
I AM THE SOURCE
OF ALL TRUE WISDOM.
I AM THE GIVER
OF ALL TRUE PEACE.
FURTHERMORE,
IT IS I WHO DRAW YOU TO HEAVEN
- THROUGH CHRIST, AND YOUR PRAYER -
UNVEILING EACH STAGE OF YOUR WAY
ON THIS SPIRITUAL JOURNEY.
TRULY,
I AM YOUR GUIDE;
AND IT IS I WHO INSPIRE YOU
TO PLEASE ME.
I AM THE ORIGIN
OF YOUR LONGING TO BE HOLY.
I AM THE FATHER
OF CHRIST THE BELOVED, IN WHOSE NAME YOU PRAY.
I AM THE LOVE
- PURE, PERFECT, UNENDING, FIERY AND TENDER -
FOR WHICH YOUR SOUL IS YEARNING.
I AM THE GOAL,
ON YOUR JOURNEY TO HEAVEN,
AS YOU FOLLOW THE WAY OF MY SON.
I AM THE HOME
IN WHICH YOU CAN SHELTER FOREVER.
I AM THE PARADISE
IN WHICH IS FOUND THE PERFECT FULFILMENT
OF EVERY GOOD LONGING,
WITH UNENDING BLISS FOR THE HUMAN HEART AND MIND
AND BODY AND SOUL.
IT IS MY ETERNAL WISH, MY CHILD,
TO SEE YOU JOYFUL
ETERNALLY:
TO BIND YOU TO MY HEART
MORE FIRMLY:
AND TO CLAIM YOU AS MY OWN;
YET IT IS I, YOUR GOD, WHO NOW INVITE YOU
TO CLAIM AND CAPTURE ME!
(T:1941 #7)
Undivided attention.
Here, the Father urged me to live in a more profound state of recollection. He urged me:-
STAY CLOSE TO ME, MOMENT BY MOMENT.
MAKE YOUR HEART WHOLLY MINE.
GO OUTWARDS, TO LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR
WITH MY GREAT LOVE,
THEN TURN TO ME ONCE MORE
IN PRAYER.
TURN YOUR ATTENTION INWARDS, FOR A WHILE,
AWAY FROM THE ‘DOORWAY’ OF YOUR SOUL.
LOOK TOWARDS ME, WHERE I DWELL, WITHIN.
HERE I AM,
WITH MY SON - YOUR SAVIOUR - AND WITH MY SPIRIT:
EVER-READY TO HOLD YOU AT REST IN OUR LOVE:
IN OUR COMFORT, AND CONVERSATION:
IN THE PURITY AND PEACE
OF YOUR GOD.
(T:1941 #8)
Custody of the heart.
LISTEN, MY DAUGHTER, TO A FURTHER INVITATION:
SHARE MY LIFE AS NEVER BEFORE.
IN THINKING OF MY GIFTS TO YOU,
CONSIDER ONE OF YOUR ‘GIFTS’ TO ME;
DAY AFTER DAY, OUT OF LOVE FOR ME, YOU ‘KEEP CUSTODY’
- A CUSTODY OF THE EYES -
NEITHER GAZING IDLY UPON FORBIDDEN THINGS,
NOR GAZING, BORED,
ON OTHER PEOPLE OR OTHER FACES,
IN CHURCH, DURING THE HOLY SACRIFICE, WHEN
I AM
IN THE SANCTUARY.
THAT IS WHY I NOW INVITE YOU
TO OFFER ME A FURTHER GIFT:
INVITING YOU TO KEEP A TRUE ‘CUSTODY OF THE HEART’:
TO FOSTER A SINGLE-MINDED LOVE OF MY WILL,
FOR THE SAKE OF AN EVEN CLOSER UNION.
(T:1941 #9)
CONSIDER YOUR LENGTHY PREPARATION
FOR OUR UNION,
NOW ACHIEVED BY MY GRACES:
AND WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF YOUR IMMACULATE MOTHER.
TRULY,
IT WAS SHE WHO LET FALL HER CLOAK
TODAY
TO CONSOLE YOU,
AND TO ENCLOSE YOU IN OUR LOVE,
SO THAT I MIGHT GIVE YOU JOY
UNCEASING.
(T:1941 #10)
The soul, like a tabernacle.
CONSIDER THE BENEFITS OF EVEN GREATER UNION.
WHAT CAN YOU GAIN
BUT INFINITE BLISS, AND HEAVEN’S GIFTS?
BELIEVE IN MY LOVE!
CLOAKED IN THE DARKNESS OF CONTEMPLATION,
YOUR SOUL IS LIKE A TENT
- OR A TABERNACLE -
WHERE I, YOUR FATHER, MEET YOU AND GREET YOU.
HERE I AM: LOVE HIMSELF,
TO TEACH YOU.
TRULY
YOU ARE MY PRECIOUS CHILD.
IT WAS I WHO CREATED YOU.
I MYSELF HAVE LED YOU TOWARDS LOVE, PURITY AND HOLINESS;
AND NOW, IN THIS ‘CUSTODY’ AND COMMUNION
I MAKE NO DEMANDS:
BUT RATHER,
I MAKE MYSELF ‘PRISONER’ TO YOUR DESIRE,
AS YOUR EVERY PRAYER IS GRANTED!
SO GREAT IS MY LOVE, AND SO TENDER MY CARE FOR YOU,
THAT NOW I CHERISH YOUR EVERY WISH,
WHETHER EXPRESSED OR UNSPOKEN.
WHO IS LIKE ME, YOUR GOD?
WHO, THEREFORE, CAN RIVAL
MY WOOING OF YOUR SOUL?
WHOSE LOVE OR GIFT, WHOSE WORD OR TENDERNESS
CAN RIVAL MINE?
(T:1941 #11)
Equal in self-giving.
SEE HOW I ACT, IN THIS CUSTODY AND COMMUNION;
I, YOUR CREATOR, RELINQUISH MY POWER!
YOU WHO ONCE FEARED ME ARE NOW
WHOLLY AT REST,
OVERJOYED BY MY KINDNESS:
TOUCHED TO THE HEART TO DISCOVER MY PLAN, WHICH IS THAT
I, YOUR GOD, SERVE YOU.
I COMFORT YOU,
MY BELOVED.
HERE, IN OUR UNION, WE ARE EQUAL IN SELF-GIVING.
I AM DOING YOUR WILL, BY GRANTING YOUR HEART’S DESIRES.
YOURS, NOW, IS THE JOYFUL KNOWLEDGE THAT
YOUR EVERY REQUEST IS GRANTED;
AND THUS, AS YOU REALISE:
HERE IN OUR PRAYER,
IN THE BOND OF LOVE,
AND IN THE MARRIAGE OF OUR HEARTS,
I, YOUR LORD, YOUR BELOVED AND ALL-HOLY CREATOR
- I WHO AM LOVE -
AM SUBJECT
TO YOU, MY CREATURE.
(WC: 1941C) (T:1941 #12)
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Many joys.
My heart ached with joy whenever I recalled the Father’s magnificent teaching. More and more, I understood what we mean by proclaiming that “God IS Love” (1 Jn 4:16); and I yearned to be able to share the Good News more effectively. Meanwhile, Christ urged me:-
Share My Teachings with the people you meet; but realise that I want you to offer them primarily to members of My Holy Catholic Church, in order to renew the rudimentary faith of some, and to strengthen others whose faith is already well-established. (T:1954 #1)
Reassure My People! Say with conviction that I, your God, am very near to you. I am present in your hearts; and I am Really, sacramentally Present in the tabernacle, and on the holy altar! (T:1954 #2)
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18 MISSION
(1996-1997)
___________________________________________________________________________
GOOD NEWS FOR THE POOR. THE WHOLE MESSAGE.
___________________________________________________________________________
To the weak and needy.
There came a time, at last, when I had been utterly delivered from fear before God, in prayer, and also delivered from any desire to hide my thoughts and weaknesses from Him. I knew from experience that He rewards every act of trust and every moment of sincere contrition; but I was so astonished by God’s goodness, when I was praying at home, in the evening of July 26th, 1996, and when I’d found myself enveloped in the joy and Glory of the Holy Trinity, that I asked: “How is it that You are so good to one so wicked?”
Suddenly, the Father taught me - with both majesty and tenderness - about how He delights in our trust. He showed me (in T:1971):-
HERE I AM, MY CHILD,
DELIGHTING TO SEE TRUTH
IN YOUR HEART AND MIND
AS YOU PONDER MY GOODNESS
AND YOUR SPIRITUAL POVERTY.
IT IS A PART OF MY PLAN
THAT I GIVE ENCOURAGEMENT TO MY PEOPLE
IN THESE TIMES,
THROUGH THESE TEACHINGS.
IT IS A PART OF MY PLAN, ALSO,
THAT THIS WORK FLOWS NOT FROM A SAINTLY FIGURE
WHO WOULD BE SEEN BY THE WEAK AND SINFUL
AS DIFFERENT FROM THEM: REMOTE AND IMPECCABLE,
BUT THAT IT POURS, RATHER,
FROM A WEAK AND SINFUL PERSON
WHO CAN SAY WITH GREAT CONVICTION:
‘SEE HOW GOOD IS GOD,
WHO HAS BEEN SO KIND TO SOMEONE LIKE ME:
SOMEONE IN SUCH GREAT NEED!’
UNDERSTAND, THEREFORE,
HOW IMPORTANT HAS BEEN YOUR RECOGNITION
OF YOUR NEED AND SINFULNESS.
ONLY BECAUSE OF THAT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
- AND YOUR REPENTANCE -
CAN YOU SUCCEED IN THE SPECIAL WORK
INTO WHICH I HAVE LED YOU:
A WORK ESPECIALLY ‘TAILORED’ TO YOUR LIFE
AND TO YOUR WEAKNESS.
AS I WORK THROUGH YOU WHO ARE WEAK,
THIS IS MY INTENTION:
“To give hope to others”
WHO, ALSO, ARE WEAK AND NEEDY.
(T:1971 #2)
Bliss and Glory.
HAVE FAITH IN MY POWER.
MY PLANS SHALL SUCCEED.
IT IS I WHO PROMPT YOU TO CONSENT
TO MY PLANS.
IT IS I WHO FILL YOUR HEART WITH A LONGING
TO MAKE KNOWN TO OTHER PEOPLE
MY GREAT GLORY.
TRULY,
I AM AT WORK, EVEN NOW.
(T:1971 #3)
CONSIDER THE REASON FOR YOUR STATE:
FOR THE BLISS INTO WHICH I HAVE DRAWN YOU,
IN PRAYER:
A BLISS WHICH IS INSEPARABLE FROM SPIRITUAL GLORY;
CONSIDER MY PLAN.
THIS IS MY WILL:
you shall show out My Glory: in your own person.
THROUGH THIS MANIFESTATION OF MY RADIANCE
IN YOU WHO DO A SPECIAL WORK
I SHALL HELP OTHER SOULS
AND BRING JOY TO MY HOLY CHURCH.
(T:1971 #4)
‘The Blue book’.
What I’d learned that evening seemed very strange to me. What had the Father meant by speaking of me? What had the Father meant by speaking of His Glory “in” my person? I didn’t understand, but I believed in the wisdom of His plans, whatever was going to happen; so I wrote down the teaching, and forgot it . Then I pressed ahead with my usual work. I finished what we call “The blue book”, which was the first collection of teachings printed ‘in the first person’; then I took it with me to our local church.
As I said earlier, I’d gone to the church every time I’d finished a pamphlet or a book, so that I could place the book on the shelf by the sanctuary - just for a minute or two, as I offered the work to Christ, and prayed that it would help people; and when I took ‘the blue book’ to church, I was astonished to hear Christ say to me:-
See how I reward you for following My prompting. “Well done, Lizzie!” I am delighted with this work; and what better thing could you have done, after finishing this first Volume of My instructions, than to have brought it here to Me, before the tabernacle, asking Me to touch the hearts which meet My Truth within these pages. (T:1971 #5)
Persevere with your writing. Here is My holy Mother beside Me - as you can see; she too is encouraging you to press on with the work. (T:1971 #6)
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Numerous blessings.
But there were so many other blessings to enjoy that spring and autumn: further teachings and also further delights; for example, our church was left open all day, daily, for the first time in years. The Rosary was recited daily, after Mass, in Our Lady’s months of May and October. Holy Communion was re-introduced, under both kinds. Fr. John Edwards gave his opinion that nothing in Version Three of the ‘Teachings’ contradicted the Faith. My family and I enjoyed a trip to Lourdes with fellow parishioners, as I mentioned, and also with our parish priest.
It was through that trip, and through other outings with Church members - such as a Diocesan gathering at Aylesford - that I came to experience in a heart-warming way something I’d known only by faith: that the Catholic Church is a simple family of love.
It was marvellous to see demonstrated so plainly that the Church is a pilgrim People or family which is moved steadily towards Heaven, whilst holding within itself members at all stages of spiritual maturity. The rebellious and the contrite, the confident and the faint-hearted, the rich and poor and strong and sick, can all move on together in a compassionate and long-standing community which cannot be crushed or discouraged because it is Christ’s own family of love, active and united by His own power and Will and Spirit.
As I also mentioned earlier, it was after that Lourdes pilgrimage that my husband approached our priest to ask if he might be received into the Catholic Church; then within a week of hearing about that courageous request, I was astonished when Christ appeared to me in Holy Communion, and explained how my life in His service had come ‘full circle’.
The whole of life’s journey.
At the Sunday Mass, on the 11th of August, I had begged God once again for the virtues I needed so badly, and I’d given my life to Him again, determined to please Him in everything, amidst all sorts of ailments and setbacks. But in Holy Communion, Christ appeared before me in Glory. He was Real, silent and gentle - and yet as dazzling in His Glory as when He had first appeared to me thirty-two years before, when I had called out to Him in desperation, believing that He would help me; and as I gazed at Him again in wonder, I was touched to the heart to be told:-
Look at Me, as I stand beside you today, in Holy Communion. You can gauge something of your progress in our friendship if you remember how you felt, in 1964, when My loving presence caused you pain rather than delight! You trusted in Me, but were afraid of Me, nevertheless, since you were very ignorant about faith, and only half-reconciled; and so the radiant Light of My Glory seemed to scorch your heart and soul; whereas things are different now. How marvellous is the effect of many years of growth and purification, in the spiritual life; My Presence today is wholly delightful for you, and welcome, and pain-free, and bliss-full! (T:1979 #1)
Cast back your mind briefly, over the whole of your life’s journey: at the road that we have been following together even though you weren’t always aware of My presence. You can see what a cause for wonder and gratitude it is, that I have come to you, to stand beside you and to encourage you, at each ‘end’ of that journey. I was with you many years ago when you called out for My help with a firm conviction that I would help you; and I am with you, today, as you can see, as you prepare to accept a new way of life: or, rather, a way of ‘dying’, as your state of health declines. Whether at the beginning of your spiritual life, therefore, or near the end, I am very close to you, as you can see. I am just as real, gentle and loving as ever: a true Friend to a weak woman whose heart nearly breaks for joy at the thought of being ‘released’ from this world in order to be with Me forever! (WC:1979) (T:1979 #2)
Into the ‘lost world’.
Eight days later, in an even more fervent yearning to be pleasing to Christ, I begged His help again, and sacrificed every hope and dream of my own in order to do His Will. Then I was astonished when He showed me an image of a beautiful valley - and at the same time explained to me through His Holy Spirit (in T:1984):-
LOOK AT THE WONDERFUL SCENE BEFORE YOU, WHERE A WOMAN IS STROLLING THROUGH A LITTLE VALLEY WHICH IS FULL OF FRUIT-TREES. YOU CAN SEE THAT TO ENTER THIS VALLEY SHE HAD TO FOLLOW THE NARROW, WINDING PATH WHICH CROSSES THAT HIGH RIDGE AT ONE SIDE AND THEN MEANDERS DOWNWARD TO THE FERTILE AREA. SHE HAS ENDURED A LONG JOURNEY, SINCE THIS VALLEY IS IN THE TOPMOST HEIGHTS OF THE HIGHEST RANGE OF MOUNTAINS; AND THIS WOMAN IS YOURSELF: NOW ENTERING A FERTILE VALLEY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. IT IS AS THOUGH YOU ARE WALKING BESIDE LADEN FRUIT-TREES: AND THESE FRUITS REPRESENT THE SPIRITUAL FRUITS WHICH ARE ALWAYS FOUND IN THE LIVES OF THOSE WHO LIVE IN OUR FRIENDSHIP: IN ‘GOD’S GARDEN.’ (WC:1984) (T:1984 #1)
Then Christ told me:-
Delight in the knowledge which is My gift to you, through My Spirit. Delight in the results of your total self-offering, an offering renewed and maintained over many years, and renewed again so painfully this morning! To be wholly sincere in such an offering is to pray an immensely powerful prayer; it is to allow Me, your Saviour, to lead you across the top-most ridge of the spiritual mountain-range which has for so long soared up before you. I have brought you, at last, into the most fertile valley of the spiritual life: into the ‘lost world’ of warmth, security, perfect joy, and fruitfulness. Rejoice in this ‘garden’. (T:1984 #2)
Accept My gifts. Delight in this new stage of your life. Truly, you can say that “This is Eden!” This is a taste of paradise, for you who have been led to dwell in this wonderful state. It is a way of life which is astonishing in its peace, simplicity, joy, freedom and sense of fulfilment. (T:1984 #3)
Notice how things are simplified, in this new way of life, in which you are wonderfully guided by Me in a manner more tangible - it seems - than ever before. I Myself am leading you; I am showing you what to observe, when to speak, where to pause, with whom to work, and how to suffer as though you are not suffering; and this patience in suffering, as you know, is possible because of the joy of being constantly in My company. (T:1984 #4)
Look back, for a moment, to renew your thanks for My guidance. You can see that without your willing surrender of those various paths which you might have chosen - each one of which would have brought you an immediate and superficial happiness - you could not have arrived at this present way of life and state of soul. It is as though your heart, mind and soul are now entirely permeated by Divine sweetness, joy and peace; what more wonderful gifts could
you have hoped to receive from Me, Who love you?! (T:1984 #5)
___________________________________________________________________________
A steep staircase.
In the same month, on August 23rd, it was the Father Who showed me, in prayer, something more about the path on which He was leading me. He explained, all at once (in T:1987) that I am approaching the end of my life’s journey, and that I now live ‘above’ the cloud and mist of earlier times. A steep staircase lies ahead, however, which I must climb in order to reach His throne, and Heaven. Yet there are several stages: and a resting place will be provided after each difficult part of the climb.
Infinite holiness.
It was the Father Who taught me, also - a few days later (in T:1992) - that I am right to pray fervently to be made ready to do His work. He explained that by our penance and prayer we are gradually becoming fit not only to serve Him but also to enter Heaven.
By an image, He showed me that as I approach His Glory in the company of Christ it is as if I am approaching a Wall of Fire, into which I shall plunge one day: the purifying fire of the Godhead. Those who have been purified enter joyfully into that Fire; but those who have not been purified should remember that God is not only Infinite Love, but also Infinite Holiness; and so they should realise that if they want to be happy with God, a thorough preparation is essential.
___________________________________________________________________________
Good news for the ‘poor’.
There was so much writing and painting to do that summer, as well as my usual work, that my energy was flagging; but Christ assured me:-
Persevere with your work, in the knowledge that I am sending you “to bring good news to the poor”; and by this, I mean that your work will help those ‘poor’ within My Church whose faith is wavering in a time of spiritual poverty. These ‘poor’ people need encouragement; yet their simple devotions are sometimes scorned, even though their attitudes and practices are in accord with the teaching of My Church, and with the Sacred Tradition. You can be confident therefore, that these ‘Teachings-in-prayer’ are already helping many people. I have countless ways of continuing to bring My Good News to the ‘poor’: of continuing to bring My hope, friendship and Love to those who are crushed or dispirited. You can be sure that our joint work is worthwhile and effective in helping to fulfil this aim. (T:1998)
The parish and the town.
There wasn’t a facet of the whole project which Christ left unexplained, where understanding was required. He has always told me in great detail for example, how to explain things to our parish priest. In September, 1996, Christ urged me:-
Continue with your efforts to keep your relatives and friends informed about the progress of this work - to the extent that is dictated by charity and by their various attitudes to the subjects of prayer and faith; and continue to distribute these works to some of the people you meet, and to those who write to you. But make a special effort to help My priest to understand more about the work which I have entrusted to you. This effort is required not simply because I ask it, but because this work - and My plan for your life - will affect your parish, and also the whole town, later.(T:2000 #1)
Tell My priest about your faith in Me since your conversion, and about your perpetual longing to share that faith with others, despite your being a bad example; then tell him several things more about your life, and speak about our joint work. Explain, too, that it is precisely because of your weaknesses that I will show other people how powerful and important is faith in Me. Explain that I am demonstrating, through you, how important is faith, through which people can be led to serve Me even when they are sinful, tired or fearful! (T:2000 #2)
Recall how I have been urging you to speak to your friends and relations about My work in your life. Because of My encouragement, you have managed to introduce most of them, bit by bit, to our work and to your writings; you can see, therefore, how I am helping you to introduce My priest to our work, little by little. If you are obedient to My promptings, your conversations with him will lead him to a greater understanding of your task. This is mainly for the sake of his own involvement - if he is willing - later on. (T:2000 #3)
Speak up bravely to My priest about the way in which I am fulfilling your desire to please Me and to make My Glory known: about how I have shown you that My Glory is going to be revealed in your own person. It is important that you say this; it is an act of faith in Me and in My promises; and My priest is to be a witness to this act, for the sake of the whole Work and its fulfilment. The teachings and images which I have given to you are not nearly as important as the witness which I am inviting you to give through your words and prayers and actions. (T:2000 #4)
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Sheltered, for a while.
One day in prayer, Christ led me again in prayer to God the Father, Who explained more about what was only an apparent delay in His plans.
The Father taught me:-
HERE I AM, MY CHILD,
TO CONSOLE YOU,
AND TO EXPLAIN MY PLAN, FURTHER.
YOU HAVE BEEN SHARING GOOD NEWS
WITH MANY PEOPLE,
SPEAKING ABOUT MY SON AND HIS TEACHINGS
YET SEEING FEW RESULTS.
THERE IS LITTLE EVIDENCE OF CHANGE.
BUT THERE IS NO NEED FOR YOU TO WORRY.
ONLY BECAUSE OF MY LOVE FOR YOU
HAVE I ALLOWED YOU TO LABOUR FOR SO LONG
IN APPARENT OBSCURITY.
IT WAS IN ORDER TO TRAIN YOU.
IT IS WHEN YOU ARE WORKING QUIETLY, ALMOST ALONE,
THAT YOU CAN GROW IN HUMILITY:
HAVING NO REASON FOR PRIDE.
FURTHERMORE,
YOU CAN LOOK UPON THIS OBSCURITY
AS BEING A SPECIAL GIFT FROM ME.
IN MY GREAT KINDNESS,
I HAVE BEEN ‘SHELTERING’ YOU FOR A WHILE,
UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO THROW OFF YOUR FEARS:
TO WORK UNHAMPERED BY PRIDE AND REMORSE, AND
TO SPEAK OUT, UNEMBARRASSED BY YOUR UNWORTHINESS.
(T:2004 #1)
BE GLAD AND GRATEFUL
THAT I HAVE HELPED YOU TO BECOME
LIKE A CAREFREE CHILD, AT LAST.
YOU ARE DETERMINED TO SHARE YOUR NEWS
OF MY SON AND HIS TEACHINGS;
YOU DELIGHT IN SPEAKING OF ME
TO ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN.
BY MY GRACE, AND BY YOUR RENEWED EFFORTS,
YOU HAVE BEEN SPEAKING ABOUT YOUR TASK
AND PROCLAIMING MY GOODNESS
WITH A NEW FREEDOM.
ONLY RECENTLY,
THEREFORE,
HAVE YOU BEGUN TO SEE EXTRAVAGANT RESULTS
FROM OUR MISSION.
(T:2004 #2)
The endless joys of Heaven.
Daily or weekly (as in T:2009) I was reminded that I have Christ’s powerful assistance. Throughout that year, I was given frequent reminders of the need for this work, with reminders about our hope of joy. It was Christ Who spoke to me about Heaven, on September 14th (in T:2012). My heart was bursting for joy at that time because of some wonderful events and surprises; and I asked Our Lord in prayer: “How is it possible that one can have more joy than this, in Heaven?!” Then He told me that it is because we shall be contemplating our blissful state whilst “Knowing that it will never end.”
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Through Baptism.
What a wonderful sacrament is Baptism, by which the many graces I’ve received have been made possible. Every year, on the anniversary of my Baptism, I thank God for His goodness; and when I did so in 1996 - on October 4th - I was overwhelmed with delight when the Father spoke to me, confirming the reason for our close union and speaking of His Love. He told me:-
BELOVED CHILD,
IT IS CHRIST WHO HAS LED YOU
- THROUGH YOUR HOLY COMMUNION -
‘FURTHER’ TOWARDS ME, YOUR FATHER.
YET, TRULY,
OUR UNION WAS ESTABLISHED
THROUGH YOUR BAPTISM,
WHEN YOU WERE FREED, CHANGED, AND BROUGHT CLOSE TO ME.
WE ARE LOVINGLY UNITED IN PRAYER
AND IN DAILY LIFE.
YOU ARE RESTING IN MY PEACE,
EVEN AMIDST YOUR IMPERFECTIONS.
I WANT YOU TO KNOW
THAT IN OUR MUTUAL LOVE
- AND IN OUR SPECIAL FRIENDSHIP -
“I delight in you!”
(T:2028 #1)
DELIGHT IN THIS EXTRAORDINARY UNION,
OF YOU, MY BAPTISED CHILD, WITH MYSELF:
OF A CREATURE WITH HER CREATOR.
YOU HAVE BEEN BROUGHT, THROUGH CHRIST,
INTO THE LIGHT OF MY GLORIOUS DIVINE LIFE:
NO LONGER IMMERSED IN THE DARKNESS
WHICH IS SIN
WITH ESTRANGEMENT FROM YOUR GOD.
I DELIGHT IN YOU, MY DAUGHTER,
AS I DELIGHT IN EVERY BELOVED CHILD.
SHARE YOUR JOY.
(T:2028 #2)
SHARE YOUR JOYFUL NEWS ABOUT LIFE “IN” ME.
SHARE THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SOURCE OF YOUR DELIGHT:
MYSELF, YOUR FATHER.
YET DON’T BE AFRAID TO SHARE
THE WHOLE TRUTH.
(T:2028 #3)
REMIND MY PEOPLE ABOUT THEIR NEED OF ME.
REMIND THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE LIFE OF GRACE
AND WHO RISK THE LOSS OF JOY, BY THEIR BEHAVIOUR,
THAT THEY RISK THE LOSS OF DIVINE LIGHT AND FRIENDSHIP
FOR ALL ETERNITY
IF THEY PERSIST IN THEIR CARELESSNESS
OR IN THEIR SERIOUS AND DELIBERATE SINS.
(T:2028 #4)
Then Christ assured me, soon afterwards, that the Saints of Heaven are very close to me, as I continue with my writings and with my prayers (T:2030). He also said:-
Put your trust in Me, once more. It seems to you as though you are not doing enough to encourage other people in their faith, and to spread My teachings. But I assure you that “You’re doing very well, Lizzie,” in difficult circumstances. (T:2031 #1)
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Radiant Light.
A little later on, Christ explained the title which He had given me for future use with the whole work. It was a name which He had invited me to keep for the day when the whole body of work would eventually be made plain. He told me:-
Understand something more about your task: about our joint work which I have entitled “RADIANT LIGHT.” Through these teachings, I am doing just what you have heard described today in Holy Scripture; My aim is “to radiate the light of the knowledge of God’s Glory,” which is the Glory which you yourself have been privileged to see on My face: “on the face of Christ.” (T:2032 #1)
Then He reassured me:-
Don’t worry about your unworthiness to do this work. Truly, it is a task which I Myself have given to you. Rejoice in it, and continue with your efforts to complete it. (T:2032 #2)
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The whole message.
On another day, Christ explained the dire need of Church members today for reminders of the plain truths of the Gospel. He urged me:-
Co-operate with Me, no matter what it costs you. Through you, I am reminding My People of some of the truths of faith which have been overlooked or even denied, today, by some who claim to be teaching the Gospel. Now, as in past ages, I want My Gospel to be preached for the Salvation of souls; yet I want to see proclaimed what you have just heard about in Holy Scripture; I want “the whole message” to be proclaimed; and it is through these ‘Teachings-in-prayer’ that I am speaking to many of My children about various things to do with faith and discipline amidst My Church and People: things which are currently ignored or minimised. (T:2040 #1)
Be brave; help people to see that those who, in their teaching, speak truthfully about something good, yet who fail to speak of something important which is also relevant to that subject, are distorting the message. Write about this, as I make it plain to you, through the Light of My Holy Spirit: (T:2040 #2)
CONSIDER THE MEANING OF SIN AND SALVATION. MANY WHO TALK ABOUT THE GOAL OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OMIT MUCH OF THE TRUTH ABOUT THE JOURNEY. SOME SPEAK ABOUT CHRIST: THE SON, BUT RARELY OF HIS HOLY MOTHER THROUGH WHOSE LOVE AND HUMILITY HE, TRUE ‘SON OF GOD’, WAS GIVEN TO YOU. SOME SPEAK ABOUT EARTHLY LIFE, BUT NOT OF THE CROSS WHICH WE ASK YOU TO CARRY. SOME SPEAK ABOUT EVIL STATES, AND EVIL HUMAN BEINGS BUT NOT ABOUT THE EVIL ONE: THE TEMPTER, AGAINST WHOSE ASSAULTS AND DECEPTIONS YOU SHOULD ALL REMAIN ON GUARD. SOME SPEAK ABOUT WHOLENESS, BUT NOT ABOUT SIN, NOR ABOUT THE SUFFERING OF CALVARY, WHERE CHRIST PERISHED, TO STEER YOU AWAY FROM HELL. THEY MAKE NO MENTION OF CONVERSION. SOME SPEAK ABOUT CHRIST’S RESURRECTION BUT RARELY ABOUT HIS WOUNDS, OR ABOUT HIS PRECIOUS BLOOD WHICH WAS POURED OUT FOR YOU, TO SAVE YOU. SOME SPEAK ABOUT HEAVEN, BUT FAIL TO WARN YOU ABOUT THE SELF-LOVE WHICH PROPELS YOU TOWARDS ETERNAL DARKNESS. (T:2040 #3)
Counting the cost.
Christ taught me, through His Holy Spirit, about the ‘cost’ of purification, for those of us who long to be made ready for Heaven. He showed me:-
CONSIDER THE ‘COST’ OF PURIFICATION. MANY WHO TALK ABOUT GROWTH IN HOLINESS OMIT MUCH OF THE TRUTH. SOME SPEAK ABOUT ‘OPENNESS’ TO IDEAS BUT NOT OF RIGHT AND WRONG: GOOD OR EVIL. SOME SPEAK ABOUT MY INVITATION TO BE LOVING, BUT NOT OF COMMANDMENTS FROM HEAVEN. SOME SPEAK ABOUT COUNSELLING BUT NOT ABOUT CONFESSION AND RECONCILIATION. SOME SPEAK ABOUT DISCIPLESHIP AND FELLOWSHIP BUT RARELY MENTION SACRIFICE OR SELF-DENIAL. SOME SPEAK ABOUT JOYFUL SERVICE, BUT NOT ABOUT YOUR NEED OF MY GRACES AND VIRTUES. SOME SPEAK ABOUT PERSONAL FULFILMENT, BUT NOT ABOUT THE COMPLETE AND ETERNAL FULFILMENT WHICH FOLLOWS A LOVING SURRENDER AND A FAITHFUL ADHERENCE TO EVERY FACET OF MY HOLY WILL. (T:2040 #4)
CONSIDER THE TRUTH ABOUT SUFFERING AND SERVICE. MANY WHO TALK ABOUT SERVING ME OMIT MUCH OF THE TRUTH. SOME SPEAK ABOUT COMMITMENT BUT NOT OF LIFE-LONG DEDICATION. SOME SPEAK ABOUT SERVICE BUT NOT OF MORTIFICATION. SOME SPEAK ABOUT LOVE BUT NOT OF SELF-ABNEGATION. SOME SPEAK ABOUT HUMILITY BUT NOT ABOUT THE PATIENT ACCEPTANCE OF HUMILIATIONS. SOME SPEAK ABOUT SELF-ESTEEM AND WHOLENESS YET NOT ABOUT SELF-ABANDONMENT TO THE FATHER, AND TO HIS PLANS. SOME SPEAK ABOUT DYING BUT NOT ABOUT CONTRITION AND REPENTANCE. SOME SPEAK ABOUT DEATH AND GLORY, BUT NOT OF JUDGEMENT OR PURIFICATION. (T:2040 #5)
The Sacred Tradition.
Then I was shown how neglected are some of the marvels of the Sacred Tradition:-
CONSIDER THE SPIRITUAL RICHES OF CHRIST’S CHURCH. MANY WHO TALK ABOUT THE JOYFUL LIFE WHICH IS FOUND WITHIN THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS OMIT MUCH OF THE TRUTH. SOME SPEAK ABOUT THE CHURCH, CHRIST’S BODY, BUT NOT ABOUT HER SURE TEACHINGS. SOME SPEAK ABOUT THE PRIMACY OF ST. PETER’S SUCCESSOR, BUT NOT OF OBEDIENCE TO THE POPE. SOME SPEAK ABOUT THE HOLY SCRIPTURES BUT NOT ABOUT THE SACRED TRADITION. SOME SPEAK ABOUT PRAYER FOR THE LIVING, BUT NOT OF PRAYER FOR DEPARTED SOULS WHO SUFFER AGONY AT THE SIGHT OF THEIR SINS. SOME SPEAK ABOUT MY SAINTS, PRAISING THEIR VIRTUES AND CALLING THEM MODELS OF HOLINESS: BUT RARELY ASK FOR THE VERY POWERFUL PRAYERS OF THESE INTERCESSORS IN HEAVEN. SOME SPEAK ABOUT MY HOLY ANGELS BUT NEGLECT TO HONOUR THE ANGELS WHO ARE PRESENT AT THEIR SIDES AND IN MY CHURCHES. (T:2040 #6)
CONSIDER WHO I AM. MANY WHO TALK ABOUT ME, YOUR GOD - CREATOR AND REDEEMER - OMIT MUCH OF THE TRUTH. SOME SPEAK ABOUT JOYFUL PRAISE OF THE HOLY TRINITY BUT NOT ABOUT AWE, AND ADORATION. SOME SPEAK ABOUT HOLY COMMUNION, BUT NOT ABOUT THE HOLY SACRIFICE. SOME SPEAK ABOUT CHRIST’S LOVE AND MERCY, BUT NOT ABOUT HIS INFINITE HOLINESS WHICH IS WORTHY OF DUE REVERENCE FROM YOU WHOM HE HAS LOVED MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF: FROM YOU WHO WOULD BE LOST WITHOUT HIM. (T:2040 #7)
Pleased to be near Him.
Quite soon after giving me that teaching Christ explained how shockingly are He and His holy Mother neglected; and He urged me:-
Persevere in prayer. Many people have turned their eyes and their hearts away from Me, their Saviour, and from My holy Mother. Many people shun My presence and My teachings, not wanting to spend their time or their lives in My service, nor being willing to pay Me honour and worship as they ought. (T:2076 #2)
Then Christ spoke words which saddened me, afterwards, whenever I recalled them. He told me, gravely:-
Remain loyal to Me and to My Mother. We delight in your greetings today, as always. “How few are pleased to be near us.” (T:2076 #3)
Sharing the news more widely.
Then Christ invited me to further His plans by sending some of my work to the Holy Father. I was urged:-
Share My teachings more widely. The time has come for you to bring encouragement even to those from whom you yourself have received encouragement and teaching. You have heard in Holy Scripture today: “Speak to the heart of Jerusalem” and by this, I mean that your completion of a new volume of work, today, has brought you to a new stage of your task. I now invite you to send these two completed volumes not only to your local Bishops, but also to Rome. (T:2077)
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New encouragement.
Only in obedience to God have I written down the severe warnings which He has given me, for other people, about their neglect of Him, and about the danger of Eternal separation; and it has only been in obedience to God, as I have said, that I am sharing so many memories about the good things that God has told me or given me; and yet I shall be glad if some of these teachings give even a hint of the joy to be found in God’s friendship: a joy which is quite astonishing. For example, I have found that Christ never lets an anniversary pass by without giving me at least some token of His affection.
Early one morning, on the eleventh anniversary of what I call the ‘Alpha and Omega’ day, when I was praying at home, and was awed at the thought of God’s goodness, I was suddenly shown that the ‘Door’ to Heaven had opened; and there stood Christ and His Holy Mother, close by me: greeting and consoling me, and bringing me even greater joy; and Christ taught me, very tenderly:-
Don’t think that you are celebrating this special anniversary all alone! No-one but I shared your joy - indeed, was the Source of your joy - on that winter day eleven years ago when I brought you, at last, to live in a state of unending union, after so many years of spiritual ‘night’. But today, as you can see , it is as though the door to Heaven has opened, as I stand close by you, in Glory, with My beloved Mother at My side. (WC:2078) (T:2078 #1)
Enjoy our visit! Accept My gifts, My greetings and My consolations. I delight in your thanks for My friendship, and in your continued efforts to please Me. (T:2078 #2)
Believe in My Love. You are right to prepare for the Holy Sacrifice by fervent prayer; I Myself have encouraged you to approach Me with reverence, to repent, to trust in Me, to confide every cause for concern, and then to enjoy My Presence; but I urge you never to forget what prayer and the spiritual life - and all your struggles - are ‘about’. Through prayer, and through your fervent striving after virtue, you are loving and pleasing a real Person! Your prime motive is not to adhere to a list of rules, but to live in a tremendously loving union with Me your Saviour: although, from that union, of course, stems your fervent longing to keep My Commandments and recommendations. (T:2078 #3)
A sense of freedom.
Then Christ told me, after the morning Mass (in T:2079):-
Think about the special union which we are celebrating today. Notice the great blessing which is yours because of our union and My grace at work in you. You experience a sense of freedom which is incomparable, now that your only desire is to please Me. (T:2079 #1)
Consider the real reason for your present joy; your whole heart is set on pleasing Me. This is your one, true, unwavering desire; and so you can see that the secret of eventual ‘success’ in the struggle for perfection consists of the perfect alignment of your will - of your true ‘wanting’ - with My Will. (T:2079 #2)
Then He continued:-
Open your eyes to My purpose, as I come to you with special gifts on this special anniversary. I have brought you incomparable peace and bliss; but it is through My presence, and through My gifts, that I am completing what I began in earnest at your agonised consent, eleven years ago, when you freely and finally surrendered your entire life to Me, and abandoned your own dreams and ambitions. I am completing your spiritual transformation, so that you can become like a lamp which shines its light all around. (T:2080 #1)
But Christ explained something further; He told me the reason for the Glory which He was now sharing with me in prayer:-
Understand the significance of the Fire and Glory which you see within your soul whenever I come to you nowadays, in Holy Communion. You have seen Me come to meet you as if through the wide-open door of Heaven; and I am sharing My own Glory with you in this way for a special purpose. Recall My promise to you: when I said that I would one day ‘set alight’ the ‘Mountain of Teachings’
which I have given to you. I assure you that the ‘mountain’ or bonfire which I described is your very own soul, which I
am setting ablaze every day in Holy Communion, in order to show out My Glory. It is My Will and plan that you shine with My Presence, for the sake of the next stage of your task. (T:2084)
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A friend of God.
Amidst a great deal of illness and hard work, that winter, I was reassured by the Father, just before Christmas. I had just been remembering how utterly weak and helpless I am without Christ. But the Father spoke to me and said: “You are a friend.” He urged me, lovingly, to serve Him with my whole heart, body, soul and mind: to try to imitate Jesus in every outward act and unspoken thought, throughout every difficulty. Furthermore, He drew me to the ‘door’ of Heaven in prayer on January 2nd, 1997, and showed me the Fire of His Glory (in T:2100). He explained that His friends can be confident of even closer friendship with Him, to the degree that, in everyday life, they are abandoning themselves to the fulfilment of His Will.
Content in any circumstances.
When I thanked Christ one day, in Holy Communion, for the wonderful and unexpectedly-fulfilling way of life that I now enjoyed, I was shown how thoroughly He had been preparing me for every aspect of my task. He showed me:-
Understand what an achievement this is in the spiritual life: to be content and prayerful in any circumstances. I want you to know that it is because you are thoroughly happy with this quiet life of routine work and simple joys that I can trust you with something different, and even dangerous: with crowds paying respectful attention, and with adulation, and even with a reputation as an authority on prayer. It is because your present joy is so great, within a restricted way of life, and because of the thorough and lengthy training which I have given you that there will be little likelihood of your head being ‘turned’ by future events. (T:2113 #14)
Then I thanked Christ for allowing me to share His teachings; and He told me:-
Understand something more about your task; it has been a part of My plan, since the beginning, that you would share most of My teachings with other people, although you weren’t aware of this at first, when I was still training you in prayer and obedience. (T:2113 #17)
Consider what you know about the special work undertaken by certain persons. In different ages, I have given wonderful teachings in prayer: some of which were for sharing; but most were for the benefit of the recipients and only indirectly for other people; but the reverse is true here; and I have given you so great a number of teachings that it would have been cruel to expect you to ‘contain’ them. (T:2113 #18)
Have no doubt that you, My children, have already received all the teaching that you could need, for your Salvation; and that unique Revelation is still being handed on in My Church. Yet the teachings which you have received, over so many years, are unique, amongst what we call ‘private’ revelations. No-one before you has had, in prayer, such a load to carry: such a weight of gifts of this nature. So you can see why I Who am loving have arranged for you to be ‘unburdened’ to some degree as you share the teachings, with certain persons first, and then with many other people who are willing to receive them. (T:2113 #19)
Don’t be anxious. Truly, I am powerfully at work in your life. (T:2113 #20)
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Celibate priests.
In ways which astonished me, Christ consoled and encouraged me at every set-back, and revealed some of the ways in which His work would help other people. He told me:-
Banish these thoughts about your unworthiness. Our plans for your life and for this work are greater than you could imagine; but you need only follow My Will in simplicity, step by step, if you wish to please Me. (T: 2127 #3)
He explained the significance of this work for priests: explaining by His Holy Spirit:-
NOTICE THE SMALL FIGURE WHOM YOU CAN SEE IS MAKING HER WAY, AS IF IN A SOLITARY PROCESSION, PAST A HUGE CROWD OF PRIESTS, WHO ARE ALL WATCHING HER. IT IS MY WILL, DEAR CHILD, THAT YOU FOLLOW A PATH WHICH LEADS YOU FOR VARIOUS REASONS, AND IN VARIOUS WAYS, VERY CLOSE TO MANY OF MY CELIBATE PRIESTS, EACH OF WHOM IS ‘ALONE’ IN THE CROWD, AND IN MY SERVICE, IN ONE SENSE, DESPITE THEIR UNION WITH CHRIST AND WITH THE WHOLE CHURCH AND THEIR STRONG BONDS WITH ONE ANOTHER IN THE SACRED PRIESTHOOD. THOSE WHOM I AM PICTURING BEFORE YOU WILL BE TREMENDOUSLY ENCOURAGED BY OUR WORK. THEY WILL BE GRATEFUL FOR MY VIGOROUS REMINDER, THROUGH YOU, OF THE TRUTHS FOR WHICH THEY HAVE SURRENDERED THEIR EARLIER AMBITIONS, INDEED, SACRIFICED THEIR LIVES: BY WHICH I MEAN: TRUTHS ABOUT CHRIST’S MAGNIFICENT LOVE AND HIS SAVING SACRIFICE - AND HIS GOOD NEWS ABOUT FORGIVENESS FOR SINNERS, AND THE SURE HOPE OF HEAVEN. (T:2127 #4)
DON’T BE BASHFUL ABOUT MEETING PEOPLE MADE JOYFUL BY YOUR WORK. THE PRIESTS WHOM YOU SEE BEFORE YOU WILL HONOUR WHAT IS MADE EVIDENT TO THEM: BOTH THE WORK AND YOURSELF, THE WORKER: BOTH THE TEACHINGS AND THE WRITER; AND THEY WILL DO SO BECAUSE OF YOUR LOVE FOR CHRIST YOUR SAVIOUR WHO IS REVEALING HIMSELF THROUGH THIS WORK, IN WHAT IS A LAVISH AND VIGOROUS REMINDER OF WHAT HE HAS ALREADY REVEALED, LONG AGO. (WC:2127) (T:2127 #5)
Spiritual communications.
Then Christ helped me to deal with my qualms about speaking out:-
Don’t worry, My child. You are right to confide in Me about every concern; but there is no need for you to worry about speaking out in obedience to My wishes, whether to fellow-parishioners or to Bishops. (T:2134 #1)
Never be anxious about the form of words which you might need to use, when I Myself have asked you to communicate a message for Me. Whenever I invite you to speak out on My behalf I make sure that you have the gifts you really need. Sometimes I give you words to use; you know this, already. Yet at other times, I give you the general sense of what I am asking you to convey. I give this to you in a swift Thought which leaps from My Mind to yours in the way which I described to you long ago when I was speaking about the sort of communication which is used by the Blessed in Heaven. And when you have the ‘general sense’, in this way, you are free to clothe My wishes in your own words, in order to pass on the message. (T:2134 #2)
Don’t doubt that My Divine power is already at work in you; and this power - with something of my Glory - is seen and noticed by other people according to My Will, even inspiring fear as well as wonder. (T:2149 #1)
Speak out bravely about My words in your life. I have taught and encouraged you; you, therefore, can encourage each person to whom I send you. (T:2149 #2)
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Approaching fulfilment.
There’s no-one as kind as Christ. I wish I could explain that better to everyone I meet; but I’ll content myself meanwhile by showing how thoughtful He’s been about every aspect of my work. I hope I can show in the rest of this chapter how He gradually introduced me to alarming but fruitful aspects of the whole plan. The helps and explanations have been interspersed with new difficulties; but at every recent stage, Christ has explained to me - often in advance - what His plans entail, and why more faith and courage are required for certain new tasks which He invites me to undertake; and so I’m beginning to see and to understand the work, as well as to know by faith that Christ’s plans are always successful in our lives, if we don’t withdraw our co-operation.
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A template of the spiritual life.
As I said, Christ’s kindness and encouragement have been ceaseless. In a wonderful way, one day, Christ showed me by a new illustration why my weaknesses haven’t hampered the work, but have provided Him with opportunities by which to demonstrate His love and power - for my benefit and for the benefit of all who will learn about my story. Christ invited me to go to my priest once again, and urged me:-
Speak to My priest about your work. “Go and help him.” Remind him of the time, long ago, when I told you that the whole ‘mountain’ or ‘bonfire’ of Teachings would be set alight one day, by Myself, to call attention to the Source of these teachings: your Father in Heaven. Explain to My priest that the Glory which shines out from your soul is My gift and My sign. Tell him not to be afraid. It is My radiance that He sees, as I shine My Light within your soul, day after day, in prayer. (T:2149 #3)
Speak about the whole Work. Explain to My priest that I am powerfully at work through these books, encouraging My People; but explain that there is a progression through these three Volumes, which don’t merely consist of more and more ‘teachings’ about things which Christians already know. Describe how I am providing, through these books, a ‘template’, so to speak, of the whole spiritual life, from conversion to the transforming union. Through these books, people can see clearly that I have been at work in someone who is sinful and ignorant; and this knowledge will bring comfort to those of My People who know little of My great Love. It will bring consolation, also, to those of My faithful People who are reminded, by what you have seen and recorded, that I am Really Present amongst them in the Blessed Sacrament. (T:2149 #4)
Be comforted by your knowledge that My plan will succeed. Through your work, I am giving a wonderful reminder to My People that I am still guiding them through My Holy Catholic Church, still teaching them - through My faithful bishops - and still feeding and sustaining them through the holy sacraments. Those of My People who are lamentably ignorant of the true teachings of the Faith will be helped by this work; they will learn something of what they need to know about Heaven and Hell, about sin and Reconciliation, about My tender Love for mankind - and man’s need of repentance. They will learn about the marvel which is the Holy Mass, where I am Really Present in the Blessed Sacrament. (T:2149 #5)
See what good things I can achieve, through the story of your weakness and My Love. Through the story of our friendship, I am showing many people that I can work wonders even in the life of someone who is weak, hesitant or fearful, and that I am always tender, patient and faithful. (T:2149 #6)
Remember how important it is that you don’t become so busy with the writing of the teachings that you begin to forget their purpose. It is very important that you make continued efforts to ‘live out’ what you are writing: putting these good things into practice in everyday life, amidst the chores and conversations, and as you go to Mass, or shop, or make an apple crumble. (T:2149 #7)
Think about your present frailty - in every sense - “and then look at what you’re doing!” It is astonishing that you have produced such a huge collection of writings and pictures, at My invitation, despite considerable handicaps. (T:2149 #8)
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A flame of Glory.
One day in prayer, Christ reassured me abut the value of my work, saying:-
Delight in My work: in our work. For the sake of Truth, you must acknowledge what is truly happening in your life. It is I, your loving Saviour, Who am now producing from within your turbulent and loving heart and life, abundant works, constant and immense joys and great graces. It is only through Me that you do anything good; yet you are now doing things - ‘in’ and through Me - which are truly grace-ful and which are of great benefit to other people. (T:2149 #9)
Christ led me again to God the Father Who told me about His gifts in prayer, and Who assured me:-
AS I CROWN YOU IN PRAYER
WITH MY OWN ‘FLAME OF GLORY’
I AM FULFILLING MY PROMISE TO YOU:
IN WHICH I ASSURED YOU
THAT I WOULD ONE DAY SET ALIGHT
THE ‘MOUNTAIN’
OR
THE ‘BONFIRE’ OF TEACHINGS.
I ASSURE YOU
THAT THEIR RADIANCE WILL SHINE OUT
UPON MANY WEARY PEOPLE WHO ARE LIVING IN DARKNESS.
(T:2154A #2)
Christ urged me:-
Don’t be afraid. Be simple! Accept, with a peaceful heart, the way in which I am at work in your soul and in your life. (T:2154A #3)
Then He told me, through His Holy Spirit:-
HERE I AM, BRINGING YOU COMFORT AND UNDERSTANDING. I ASSURE YOU THAT THROUGH YOUR OBEDIENCE IN WRITING AND SHARING MY TEACHINGS, AND IN OFFERING REMINDERS OF THE TRUTHS ABOUT LIFE AND HOPE AND SALVATION “IN CHRIST”, YOU ARE TOUCHING MANY LIVES AND WARMING MANY HEARTS. (T:2154A #4)
UNDERSTAND, MY CHILD, THAT THERE ARE MANY FACETS TO THIS WHOLE WORK. KNOW THIS, FOR EXAMPLE, THAT, BY OUR WILL, YOU YOURSELF ARE THE ‘BEACON’ BY WHICH THE LIGHT OF OUR TEACHINGS IS TO BE NOTICED AND MADE KNOWN. TRULY, I AM AT WORK IN YOUR LIFE; INDEED, THIS SHINING-OUT OF HEAVEN’S RADIANCE HAS ALREADY BEGUN. (T:2154A #5)
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Thin alabaster walls.
On the very next day, Christ spoke to me about His special plan. He explained to me:-
Don’t be afraid of Our work in your life. As you can see, daily, I am bringing My own radiant Light to your soul, each time that I come to your soul in Holy Communion; and My radiance is so bright and glorious that it now shines from you in just the manner which I explained to you last year. Whenever I choose to let My Light shine out from your soul in order to further My special plan, it is as though a lamp is glowing: the lamp which I once described to you. It is as though My holy Light is shining out through thin alabaster walls. (T:2154B)
Christ taught me something more about the spiritual Glory within my soul in prayer, telling me through His Spirit:-
DON’T BE PERTURBED BY MY ACTION. YOU HAVE NOTICED THAT MY GLORY SHINES FROM WITHIN YOUR SOUL, DAY AFTER DAY: BUT YOU HAVE SEEN HOW THIS RADIANCE BURNS MORE BRIGHTLY AT CERTAIN MOMENTS DURING THE HOLY MASS WHEN I HAVE DRAWN YOU INTO EVER MORE FERVENT PRAYER. BY THIS INCREASING RADIANCE, I AM FULFILLING MY PLAN FOR YOUR WORK AND FOR YOUR LIFE. I AM CONFIRMING - FOR YOURSELF AND FOR OTHER PEOPLE - NOT ONLY THE STRENGTH OF YOUR FRIENDSHIP WITH CHRIST BUT ALSO THE PURPOSE AND THE HOLINESS OF THE DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE MASS. (WC:2160) (T:2160 #2)
NOTICE HOW YOUR SOUL BURNS MORE BRIGHTLY - LIT BY MY GLORY - WHENEVER YOU SAY ‘LORD HAVE MERCY’: IN TRUE SORROW FOR SIN. THIS SAME GLORY BURNS BRIGHTLY AT THE READING OF THE HOLY GOSPEL, AS MINDS AND HEARTS ARE BEING FED BY THE WORD. MY GLORY SHINES BRIGHTLY AS YOU TURN YOUR HEART AND MIND TO THE FATHER, DURING THE PRAYERS OFFERED BY MY PRIEST, AT THE ALTAR. THE SAME RADIANCE IS SEEN AT THE CONSECRATION WHEN YOU WELCOME YOUR SAVIOUR’S REAL PRESENCE, AND ALSO DURING THE PRAYER FOR THE CHURCH: ESPECIALLY AS YOU PRAY FOR THOSE IN SPECIAL NEED, AND FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. MY GLORY BURNS BRIGHTLY AT THE ‘PER IPSUM’: AT THE OFFERING OF CHRIST’S SACRIFICE TO THE FATHER - AND THEN BURNS BRIGHTLY AGAIN AT YOUR TRUE UNION WITH CHRIST IN HOLY COMMUNION: SO GREAT IS HIS GLORY AND OUR LOVE FOR YOU, AND SO FIRM IS CHRIST’S WISH TO SHOW OUT THE STRENGTH OF YOUR FRIENDSHIP TO OTHERS, FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR TASK. (T:2160 #3)
THINK OF THIS SPARKLING RADIANCE WHICH NOW ILLUMINES AND DELIGHTS YOU AS BEING THE ‘JEWELS’ WITH WHICH CHRIST ONCE SAID HE WOULD ‘ADORN’ YOU. (T:2160 #4)
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Three Persons: One God.
At about this time, I was marvelling not only at the way in which Christ’s Glory was shining within my soul daily, in prayer, but also at the way in which I was being taught, as each of the Three Divine Persons - One God - identified Himself, at each offering to my soul of Divine wisdom and instruction.
It was because I had become so confident of Christ’s Love for me that I had prayed a very bold prayer at Mass one morning, in March 1997. I asked Him, after the Offertory Procession, “Holy Lord: May I share Your Divinity?” And I was astounded by what He did for me, and by what He taught me. I was suddenly reassured by Christ that His Church will be renewed, through my work. He told me, through His Holy Spirit:-
ACCEPT WHAT I AM SAYING TO YOU THROUGH THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, TODAY: THAT “I WILL RESTORE THE LAND AND ASSIGN YOU THE ESTATES THAT LIE WASTE.” BY THIS, I MEAN THAT MY PLANS WILL DELIGHT YOU. THROUGH MY PLAN, AND YOUR WORK, I AM ENSURING THAT MY HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH - HERE IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY - SHALL LIVE AND WITNESS AND WORSHIP WITH GREATLY-RENEWED VIGOUR AND JOY. THROUGH OUR WORK, I SHALL BRING JOY TO THE HEARTS OF THOSE WHO HAVE REMAINED FAITHFUL THROUGH DIFFICULT TIMES WHEN THEY HAVE BEEN MOCKED FOR THEIR STEADFAST FAITH IN THE CONSTANT TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH AND DESPISED FOR THEIR SIMPLE DEVOTIONS. (T:2161 #1)
Then Christ taught me more about the Glory which I had begun to ‘see’ almost daily, in prayer. He told me joyfully:-
Don’t be afraid. You are right to echo, with a fervent will, the prayers which are offered by My priest at the altar. Truly, he is not speaking for himself alone, but on your behalf. (T:2161 #2)
Think about My Love for you. I long to see you sharing My gifts and My virtues. I long to see you sharing My Divinity, by which I mean sharing, experiencing and enjoying the Glory which is inseparable from My Divine nature, as well as sharing other marvels. (T:2161 #3)
Be simple. Accept the truth: that I am giving you, even now, a share in My Glory. Here, during the Holy Sacrifice, My Divine Fire - My radiant Light - is burning in your heart and upon your brow, throughout the great prayer of the Church. Even now, in Holy Communion, I am filling your soul with dazzling rays of My Glory. Even now I am leading you to the very ‘doorway’ to Heaven. (T:2161 #4)
Accept the truth: which is that I have brought you very close to the Father, through our Holy Communion. It is as though you are standing at the entrance to Heaven: at a place from which you can glimpse not the face of your Heavenly Father, but something of the Uncreated Fire which surrounds Him; and here I am, beside you. In showing you something of this Fire, I am showing you something of My own nature: the Divine nature which I share with the Father. I am showing you something of My Glory and purity: something of the Divinity which you longed to share when you prayed your trusting prayer. (WC:2161) (T:2161 #5)
Don’t be bashful. Accept and delight in the marvellous changes which I have brought about within your soul during these past few years. (T:2161 #6)
Remember the time when I came to you, unveiling My Glory to your startled soul, in 1964. You felt only shame and horror when you saw your own sinfulness beside My dazzling beauty. But now - and even though you realise that you are still sinful - you are joyful as well as repentant. Daily, you gaze upon My Glory - that same, unchanging Glory - in delight, gratitude and peace. (T:2161 #7)
Never forget that there is someone else to whom you can turn for special help, as you long for holiness and still have to endure difficulties and trials. I am speaking about My beloved Mother Mary. Very powerful help is given to those who have faith in her help, and who call out trustingly to their “Immaculate Mother.” (T:2161 #8)
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A triple joy.
So overwhelming were God’s teachings, and so complex was the task of recording them all that I was grateful for a quiet daily routine, and also for firm ‘anchors’ in the spiritual life. I mean that I was still having my work checked by the Jesuit Father who was so generous with his time and his encouragement, and I was still going backwards and forwards to my parish priest to explain about each new stage of the work. I was no longer quite as embarrassed at having to speak about my soul, and about God, and was beginning to accept the task with more grace, and with fewer thoughts about my obvious unworthiness. Then after a wonderful teaching (T:2166), also in March, about how the ‘empty’ and purified soul can contain the ‘Triple Joy’ - can contain Christ’s Light, with the Spirit’s Bliss and the Father’s ‘Fire’ - I was required to speak to our priest once more, to explain a new stage, and to explain the reason for the new format of the recent volume of “Teachings-in-prayer.”
When we were sitting in the front room of the Presbytery I gave our priest the following explanation. (See T:2167)
I told him that the second Volume of my “Instructions from Christ” had just been printed, and that the lay-out of the text was a bit different from what he’d seen in the initial draft. I explained that I’d changed the typeface of certain segments, and that it was important that I try to explain this, not just for his own sake but because he needed to understand it for the sake of other people, later: people who would be asking him for his opinions. What I meant was that in the new Volume I’d used capital letters for the teachings which I’d had from the Father; and I felt I ought to explain why there weren’t any such teachings in Volume One.
It was seven years since I’d been to Father O’Leary, I explained, to tell him something about my life and my prayer, and since I’d also explained that God was ‘teaching’ me in prayer. Fr. O’Leary had said that it was a gift from God and that it was all right to accept it. I said that in the years before and after I’d gone for advice I had usually been taught by God through a sudden, pure and piercing moment of ‘knowledge’ given quite unexpectedly in prayer, in an experience which was over almost before it began. But something had changed, later on: only about six months before our new priest had arrived in the parish.
Here, I mentioned that passage in Holy Scripture in which Christ tells us: “IF ANYONE LOVES ME ... MY FATHER WILL LOVE ... AND WE SHALL COME TO HIM AND MAKE OUR HOME WITH HIM” (Jn 14:23).
I said: “That’s what happened to me.”
Called by the Father.
Then I explained that although, until that time, most of the ‘teachings’ had been given in prayer, very briefly, and usually in church, and usually during Mass, I found that I was being given lengthy teachings - at home - by God the Father. I was only taught by Him because I pray to Him in the name of Jesus; I found, however, that the Father would sometimes call me, at home, calling me away from whatever I was doing, to invite me to listen to Him, in prayer; and He would teach me for up to an hour. I said that it is awesome, and that He teaches me about Himself, about human nature, about the Covenant, about Christ - or whatever subject He chooses; and that, I said, is why I have to try and explain something more about this; I must show how important it is that I have put the Father’s teachings in capitals, in Volume Two of “Christ’s Instructions.” The Three Divine Persons are equal, as we know; but I’ve had to make the Father’s teachings ‘leap off the page’ for a specific reason.
Next, I explained that whenever Christ teaches me in Holy Communion, it is awe-inspiring; yet because He is human, as well as God, we have something in common; whereas - although only through Christ am I brought to the Father - whenever the Father reaches out to teach me, it is awesome, because He is not human. He is wholly Other.
Although I don’t see the Father, I explained, He is so wonderful that I don’t know whether to dance for joy or to lie flat on the floor; but it is by using capital letters for the teachings which are specifically from the Father that I can convey some of the impact which they have on me - for the sake of recording the teachings as accurately as possible. I added that I’ve sometimes been mistaken about little things, but that these particular teachings are so awesome and powerful that it’s quite impossible to be mistaken about them; and so now that I’ve put them in capital letters, at the centre of the page, I find that as I read them I feel something of the awe I felt when I was given them; and it’s that mixture of awe and delight that I hope and pray other people will develop in their own relationships with God.
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A clear distinction.
It was necessary, at around that time, to explain about the different typefaces to the Jesuit Father, as well. He was still very kindly checking my work; and so I wrote a letter to explain that it’s because the whole work is so complex, and God the Holy Trinity is so beautiful and awesome, that the volumes of “Teachings-in-prayer” now contained a clear identification of Whichever of the Three Persons had given me a specific teaching; and even as I described this, I was progressing to the stage where the Holy Spirit would be ‘identified’, as well as Christ and the Father. That was to follow within a few months.
What I wrote to Fr. Edwards was: “Everything good we receive in prayer does come through Christ. We only ‘reach’ the Father through Him; and I know that whether a teaching is given from Christ or from the Father, it is a ‘teaching’ from our God: the One, Holy God. But God Who has planned this whole work and Who has led me to write His teachings wants people to learn not just the facts within the teachings - ‘facts’ which we already know, of course, through the Revelation already given, of which these teachings are simply a reminder. But through this work, God wants to show, as if from “the inside” of a relationship, how a ‘willing soul’ grows in closeness to Him and how a willing ‘person-who-prays’ relates, in prayer, to each One of the Three Divine Persons.
Then I explained how I’ve found that in this relationship with the One, True God, a willing soul is instructed by each Divine Person in a slightly different manner, although each is wholly Divine and is equal to the other Persons.
I added: “The aim of the new draft, therefore, is to make very much plainer just Who, exactly, has been teaching me in prayer at particular moments; and this is for the sake of other people whom God wishes to instruct about His Love, His nature, and about the spiritual life.”
Since the readers of each new volume of “Teachings-in-prayer” also deserved an explanation I added a few new paragraphs to Volume Four of “Christ’s Instructions”, under the heading: ‘Notes on the text’, where I described the different sorts of typeface I’d used.
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Inspiring stories.
It was less than a fortnight after I’d gone to our parish priest to explain about the Father’s teachings that Christ explained to me, further, how the teachings would be useful. He invited me to think about my own writings, and then about works that I’d read in earlier years. He urged me, on 2nd April, 1997:-
Look back to your own discoveries about various friends of Mine, to recall how greatly you were encouraged in the spiritual life by their inspiring stories. You believed that what I had done for them, I could do for you too. It is true that you live by faith, as you know; but each one of you becomes more eager to press on with your journey if you receive some glimpse or story or whisper about the rapturous spiritual life of someone whose union with Me is firmly established. Your writings, therefore, are going to encourage many people to believe that friendship with Me is worth pursuing at any cost, and that Heaven’s joys can be tasted even here on earth by those who are willing to make sacrifices in order to come close to Me, the Son of God Who has come from Heaven to save you. (T:2178 #4)
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Nothing can compare.
Every little effort I made to serve God more joyfully was ever more lavishly rewarded, as our friendship grew stronger. For example, it was on Easter Saturday in 1997 (in T:2180) that I made acts of trust and humility towards the Father. I was ill at home, and was almost overwhelmed when He answered me in the following way - and not only answered me but nearly submerged me in joy and glory.
The Father taught me, with infinite tenderness and love:-
LITTLE CHILD:
MY LOVE FOR YOU IS SO GREAT
THAT I CANNOT YET REVEAL TO YOU
THE FULL EXTENT OF ITS MAJESTY AND BEAUTY,
LEST YOU HESITATE ON YOUR JOURNEY,
OVERWHELMED BY LOVE’S INTENSITY,
AND AFRAID.
I DELIGHT IN YOUR ACTS OF FAITH IN MY LOVE.
I DELIGHT IN SEEING YOU PRAYERFUL AND JOYFUL
AND ALSO
SEEING YOU USING TIME WELL, EVEN IN SICKNESS,
AND
OFFERING A NEW SURRENDER
TO MY WISHES.
(T2180 #1)
BELIEVE THIS, MY CHILD:
MY LOVE FOR YOU IS SO GENUINE, POWERFUL AND UNSTOPPABLE
THAT I AM REACHING OUT ALL THE TIME:
TO DRAW YOU FURTHER INTO MY EMBRACE
AND
FURTHER INTO MY HEART.
(WC:2180) (T:2180 #2)
SHARE WITH OTHERS
- AND WITH THE WHOLE WORLD, THROUGH YOUR WORK -
THE TRUTH ABOUT MY LOVE:
ABOUT DIVINE LOVE FOR WEAK PERSONS.
(T:2180 #3)
REASSURE OTHERS
THAT NOTHING CAN COMPARE WITH THE GIFTS
WHICH I, YOUR FATHER, SO TENDERLY BESTOW.
REASSURE MY PEOPLE
THAT
NO EARTHLY LOVE
- NO EXPERIENCE OF NATURAL HAPPINESS,
NO ROMANCE,
NO WORLDLY FULFILMENT,
NO JOYFUL AND SATISFYING USE
OF MIND, BODY, MEMORY OR IMAGINATION,
NOR ANY HUMAN JOY -
CAN RIVAL HEAVEN’S JOYS:
CAN SURPASS THE INTENSITY OF THE UTTER BLISS AND GLORY
WHICH ARE MY GIFTS
- SOMETHING EVEN DURING EARTHLY LIFE -
TO
MY TRUE FRIENDS
(T:2180 #4)
Being saved.
In case anyone should say that Heaven’s joys on earth are all very well, but it’s reaching Heaven that really counts, to find Salvation, I can joyfully say that in the year of which I’m speaking, I was taught by the Father what His Church means by telling us that we who love Him can have a ‘sure hope’ of being saved. (T:2200A)
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A strange promise fulfilled.
As I’ve had to explain several times, it wasn’t Christ’s plan that I should press on with the task without keeping our parish priest informed about certain things. At around the time of that last teaching - in April 1997 - I was invited by Christ to see him yet again, as I mentioned, to speak about my new way of recording the ‘special’ teachings-in-prayer that I’d received from God the Father; and on another day, when I’d followed Christ’s new instructions about the work, He commended me for my obedience, and explained why He had asked me to do certain things:-
See how appropriate it was, yesterday, that on the transferred feast of ‘The Annunciation’ you should send out copies of My “Teachings-in-prayer”to these members of the Clergy: to the Holy Father and to these two Bishops. Even when you could not understand why it was necessary, you trusted in My wisdom, and obeyed My wishes. I assure you that the way of simplicity and obedience is the right way. (T:2182 #1)
Understand something further about the progress of this matter. I am making things plainer to those of My priests who are to be involved in judging and speaking about our work. (T:2182 #2)
Recall the visit which you made in obedience to Me, over a year ago, when you spoke out frankly to the Bishop about My teachings and then about the Glory which I had promised you that I would one day confer on you. You spoke about this even though you didn’t really understand My plan. Furthermore, you spoke to your parish priest also, several months ago, to repeat what I had told you: that you would show out My Glory ‘in your own person;’ and now - you are beginning to realise - something is happening to fulfil My strange promise. I have been filling your soul with My Glory, daily, in prayer - and for many weeks. I have let you know the moment of the appearing of My Glory, and I have revealed this radiance to your parish priest, also. He has witnessed it many times. This, therefore, is part of My plan: that if My priest is willing to obey Me in this matter, he will speak to the Bishop about this Glory, which you mentioned twice, in obedience to My wishes, even before it had appeared; and this is My sign that the work which you are doing in obedience to Me is truly My gift, and My work, and that the only plans you value and try to follow are Mine, as you strive to be faithful to My Church, in everyday life, and also to the instructions which you receive from Me in prayer. (T:2182 #3)
Understand plainly, now, why you have been right to keep silent about these teachings, during this past year, except to explain them to the people you meet, in the ways which I have recommended. I mean that you have remained ‘silent’ in not making further requests for approval of your work. You long to be able to reassure My faithful friends who worry about reading private revelations that there is nothing here which is against the teaching of My Church; yet it is your parish priest who - as shepherd of My flock in this area - will ask for approval of these writings: if he is willing to fulfil My request. (T:2182 #4)
My priest is a witness to My sign, as well as pastor; and so it is he, not you, whom I now invite to ask for a sign from the Church that her people can safely read your writings and for an official confirmation that there is nothing in them which is against the Faith. He should explain that you are convinced of the orthodoxy of your own work not because you deem yourself able to judge - although you have a firm conviction - but because you have willingly submitted your work to scrutiny by a priest-theologian at every stage; and you have been doing so ever since your former parish priest made that suggestion. (T:2182 #5)
Convey My wishes to My priest, about how I wish for a sign to be given, by those in authority, in response to My sign. But remained unconcerned about the outcome. Continue to pray and work as at present. (T:2182 #6)
In order to fulfil Christ’s wishes, I made an appointment with our parish priest, and I posted copies of the new book of “Instructions from Christ” - the ‘green book’ - to our Bishop and Archbishop, and to the Holy Father in Rome.
A new vocation.
On 10th April, I explained these things to our parish priest - and gave him also a copy of the second volume. Then, on the following day, during the Mass, Christ showed me how pleased He was that I’d done what He wanted. He overwhelmed me with joy; and, only three days later, He explained to me:-
Understand something further about your present state of prayer and your spiritual progress. Realise that your new vocation - after motherhood - involves a very great responsibility, as your contacts with other people become more numerous and wide-spread, through your written work. But although the collection of writings and paintings which you have produced in obedience to My wishes is an important part of what I am achieving through your life, it remains only a part of My whole ‘project’. I want you to see that you are going to influence other people most powerfully, for My sake, not primarily as an author or painter but as a living witness to My Love and mercy. (T:2186 #1)
Allow me to ‘unveil’ much of your life, for other people, in order to give them hope. You have been distressed at the thought of enduring either relentless curiosity from numerous people, or overwhelming gratitude; but I Myself have chosen you for a special task. At your consent, I shall use you. It is precisely because you are so needy and feeble, and yet have been given such joy through My Love and forgiveness, that you can serve as My visible ‘teaching’ for others. I have chosen and trained a weak person like yourself in order to encourage other weak people. I shall give you many opportunities to speak about Me and about My goodness, and thus you shall be My visible ‘teaching’ about faith and about other things; and, furthermore, this will shame some who think themselves ‘wise’ but who mock simple faith and whose acts and attitudes are wounding My Church. (T:2186 #2)
Consider how few persons are willing to say with wholehearted fervour: “Christ is worth every sacrifice! Love Him; trust in Him.” Truly, I have trained you and led you forward because there is such a great need for sincere witnesses to My Love. (T: 2186 #3)
Persevere in your work and witness, no matter how difficult things become. I assure you that I shall bring tremendous consolations to other souls through your life and work. The most secure course for you, therefore, at what is a new stage of your life, is to remain firmly ‘in Christ’ at every moment, trying to fulfil My wishes from hour to hour, and with an attitude - more and more - of simple self-forgetting. (T:2186 #4)
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19 TRANSFORMATION
(1997-1998)
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KNOWING GOD. THE TRANSFORMING UNION.
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About Salvation.
On the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker - May 1st, 1997 - I offered many thanks to the Father, with many petitions as usual, and then offered the Precious Body and Blood of Jesus, as usual, at Mass, as my praise of the Father and my reparation for sin; and, suddenly, I found that the Father stopped my words, and lifted me wholly into contemplation, to reward me for my devotion, but also to teach me about hope. Suddenly, He explained to me:-
BELOVED CHILD:
HERE YOU ARE, VERY CLOSE TO ME.
I HAVE LIFTED YOUR SOUL UP HIGH
INTO MY PRESENCE
BECAUSE OF YOUR FERVENT PRAYER
‘IN CHRIST.’
YES!
THE BLOOD OF JESUS IS REPARATION
FOR THE SINS OF YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.
YOU CAN BE CONFIDENT, HERE BEFORE ME,
BECAUSE OF HIS PRECIOUS BLOOD
AND
YOUR REPENTANCE.
(T:2200A #1)
BE AT REST, IN MY PRESENCE.
YOU HAVE DONE WELL, MY CHILD.
YOU ARE WISE TO RELY ON CHRIST, TO PRAY IN HIS NAME,
AND TO OFFER HIS PRECIOUS BODY AND BLOOD
- HIS HOLY SACRIFICE -
AS YOUR OFFERING:
AN OFFERING OF PRAISE AND THANKS, OF REPARATION AND PETITION.
I ASSURE YOU
THAT THE REVERENT AND SINCERE PETITION
FOR SALVATION
WHICH YOU OFFER TO ME DAILY
IS ALREADY ANSWERED.
(T:2200A #2)
CONSIDER THIS STATE OF PRAYER:
ITS SIGNIFICANCE.
IT IS BECAUSE OF OUR UNION
THAT YOU CAN BE CONFIDENT ABOUT MY ANSWER
TO YOUR PLEAS FOR PERSEVERANCE AND SALVATION.
THESE PRAYERS ARE EVEN NOW BEING GRANTED
BECAUSE
ONE WHO LIVES ‘IN’ ME
IN THIS SORT OF FULL AND TRANSFORMING UNION
IN WHICH THIS SWIFT, DIVINE AND POWERFUL GIFT OF CONTEMPLATION
IS A NORMAL PART
IS ALREADY SAVED.
(T:2200A #3)
SEE HOW SIMPLE IS TRUTH,
MY BELOVED.
CONSIDER THE DEPTH OF MY LOVE FOR YOU,
THEN CONSIDER THE HEIGHT OF PRAYER
INTO WHICH I, YOUR GOD, HAVE DRAWN YOU, IN CHRIST,
AFTER LENGTHY PURIFICATIONS.
YOU CAN SAY, TRULY, THAT SHE WHO LIVES ‘IN’ ME
IS NOT LOST;
NOR CAN SHE BE LOST UNLESS
SHE LEAVE ME.
(T:2200A #4)
Christ’s way of teaching.
How I longed to be able to give hope to others! Only one month later, I paid a visit to the church in the afternoon, on the feast of the Visitation - on June 1st 1997; and I asked Christ about His teachings, and about how I should use them. I’d been asked to give a talk to a womens’ group and very much needed advice. But Christ suddenly taught me:-
Don’t be anxious about how to present My teachings to these people who have asked you for a talk. “Teach them the way I have taught you.” What I mean by this is that you can copy My method of teaching - a method now very familiar to you; but you can also teach these people “The Way”, that is, various truths to do with the practice of the Faith. (T:2231 #1)
Consider My manner of teaching, first. If you copy My manner you will strive to be perfectly sincere, truthful, simple and encouraging, in everything you say and do. This attitude is what you have witnessed as you have watched Me during these past few years. Like Me, you can express things simply at first, and then more deeply, later on; and plain speaking is best, with no attempts at what we can call ‘cleverness’; nor is there any need for complicated explanations. (T:2231 #2)
Think about what we can call “The Way”: by which I mean the spiritual path upon which I have led you, through these teachings, as I have led others in past times who have been willing to trust in Me, to accept the gifts and guidance of My Holy Catholic Church, and also to accept special personal helps and promptings. My Way is simple, you have learned; yet it requires faith, love and sincerity: with some humility, and a determination to persevere. (T:2231 #3)
Christ’s constant recommendations.
Urge these people who approach you: “Live for God”. Teach them what I have taught you, about making a new beginning - over and over again. (T:2231 #4)
Assure needy people
that these have been My constant recommendations:
Turn to Me, your Saviour.
Put your trust in Me, and in the power of My Spirit.
Put Me first, in your life, no matter what the cost.
Open your heart to Me, in reverence and humility.
Consider My holiness and your sinfulness, but
Believe in My great Love for you!
Believe in the teachings of My Church.
Make a new beginning.
Put your trust in Me, and
turn to My holy Mother: now your Mother, also.
We can help you.
Put things right; give up sin. Confess your sins.
Be reconciled, and do penance.
Yet: be joyful and simple. I never leave you.
Through all your tears and all your joys
you are in My care; yet
if you turn away
you do not allow Me to help you. (T:2231 #5)
Accept your circumstances.
Ask My help to fulfil your plain duties.
Pray every day; turn to Me as to a Friend.
Keep My Commandments.
Accept My help, through the sacraments, regularly.
Offer perfect homage to the Father,
through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Pray every prayer of the Mass with reverence.
Listen carefully to the Holy Scriptures.
Give Me a loving welcome, in Holy Communion,
when you are in a state of grace:
or else be reconciled, as true friends
should be reconciled before a celebration.
Be a friend to Me. Visit Me, at the tabernacle.
Let Me lead you to the heart of the Holy Trinity.
Love Me, and love your neighbour for My sake.
Forgive those who hurt you. (T:2231 #6)
Keep on praying: even very brief prayers.
Make friends with the Saints,
and with My holy Angels.
Live in the ‘present moment’.
Entrust the future to Me.
Love My Will: My Holy Will.
Work for change, where there is evil, but
accept with patience, in union with Me,
unavoidable sufferings and humiliations,
thus joining in My redemptive work, and
helping to save souls.
Persevere. Never give up!
Aim for sanctity.
Show Me all of your weaknesses,
so that I can change you; but
remember: I love you ‘madly’!
Hope for Heaven! (T:2231 #7)
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Love, flowing within the Godhead.
So many chapters have had to be filled with the ‘story’ of Christ’s teachings; but my plan is to explain something, soon, about life at the heart of the Holy Trinity: about how, if we persevere, we are able to experience the Triple Love which is offered at the heights of contemplative union; and so we recognise and relish that Love, and are continually praising the Holy Trinity for such generosity. But first, it seems that I should mention just a few more of the teachings which were given to me in 1997. They encapsulate, for me, the sense of peace and security which is given - with astonishing joys - in the day by day wonder which is the life of ‘transforming union’.
One Sunday morning in June, at the end of Mass, as I continued to offer to the Father, from within my soul, Christ’s prayer, and Christ’s beauty and Glory, I was suddenly taught by the Father about the wonder of Life in God. He explained to me (T:2244B):-
YES, MY CHILD! I AM HERE:
WELCOMING YOUR PRAYER.
YOU ARE MAKING ‘YOUR OWN’
THE SACRED OFFERING OF CHRIST MY SON:
AN OFFERING WHICH DELIGHTS ME.
TRULY:
SHE WHO FREELY OFFERS
- BY THE LONGINGS OF HER HEART,
AND BY PRAYER
AND BY HER ATTITUDES AND GESTURES -
THE PRAISE AND HOMAGE
WHICH CHRIST OFFERS TO ME ETERNALLY
IS MAKING ‘HER OWN’
HIS SACRED GIFT.
AS A PRIVILEGED ‘CHILD OF GOD’, SHE IS ‘USING’
- FOR MY GLORY AND FOR HER OWN GOOD -
CHRIST’S OWN LOVE, LONGINGS, PRAISE AND PRAYER AND WORK.
(T:2244B #1)
ACCEPT MY ASSURANCE
THAT AS SHE OFFERS CHRIST’S GREAT PRAISE TO ME
SHE FREELY ‘INSERTS’ HERSELF INTO OUR LIFE:
AS A SWIMMER MIGHT ENTER THE POWERFUL CURRENTS
OF A FAST-FLOWING RIVER.
SHE IS ‘IMMERSED’, THUS, IN THE LIFE OF THE HOLY TRINITY:
THE LIFE OF FATHER, SON AND HOLY SPIRIT;
AND AS SHE ‘ENTERS’ OUR LIFE
SHE STEPS INTO THE UNCHANGING YET DYNAMIC RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN THREE DIVINE PERSONS:
A UNION WHICH CONSISTS OF FERVENT LOVE.
SHE IS DRAWN INTO THE ‘MOVEMENT’ OF THAT LOVE
AS IT FLOWS WITHIN THE GODHEAD;
AND WHEN
SHE IS ‘LAUNCHED’, IN THIS WAY, INTO OUR LIFE, LOVE AND UNION,
SHE CAN BE SAID TO BE TRULY ONE WITH US
BOTH IN LOVE AND IN WORK.
(T:2244B #2)
By this explanation about the Divine-human relationship, an understanding was given to me that the Divine work and the Divine Love into which a soul is drawn during its earthly life is the very work and love which will continue in Heaven, if that soul is faithful.
A precious drink.
When I thanked God the Father in prayer, in May 1997, for all of the teachings, and for having allowed me to do this work, He sent His Holy Spirit to teach me. I was suddenly shown, once again, why there had been an apparent delay in the work’s fulfilment:-
CONSIDER HOW A PRECIOUS LIQUEUR IS KEPT IN A CASK FOR MANY YEARS WHILST IT MATURES. YOUR OWN WORK HAS BEEN MATURING, WE CAN SAY, FOR SEVERAL DECADES; AND THIS LENGTHY PREPARATION FOR AN EVENTUAL OUT-POURING HAS BEEN ESSENTIAL. (T:2255 #3)
ACCEPT MY ASSURANCE THAT OTHER PEOPLE WILL BE ASTONISHED
BY THE RICHNESS OF THE PRECIOUS DRINK WHICH IS BEGINNING TO POUR OUT FROM WITHIN YOUR LIFE. BUT HOW MUCH LESS ASTONISHING WOULD HAVE SEEMED MY GIFTS, GIVEN THROUGH YOU TO OTHERS, HAD YOU TRIED TO HURRY THE TASK, EARLIER, BY LOUD SELF-PROMOTION OR BY COMPLAINTS ABOUT AN APPARENT LACK OF SUCCESS IN SPREADING THE GOOD NEWS THROUGH YOUR QUIET ‘ONE-TO-ONE’ CONVERSATIONS AND PRAYERS. YOU CAN SEE HOW CRUCIAL TO MY PLAN HAS BEEN YOUR OBEDIENCE AND PATIENCE. (WC:2255) (T:2255 #4)
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Love never stops loving.
As an illustration of the sort of love into which we can be drawn, at our consent, I offer a marvellous teaching, received as I was praying in church after Mass on the 9th July, 1997. I offered Christ’s Glory to the Father, as usual, and was caught up in Christ’s praise of the Father, wholly surrendered to His Will. Then, when I was tired, and had turned aside, having begun to think that I must leave to do my shopping, I said to God the Father: “I’d better go now ...;” but He replied to me in a tender and yet urgent way which deeply moved me:-
MY CHILD:
I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO!
BUT I AM TELLING YOU THIS
NOT TO MAKE YOU STAY HERE, IN CHURCH,
ANY LONGER
WHEN YOU ARE TIRED AND HAVE WORK TO DO
BUT ONLY TO LET YOU KNOW
THE DEPTH OF MY LOVE FOR YOU.
IT IS TRUE THAT DIVINE LOVE IS A GIFT,
YET
IT IS NOT A FAVOUR WHICH IS DELIVERED WITH RELUCTANCE
FROM A DISTANT FIGURE.
YOU CAN SAY THAT
IT IS A STATE OF DESIRING-TO-GIVE-JOY, TO SHARE,
AND TO BE ETERNALLY UNITED.
(T:2266 #1)
UNDERSTAND THE DEPTH OF MY LOVE
FOR YOU.
DIVINE LOVE FOR A FRAIL CREATURE
IS ‘REAL’ LOVE.
I ENJOY YOUR LOVE.
I DELIGHT IN YOUR FRIENDSHIP,
I ENJOY YOUR DEVOTED ATTENTION.
I WOULD LIKE YOU TO STAY CLOSE TO ME
AT ALL TIMES.
YOUR LOVE OF ME DELIGHTS ME
SO MUCH
THAT I ‘CANNOT’ LET YOU GO,
ALTHOUGH I ALLOW YOU TO TURN ‘AWAY’
- TO TURN YOUR ATTENTION ELSEWHERE -
BECAUSE YOUR WORK AWAITS YOU.
(T:2266 #2)
UNDERSTAND, AT LAST, WHY I TOLD YOU
- AS YOU PREPARED TO ‘LEAVE’ ME -
THAT I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO.
I LOVE YOU DEARLY;
AND TRUE LOVE NEVER STOPS LOVING.
IT NEVER CEASES TO DELIGHT IN ITS BELOVED.
(T:2266 #3)
GO AND DO YOUR WORK, MY DAUGHTER;
BUT REMEMBER, ALWAYS, ABOUT ME,
THAT LOVE LOVES TO BE LOVED
AND THAT
LOVE LOVES YOU!
(T:2266 #4)
Never had it occurred to me, in past years, that the Father Himself would one day converse with me; and this is the Love which created us all, and which loves us now! How I long to see people believe it. I hope to see them living in the ‘land’ which is offered to them, if only they will travel on the path which God has chosen for them, and not on their own by-ways.
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‘Where milk and honey flow’.
Christ showed me one day in August (in T:2299B) - and by His Spirit’s Light upon the reading from Holy Scripture - that my joyful way of life is truly a gift from Him. He explained to me, through the Holy Spirit, that I now live, spiritually, in “A LAND RICH AND BROAD, A LAND WHERE MILK AND HONEY FLOW” (Ex 3:8).
REALISE, MY CHILD, THAT YOU ARE NOW LIVING IN THE ‘LAND’ WHICH YOU ARE HEARING ABOUT TODAY IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. IT IS THROUGH YOUR UNION WITH CHRIST THAT YOU ARE LIVING IN A WONDERFUL LAND - WE CAN SAY - “WHERE MILK AND HONEY FLOW.” (T:2299B #1)
RECOGNISE AND REMAIN GRATEFUL FOR THESE SPECIAL GIFTS: THE ‘MILK’ WHICH FLOWS IN THIS ‘LAND’ AND UPON WHICH CHRIST IS FEEDING YOU IS THE SPECIAL PERSONAL NOURISHMENT WHICH HE GIVES TO YOU THROUGH THESE TEACHINGS - AS WELL AS HIS OWN SACRED BODY AND BLOOD IN HOLY COMMUNION, WHICH YOU HAVE RECEIVED AT EVERY STAGE OF YOUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY, IN HIS CHURCH. THE ‘HONEY’ WHICH IS FOUND IN THIS WAY OF LIFE IS THE SWEETNESS IN WHICH YOU ARE NOWADAYS SUBMERGED AT EVEN THE BRIEFEST OF PRAYERS TO YOUR SAVIOUR. (2299B #2)
The process of purification.
By way of contrast, I was reminded by the Father in prayer, only three weeks later, that todays joys have been made possible only through Christ’s goodness and after I’ve endured many purifications.
I had just spoken the plain truth to the Father once again by saying that I have nothing good to boast about but only Jesus’ Blood and Jesus’ Glory, as I’d been shown by the Father once again, in prayer; and the Father suddenly drew me close to Himself and taught me with great tenderness:-
DEAR CHILD,
HOW QUICKLY YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN
THE LENGTHY PURIFICATIONS THROUGH WHICH I HAVE LED YOU.
I HAVE MADE YOU MY OWN CHILD.
I HAVE TRANSFORMED YOU.
I HAVE FORGIVEN EVERY TRANSGRESSION,
AND YOU ARE LIVING IN MY LOVE.
(T:2326 #1)
BE AT PEACE, MY CHILD.
THE LONG JOURNEY IS FAR BEHIND YOU.
THE SEEMINGLY-ENDLESS YEARS OF THAT PROCESS OF PURIFICATION
ARE LONG-PAST.
IT IS AS THOUGH YOU HAVE CROSSED A WAR-TORN TERRAIN
AMIDST HEAT, SMOKE AND FIRE-BLACKENED RUINS.
YET, THROUGH MY GRACE, YOU PERSEVERED, AND ‘FOUND’ ME,
OR, RATHER,
YOU ALLOWED ME TO BRING YOU TO THIS PRESENT JOY:
TO A STATE OF EXTRAORDINARY UNION.
(T:2326 #2)
As the Father showed me this reminder, He included in the purifications of which He spoke the very ordinary and mundane work of several decades, as well as the painful but routine miseries and humiliations which are met with in every earthly life, and which we can only bear with God’s help. What a marvellous thing it is that we can offer every difficulty to the Father in union with Christ, as a sacrificial and very fruitful prayer; and I’m saying this to encourage those who think that we can only please God by doing ‘heroic’ tasks with heroic virtue.
___________________________________________________________________________
Peace and sweetness.
Exactly ten days later, on the 17th September 1997, and when I’d told God the Father how much I long to see Him in Heaven, I turned to Him again in prayer, at home. Then I began to pray sincere prayers, just as He has taught me; I said to Him, with joy and confidence: “Father! I am a sinful woman, but I put my trust in You; I come to you through Jesus Christ my Lord ...”
But He wouldn’t let me pray any more. He showed me Heaven’s door, which was open wide; and then He told me:-
MY CHILD:
I AM OPENING THE DOOR TO HEAVEN
AT THE SOUND OF YOUR VOICE
AS YOU PRAY SIMPLE BUT CONFIDENT PRAYERS.
WHENEVER YOU SPEAK TO ME, THUS,
ABOUT LOVE, ABOUT SIN, ABOUT CHRIST,
AND ABOUT TRUST IN ME
YOU CAN BE SURE THAT THE ‘DOOR’ TO HEAVEN IS OPEN.
(T:2331A)
Knowledge of Divine Life.
In the evening, I turned my heart to the Father again. I made the Sign of the Cross, and asked Him: “Help me to be good!” I was taught very firmly about how He desires to see me holy; but even more astonishing was the way in which every new plea or query was swiftly and marvellous answered: for about an hour.
My heart was nearly breaking with the wonder of it: that in my own home, and through the love of Christ, in Whose Name every prayer I make is offered to the Father, I can converse with my Creator, question Him with reverence, ask His advice, and praise Him - knowing that He will reward me for my love.
There’s nothing I can do, it seems, except to reproduce this entire teaching, of which the last few lines were - in one sense - the most significant, because they ushered in a new era of enhanced union between us.
As I said, I had begun by asking the Father to help me to be good; and then He assured me:-
DEAR CHILD:
I WANT YOU TO BE HOLY;
IT IS PART OF MY PLAN.
EVEN HERE, AS YOU PRAY, I AM LIFTING UP YOUR SOUL
INTO A CLOSER UNION
WITH ME, YOUR GOD:
INTO A STATE IN WHICH YOU CAN SHARE
MORE OF MY HOLINESS.
(T:2331B #1)
Then I said to Him: “Father: You can see that I’m full of wonder at Your invisible beauty and majesty and goodness. Who are You?! .......” And I was astonished to hear Him reply:-
TRULY
“You know Me.”
YOU ALREADY KNOW ME, TO SOME DEGREE,
BECAUSE OF YOUR UNION WITH CHRIST,
AND THE ENLIGHTENING WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
WE, THE HOLY TRINITY, YOUR GOD AND CREATOR,
HAVE ALREADY HELD YOU IN LOVE’S EMBRACE;
INDEED, WE ARE HOLDING YOU THUS, EVEN NOW;
AND THROUGH THIS CLOSE UNION
YOU HAVE LEARNED MUCH ABOUT OUR LOVING NATURE
AND ABOUT THE WAY IN WHICH WE ARE ‘AT WORK’
IN YOUR SOUL AND YOUR LIFE.
YOU CAN SAY THAT YOU KNOW ME BY EXPERIENCE,
AS WELL AS BY FAITH.
(T:2331B #2)
DON’T BE AFRAID TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY GIFTS.
I AM THE SOURCE OF THESE TWO PARTICULAR GIFTS:
THE SWEETNESS WITHIN YOUR SOUL HAS ITS ORIGIN IN ME;
AND
YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF MY DIVINE LIFE
WAS GIVEN TO YOU FREELY
THROUGH OUR TRUE UNION.
(T:2331B #3)
A privileged state.
Wanting to be honest, I said: “Father: You’re so good; and this prayer and ‘communion’ with You is so wonderful that I wish I could live like this all the time - in such peace and sweetness and familiarity! ..” Then He told me:-
THIS GIFT IS NOW YOURS, MY CHILD.
THIS IS MY WILL FOR YOU, FROM NOW ON:
THAT YOU REMAIN IN THIS PRIVILEGED STATE
OF FAMILIARITY WITH ME, YOUR FATHER:
A STATE IN WHICH YOU EXPERIENCE
CONSTANT PEACE AND SWEETNESS.
THIS GIFT COMES TO YOU, AS YOU KNOW, BECAUSE OF MY LOVE FOR YOU;
YET IT COMES TO YOU, ALSO, BECAUSE OF MY LOVE FOR ALL OTHERS;
I WANT OTHER PEOPLE TO EXPERIENCE MY PEACE AND SWEETNESS
THROUGH YOU:
THROUGH YOUR WORDS OR YOUR PRESENCE.
(T:2331B #4)
DON’T BE ASHAMED TO RECORD THIS, MY CHILD.
IT IS MY WILL.
IT IS A PART OF MY LOVING PLAN.
(T:2331B #5)
Determined to express gratitude for special gifts, I prayed: “Father: I’m trying to pray with a pure intention: making the Sign of the Cross, longing to stay close to You, determined to please You by fulfilling various duties - and especially grateful for Your special help! ...” Then He answered:-
RELISH THE GIFT WHICH CONSOLES YOU.
“It is My gift to you.”
I DELIGHT IN YOUR GRATITUDE FOR GOOD THINGS
AS WELL AS YOUR CONTRITION WHEN YOU DO WRONG!
DON’T WORRY.
(T:2331B #6)
But since I trusted the Father, I confessed happily to Him: “Father: look at all these thoughts about life - and about aspects of my work - and about all these people. I’m determined not to worry. I abandon myself to You, and to Your care ...” Then He answered:-
HERE I AM, MY CHILD,
TO ASSURE YOU THAT YOUR TRUST IS WELL-FOUNDED.
REMEMBER THAT DAY, SO MANY YEARS AGO,
WHEN I TAUGHT YOU HOW TO PRAY:
TEACHING YOU TO ‘LEAP’, IN PRAYER
- IN AN ATTITUDE OF NAKED FAITH -
AS IF OVER THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE,
IN NAKED TRUST THAT I WOULD HOLD YOU
AND COMMUNICATE WITH YOU
IN THE PURITY OF ‘BLIND’ PRAYER
IN YOUR SOUL’S INTERIOR DARKNESS?
TRULY, YOU ARE CONFIDENT, NOW,
THAT I AM HOLDING YOU IN EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE.
I AM LEADING YOU FORWARD, AGAIN,
TO FOLLOW A NEW PATH, IN MY SERVICE.
ALTHOUGH WE ARE FRIENDS, AND VERY CLOSELY UNITED,
THE WAY STILL REQUIRES NAKED FAITH,
WITH COURAGE, HOPE, LOVE, TRUST, AND PERSEVERANCE.
(T:2331B #7)
Pride, a great danger.
The Holy Spirit then showed me - before the eyes of my soul - the great danger which lies close by me, as I do this work. He told me:-
SEE HOW I LEAD YOU, BY THE FATHER’S WILL: ON A NEW PATH: A SURE WAY - IN HIS SERVICE. BUT YOU WILL BE IN GREAT DANGER. IT IS AS THOUGH YOU ARE STEPPING ONTO A LITTLE PATH WHICH HUGS THE HILLSIDE AT THE EDGE OF A BURNING LAKE WHICH IS HALF-HIDDEN BY SMOKE. DARKNESS LIES ALL AROUND. ONE FOOLISH STEP - ONE SLIP ON THIS NARROW PATH - COULD LEAD TO DISASTER. BUT YOU SHALL BE SAFE FOR AS LONG AS YOU WALK CAREFULLY ALONG THE PATH, HOLDING FIRMLY TO THE ROCK WALL AT THE SIDE - WHICH REPRESENTS ME, YOUR GOD. I AM SHOWING YOU, BY THIS IMAGE, HOW GREAT IS THE DANGER OF PRIDE, IN THIS WORK. BUT IF YOU STAY CLOSE TO ME, REMAINING OBEDIENT AND HUMBLE AND AVOIDING PRIDE AND EVERY SPIRITUAL DANGER, I SHALL BRING YOU INTO THE FATHER’S ARMS, ONE DAY: TO STAY FOREVER, ALL DANGER PAST. (WC:2331B) (T:2331B #8)
Fervent Petitions.
As I thought about the Infinite care and kindness demonstrated by the Father, and as I realised how privileged I was to be enjoying such a wonderful conversation, I resolved to be bolder and more trusting than ever before, and to ask confidently for special gifts and favours. So I began to make fervent petitions, and said: “Father: I’m a sinful woman; and I’m happy to admit it, because Christ’s Blood is what I plead by, and not my own good efforts - although I hope to please You. And I believe that You love me, and that You like to please me - because You’ve already shown me how true this is; so I ask You, now, for great gifts and favours. I believe that You can do these things ...”; and the Father answered:-
HERE I AM, SHOWING YOU, POWERFULLY,
THAT AS YOU OFFER ME A PETITION WHICH YOU MAKE
IN FAITH
YOUR PRAYER DRAWS DOWN MY GRACE
BOTH UPON YOURSELF AND UPON THE PERSON FOR WHOM YOU HAVE PRAYED.
THEN,
AT EVERY SUCH PETITION,
THE SAME WONDERFUL THING HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN:
BY MY WILL AND GENEROSITY.
(t:2331b #9)
God’s plan for my life.
Next, I spoke frankly about my special work, and about my thoughts, saying: “Father: You ‘touch’ me so powerfully by your grace. What is Your Will for my life? Shall other people value their contact with me: and with this work, and Your wisdom?” This was His answer:-
dear child:
I AM POWERFULLY AT WORK
THROUGH EVERY TRUE FRIEND WHO BELIEVES IN MY POWER
AND IS WILLING TO FOLLOW MY PROMPTINGS.
FURTHERMORE:
IT IS MY WISH THAT YOU BE KNOWN
AS SOMEONE WHO IS PRAYERFUL - AND INFLUENTIAL:
YET NOT FOR YOUR OWN SAKE,
BUT IN ORDER TO HELP MY WORK AND MY PLANS.
(T:2331B #10)
BE WATCHFUL.
THIS WAY OF LIFE CAN ENDANGER YOUR SOUL.
NEVER FORGET THAT WITHOUT MY GRACES
YOU CAN NEITHER COPE, NOR REMAIN FAITHFUL.
(t:2331b #11)
Aspects of Truth.
Nearly overcome with wonder, I offered my thoughts to God again, as if saying: “Father: here You are - teaching me so marvellously; and here I am, amazed at Your goodness! How is it that, for this work, You chose someone so wicked? ...” Immediately, He said to me:-
“Truth.”
THAT IS THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION,
MY CHILD.
THAT IS WHAT MAKES YOU SUITABLE
- THOUGH NOT ‘GOOD’ -
TO DO THIS WORK.
(T:2331B #12)
LOOK AT THE PATTERN, FROM THE BEGINNING;
YOU ‘BEGAN’ WITH TWO ADMIRABLE PARENTS, NEITHER OF WHOM
- THOUGH NOT PERFECT -
WOULD EVER TELL A LIE.
ALSO:
TRUTH HAS BEEN YOUR PRIZE AND GOAL,
THROUGHOUT YOUR LIFE,
DESPITE YOUR FAILINGS.
(T:2331B #13)
RECALL THE COST OF THESE EFFORTS TO REMAIN FAITHFUL
TO TRUTH: TO ME;
THINK ABOUT PAINFUL ASPECTS OF TRUTH:
FOR EXAMPLE,
TREASURING TRUTHS ABOUT MYSELF AND MY WISHES,
AND THEREFORE RECOGNISING AND ENTERING MY CHURCH
EVEN WHEN SUCH A CHOICE
IN THIS ERA, AND AMONGST THIS PEOPLE,
BROUGHT SUFFERING.
(T:2331B #14)
RECALL THE PAIN OF ACCEPTING TRUTHS
ABOUT YOUR SINFUL NATURE AND THE NEED FOR CHANGE.
RECALL THE HEARTACHE OF LOVING TRUTH TO SUCH AN EXTENT
THAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS PROCLAIMED THE TRUTHS OF THE CHURCH:
SOMETIMES AMIDST LAUGHTER.
RECALL THE EFFORTS TO HONOUR TRUTH
- DESPITE YOUR SINS -
TO THE EXTENT OF NEVER DELIBERATELY TELLING
WHAT SOME PEOPLE STRANGELY CALL ‘WHITE’ LIES.
(T:2331B #15)
AND NOW,
SEE WHERE I HAVE LED YOU:
SEE HOW PLAIN IT IS THAT SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS OUT MY TRUTHS
MUST BE SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS TRUTH
ABOUT ORDINARY, TINY, DAY-TO-DAY CONCERNS.
IT IS TO THOSE WHO VALUE THE LITTLE WORKS
WHICH I HAVE ENTRUSTED TO THEM
THAT I ENTRUST GREAT WORKS.
(T:2331B #16)
Jesus and Mary.
Astonished at the richness of life ‘in’ God, I said next: “Father: how good You are! I’m ‘aching with gratitude and wonder at Your kindness. And thankyou for my constant companionship in this wonderful life ‘in’ Christ: for Christ and Our Lady: “Jesus and Mary!” I had no idea, years ago, of the depth of the friendship which can be enjoyed with them, nor of Our Lady’s tremendous importance ... Father: they’re so beautiful! ...”.
Then I was suddenly shown the dazzling sight of Our Lord and Our Lady, who were standing side by side in Heaven; and the Father assured me:-
SWEET CHILD: HERE THEY ARE:
JESUS AND MARY:
STANDING SIDE BY SIDE, IN THE GLORY OF HEAVEN,
EACH VEILED IN HEAVEN’S RADIANCE.
I ASSURE YOU:
“YOU SHALL GAZE UPON THEM IN HEAVEN.”
YOU SHALL BE ABLE TO ‘DRINK IN’ THE BEAUTY
OF CHRIST AND HIS MOTHER MARY:
THE BEAUTIFUL SIGHT WHICH YOU HAVE BEEN YEARNING TO SEE.
YOU SHALL BE ABLE TO LOOK UPON THEM
WITHOUT BEING COMPELLED BY TIME, OR BY DUTY,
EVER TO TURN AWAY!
(WC:2331B) (T:2331B #17)
How well the Father knows me! How clearly He’s seen my momentary pang of sadness whenever I’ve had to walk away from a vision in order to fulfil some duty, or when I’ve had to leave the church in order to keep an appointment or do the shopping.
Creation: and human life.
Then I added: “Father: I‘m so thrilled by Your kindness. There’s so much more I could ask for: but I’m too weak to sit up any more. I entrust myself to You: but there’s one more question: Lord, how is it that we are made - this human life which is so strange and feeble, and yet so wonderful?! ...” Straightaway, He answered:-
MY CHILD:
THIS WAS THE SOLE REASON
WHY I CREATED YOU:
“OUT OF LOVE!”
LOVE IS MY NATURE, AND THEREFORE
LOVE IS MY PURPOSE.
I WISH TO SHARE MY JOY;
AND THEREFORE
ALL THAT I GIVE TO YOU
OR PERMIT YOU TO ENDURE
IS INTENDED TO GUIDE OR HELP YOU
IN YOUR PROGRESS TOWARDS ME;
YET: YOU ARE ALL TRULY FREE TO CHOOSE
WHETHER TO MOVE TOWARDS ME OR WHETHER TO TURN AWAY.
(T:2331B #18)
DELIGHT IN THIS THOUGHT:
THAT YOUR PRESENT STATE OF FRIENDSHIP WITH ME,
AND ALSO
THE JOY AND SWEETNESS WHICH YOU EXPERIENCE IN MY PRESENCE
ARE WHAT I HAVE INTENDED FOR YOU
- BECAUSE OF MY LOVE FOR YOU -
SINCE THE BEGINNING.
(T:2331B #19)
A new stage.
Words can’t describe the wonder of it, when the Father showed no sign of ‘releasing’ me back into ‘normal’ prayer, as He had usually done after a conversation.
When I said to Him: “Father: I’d better ‘leave’ You; but I’m so grateful ..,” I received an astonishing answer. The Father explained to me:-
NO:
DON’T BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE ‘LEAVING’ ME.
THIS IS A NEW STAGE, MY CHILD.
NO LONGER IS IT AS THOUGH YOU GO ‘AWAY’ FROM ME
AFTER SUCH A MEETING AS THIS:
SUCH A PRAYER OF BOTH TEACHING AND ENFOLDING.
ALTHOUGH YOU GO AWAY, IT SEEMS,
TO REST OR TO DO YOUR WORK,
WHILST KNOWING THAT I DO NOT ‘GO AWAY’ IN THE LEAST DEGREE FROM YOU,
A CHANGE HAS OCCURRED TONIGHT
IN YOUR SOUL, AND IN YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE.
FROM NOW ON
YOU SHALL NEVER LEAVE THIS STATE OF UNION:
THIS STATE OF BEING ENTIRELY-RECOLLECTED-IN-MY-PRESENCE.
(T:2331B #20)
The Father’s promise.
Then the Father made me an extraordinary promise, which He has fulfilled, of course, right up to the present day. He told me:-
UNDERSTAND, MY CHILD, THAT
FROM NOW ON,
MY PEACE SHALL ALWAYS ENFOLD YOU, WHOLLY.
FROM NOW ON,
YOU SHALL ALWAYS BE ABLE TO QUESTION, TO ‘HEAR’,
TO TALK, TO CONFIDE, AND TO MAKE REQUESTS
WITH AS MUCH IMMEDIACY AND FULFILMENT
AS YOU HAVE ENJOYED TODAY, IN OUR PRAYER,
DURING THIS PAST HALF-HOUR.
(T:2331B #21)
On the very ‘edge’ of Heaven.
So great was my astonishment and gratitude, that I turned to the Father in prayer the next morning, yearning to give Him a gift; and I said, sincerely: “Father: I unite my heart to Christ’s Offering, even though I’m ill at home, ... in praise and thanksgiving, in reparation for my sins ... and begging You for perseverance, sanctity and Salvation for myself, and for all these people ...” Then the Father assured me:-
BE JOYFUL, MY CHILD.
TRULY:
YOU CAN BELIEVE THAT
- BY MY WISH AND YOUR CONSENT -
YOU ARE NOW ON THE VERY ‘EDGE’ OF HEAVEN.
IT IS MY WISH THAT YOU SEE AND UNDERSTAND YOUR STATE:
THAT YOU RELISH MY GIFTS TO YOU
AND DELIGHT IN MY GOODNESS.
TRULY,
YOU ARE READY TO ENTER HEAVEN.
(T:2332 #1)
Next, the Father showed me the reasons why I can be joyful and carefree all the time. He told me:-
CONSIDER YOUR STATE:
YOU ARE ‘WRAPPED’ IN MY PRESENCE.
YOU ARE VERY CLOSE TO CHRIST.
YOU ARE GUIDED AND TAUGHT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.
YOU ARE RELEASED FROM ALL THAT EVER HELD YOU.
YOU ARE DELIGHTING IN MY WORK:
UNAFRAID OF OPINIONS ABOUT YOU,
TRUSTFUL ABOUT WHAT LIES AHEAD,
AND CONFIDENT OF MY HELP AND MY CARE
AND OF MY GENEROUS RESPONSE TO YOUR PETITIONS.
UNDERSTAND, MY CHILD, HOW TREMENDOUS IS MY LOVE FOR YOU.
TREASURE THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR TRUST IN ME IS NOT MISPLACED.
I AM YOUR FRIEND, STRENGTH AND CONSOLATION,
AND YOUR HOPE OF ETERNAL JOY.
(T:2332 #2)
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Books for distribution and sharing.
At the end of September, 1997, Christ shone His Light into my soul and explained something more to me about my unique task - and about this spiritual autobiography. He showed me:-
Understand something more about My Will for you. It is My wish to encourage and guide you, as you move to another stage of your special work. Even though you are at home, unwell, you are fulfilling My plan for you, since I have made possible - by this short Providential ‘retreat’ - a time of rest, reflection and prayer by which I help you to see My Will more clearly. (T:2339 #1)
Benefit from the spiritual Light which I am now shining so brightly within your heart and soul and mind. I invite you to reassess your priorities, in My service: to ‘clear the decks’: to abandon every needless or useless idea, and to keep up-to-date with your essential work and correspondence. This is how you can focus more clearly on what I am doing in your life - and can reassess how much I have done for you. (T:2339 #2)
Think of those things which you can boldly proclaim are true: for example: you belong to Me - by your free and loving service. Your first loyalty is to Me. Your heart is entirely Mine: and your work is progressing well, as you follow My instructions. You have been reassured by the priest whom I chose to examine your work that there is nothing in these books which is contrary to the faith of the Church. Your former parish priest has played his part in your training, through his watchful care; and your present parish priest has been prepared for his part in this whole work by his reading of these books, and through the conversations and explanations which I have prompted you to initiate. Furthermore: several books are now ready for distribution and sharing; and these can now include the spiritual autobiography which you wrote several years ago, in order to please Me, at a time when I knew that you could undertake such a difficult task, and I could trust you to store it until the appropriate time would arrive for its use in My whole plan. (T:2339 #3)
See how plain it is, at last, that you are going forward in a unique mission which has been planned and set in motion by Me, your Saviour. It seems as though you are alone, at times - as when a chick leaves its nest; and your ‘nest’ is the routine of your somewhat obscure domestic life, where you have been held securely for many years. But several generous people - including your own children - are ready to help you: even to set up the body which can take care of this work and so promote the Catholic Faith. (T:2339 #4)
Be simple, always. All that you need to do, in order to proceed contentedly in this work is to act as I wish you to act: acting out your new role from the heart! It is a role which you would never have expected or dared to choose for yourself; but it is a role for which I have marvellously trained you - as you are just beginning to appreciate. Truly: you are to be a living witness to My Love. (T:2339 #5)
Be confident that you are working and living ‘in Christ’ as you do My work. You are doing it in My Spirit’s Light; and you shall be moving steadily towards the Father, Whose Will it is that you persevere in your task. (T:2339 #6)
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Worthy of adoration.
Never could I have believed, in earlier years, that friendship with Christ could mean this: never-ending love shown towards me in prayer, with endless reassurance. Christ told me, in November of 1997:-
Accept My assurance that a great deal of good is going to be accomplished - according to My Will - through the teachings and paintings which you have produced in accordance with My Will; and there are many facets to this work. Truly, this task has been entirely designed by Myself and directed towards the Father, for His Glory; and so it is rightly entitled ‘Radiant Light’, as I showed you. (2383 #3)
Consider a special aspect of this work: an aspect of which you have not so far seen the significance. Think, first, about the reminders which I have given in other eras and to other people about what I do, or what I can do. It has been through private revelations that I have given My People reminders, for example, about sin and forgiveness. Through certain persons, I have given reminders that I, your God, still forgive sins, heal, reign, win victories, offer hope - and so work marvels of love in all sorts of ways. Through your own work, however - through these private revelations, given in prayer - I am reminding My People not principally of what I do, but of what, ‘in’ Myself, I am. (T:2383 #4)
Rejoice in your task of being able to give My People this reminder that I, your God - the Holy Trinity, undivided - am Glory and Love and Strength and Holiness: Infinite Beauty, worthy of adoration, and also the Cause of Eternal Bliss for those who achieve Salvation. (T:2383 #5)
Rejoice that this reminder of My Perfection and Beauty is expressed so vividly - for the encouragement of those in My Church who struggle to be faithful - precisely because it comes through the work and life of someone who is undistinguished, weak and sinful, yet who now strives at every moment to please Me. (T:2383 #6)
Later, He showed me, in answer to my queries:-
See what a simple task this is, at its heart. I wish to encourage My People to practice their faith. Through this work, I am giving special help to many Catholics - and other Christians - who neither believe in nor practice those things which can lead them close to Me. It is of supreme importance that people repent of their sins, in order to proceed on their spiritual journey and to grow in the hope of Heaven; yet in order to repent sincerely, they need to be led to know - or to be reminded - about which things are sinful and which things are not; hence the firm instructions which are ‘woven’ amongst the loving and encouraging comments, in these teachings. (T:2386 #11)
A spiritual autobiography.
The Holy Spirit, too, shone His Light within my soul, and reassured me:-
DON’T BE ANXIOUS ABOUT HOW TO INTRODUCE YOUR WORK, OR HOW TO EXPLAIN ITS ORIGIN. GIVE BOOKS TO ANYONE WHO EXPRESSES AN INTEREST IN PRAYER; THEN PUT YOUR TRUST IN ME. I SHALL GUIDE PEOPLE IN THEIR UNDERSTANDING. (T:2392 #2)
Then He urged me to be brave about another stage in the work which He was inviting me to achieve. He explained:-
SHARE YOUR JOY WITH OTHER PEOPLE, IN THE WAYS WHICH I HAVE INDICATED SO FAR; AND DON’T BE AFRAID TO USE THE SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY WHICH YOU WROTE IN OBEDIENCE TO MY WISHES. WHEN YOU HAVE CHECKED IT, AND MADE MINOR ADDITIONS, YOU CAN CIRCULATE IT IN AN APPROPRIATE MANNER. IT IS A PART OF THIS ENTIRE PROJECT WHICH I, YOUR GOD, HAVE DESIGNED, AND HAVE ENABLED YOU TO UNDERTAKE. (T:2396 #4)
RECOGNISE AND REJOICE IN THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR TOILS; I AM EFFECTING, THROUGH YOUR LIFE AND LABOURS, A TREMENDOUS WORK OF ENCOURAGEMENT-OF-FAITH FOR OTHER PEOPLE. (T:2396 #5)
The Holy Spirit also urged me:-
NEVER GROW DESPONDENT, WHETHER HEARING ABOUT DESERTIONS FROM THE FAITH, OR ABOUT MOCKERY AND OPPOSITION. YOU HAVE HEARD, ABOUT ANCIENT TIMES, THAT: “ALL THE PAGANS CONFORMED TO THE KING’S DECREE ... YET THERE WERE MANY ... WHO STOOD FIRM AND FOUND THE COURAGE TO REFUSE UNCLEAN FOOD.” I ASSURE YOU, MY CHILD, THAT I SEE WHAT GREAT COURAGE IT TAKES, TODAY, FOR MY OWN PEOPLE TO DO MY WILL AND TO RESIST SINFUL INFLUENCES. THE HAPPIEST OF ALL AMONGST YOU - AS YOU HAVE LEARNED - ARE THOSE WHO RELY ON MY HELP AT EVERY MOMENT AND WHO ARE DETERMINED TO PLEASE ME. (T:2403 #1)
REMIND MY PEOPLE THAT THE HAPPIEST, TOO, ARE THOSE WHO ARE NEVER AFRAID TO TURN BACK TO ME WHENEVER THEY HAVE SINNED: TO CONFESS THEIR SINS AND TO BE RECONCILED. I DELIGHT IN REWARDING REPENTANT SOULS FOR EVERY ADMISSION OF TRUTH, AND FOR EVERY ACT OF HUMILITY. (T:2403 #2)
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Encouraged to be joyful.
Almost every day, I was busy with numerous aspects of the work; then, in November, 1997, when Volume Three of “Christ’s Instructions” was ready - the “Red book” - Christ came to my soul in Glory. He taught me:-
Don’t be afraid to delight in our joint work. Truly, it has been inspired for the extra help and encouragement of My People. It should be a cause for joy that you have been able to co-operate with Me in producing another book in which the Father delights: a further volume of My ‘teachings-in-prayer’. (T:2404 #1)
Realise that you have good reason to be awed, as you recall My appearance to you in Glory, over thirty years ago, and as you consider the work which I have achieved in past years - through someone so ignorant and fearful. Only by My Love and grace have you produced Volume Three of My teachings; but you can praise Me for My help; and then you can enjoy reflecting upon some of the wonderful things which I’ve shown you. (T:2404 #2)
Then Christ sent His Holy Spirit to show me again just why such reminders as these ‘Teachings-in-prayer’ are much-needed today. I was shown:-
YOU HAVE HEARD TODAY, MY CHILD, ABOUT THOSE PEOPLE OF ANCIENT TIMES WHO HAD “A FERVOUR FOR THE LAW”. YOU HAVE HEARD HOW SOME WHO TOOK THEIR STAND ON THE COVENANT ... “WENT DOWN TO THE DESERT.” I ASSURE YOU - AND OTHERS, THROUGH YOU - THAT I SEE HOW DIFFICULT IT IS FOR MY PEOPLE IN YOUR OWN ERA TO BE FAITHFUL TO THEIR COVENANT. THOSE WHOM CHRIST HAS CALLED AND HAS INVITED TO ENTER HIS HOLY CHURCH, AND WHO HAVE FOLLOWED THAT CALL AND ENTERED, AND WHO HAVE TRIED TO REMAIN FAITHFUL TO HIS TEACHINGS, TODAY, ARE THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN “DOWN TO THE DESERT:” AS IF TO A WASTE-LAND OF MISUNDERSTANDING AND ISOLATION, AND EVEN OF PERSECUTION FROM MANY CONTEMPORARIES. (T:2406 #1)
To share in Christ’s Divinity.
It was on the very day that I received that teaching - on 20th November 1997 - that Christ drew me into the heights of the transforming union, as He told me soon afterwards, and so answered my prayer that He would keep me close to Him, and that He would let me ‘share His Divinity’ - which is the prayer of our priest during the Holy Mass.
There’s no end to the joys which are given, in life with God. Further teachings followed, one after another, minor and major - on the usual sorts of subjects. But when two months had gone by, and I had grown bolder in prayer, I asked Christ once more, during the Mass, to let me share His Divinity - just as He has come to share our humanity, as our priest says before the Consecration.
Christ lavishly rewarded me for such a child-like and trusting request. I remember that I was sitting quietly in front of the Lady Chapel, when the Mass had ended. I prayed fervent prayers; then it was as though Christ led me, in prayer, towards a state and a moment when no aspect of my being lay ‘outside’ the bliss and grace in which He immersed me; and at the same time, He showed me (in a continuation of T:2406):-
Understand My purpose: which is to share My Divinity with you not just for a moment in prayer, but eternally. Yet I am here: true man, and your Redeemer: helping you to understand something more about My ‘work’. In this blessed hour, I am sharing My Divinity with you, whom I have chosen. I am enfolding you in grace, holding you within My Divine nature, pouring My Divine and holy Bliss and Glory upon your soul with such lavish generosity that not only your soul but your body too is wholly suffused with My grace - and therefore is changed. (T:2406 #2)
Treasure this union, through which I, your Incarnate God, am leading you in prayer into the life and heart of the Godhead, and so into Divine Love, and Bliss and Work. (T:2406 #3)
Then Christ taught me how it is that our union with Him in prayer can be the prelude to our Eternal Union with Him in Heaven. He explained to me:-
Consider the manner in which you are drawn towards the Father and towards Eternal fulfilment. You know that it was at My Ascension to Heaven, some time after My death and Resurrection, that I brought humanity - by My human nature - into the life and heart of the Godhead; and you know that it is by your union with Me Who have ascended, thus, that you can hope to ‘enter’ the Godhead: the Holy Trinity: for all Eternity. You can understand, at last, that you have been making a type of ‘ascension’ to Glory, whenever I have lifted you to My heart, in prayer; and so you can understand, also, that it will be by what we can call an ‘ascension’ of souls to Glory, after death, and then by a bodily ‘ascension’ of yourselves at the Resurrection, that faithful people - albeit frail human beings - can be ‘entwined’ with Us: can share the Life of Three Divine Persons: the Life of the One and only God, in the joy and beauty of Heaven. Yet this cannot happen to anyone who has not been purified and transformed, whether through prayer and penance - and Divine action - in earthly life, or by purifications after death. (T:2406 #4)
Never forget how tremendous is My Love for you all. Only from Love do I act so generously towards you all. Remain ever-grateful: giving constant praise and thanks that through our union and My generosity, humanity is ‘ennobled’ - found worthy - to share the active and pure Divine Life of the Holy Trinity. (T:2406 #5)
Don’t imagine that the Godhead has in some way been changed, because of My Incarnation or My union with faithful people. It is through My invitation, and at their consent, that human beings can be changed and ennobled in the way which I have been describing; yet I - in My Divine nature - have not been changed; and this is true of Me even though humanity has entered, through My human nature, into the Godhead; and it is true even though, before My Incarnation, death, Resurrection and Ascension, humanity had never entered into the heart of the Holy Trinity. (T:2406 #6)
Suffused by grace and peace.
On the following day, Christ assured me, through the Light and the words of His Holy Spirit (in T:2407):-
ACCEPT WITH DELIGHT AND THANKSGIVING THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE CHANGES WHICH I HAVE ALREADY WORKED WITHIN YOUR LIFE AND YOUR SOUL. I ASSURE YOU, MY CHILD, THAT “I TRANSFORMED YOU YESTERDAY”; AND MY WORK IS EFFECTIVE. YOU WERE TRULY CHANGED IN THAT ‘SUFFUSION’ OF GRACE AND PEACE, WHICH WAS A GIFT FROM YOUR DIVINE SAVIOUR, BY MY POWER, AND THROUGH THE FATHER’S WILL. I WAS POWERFULLY AT WORK IN YOU BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS TRY TO PLEASE ME, BECAUSE YOU GAVE YOUR CONSENT TO MY ACTION, AND BECAUSE YOU WERE WILLING TO SURRENDER TO THE WILL OF YOUR CREATOR, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST. (T:2407 #4)
RECOGNISE MY WORK. TRULY, IT IS I, THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHO HAVE BEEN VIGOROUSLY AT WORK WITHIN YOUR LIFE AND SOUL. THE STATE WHICH YOU HAVE ENTERED, BY MY GOODNESS AND YOUR CO-OPERATION, IS THE TRANSFORMING UNION IN ALL ITS FULLNESS. (T:2407 #5)
REJOICE; BE GLAD. YOU ARE NEITHER MISTAKEN NOR DECEIVED ABOUT THE KNOWLEDGE WHICH IS YOURS THROUGH MY WORK IN YOUR LIFE AND THROUGH PRAYER. IT IS I WHO AM AT WORK IN YOUR SOUL; AND IT IS I WHO EVEN SHOW YOU IN WHAT WAYS I AM AT WORK: AND FOR WHAT REASONS; SUCH IS THE EXTENT OF MY GRACIOUSNESS AND LOVE. (T:2407 #6)
The work of the Holy Spirit.
Very soon afterwards - on 27th November, 1997 - when I begged that same Holy Spirit for further understanding, and said how great was my longing to understand Him better, I asked: “Who are You!” And then He taught me, most generously, and increased my hope and confidence. He explained to me:-
LISTEN, DEAR CHILD: I AM YOUR LORD AND GOD: THE HOLY SPIRIT: LOVE HIMSELF, NOW POWERFULLY AT WORK IN YOUR SOUL, AT YOUR CONSENT. TRULY: YOU CAN KNOW, OF ME, THAT “I am He Who makes you acceptable to the Father.” (T:2411 #1)
THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT WHAT I AM REVEALING TO YOU, THROUGH MY ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION: A QUESTION WHICH SPRANG FROM A FERVENT LOVE FOR ME, AND NOT FROM VAIN CURIOSITY. I REVEALED MY CHARITY BY SPEAKING TO YOU, MY CHILD, IN PRAYER. I REVEALED MY DIVINE NATURE, AS I EXPLAINED TO YOU THAT MY LOVE IS ACTIVE. I REVEALED MY PURPOSE, BY GUIDING YOU MORE SURELY TOWARDS PERFECTION: WHICH I CAN ACHIEVE “IN” YOU, AT YOUR CONSENT; AND BY YOUR PERFECTION - WHEN IT IS EVENTUALLY REACHED - YOU CAN FULFIL MY PURPOSE: WHICH IS TO GIVE GLORY AND DELIGHT TO THE FATHER. TRULY: I HAVE TAKEN CEASELESS CARE OF YOU DURING THE WHOLE OF YOUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY. (T:2411 #2)
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Towards the Father.
As I look at this story of the spiritual journey towards the ‘transforming union’, with the many stages along the path, I can see just how steadily and wonderfully Christ has been guiding me towards a knowledge of the Love of God the Father; and the description of God’s Love which I’ve placed later in this chapter is important because it’s only at this ‘late’ stage of my spiritual journey that I’ve been taught in prayer by God the Father, and at great length, in a way which has profoundly moved me; and Our Lord now wants me to describe some of the more recent stages through which He has led me as He has brought me to what I dare to call a state of friendship with the Father.
As most of us Christians perhaps know, but don’t yet fully understand, Our Saviour called Himself “The GATE” (Jn 10:7) as well as “The Way” (Jn 14:6); and He was referring to the fact that only through Him can we enter the Heart of the Godhead - to ‘find’ the Father - whether in a certain manner in prayer, or eternally, after death..
‘Eden’.
Growing closer to the Father in prayer has been a little like climbing an earthly mountain, in the sense that we’re frequently tempted to think that the summit is in sight, when there are still many peaks ahead; yet He has led me to peak after peak: to heights which I didn’t even know existed, until the day when I reached my own ‘Eden’, as I said earlier, where I live with Him like a happy child, in joy and simplicity. And what a miracle of grace this is: for someone as naturally untrusting, anxious, and impatient as myself.
Present joys
How can I find the words to describe my gratitude to God for His gifts, which have left me almost weeping for joy at His tenderness, yet almost weeping for sorrow that there’s so much ingratitude towards Him, or irreverence, or disbelief?
The peace in which He has immersed my soul is a reason for unending gratitude. This doesn’t mean that I’m never swept by brief storms of conscience, or that I’m never battered by temptations. Every few months it’s as if I find myself at the centre of a spiritual whirl-wind, for several hours; and so I make frequent and fervent acts of faith in God’s love for me, and in His power to hold me firm until the storm blows over; and then I’m at peace again, as if cocooned in His Love; and it seems to me that He allows these episodes as brief reminders that it’s only through His strength and kindness that I generally manage to cope from day to day in such spiritual delight.
Just in case anyone imagines that this state of peace and joy might be a consequence of having every natural longing fulfilled, or every whim indulged - or is a sort of euphoria which some people say is experienced in chronic illness - I can only say that I know in my heart that it stems from union with God in prayer and from acceptance of His Will in daily life; but it’s only by His grace that I’ve come to love His Will; and, without Him, that daily life would provoke in myself not euphoria but despair. I’m such a pessimistic creature, left to myself; and if it weren’t for God’s goodness I’d be lost in self-pity and grief at having such constant pain and lack of energy - and so much work still to do, despite all the good people and good things which surround me in my present circumstances.
But that’s enough about difficulties. What I want to ‘boast’ about, in this present way of life, is Christ’s Love and Christ’s tender friendship. It’s nothing but the plain truth when I say that everything I’ve ever really wanted is being thoroughly fulfilled in this profound “life-in-Christ”. I’ve been given love, joy and friendship ‘in’ Christ. I’ve been given utterly fulfilling work to do: whether the work of my hands or of my mind: or the ‘work’ of the prayer of contemplation - or the work of suffering, in union with Christ. But I don’t do this alone.
Christ has given me tremendous helps, amidst a loving family, loving priests and other companions: with a priest amongst my own children; and only through Christ have I come to know and relish the Love and wisdom of the Father Who is the Source of all good.
Facing the door of Heaven.
The Father’s goodness astounds me, daily. Every experience of receiving teachings in prayer is now wholly delightful; and the state of friendship with the Father in which I live - this heart-warming and profound participation in the Life of the Holy Trinity - is so wonderful and fulfilling that I’ve only to turn my heart and thoughts towards the Father in Heaven, or to His Son, or to the Holy Spirit, to receive another ‘taste’ of Heaven’s Bliss.
Never could I have believed, years ago, that I could eventually be bubbling with joy at almost every moment, and not because I’ve done anything wonderful but through having come to believe with all my heart that I am profoundly loved by God. That’s why I’m usually light-hearted. That’s why I turn to Christ and to Our Lady in every need. That is why I rely on Divine help for every new piece of work, and every new problem; and that’s why I’m rarely perplexed about what to do next. I ask, and it is shown. God’s goodness is indescribable.
God is so good that He has changed my life entirely. I’m not ashamed to say that every prayer I pray leads to bliss. I’ve only to enter the church, and to begin to pray - whether by greeting the holy Angels who are gathered there, by honouring Christ’s Mother Mary at the Lady Chapel, or by adoring and thanking Christ Who is Really Present in the Blessed Sacrament - to find that my heart, mind and soul are almost overpowered by God’s Love and Glory. I face the ‘Door of Heaven’, it seems, in what used to be the darkness of prayer; and yet I now always find that door ‘open’, as God’s Light shines out towards me.
How can I write this? Yet it’s true. I can’t pass the church without yearning to go in -although Christ greets me in almost the same way at home; and it’s no exaggeration to say that although I’m a weak person who’s tempted to worry about illness or danger, I’m so longing to see God that I long for Heaven. Everything He does is good; and everything good in my life is His doing. He’s taught me that it’s only been done because of my perpetual prayer of mixed praise and repentance; yet there’s No-one like Him, and I could weep for gratitude. He’s so kind, beautiful and holy; and I wish everyone could know it.
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Diverse but related subject.
It seems astonishing to me that Christ has continued to teach me about the truths of the Catholic Faith: teachings which in recent times have been very difficult for me to ‘translate’ into words, yet which have been thrilling to understand to a greater degree. They’ve included such diverse but related subjects as the Immaculate Conception, the Atonement, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and also the work of Contemplation; and it astonishes me how Christ has enabled me not only to understand more about these subjects but also to describe such things for other people. But the reason I’m saying all this is because I’m overwhelmed with gratitude; and so of course I want to share my good news; and I know I can do so by obeying the Father and by describing how an astonishing friendship with Him is now the fulfilment of my journey.
Only today - October 15th, 1998 - I told Christ once again how I’m yearning to make Him known to other people; and straightaway He showed me that although He understands my difficulties, the quicker I finish this book, then the quicker I’ll be able to explain to people about His goodness. It’s to be through this very book, which I was so bashful about writing, that many people will be given hope, comfort and encouragement about things to do with His Love, and faith, and about His Church.
God’s Love for mankind.
Right up to the present day, Christ has continued to teach me, in prayer; and my heart aches with joy as I ponder each new teaching. More and more, I’ve understood what Saint John meant when he wrote “God IS Love” (1 Jn 4:8); and I long to help other people to realise that God’s Love for us isn’t something luke-warm, conditional, or grudging, but is a fiery and personal delight in each one of us, with a longing-to-give joy.
In the past two years, I’ve begun to see something else: to see the significance of the fact that so many of the ‘teachings’ - which I’d already learned would one day be influential - are more about God’s nature and God’s Love for us than about human nature or human behaviour. Furthermore, there are many, many teachings about the Holy Mass - at which we are present to the most striking demonstration of God’s Love for mankind - and also about prayer, through which we can be held in intimate contact with that Love: whether or not we ‘feel’ it. It’s faith that tells us that we’re held in God’s care; and in an age when faith is lacking, there is little love for the Person of Christ, and so there’s less prayer, less penance, less reverence before holy things and persons and places; and also fewer vocations: though not because Christ has stopped calling men to the religious life, but because young persons made cynical or distracted in an age of unbelief and irreverence don’t hear the call - or refuse to respond to it; and this is why Christ has been giving me so many reminders - for other people - about Divine Love, and about holiness, and prayer.
Since Christ yearns to encourage members of His Church towards greater love for Him, and to more fervent adoration and greater reverence, He is doing so through His ‘teachings-in-prayer’ by allowing an apparent ‘imbalance’ to arise in the subject matter of these teachings. There’s such a lot about prayer and penance, and about Heaven and Hell; and so of course some readers might ask why there are comparatively few teachings about what’s generally known as “loving your neighbour,” by which some people mean, supremely, giving practical help to the needy: of giving “bread TO the hungry” (Ezk 18:7) and nursing the sick.
About Salvation.
If I speak first, about love for our neighbour, we’re probably all aware that many Christians today - children as well as adults - are bold in their declarations about doing our duty towards needy and suffering people, or, rather, about showing our love for the needy; and it’s a wonderful thing that we’re encouraged to imitate Christ, Who in His earthly life was deeply moved by the sufferings of those around Him, and was so tender and helpful in His dealings with the sick and the bereaved, for example. We’re not loving God properly if we’re not, for His sake, loving every neighbour, since each is God’s ‘child’ and is thus to be seen as a brother or sister. But Christ has made it plain to me, in these ‘teachings’, that the truest love for other people is based upon a clear knowledge of Who God is, and what His wishes are for mankind. Without such knowledge, we can’t know how to love people in the best way: best for them - for bodies and souls, and for their Eternal welfare.
Blind affection or sentimentality won’t provide a solid foundation for works of true charity, though they can provide a place in which to start ‘digging’; but if we know about Eternal Life, through Christ, we can see that the greatest love for our neighbour is shown by our desire to see each person eternally happy with God: and so we’ll make efforts to help them to achieve Salvation, efforts at least as vigorous as those by which we try to ease their earthly sufferings. I don’t mean that we’ll always be lecturing people about being good - although we must speak out bravely against evil - but that we’ll be fervent in prayer for them as well as in practical help.
The first Commandment.
Now that I’ve been instructed for many years in prayer, it seems to me that the teachings are primarily about important aspects of our relationships with God rather than with one another.
It seems to me that Christ’s great longing is to give people of our era, and beyond, a vigorous reminder of the importance of the First Commandment by which we’re urged to “love the Lord your God” (Mt 22:37) and to put Him first. How many of “the faithful” who recommend that we be heavily involved in practical works of charity are asserting with equal vigour and confidence that God is to be loved and honoured above all things and people and is to be greeted and worshipped daily, with great reverence, by us, His children, who are privileged to be able to call Him “Father”? How many of His People assert that He is to be obeyed in everything: in the ways in which He has plainly revealed to us through Christ and His Apostles, and has continued to make plain to us through the teaching of His Church, and through the Holy Scriptures and the Sacred Tradition? It’s because there are fewer persons urging the Faithful towards reverent worship of God than are urging the Faithful towards practical charity that Christ has planned my work, and has trained me to do it.
Obedience to God’s Will.
It is Christ Himself Who, through my inadequate work, is urging His People to be fervent in prayer, and to be obedient to His Will in everyday life - out of love for Him Who is Wisdom and Goodness. This is how we can glorify Him, and also bring down immense blessings upon our own souls: blessings and graces which will enable us to relish and to do His Will, and which will also prepare us for Heaven. Then, if we spend our lives in God’s service, relying on Him and His strength in everything, and trying to follow where He leads us, we’ll love our neighbour from the best of motives, and in the best possible way: in the way in which God wishes, when and where He wishes, as we’re prompted and guided by His Holy Spirit in the practice of true charity.
Since it’s part of Christ’s plan to offer, through this work, more reminders of matters to do with worship and adoration than of ways in which to serve our neighbour, it’s also been a part of His plan that these teachings are given through the daily life of an ordinary housewife, or home-maker. It’s true that I’m an artist, as well; but my year-by-year and willingly-accepted work has primarily entailed the care of other people: literally the feeding and clothing of them, with care of the sick; and it’s precisely because that sort of practical help is ‘routine’ in a housewife’s life, even if done very poorly, that Christ has seldom instructed me on the need to give such care, but, rather, has concentrated on spiritual matters.
This doesn’t mean that I haven’t needed such instruction; we all know that in practical care there’s always a need for growth in charity, as well in other virtues; but it does mean that although during my prayers, and in between household tasks, I’ve been taught a great deal by Christ about the true spiritual foundation of the charity which He wants to see us practice towards everyone, I’ve been taught even more about the love which He wants us to offer directly to God our Father. For example, Christ has shown me numerous ways by which we can express our sorrow-for-sin, through penance and reparation, and can express our love for God through reverent worship: supremely through the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in union with Christ.
Teachings about spiritual matters.
It’s been by Christ’s own choice - and through His desire that I remind other people about the importance of a sincere love for God and a longing for holiness - that I’ve been taught by Him for so many years: during prayer, and occasionally during meditation, and only rarely when I’m working at my normal duties. The significance of the time at which He teaches me is that - by His choice - He usually teaches me about a particular subject when I’m at least obliquely ‘involved’ in it - for example, when I’m praying about a certain problem, or repenting of a certain attitude; and He has taught me far more lavishly about purely “spiritual” things than about earthly.
By His Will, Christ almost always teaches me when my soul is ‘facing’ Him in true prayer in what I can only call a God-giving moment of undistracted attention combined with contrition or gratitude, or praise, or trust in His power to give good gifts to His children; and so - because this is His Will - there are more teachings in these volumes about our need of greater contrition and greater gratitude, for example, than about our duty to go out to help our neighbour; and this is not accidental. It is Willed and brought about by Christ, because although He wants to feed and comfort His People - through our kind actions - in ways which help sick and tired bodies, He wants to issue a special reminder in our time that He can also help and change damaged souls through us.
Christ can work through us to soothe hearts by hope, to feed minds with Truth, and to purify souls through Reconciliation; and so, through our prayers and sacrifices, He can make ‘whole’ persons who are ready for ‘real Life’ with Him: ready to enjoy His beauty and perfection, forever.
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Friendship with God.
Christ is so generous and tender; so how could I remain unchanged by demonstrations of His love? It’s because I want to share my joy in what He has shown me that I must end this book by trying to describe what it’s like to know and to converse with the Three Divine Persons, in a perpetual friendship which vivifies the soul, endures through every difficulty, and transforms every aspect of life; such are the marvels I’ve enjoyed for many months, this year.
As you can gather, it’s only because the Father has invited me to describe what He Himself has called “The end of the journey” that I’ve attempted some writing which might be seen as impertinent as well as inadequate; and only through Christ’s goodness have I been brought to live and pray as I do now. It’s true that we’ve been indwelt by the Three Divine Persons from the moment of our Baptism; yet I’ve been shown through personal experience and by faith that an intimate friendship with the Three is achieved, and understood to a limited degree, and also ‘relished’, only if someone has been willing to love, serve and obey Christ with both fervour and sincerity, and has been willing to accept His purifications. These are utterly necessary before a sinful creature can endure as well as enjoy what I can only call a special proximity to the Three Divine Persons Who are Infinitely pure, perfect, majestic and Holy - although Infinitely tender and loving. But I can also say from experience that the more lavishly God reveals His Glory and beauty to a contrite soul, the more clearly does that soul see the need for further purification, and the more gladly does he step forward, willing to be changed.
The joys which are given in the heights of prayer are greater than anyone can imagine; and a loving union with the Three Divine Persons Who bestow those joys makes every past agony seem worthwhile.
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20 PARTICIPATION
(1998)
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THREE DIVINE PERSONS. LIGHT AND LOVE AND LIFE.
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A wonderful state of friendship.
No-one can live daily in the company of the Three Divine Persons - as if at Their ‘heart’, as They dwell in the unity of the Godhead - who has been unwilling to be prepared and purified according to Their supremely wise and far-seeing plan. But God is so good that anyone who responds to the Divine invitation can achieve this magnificent friendship: of a creature with his or her God; and it’s from within that state of astonishing peace and fulfilment and bliss that I now urge other people to persevere in love and in prayer, so that they, too, can experience the wonderful things which God has lavished upon me, some of which He wants me to mention in the next few pages.
God Himself has told me that this book can be seen as my own “MAGNIFICAT” (Lk 1:46), written in praise and thanksgiving to Him after a long and arduous spiritual journey. So I’ll write no more about my failings, but only about His kindness. It’s no use my being bashful, anymore, about God’s goodness towards me, if I want to convince anyone about the sweetness of His friendship; rather, I’m willing to say that for the last year or two the manner of receiving each teaching in prayer has been wholly delightful. The state of friendship with the Father in which I now live is so wonderful and fulfilling that I’ve only to turn my heart and thoughts towards Him in Heaven to receive His Bliss. Every blissful prayer increases my confidence in His Love; and every new growth in confidence causes me to pray with a greater hope of being heard and answered; and, indeed, His answers have amazed me. Some have been so sweet and loving that it almost breaks my heart to think of them and makes me yearn to bring other people towards Him; and that’s why I’m going to try to describe in more detail what I’ve learned from God about Himself. I’m going to tell what I’ve learned from the Holy Trinity about the Three Divine Persons, and about the joys of a loving union in prayer and in daily life with this Source of Joy Who is at the same time Father, Word and Spirit.
Three Persons yet One God.
In order to speak accurately about God, I must begin again at the beginning. I mean that the Church has taught us through the Apostles and their successors that God is ‘Being’ Itself: Three Persons in One God, that is, in One Divine Being, Whom we adore because He created us and because He is worthy of all possible praise, since He is Good.
What ‘dry bones’ are these facts, some people would say. Yet how staggering is the meaning, or rather, how staggering is the thought of God’s nature, His attributes and His actions. But to continue: I can say that we’ve all learned from the Church - which puts God’s Revelation into words for us, through her decrees and catechisms and Councils - that the Three Divine Persons are equal in Majesty. Furthermore, the Father possesses nothing that the Son does not have; the Son possesses all that the Spirit has: yet the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, the Spirit is not the Son, and so on; and yet the Divine Persons are equal. Each possess the same attributes as the others; and, in a way beyond our understanding, the Three Persons are One Lord, with no beginning and no end.
I’m aware that I’ve received these beliefs or ‘concepts’ through the Church, although they’ve been confirmed by what I’ve learned in prayer. I say this because some of the above phrases are quoted from memory, for example: ‘the Father is not the Son’ - perhaps a phrase from the Athanasian Creed; I haven’t had time to check; but I know that this is certainly our true teaching: from God, through His Church.
Many details about our life within the Most Holy Trinity are what we have learned through God’s Revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ, knowledge now handed down to us through Christ’s living, teaching Church; and what I’ve noticed in prayer only confirms something else that the Church already teaches us: something we find ‘illustrated’ in our liturgy; I meant that God Wills us to attribute certain acts and certain virtues to certain Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. This is what was done by Jesus Himself on earth.
So we speak of the Father creating us, of the Son redeeming us, and of the Spirit sanctifying us: to give a brief example of the language I want to consider; and the Church urges us to speak in this way, even though God the Father didn’t create us without the Son, the Spirit helped to redeem us, and so on. An act by each Divine Person is an act of the Most Holy Trinity. God ‘has no parts or passions’ as our old catechism said. Someone who speaks about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, however, as though the distinctions we make between the Divine Persons are unimportant, won’t relish the wonderful Life of the Holy Trinity and so won’t yearn wholeheartedly either to know or to enter the Godhead; and I believe it’s because God wants to encourage a greater interest in His inner life - and so to cause willing souls to turn to Him in fervent prayer - that I’ve been shown so much about the Three Persons, in prayer, and have been encouraged to notice the different ‘approach’ that Each One has adopted towards me - adopted as a way of teaching me about the Godhead in which Each of the Three Persons is distinct whilst sharing the same nature.
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Different approaches.
In a moment, I’ll try to share what I’ve experienced in prayer: to describe what I’ve experienced as different approaches from the Three Divine Persons, and also to show how God Himself has encouraged me to attribute certain Divine actions and ‘attitudes’ either to Father, Son or Holy Spirit, although they are co-equal, and are one Lord. This is the foundation of my opposition to certain changes put forward by ‘extreme’ Christian feminists, who call for an end to ‘patriarchy’ and who dislike naming God our Creator as “Father”; but, more importantly, it is a reason for increased gratitude to God Who is so loving that He delights in sharing with us the riches of His own inner life and His own ways of acting; and since I can say with gratitude and confidence that this is what He’s done for me, I’m writing these pages from personal experience. Nothing I’m writing is fundamentally new, but is simply a description of the different approaches made to the soul in prayer by the Three Divine Persons of the Most Holy Trinity; and I dare to write about “different approaches” even though each Divine Person possesses the Divine Nature and All are equal in perfection, in majesty and in every good property. I dare, only because none of the three ‘approaches’ was seen by me as being against Truth, as I know it.
Each ‘approach’ has been experienced with overwhelming intensity in contemplative prayer, or, rather, in that state of contemplative prayer where the soul can act, think, speak and reason. All is silence and ‘unknowing’ in other ‘stages’.
Adoration and submission.
As I shall soon describe, the difference I’ve noticed between the Divine Persons lies in what I’ve experienced of Them in states of prayer Willed and given by God; and my knowledge of God, it can be seen, is a gift to me from God, given because He has trained me to be obedient and therefore to worship Him just as devout persons in every century since Christ have worshipped Him: by calling Him “Father” and by striving to obey His wishes. Furthermore, I haven’t been ashamed to bow towards the floor before Him in adoration and submission, as well as wonder and love; and He has stooped down to me and has lifted me up, in order to teach me about Himself; and that’s why I can share my delight in Him through books, pictures and conversations.
Here I must insist that this submissive awe is what is due to God; and we ought to offer it gladly. Even when someone has been lifted into the Father’s friendship through a deep, tender and intimate friendship with His Son, Jesus Christ, Who greets and consoles that soul in Holy Communion, that fortunate soul mustn’t think of saying: “I’m a baptised child of God, redeemed and cherished, and therefore I don’t need to bow down low before Him, like a servant.” We needn’t always be bowing or kneeling. When it’s appropriate, we can sit to pray - or kneel, or walk, or lie in bed, if we’re unwell. But although we’re praying to a most tender Father, Who is ‘mad’ with love for us, we’re always right to remember and to honour His Divinity in particular ways.
No matter how close we are to God, no matter how much loved, nor how frequently we’re drawn into blissful prayer, we remain always mere creatures before our Divine Creator, for as long as we’re on this earth. Not until Heaven will we “be like Him” (1 Jn 3:2). Then, at last, though our worship of Him will continue and will give us unending joy, all fear will have been banished. We shall be utterly changed, joyful and confident in His presence; yet until that time, we must keep in mind our utter indebtedness to Christ. Only through Him has our confident prayer been made possible, and our peace-of-soul, and our hope of Heaven.
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“Father,” not “Mother”.
[There’s a need for a brief digression here, perhaps, to suggest that it’s God’s Will - expressed through Scripture and Tradition - that we follow Jesus’ advice and say to God: “Our Father” - not “Mother” - when we pray for help and salvation. Surely there’s no need for us to address God differently; and I only say this so forcefully because it’s what I’ve had confirmed through God’s teachings-in-prayer; and this will become evident during the next dozen pages - although it’s a comparatively minor matter, when set beside the greatest problem today, in worship, which is not modes of address but pride and irreverence.]
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A description of the Three Persons.
Now that I’m about to describe what I know of the Three Divine Persons - One God - I’m not afraid to say quite boldly that Christ my God, Who gave me His Divine Life in Baptism and to Whom I’ve given my loyalty, has drawn me into His friendship. He has led me to experience His teaching and attributes, to some small degree, during prayer; and as I’ve explained, Christ has drawn me into almost unceasing intimacy with Him, from our union in 1985. Such intimacy wasn’t possible earlier, before various great purifications had been completed, both passive and active, and interior and exterior. It has only been through my baptism and the faith of my parents that I learned such a lot about truth, faith, God and prayer, and so - assisted by reason and observation - was led to a firm belief in the existence of a Creator/Designer-God; and only through prayer ‘in’ and through Jesus Christ did I grow in the knowledge of God, that is, grow in a real friendship, though it was once marred, as I said, by insecurity and sin to a degree that is only a memory to me now, through His grace; and yet now I can say with immense joy, and utter conviction, that Christ my God has allowed me to experience His Love and friendship more and more fully in prayer; and I can say from experience that His personal tenderness and care are astonishing, that is, astonishing to someone who, earlier, didn’t really understand the meaning of the words “God is Love” (1 Jn 4:16). Despite the fact that I’m not worthy of such a love I’ve found that Christ is ablaze with Love, especially in Holy Communion, although at other times as well.
Christ’s tenderness.
Anyone who perseveres through several volumes of ‘teachings’ and who believes in them will have a glimpse of the Christ I know - the only Christ - Who is more gentle and loving than I once thought possible. There’s no-one like Him. As He Himself has explained to me (in T:2064) He is the Source of every sort of consolation for those who put their trust in Him. Whether we’re fearful, lonely, sinful and repentant, or weak, old, sick, or broken-hearted - or dumb, blind or dying - we can find peace in Him, if we’ll trust Him. There’s no embrace sweeter than His. There’s no greater or kinder friend or counsellor, or Priest, or helper, or teacher, companion or hero. He knows our every thought and hope and fear; and He longs to draw us through the difficulties of earthly life towards the Bliss of Heaven; but He can’t do so unless we put our trust in Him and give our consent: such is His respect for our dignity: for our free-will.
But Christ isn’t solely our Priest and Redeemer; He’s a poet, and a teller of stories. He’s the loving Friend Who brings gifts on special occasions, Who remembers every hurt I’ve ever suffered and every word of thanks I’ve offered to Him for good things. It’s He Who has bent over me, gently, to stroke my head and to comfort me as I’ve endured necessary trials in order to do this work. It’s He Who knelt at my feet, one extraordinary day, to show me how much He sympathises with me in every difficulty, and would wash my feet, He said, just as He washed the feet of His Apostles, if it would make my journey to Heaven any easier (T:2243B).
Perhaps you can see, now, how He breaks my heart by His tenderness; and that’s why I can’t bear to refuse any of His requests, even when He asks me to do difficult things - for the sake of the work - which will leave me looking foolish or very much alone.
Christ Our Lord.
One night I was asked by a member of my family: “What’s He like? What does He look like? Do you see Our Lord every day?” It seemed right to answer; and, indeed, on the following morning at Mass, Christ taught me that in speaking out about Him with such fervour, and with the knowledge gained through our firm friendship, I’d been fulfilling His plan for me, which is that I act as a living witness to Him and to His Love.
Christ’s appearance to me.
This is more-or-less what I said about Christ. I exclaimed, joyfully, that there’s no-one like Him, and that He breaks my heart with His kindness. I said: “He’s devastatingly attractive, in that He’s so loving and kind and encouraging. He’s very strict, whom He needs to be, but even that’s for my good, if I’ve been selfish.” Then I spoke about His attitude towards me.
“He’s always the same, in the sense that He’s reliable: never moody, though I do see different aspects of Him; I mean that He’s very funny, when He teases me - but gently - or when He makes a play on words, to amuse and to console me; yet He’s so tender, at times, that I’m overwhelmed just to remember the times when He’s stroked my head, to comfort me after awful difficulties, or when He’s spoken about His gratitude for little sacrifices I’ve made.
I ‘see’ Him everyday in one sense, though not always by spiritual ‘sight’ - but usually by what’s called an “intellectual vision” when He comes to the altar after the Consecration, and then comes to me in Holy Communion; and I experience His presence in this way at home as well, from time to time. But I also see Him in the sense of a vision with an image - a real Person, though seen with the soul’s eyes and not by my bodily sight. This happens every few days, but with extra occasions such as special feast-days, or else the times when He suddenly appears to me to speak to me and to explain something, as a reward for a special effort on my part.
Unexpected visits.
To see Christ in this way is an immense privilege. I never know in advance whether I’ll see Him or not. He’s been training me, for many years, to pray to Him all day and every day with a sincere, contrite and trusting heart, without ever thinking about whether He’ll teach me, appear to me, speak to me, or give me new tasks to undertake. He’s made it plain that I’m not to waste time speculating about His gifts, but should simply accept them joyfully when He gives them to me, and continue to pray in the usual ways when there seem to be no ‘special’ spiritual gifts or phenomena to be noticed; and by this training He has brought me to love Him more than any of His gifts - though it’s true to say, today, that I only have to look in His direction, in church, to be swamped by His loving and consoling attention: such is the degree of friendship to which He’s drawn me in recent months.
But to attempt to describe Him a little better, I need to say where I see Him: I mean, to explain in what ways He chooses to show that He’s close to me.
Very close to me.
On very special occasions when, for example, Christ wants to comfort or reward me after a particular event, He usually stands besides me: at my right side; and He talks to me as any friend talks to another, as He leans forward over my chair, since I’m usually sitting in church nowadays, due to increased weakness. But on most of the occasions when I’ve seen Him clearly - though almost dazzled, as I said, at the sight of His glory, and sometimes at His Mother’s radiance too - I’ve seen Him in front of me. He usually stands one or two metres away, and speaks as anyone speaks to a close friend; and each time I’m overwhelmed with joy to be there.
This sort of appearance is always unexpected in the sense that I haven’t known in advance that at this particular Mass, rather than at another, I shall have this immense joy. Such meetings as this, several years ago, were so sudden and so startling for me that Christ kept them mercifully brief, until I’d grown stronger, and had also become less ashamed and bashful in His Presence; but they are now - although unexpected - neither so startling nor so brief. Christ has spoken to me on so many of His major feast-days that I can’t honestly say I’m surprised when He chooses to do so again, although I’m immensely awed and grateful, still; and since He’s made me spiritually stronger, I find that I can now converse with Him and enjoy His evident company without being stricken with remorse, or made speechless, or even made oblivious to my surroundings, as in earlier times. But every time, I’m so overjoyed that my heart aches, afterwards, when I think of His goodness.
Christ’s characteristics.
It’s not possible for me to describe each of Christ’s features in great detail, because although He hasn’t hidden Himself from me, His face is so dazzling and so radiantly beautiful, that until very recently my soul’s eyes have been half-blinded, so to speak, by the Light. But it’s true to say that He’s a real person: a real man, a few inches taller than His Mother - as I know, since I’ve been privileged to see them together on a number of occasions. He has long wavy hair, and always wears a long white robe, similar to an alb. He has a wonderful smile; and He’s very expressive in His movements. He doesn’t stand still like a statue but uses His arms to explain things to me, or His hands to point or to demonstrate, or to touch my head, as I said, or to gesture to different parts of the church or to certain persons - as you can see if you look at the watercolour paintings I’ve done.
He’s so kind and so wise that my heart lurches, sometimes, just to think about Him; so it doesn’t surprise me to read that people rushed around the lake, in Galilee, for the chance to be with Him for a bit longer. Those who saw what He was like, and who loved Him, must have been besotted with Him. He has that effect on you, if you can bear to go close enough to Him to feel His gaze. I mean that when He looks at you, He sees straight to your heart; and so you sometimes feel as though you can’t bear it but must run away to hide for shame, or to grow angry at knowing your true self to have been ‘found out’; or else you must kneel and confess your sins to Him, for the joy of hearing Him forgive you and comfort you; and that’s when you find that you’ll do anything to be worthy of Him, even giving up sin, and trying to be like Him: holy, gentle and child-like ; and yet He’s immensely wise and mature at the same time.
It seems important to say that He’s very manly, in the sense of seeming to be strong, brave, and authoritative in a manly sort of way - whilst still being tender and gentle. He makes you feel as though He can cope with any problem. You know that He can provide wisdom, truth and protection - all things which a woman can also provide, yet He does so in a manly sort of way; and this is no accident. It’s because of His very manliness - His heroic and authoritative stature which is wholly suffused with kindliness - that He can provide men with a certain sort of friendship - a sort desired and planned by Him, our Incarnate God; and He can provide women too, and children, with just the sort of friendship by which He can help and encourage them best.
Things which most delight Christ.
Just for the sake of adding a few more words about what Christ is ‘like’ when I meet Him, I suppose I can’t fail to show Him out more clearly if I try to describe His reactions, if I can use that word, to the different sorts of prayers and requests I make before Him. I mean that it’s become plain, after hundreds of conversations with Him, and after thousands of confessions to Him of my sins and weaknesses, that He is made even more joyful by some things than by others.
This doesn’t mean that He’s not perpetually and forever joyful in Heaven, as the Divine Son of God; but it means that as the Incarnate Son Who is fully human as well as Divine, He expresses more delight in meeting one sort of approach than another - just as He did when on earth, towards those who came to Him, as recorded in the Gospels. So I’ve discovered, from His reactions, what sorts of prayers please Him most; and perhaps it’s worth my listing a few things here, on this subject - though with a reminder that the sort of reactions I describe are those revealed only in these past few months - in 1998 - now that He has brought me to a previously-unimagined degree of intimacy and contentment.
If I start at the ‘lowest’ level of what I must call Christ’s response to prayer, I can say that if I am in my ‘right place’ for a time of prayer, but am day-dreaming or distracted, I am aware that Christ is holding me in the peace which is His gift; but He is silent, since He never forces anyone to pray. I can say that He has invited me to pray - by His Spirit’s prompting - but yet He ‘waits’ for me to begin.
But as soon as I ‘turn’ my heart and mind towards Him, His Glory shines out, and warms my soul to it’s depths.
Whenever I express my love for Him, I see that Glory increase; and the joy within my soul increases, too, in accordance with His plan.
Whenever I ask for His help, believing that He will help me, I am rewarded for my trust by a further increase of Glory, of joy, and of peace and spiritual warmth: such is His goodness.
Whenever I beg Christ, with confidence, for some help for a needy neighbour - or else turn to the Father with Christ to offer that sort of prayer in Christ’s Name - I am rewarded even more lavishly.
Christ’s delight in contrition and humility.
The prayer which brings the greatest reward, however - and which is greeted by Christ with the greatest delight and tenderness - is a sincere confession of sin or sinfulness after every un-Christlike thought or action; and this is one of the reasons why numerous words about sin appear so frequently in this story. Whenever I open my heart to Christ, to confess a fault or to reveal a lack of virtue, I am shown in a swift and almost overpowering manner that He is thrilled - deeply touched - by each act of humility and trust and love.
He sees humility in the heart of everyone who makes a sincere confession to Him of wrong. He sees trust whenever someone opens his heart to Him, on any subject; and He sees love wherever someone endures the humiliation of admitting his weakness and yet endures this because he wants to please Christ and to change; and Christ is overjoyed at such sights. I have seen that joy, in prayer; and that’s why I no longer feel inadequate or remorseful when I confess my sins to Christ.
Now that I’ve learned how good He is, and how constant and unchanging is His attitude, I know that whenever I go to Him with some new cause for shame, I’ll be loved, heard, forgiven and consoled - and also rewarded for my honesty and trust. Who could be kinder than Christ? No-one; and I wish everyone could come to know Him, and to know what it’s like to believe in His Love, and to grow so close to Him through prayer and penance and service that Divine Love becomes almost the ‘air’ which the soul breathes throughout each day: an almost palpable sweetness which suffuses one’s whole being; and Christ has told me that such sweetness is Heaven’s ‘medium’, whereas the glory with which He adorns my soul in prayer is Heaven’s livery; and these are the rewards for all who are repentant and reconciled - after they have patiently endured their purifications. Truly, there is no-one like Christ.
A warm, affectionate person.
In order to help you to picture Him to some degree as I’m now able to picture Him because of all His appearances to me, I can’t do better at this point than to ask you to think of the kindest, most tender and loving person you’ve ever met: someone who is also generous, understanding, funny and articulate and yet simple and straightforward, and then to realise that Christ is all of these things, and that He’s real. He’s a warm, affectionate Person, but Someone Who knows every thought and emotion that I ever experience; and so He is Someone Whose relationship with me and Whose conversations with me can be based - at my consent - wholly on truth, without a shadow of misunderstanding on His part.
This, then, is the Person Whom Peter and the other Apostles grew to know and love; and yet they had to deal with another ‘aspect’ of Christ that I’ve hardly mentioned so far; one which I, too, have found difficult to ‘handle’ in my heart and mind. I’m speaking of the fact that Christ Who is true man is also true God: the Son of God, now glorified and living in Glory.
Christ: God and man.
It’s true that it was only on rare occasions that the Apostles glimpsed that glory; but the more they listened to Christ, and watched Him, the more they noticed the things about Him which made Him different from other men; and this must have had them racking their brains for an explanation, before they could accept the astonishing and in some senses appalling truth about His Divine nature: and I say appalling because I believe that their respect for the Godhead was far more profound than ours, in our century; and they must have been shaken to the depths of their hearts at finding out Who Christ is, and then learning to cope with the implications.
Here amongst them - and now before me - was Someone utterly true and pure Who was totally trustworthy, even if He seemed impredictable at times because His way of thinking wasn’t what they expected. He was never petulant or self-seeking. There was no sin in Him: no greed, lust or pride; He never lied, but went to the heart of things and spoke truth, all the time. How uncomfortable that must have been for those who were used to lies, flattery or evasions.
What a struggle for Christ’s friends: to hold together in their minds what they saw before them, and what they had begun to know of Christ through His words and actions. What an extraordinary problem confronted them, as they tried to develop a friendship with Someone Who looked just as ordinary as themselves, yet Who was, in some respects, so utterly Other that they wanted to fall down in front of Him, or else to run away from His gaze.
Opening our hearts to Christ’s gaze.
I can say from experience that it’s when we can’t face that gaze in prayer - whether we actually see it or not - that we find it very hard to pray. Yet it’s in the merciful darkness of prayer, if we’ll spend our lives freely choosing to meet Christ there, that we’re given the opportunity to unveil to His compassionate gaze our shoddy lives and pitiful attitudes, and our foolish sins and yearnings. Little by little, we can agree to abandon all that’s unworthy of a close friendship with Him; and when we’re reconciled and have begun to trust Him a little more, we can even bear a little of the radiance which He begins to shine upon us in our prayer. His Light is so dazzling, as I mentioned, that it hurts our soul’s eyes, at first; and so we imagine that we’re still living in spiritual darkness when in fact we’re very close to God, and we’re undergoing the marvellous process of purification, which we must endure either here or in Purgatory, if we’re to be ready for the Glory and beauty of Heaven.
Christ, the Way to the Father.
Now that I’ve tried to describe Christ, I want to say what I’ve found so marvellous about knowing Him: not all the obvious points, but the fact that He, my God and Saviour - Who has led me to the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit - is so approachable, as man, that in knowing Him I understand much more about the Godhead, and I’m drawn closer towards the Holy Trinity. Furthermore, I can say from experience - about Christ’s effect on our souls - that it’s in knowing and loving Christ, the perfect man Who is unendingly patient, loving and trustworthy that I’m brought to a clearer understanding of the meaning of love, Salvation, Eternity, and sin and Heaven.
The importance of regular prayer.
Now you can see, perhaps, that regular prayer is essential for everyone who hopes to change, to grow in virtue, to please Christ, and to be able to look forward to Heaven. Who will look towards death and Eternity with any peace, let alone any scrap of joy, if he’s spent a life-time avoiding Christ’s gaze, and has refused to pray, and has hoped to shrug off his responsibility which is to lead a life worthy of someone who was created by God, from love, for a life of perpetual bliss in His friendship?
Truly, Christ is so good, tender - and beautiful - that He’s worthy any effort or any sacrifice, for those who believe in Him.
To meet Christ in Holy Communion, when one’s friendship with Him has been tested, and when He appears to the eyes of the soul at each meeting, or else speaks of His love, or perhaps wordlessly communicates His wishes - or His thanks, or His plans - is to meet a uniquely pure and powerful Love. It’s to meet, at close quarters, an all-consuming Divine Love; and so it’s to meet, all-at-once, as Christ has shown me (in T:1916) the warmth of His loving glance, the fire of His pure affection, the sight of His open arms, the embrace of a lover, the strength of a brother - and it’s also to meet the tenderness of our God, with the now-painless scorching of His radiant Glory.
In every such meeting, Christ makes possible the acceptance of painful memories. He enables the soul to surrender to His care. It’s as though He irradiates the soul by His holiness, and so transforms everyone who is willing to be changed; and He persuades us, at last, of His power to lead us into a holy and Eternal Communion; and this goodness, and these gifts, are truly extraordinary - yet are freely available for all who believe in Christ and who put their trust in Him.
Finding a balance, in prayer.
Something extraordinary that I’ve already mentioned, about Christ - and which is extra- ordinarily strange to learn how to ‘deal’ with - is the wonderful union, in Him, of a Divine nature and a human nature. He is one Person, Who is truly both God and man. I’m mentioning this again because it’s sometimes difficult to keep a ‘balance’, in prayer, when one speaks in Holy Communion, for example, with Someone Who is true man, and tender, and also wise, helpful and very much Present, yet Who is burning within Himself with an utterly pure and Divine holiness which is awesome to be near. This holiness is also awesome to ‘see’, when Christ chooses to let His Glory be seen in a more dazzling manner than usual, on special occasions, as I’ve mentioned, or in order to teach a special lesson.
Yet Christ’s Love for us is wholly true, unswerving and forgiving. He delights in us, and relishes our friendship. As He’s encouraged me to approach Him in prayer, He has taught me to be both trusting and respectful: to confide in Him as one confides in a best friend and yet always to remain aware that He is my Creator. He has been training me - with infinite love - to come to Him with the most foolish or embarrassing problems, in the certainty that He delights in my trust and will help me; and yet He wants me to remember that He died to save me, and that I can’t do anything good without His grace; and that’s what I mean by speaking about ‘balance’. Christ wants me to be like a little child with Him; He wants to see
me living in His burning Truth, in humility, able to gaze admiringly upon His majesty; and yet He wants me to be as confident of His love as of His power, and to be wholly convinced that by living in both truth and trust I can be brought to true happiness.
Christ’s Risen Glory.
After mentioning these few examples of Christ’s evident tenderness and humanity, I’m going to describe an occasion on which He revealed Himself to my astonished gaze in the Glory of His Divinity. In this way, I hope to show how wonderful He is in dealing so sweetly with a difficult person who has served Him so grudgingly. It happened in December, 1995, when I turned to the Father in prayer to thank Him for Our Blessed Lady, and when I also thanked Our Lady for giving her whole life to God and for giving us Christ: flesh from her flesh.
I’ve mentioned this in Chapter sixteen. It was at the Vigil Mass of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception that I was praying in this way; and Christ suddenly appeared to me and began to teach me about Himself, and about His Incarnation; but He didn’t just teach. He stood before me, radiant with Heavenly Glory (T:1734A).
The majesty and dignity of our Risen Saviour are awesome to see, if He has chosen to show them, and are impossible to describe well. Yet, even with all His Glory, Christ is as simple, straightforward and gentle as a good child.
On that occasion, I was speechless with joy at His sudden appearance; but I felt my soul being held up by God’s power; indeed, only because of God’s power was I enabled to bear Christ’s radiant Light. Here, seen more clearly than ever before, was the Saviour to Whom I had tried to be loyal for so many difficult years. Here was the Mind which had planned the work I was doing, and had called me to do it. Here was the Person Who had trained me in obedience; but here, too, embodied, was the Love which yearned to make me happy forever, even as He was using me - at my consent - to bring reminders of Truth to His People: truths which could lead them, also, to true happiness.
And what did I see, with the eyes of my soul, in that moment?
Before me stood a figure of radiant beauty: a pure man, with every cell of His body and every thought of His heart and mind irradiated by an astonishing Light and grace. I saw the risen Christ, a Divine Person; and as I gazed upon Him, I was taught by Him, soundlessly, about his dual nature. In His glorified Body, Christ was shining with a light which was more like moonlight than sunlight, in the sense that His Light, as shown to me, was glowing rather than searing, soothing rather than scorching; yet it’s a bright light which cannot be borne by anyone who is afraid to look upon truth: upon Truth Itself: true God-made-man.
Christ’s purity: like pure water or crystal.
Even more astonishing than the Light was Christ’s purity. As I gazed upon Christ, I ‘saw’, by my soul’s sight and by a spiritual teaching, that every aspect and every movement of this pure and Divine Person had the quality of pure water, or a perfect crystal. Christ was wholly ‘transparent’, in the sense that no shadow of imperfection obscured the depths of His Being; and within that radiant glory I saw, in Christ, the clear patient intelligence of the Divine Person Who knows and Is all Truth, yet Who is as simple and direct as a pure little child.
Ever since my conversion, I had believed wholeheartedly that this pure Christ is a Divine Person, come down to earth, through Mary, made flesh from her flesh and so born fully human yet also Divine. Yet now I was given a clearer understanding of this marvel; that no-one on earth before Christ had ever ‘graced’ this earth with such a graceful presence. Even the saintly and sinless Virgin who conceived Him was not more than a creature on earth fulfilling the Will of her Creator, whereas Christ’s real humanity was irradiated by the beauty of His Divine perfections; and His Divine beauty was the source of His effective words and work during His life on earth.
Can you imagine how I almost shook with awe, whenever I reflected in the days and weeks to come that I had clearly seen the Saviour Who had spoken with Apostles and disciples on earth two thousand years ago? Whose heart could stay the same after such a meeting? Who could look into Christ’s eyes and speak to His Heart without trembling at the mystery of it: at meeting a grown man Who has the clear gaze of a child? Yet at the same time I had met a mature and intelligent Christ - Truth Incarnate - upon Whom every conversational ploy, half-truth or piece of flattery or insinuation must be broken as surely as an incoming wave is shattered on a rock.
With my whole heart, I felt thankful that during the previous few years Christ had prepared me to be able to meet His gaze. There was no fear in me, now. I could have died for joy. His human soul was adorned, I know - like His Mother’s - with every virtue. But what I saw that day was the radiance of His Divinity, though it was a radiance muted by His own loving Will. It flashed out toward me in our prayer just as it had blazed out occasionally on Earth in His speech, whether through reprimands or tender phrases.
Who saw Divine beauty in the bleeding figure Who trudged through Jerusalem on the day of His Passion? Christ kept His Divine Glory hidden, by His Will, during most of His time on Earth; yet there was much that He didn’t hide. He offered to everyone the Divine wisdom of His words, the Infinite strength and purity of His Love, and the Divine authority by which He could speak clearly about Salvation - and could provide the means of achieving it; and this Christ was the very Saviour Who had come to me, in my prayer.
A true representative.
Christ proceeded to teach me about His Holy Mother: about why she had been conceived ‘Immaculate’ in her own mother’s womb. He showed me something of His own perfection: of how, by His love for the Father and by His obedience to the Father’s Will, He had been willing to die for us on Calvary. I was even shown how Christ, as a true representative of mankind, had bridged the chasm between mankind and the Godhead; and the aim of this whole teaching, I was shown, was to provide me with a message for His People: a request that we all allow Christ’s pure life and virtues to flow through us, when we are reconciled to Him, and are living in union with Him, indwelt by His Holy Spirit, and devoured by a longing for the Father’s Glory.
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Prayer: a dark ‘veil’.
[Speaking from the heart, I must add that Christ might terrify us, so astonishing is His purity and beauty, if we hadn’t learned already through the prophets and then through Christ Himself and His Apostles, something of His nature. We’ve only to look at the terrible suffering He bore for our sake to be reminded that although He is Truth He is also Infinite Love, Mercy and Compassion. We’re only to remember the Resurrection to remember, too, that Christ is Infinite Joy - and can share that joy with all who believe in Him and do His Will.
Through faith, and also through experience, I can say with complete conviction that Christ’s wish is not to crush us with His Truth, but to let us approach Him with our icy hearts or dirty garments - whatever image will most plainly show us that the pure, tender, truthful Christ longs to relieve us of our burdens, to warm and wash us, and to pour His grace and truth upon and within us. This is our only hope of true joy, on Earth or in Eternity, and Christ yearns to see us joyful.
It’s true that faith is needed, to believe that a Saviour so pure and holy can love people like ourselves, whom He died to save; but He’s yearning to press His gifts upon us, if we’ll freely approach Him. We’re tempted to think He holds Himself aloof and critical. Yet if we saw Him now, and saw His Love for us, we would die - either of terror or joy; and this is why we should always remain grateful for the marvel which is prayer. Under the cover of its mysterious and veiling silence and darkness, we can grow close to the God Whose Light would otherwise dazzle us. We can learn to unwrap our sore hearts and sore lives, whilst still hidden in Christ’s temporary, merciful, gloom.
One day, Heaven’s Light will break into our lives. When we die, how glad we’ll be, if our wounds have healed. How happy we shall be if our eyes have grown used to Christ’s Light, slowly, during prayer: if we’re not faced, as some are, with the sudden and tormenting glare of Truth after twenty, fifty or even eighty years of wilful darkness.]
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A description of Christ.
What I really long to do now is to rush ahead with a ‘description’ of the Father; but I must first complete my verbal ‘impression’ of Christ with a few more words about how loveable and loving He is; and I’m going to use a few paragraphs I wrote in 1995. But there’s a special reason why I’m incorporating those words into this piece of text. It’s because on the day after I’d listed those things about Christ which so delight and console me, I greeted Christ in church, before Mass began, only to hear Him say to me: “You’ve written well, Lizzie!” So you can see that He liked this description of Himself; and by making His approval plain He encouraged me to speak even more boldly about Him, so that other people can begin to believe that they, too, can find joy in prayer and in the practice of the Catholic Faith.
It’s from experience, then, and with Christ’s approval, that I can say: “Christ is calming, tender, wise and understanding; and as He forgives every confessed sin or feeble effort, He is gently drawing one forward to make greater efforts to please Him and to grow like Him: but for one’s own happiness, as well as God’s Glory. Its only with sweetness and gratitude that He rewards and thanks the soul even for pathetic attempts to bear sufferings patiently, for love of Him and for what He suffered in His terrible Passion.
No-one takes such delight as Christ in private anniversaries. Often, when I’ve forgotten a special date, Christ has astonished me with His special gifts; then I’ve remembered the date, and have remembered the occasion which He wants to see me celebrate all over again! So we’re right to cherish our liturgical cycle of fasts and feasts and anniversaries, which of course is inspired by God.
No-one is as utterly constant and sympathetic towards us as Christ, when we bravely confide the most embarrassing, gruesome, silly or muddled details of our lives. Christ is unshockable. He sees, knows and understands everything. How I hope that good priests will all model themselves on Him.
In the story of the Prodigal Son.
There’s something else that’s tremendously reassuring to remember, about Christ, God and man. Christ is more thrilled by certain things than by certain other things; and so I’ve written a list of these things from memory:-
Christ is thrilled, whenever we repent, by our humility, though we don’t feel much in the way of thrills at the time. He is thrilled by the sincere efforts we make to begin again, when we’ve been ‘backsliding’ or have failed or ‘fallen’ again; and I’m speaking about big sins as well as little faults. Christ is never wagging His finger sarcastically when someone returns to him for the two-thousandth or even the ten-thousandth time to say a sincere ‘Sorry’. Christ is all smiles and joy at our real, pitiful efforts. He is just like the Father in the story of the Prodigal Son.
Christ is thrilled by our gratitude, and is very ‘touched’ by our sincere thanks for any and every good thing in our lives, and by our thanks for answers to prayer. He is thrilled by something often neglected by us: by our thanks for forgiveness, and thanks for the Sacraments.
But Christ is thrilled, more than ever, by our gratitude for what He suffered for us during His Passion. Although He’s living in Glory now, He’s full of joy at the mere sight of someone thanking Him, for example, by devotedly praying the ‘Stations of the Cross’; and if we comfort Him in His Passion by accepting our sufferings and by uniting them, mysteriously, to Christ’s, so joining in His work of Redemption, He counts us as His special friends.
Holy Scripture says: ‘God has no favourites’ (Ro 2:11); but the God-man, like any of us, is touched by acts of true devotion. It’s worth noting that Christ was ‘closer’ - by choice - to some Apostles than to others, although He loved them all immensely, and died for them all.
It’s important that I also write that we delight Christ by our acts of devotion and gratitude towards His Holy Mother. Conversely, in order to wound Christ, one need only belittle, ignore or insult her. He loves her tremendously, with a respect and gratitude He shows in just such a way to no other human being; and so He is genuinely thrilled whenever we show our love for her, or thank her for giving Jesus to us, or when we thank St. Joseph for looking after them both.”
I could write for ever, about Him; but I must move on, in order to speak about the Father.
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Learning about the Father, in prayer.
I have to say that my experiences of God our Father are different: not because God’s nature is different in different Persons, nor because one Divine Person has something that Another doesn’t have, but because God has chosen to reveal Himself to me in a different way, or, rather, wishes to confirm that what His Church recommends is what He desires, which is that we should ‘tailor’ our perception of the Holy Trinity in accordance with Divine Revelation-expressed-in-certain-language, for example: about God’s Fatherhood, and His Son’s Priesthood, and the Spirit’s role as Consoler. I mean that God the Father has taught me in prayer that we cannot improve upon the way in which the Three Divine Persons - One Lord - have been portrayed for us through Holy Scripture and the Sacred Tradition. It’s God’s Will that we know and believe that the Three Divine Persons are equal, and that we approach the First Person to acknowledge His Fatherhood, the Second to acclaim Him as our Saviour and the Third to rejoice in His power, for example; and I say this with such confidence because this is what I’ve been taught by the Holy Trinity during the past two or three years.
God our Father has allowed me to experience His teachings and attributes in prayer, to some small degree; and they are experienced in a different way from that experienced with Christ in Holy Communion, even though “God is God”, whichever Divine Person is instructing me. God Wills that this different approach is experienced by me. He is responsible for it. It’s manifested partly in the feelings He evokes in me, when, as Father, He offers His awesome touch in prayer, a touch which is different from Christ’s gentle ‘touch’ in Holy Communion; but it’s revealed also by the Father’s special choice of words as He teaches me during the silent ‘teaching’ of contemplative union.
(I can hardly believe that I dare to write this, but I just have to do it, and to stop being so self-conscious. Its part of my work, work which isn’t self-chosen, but God-given.)
To converse with my Creator.
The difference which I experience can be described in the following way:- God the Father Most Holy, by His own Will, ‘stirs’ within me tremendous pangs of awe and reverence, even when I’m only thinking about Him. Of course, I’m full of reverence for Christ, but His gentleness banishes all fear, whereas an immense but wholesome reverence is something Willed by God our Father, for an earthly creature in His presence.
Until very recently, this reverence was accompanied by an immense joy-tinged-with fear; yet in recent months that fear has entirely disappeared, to be replaced in prayer by what I can only describe as an exhilaration at being able to communicate - to converse, with sincere questions and infinitely-loving answers - with my Creator.
Although it seems at times as though I am only a ‘whisper’ away from God the Father, in the intimacy of prayer, it should be understood that my imagination has no part in such prayer, but is wholly subdued, so to speak, as are my memory and intellect, as my spirit pierces the clamour of thought and rises ‘above’ the mind to meet God in the silence of contemplation; and it does so only by God’s power, and God’s invitation; and so of course I never see the Father standing in front of me (- forgive me for saying this, yet I have to) - as Christ does, frequently, in Holy Communion. The Father is inaccessible, unless we come to Him in Christ; and even now that I’ve been ‘lifted’ in the prayer of contemplation through the cloud which separates us from the Glory of the Godhead, and even now that I hear the Father speak to me and teach me, I sense that He is so transcendent and ‘Other’ that I want to cover my face and bow low as I approach Him, as my spirit is lifted towards Him, in the ‘heights’.
Conversation with the Father.
From experience, I can describe the attitude which the Father encourages me to adopt towards Him. It’s because the Father chooses to make Himself known to me, every few weeks, or every few days, by calling me to a genuine conversation in prayer, that I can speak from experience: although these conversations are only possible because I already live “in Christ,” and so am the Father’s true child. So that’s why I say quite firmly, that whenever the Father begins our ‘conversations’, He summons me to His Presence, summoning me from my normal life, into prayer, yet upwards - as though to a great height, far away - where He lives in a region which, unless He calls us, is inaccessible. He even calls me from my armchair to another room, where - in order to obey Him - I must kneel down and pray, if I am well enough to do so.
I have to describe it thus, although I know that we live “in God”. I’m writing about real intimacy with God, and about the limits which He places on that intimacy - for our good - during our life on earth.
Now, although the Father is extraordinarily tender, so tender and understanding that He can make me weep with delight and gratitude, He leaves me in no doubt that when I’m called to listen to Him, I’m being given an extraordinary privilege. I mention this because - by contrast - the Divine Son, Christ, in Holy Communion, has only rarely, as far as I can remember, given that impression. Christ seems to present Himself to me always as Friend first, and God at the same time, whereas the Father is always my Majestic God - Who can also be known as Love. Just in case anyone says that my perception of the Divine Persons is different, because my expectations have been different, I can only stress that never in my life have I expected to be taught by God in this way; indeed, I didn’t know that it was possible. I had only hazy ideas about ‘mystical contact’ with God, that is, about felt contact, since I know that even a breath of ‘dry’ but sincere prayer establishes or reinforces our ‘contact’ with God. I know that it’s through faith that we have become His children, not through emotion. Also, I had no pre-conceived ideas about the Father seeming to be more remote and powerful than Christ, though just as loving.
Every thought of mine about God - Father, Son or Holy Spirit - had been ‘coloured’ simply by the truth about our relationship: about His Sovereignty and my creatureliness, associated with His never-ending love and my trusting confidence in all that He gives us through His Church.
At the ‘edge’ of darkness.
To return to the experience of being taught in prayer by the Father: I know that whenever He has called me, in prayer, He has called me, through Christ’s life in me, to go and ‘hover’, so to speak, at the edge of the darkness where He dwells, though the darkness isn’t like earthly darkness. It has nothing to do with banishment or lostness, but is a comforting and loving darkness in which the Father cocoons me because of His Love for me; and that Divine Love recognises that I’d be hurt and dazzled were I to be confronted by His burning Glory while I’m still earthly and earth-bound and not yet quite ready to ‘go in’: by which I mean not fit to enter wholly into His infinite Knowledge of Himself. To do so would be to be in Heaven.
God the Father sometimes ‘calls’ me, therefore, and permits me to ‘taste’ His Knowledge, or, rather, to accept such Wisdom as He chooses to give to me a little bit at a time, in each teaching: and I must stress that I’m not writing, here, about the soul’s being lifted to God in silence and utter incomprehension, in what I sometimes experience as the prayer of ‘Unknowing’ contemplation. I mentioned that earlier, and it’s quite different, and yet very fruitful for the one who prays like that - when God so arranges it - and for the people in her heart. But what I’m about to describe is something which I believe is even rarer and more precious, which is a perceived or ‘known’ union with the Father in a conversation only achieved after incorporation into Christ and after many purifications.
When the Father speaks.
I can say from experience that whenever the Father ‘speaks’ to me in a soundless instruction or conversation, my heart is lurching with the honour of it, and with the marvel of His Goodness, even while I’m longing to be worthy to be with Him; and all of this has been tinged, until recently, with sorrow that I have ever served Him less than wholeheartedly. How I wish that my whole life had been spent in a state of willingness to suffer or to die for Him without even a split-second’s hesitation.
Strange to say, I rarely seem to feel sorrow with Jesus any more; in fact, He has kept asking me to leave sorrow behind, in my day-to-day intimacy with Him in prayer. A reverent sorrow-for-sinfulness, however, seems to have been something Willed by God the Father for most of my life. It’s been the inevitable accompaniment to the years of necessary penance, with prayerful explorations of the Faith; and yet it’s been easier to bear as my hope and faith have grown stronger.
Groping about for the right words, again, such ‘sorrow-for-sinfulness’ seems to have been, for a long time, a necessary, earthly aspect of my daughterly relationship with the Father. But even as I write that, I’m stunned to realise how surely, nowadays, He banishes every scrap of fear or sorrow each time He draws me into His presence - or else makes His presence known.
Exquisite courtesy.
It’s only by what I must describe as the weight of His Glory, and the power of His majesty, and the Infinite Love of His Heart that the Father banishes everything foolish or fearful in my soul, in our meeting. Although I turn to Him in prayer very frequently throughout the day, with a brief request, or a few more words of gratitude or praise, there’s something special about those times of prayer which I ‘enter’ only because He Himself has powerfully ‘called’ me. At such times as those, He and I converse in a manner which reminds me, by its exquisite courtesy, of those stately dances of olden days. I’ll try to describe our progress.
God prompts me, by His Spirit, to turn to Him in prayer. I speak to the Father in the Name of Jesus; then the Father responds with love to one of my little queries about life or about prayer. He answers me, although with neither sight nor sound. I praise and thank Him, and dare to ask Him something else; then it’s as though Heaven’s door opens even wider. Its as if the Father is saying that there’s nothing I can’t ask Him: no gift I can’t persuade Him to give me, for my good or my delight; and there’s something else so marvellous that I feel bound to mention it here.
From experience, I can say that in the early days, when I was learning how to pray, it was as though my contact with God was broken if ever I were distracted, or if I moved away physically from where I’d knelt in prayer - or if someone called to me to lend a hand with some little task; and now I know that although God never leaves us, He permits this ‘felt-absence’ in order to train us to be recollected in prayer. It’s a necessary spiritual discipline in the nursery-stage of contemplation. Yet now, through God’s infinite goodness, it seems as though I couldn’t ‘move away’ from God even if I wanted to, in the following sense; I mean that whenever He calls me, as I mentioned above, and permits me to question Him about all sorts of things, and when He answers and instructs and consoles me so sweetly in prayer, He makes it plain, also, that He delights in conversing with me; and what’s so extraordinary about this is that neither by my distractions - by my random, silly thoughts - nor by outward interruptions - if the ‘phone should ring, so that I must pause to answer it in order to please Him, Who wants me to be faithful to duty - is He ‘caused’ to end our prayer.
No; it’s as though He follows me, or, rather, is glad to ‘stroll’ with me - I mean, spiritually - from place to place, as I find it necessary to move either through duty or perhaps because of pain: for example, when I can’t kneel any more, but must sit, or must move from my desk -where I was sitting when He first ‘sought me out’ - to go and rest in my armchair.
Exchanges of love and knowledge.
It astonishes me, too, that so great is His kindness - and so much more trusting of Him have I become - that it’s as though He ‘waits’ whenever I pause to write down whatever He’s been explaining; and so the wonderful minutes pass by in exchanges of love and knowledge for up to an hour - or until I’m too weary to remain utterly recollected and attentive any more, and so am forced to ‘descend’ from a state-of-communication to a state-of-being-enfolded in His loving care.
From experience, I’ve found that the only thing which can end such conversations is either exhaustion on my part, when I can’t pay attention for another second, after a long morning or day of intense concentration, or duty: when I have to go and immerse myself in some activity or human conversation. I don’t mean that He can be ‘shut out’ by any activity of mine, but only that our special ‘dialogue’ must end for a while, though the peace and friendship and joy are never-ending.
This is our God! I can’t begin to thank him enough for having brought me to know Him by faith, and for having taught me how to pray; and yet if I take a ‘wider’ look at God’s work, I am stunned, too, to see that God’s Love is very lavishly shown in all sorts of ways besides prayer. I can see that God’s fatherly care has ‘wrapped up’ all of my life’s plans, mistakes, sins, gifts and diversions, into a pattern which I can now see is shot through with His Will, His Wisdom - and His fatherly love: even when I was being unfaithful or half-hearted. Truly, this is a good enough reason for me to persevere in the perpetual joyful repentance which He has shown me is pleasing to Him.
But the point to stress is that the experience of being instructed by the Father is not the same as the experience of being instructed either by the Son or by the Holy Spirit.
Grandeur and Majesty.
It seems to me that, for His own holy purposes, God our Father chooses to keep me aware of His remoteness-from-my-nature, whenever He instructs me, even though He loves me, and even though His Divine Son Jesus Christ has united the Godhead to our humanity.
Even though the Father’s ‘touch’ in prayer - by which I mean the spiritual joy and knowledge with which He almost palpably suffuses my soul - is as sweet and gentle as a baby’s touch, it carries ‘beyond’ itself something, or rather, Someone Whose strength and majesty are held back, so to speak, lest they harm me. I know that when the Father speaks to me He speaks with tremendous authority and power. He speaks a brief phrase, or a wordless instruction, whilst giving me the strength and courage to bear the spiritual ‘sight’ of His Grandeur - with the knowledge that He, so Infinitely Holy, is stooping to speak with me, who am so totally unworthy.
Whenever He calls me in this way, so explicitly, in prayer, He makes me feel that if I could do so I should fall flat on my face on the floor as I speak to Him, even though both Christ and the Holy Spirit - and the Father - have shown me how infinitely tender is Their love for us. And although the very power and perfection of the Father which He permits me to sense are not ‘masculine’ there is, in them, something which is demanding my eternal loyalty and obedience. Perhaps I should say that the Father gently ‘invites’ obedience. It’s plain that I’d be foolish to refuse any invitation of His, because He is Wisdom. But the Father makes it plain, by His own Being, that He is powerful as well as loving. It’s as though He is clothed in authority. I must repeat, He is not male; but the authority with which God chooses to ‘clothe’ men on earth is a sort of shadow of the real Authority which is the Father’s, in earth and in Heaven; and that’s why I’ve written elsewhere that to address the Father as ‘God our Mother’ seems to be not only disobedience but sheer silliness - although it’s true that in His tenderness towards weak people He is like a mother.
No evidence of separation.
It’s important that I qualify these words about prayer and about sorrow by gratefully asserting that my relationship with God, in recent months, has become so simple and joyful that no thought of sorrow or pain can enter to divide us when we’re one heart in prayer.
This is not because I’ve become so overwhelmed or ‘absorbed’ in prayer that my person or personality is annihilated; on the contrary, it’s because God, in His kindness, has so fulfilled and adorned and made joyful my soul that it has never been more ‘real’. It has become to some degree like Him, supremely in knowledge and love; and my soul, in this likeness and union, can no longer perceive any evidence of separation between myself and God; and therefore our prayerful union is such - if I can express it in this way - that no pain or sorrow can touch or enter. This is the sort of union to which He calls us all - if we will listen, believe, respond and allow Him to change us. How I wish that everyone would believe, and could experience such immense joy.
How I wish that everyone could discover what I was shown by the Father (in T:1941) on 23rd July 1996 - as I’ve described in Chapter sixteen. How I wish that everyone could come to know God as He is: as true Love, and as the Source of all Love. He is the Cause of our joy, the Truth, Light, Bliss, and Sweetness which can warm and change us: the tender and Divine Love which can heal our wounds: our Prize and Treasure: our God Who, all-at-once, is Fire and Flame and Glory, Peace and Wisdom, Guide and Father. All-at-once, He is the Origin of all holiness, and our Home, our Goal, and our Paradise.
In our communion with Him we can find the perfect fulfilment of every good longing , with unending Bliss for the human heart and mind and body and soul. This is what He has shown me and what I know to be true; and it’s this glorious, Only God Who ‘woos’ us, calls and cherishes us , and answers our prayers - so that, when we have learned to trust Him, we can live with Him in the bond of Love, in a true union in which the soul and God are equal in self-giving, and in which the Creator Himself - through this mutual surrender - can be said to be ‘subject’ to His own beloved creature.
How is this possible? The answer, of course, is that it’s only been made possible through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and through the power of the Holy Spirit Who was sent to our hearts by Christ after the Ascension; and it’s about the goodness of the Holy Spirit that I want to write next.
The simplicity of the Holy Spirit.
To continue, about the Divine Persons - still almost holding my breath at daring to write - the Most Holy Spirit, too, allows me to experience something of His teachings and attributes in prayer.
Although it’s true to say that it’s by the Holy Spirit’s prompting that I’ve been helped to turn to Christ in prayer, at home and before the Blessed Sacrament, I know that it’s Christ Himself Who has taught me much about the Holy Spirit. Christ once showed me, most vividly, though without sight or sound (in T:1262) that the Holy Spirit is Lord and God, Creator, Sanctifier and Consoler, and yet is like a little child in purity, simplicity and truth. It was at Pentecost that Christ once showed me (in T:1316) something of the power and joy of the Holy Spirit, Who is Fire and Glory, Divine Light and Beauty; and we ‘owe’ to the Holy Spirit, therefore, both adoration and loyalty.
Christ showed me that in Purity, Power, Wisdom, Omniscience and Love the Holy Spirit resembles both Father and Son; and yet Christ also showed me that the Spirit’s action upon us, during our journey towards Heaven, is more like a cradling than a steering. The Spirit is our Guide, Comforter and Teacher, and yet it’s as though He carries us lovingly, during this ‘cradling’, towards the Father.
It’s because of the experience of having been ‘closely-cradled’ so many times in the Spirit’s loving care, that I can describe how the approach of the Holy Spirit to the soul in prayer is perceived as being different from the sort of approach which is experienced in a communication either with the Father or with the Son. The Holy Spirit is never perceived as being ‘above’ me, or in darkness; rather, I am allowed to experience His gracious presence in a noticeably different way; it is His Will. I say ‘gracious presence’ because He doesn’t summon me, like the Father. No; whenever I’ve been taught by the Holy Spirit, I’ve been made aware that at that moment of specific ‘teaching’ He is already ‘carrying me’, it seems: as if cradling my whole person, in the spiritual life.
The kindness of the Holy Spirit.
It’s the Holy Spirit Whom I’ve felt prompting or ‘nudging’ me - at every stage of my life - urging me to do good, to go in a particular direction, to undertake a course of action, or to avoid a certain evil influence; and it’s a cause for sadness that I haven’t always obeyed His promptings, and that I found from experience that the more His guidance is ignored then the weaker or fainter seem His urgings. In such cases, it’s not He Who abandons us, but we who shut our soul’s ‘ears’ to His calls. But it’s a cause for joy, today, to know that He has led me back to the right path, and that at every stage His wise promptings continue - and that I cannot go badly ‘wrong’ if by every thought and act I’m trying to obey Him and so to please the Father and follow Christ in the ways recommended by Christ’s Church.
Today, therefore, the Holy Spirit never seems remote, though I don’t feel His presence all the time. I rarely think about what I’m ‘feeling’. I’m concentrating on what is God’s Will, and am trying to do it. That’s my main concern; although I confess that God’s gifts sometimes overwhelm me and so demolish my resolutions about shunning ‘special’ experiences in prayer. I know from experience that it’s the Spirit too, Who gives me guidance as I write. Whenever I turn to Him for help, He makes things plain. If I am lost for words, He provides them; and it’s only through my union with Christ, and through His gift of the Spirit, that I can see Truth so clearly, and so attempt to describe it; and by this I mean truths about the Godhead, and prayer, and our relationships with God and with one another.
The work of the Holy Spirit.
It’s through the Holy Spirit that I’ve received so many teachings in prayer - through the merits of Christ, and for the Glory of the Father. Sometimes the Most Holy Spirit - to my utter astonishment - has instructed me, for example, about His action in the life of Our Blessed Lady, or about the ways in which He guides and helps souls in their journey from darkness to Light: or about how He is at work during the Consecration. On one extraordinary occasion - as I mentioned in Chapter fourteen (T:1354) - He astounded me by His magnificent response to my request for help: when I asked Him to give me a more loving heart.
When He then taught me about Love, by saying to me: “I am the measure”, He awed me by His grandeur. He showed me - with neither sight nor sound - something of His majesty and holiness. Equal to the Father and the Son, He is true God, worthy of all reverence and to be given adoration and obedience; and yet, whoever meets Him meets true Love: Divine Charity.
On that extraordinary day, as He spoke to me, the Holy Spirit helped me to see that I should never be satisfied by my pitiful attempts to be loving - but should always hope to grow more loving. Yet He wasn’t encouraging me in love by words alone; nor was He just proposing Himself as an example: as a ‘measure’. He wasn’t like a lecturer who invites his students to reproduce his demonstration of some subject as they sit before him in miserable silence, all too aware of their own ignorance and lack of understanding. No! The way of the Holy Spirit is different. It is loving. It’s by His gift of Himself that He coaxes us to show out charity to others. He pours that Love into willing hearts in the sacraments; He also radiates that Love towards us through loving persons; and He fills and surrounds our souls with that burning Love in prayer, at times of His choosing; and that’s why I can describe the ‘sort’ of Love which He is, if I can phrase it that way, since it was on that September day in 1993 that He gave me a demonstration of love which I shall never be able to forget, and which I have to try to encapsulate in a few inadequate words.
A demonstration of love.
On that extraordinary occasion, I was astonished to find that the Holy Spirit, Who is the Love of God, utterly surrounded and suffused my soul in prayer; and in doing so, He showed me that whoever meets Him meets a Love which is heart-warming, and which wholly enfolds the whole ‘person’. This Love is blissful and tender and consoling. It is simple, pure, gentle and encouraging. The embrace of this forgiving Love is light, not burdensome. It makes no demands, but rather - by its purity and bliss - invites love to grow where before there has been little love; and thus, as the Holy Spirit told me, it can help the small fire of love within a weak soul to reach out and to become one with the Great ‘Fire’ which is Divine Love; and thus, the soul can be ‘wrapped’ in the everlasting and full embrace of the Eternal bliss of the Three Divine Persons: the Holy Trinity. So this is why we say that the Spirit is ‘at work’. He perpetually draws and encourages us towards a greater good and a greater joy: always yearning to see us joyful with the true joy which is found in Heaven - in Love’s Kingdom.
At the same time, He taught me many things about His nature, and our friendship: far too much for me to be able to mention here. If I were to write non-stop for a year, I couldn’t adequately express my awe or gratitude. But what is He ‘like’, in Himself ? I can say from experience that the Holy Spirit is always Invisible, yet is always breathtakingly Light, pure and tender. He inspires no fear in me, or such is His Will; I’m only describing what has happened. His presence brings Wisdom, in instructions, and also satisfaction, as He satisfies a soul’s thirst for understanding. He is ‘sensed’ by the soul as One Who is as lovely as pure air, or as vast as a cave in the greatest mountain; yet He’s as simple as a little child, and is always gently at work with willing souls, helping and pacifying us as we do our best to love Christ, and as we reached out, ‘in’ Christ, to please and glorify the Invisible Father.
On several other occasions, the Holy Spirit has spoken to me, plainly; and a simple, clear phrase from Him is like a baby’s breath, or like a drop of clear water. His touch is gentle and consoling. One can ‘fall’ into His care without a care in the world, if one has already lost one’s fear of ‘falling’: lost it, I mean, by surrendering to God, giving up sin, and living a life of gratitude, repentance, reparation and devoted service.
I know that the touch of the Most Holy Spirit within the soul can be like a scorching flame in the heart, almost unbearable, for anyone who has sinned. But this is all forgotten when we’re determined to love God, and when we’ve emerged from God’s major purifications.
An infusion of Light and peace.
It was the Holy Spirit - so He told me - Who once lifted my soul to Heaven, to that extraordinary meeting with Christ (in T:43) on what I’ve called the ‘Alpha and Omega’ day: such is the Spirit’s power and goodness.
As for the beauty and Glory of the Holy Spirit: of the Divine Spirit, Who is Holiness Itself - a pure and inextinguishable Fire - I’ve been shown that it’s His Light which shines within my soul both during and after the Gospel readings. Since I pray fervently to the Holy Spirit for understanding whenever the Holy Scriptures are read in church, I cannot be surprised - He has shown me - that He gives that understanding, and does so, at this stage of my life, with such a lavish infusion of Light, joy and peace within my soul, that that moment of grace is almost as overwhelming as the moment of Christ’s arrival in Holy Communion; and this, I can be sure, is our God: the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity.
He is the fiery Light which illuminates minds, warms cold hearts, and brings courage. It is He Who blazes like a pillar of Fire within the hearts of those who call to Him, welcome him and are willing to be changed by Him; this is our God.
Furthermore, I can proclaim that whenever Christ comes to me in Holy Communion it is the Spirit’s Glory which Christ sends ‘up’ to the Father from within my soul, as an infinitely-worthy prayer of praise for the Father. It’s the Spirit’s own flame of Glory which shines in my heart or burns on my brow - according to the Father’s Will - whenever it’s time for yet another manifestation of His presence and work and goodness: for the sake of this God-given task.
It’s only by the courage which is given to me by the Holy Spirit that I write so boldly, today, about God and about the spiritual life, when I’ll probably be called a mad-woman or a fool - although everyone who believes my story will be given joy. But I, too, am made joyful by this writing: not because it’s good writing, but because my efforts are sincere and because God is so good. I mean that He keeps rewarding me for what I do.
Each time I sit at my desk or my kitchen table to write something more about God’s goodness, before proceeding to church for Mass, I’m happy just to be doing my duty; but as soon as I arrive in church, I’m lavishly rewarded. Christ pours His joy and gratitude within my soul from the tabernacle, and rewards me further in Holy Communion. Imagine this: that God lavishes rewards upon a creature for praising her Creator in print, and for urging other people towards Him.
Three Persons yet One God.
How dearly I should like to carry on writing about God, to describe His goodness and beauty; but something crucially important must be mentioned here. I would be horrified to find that I’d perhaps given someone the impression that I’m speaking as if of three ‘Gods’ whenever I speak of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That I can speak confidently of the Three Divine Persons has only been made possible because the One God, the Most Holy Trinity, has set me within the ‘heart’ of His Life - so to speak - as I co-operate with Him on earth, although I do so inadequately. It’s through God’s invitation in prayer, and through His power, that I ‘glimpse’ something of the life within the One Holy God upon Whom we usually seem to gaze as if from a distance.
Astounding though it is, I’ve been permitted to cast my soul’s gaze around me, as it were, from the ‘centre’ of God’s heart, by which I mean from the ‘centre’ of life-in-union with Him; therefore I find that I can describe something about the Three Persons Whom I know and with Whom I have communicated during the freely-given-by-God extraordinary experiences of contemplative prayer. Of course, all the “seeing” which is mentioned is by the soul’s faculties, and not by bodily or earthly sight. Also, when I mention the ‘soul’s gaze’, I mean to say: the soul’s understanding of God which is given to the soul in a life of intimacy, in a union of Wills, after many purifications.
Contemplative union.
Although God has revealed Himself through Christ and His Apostles, we can say that until we meet Him in Heaven, He remains, for us, essentially Mysterious, and Unknowable and Unseen. Yet the obscure ‘Knowledge’ of Himself which He chooses to give to certain persons through contemplative prayer’s amazing union can give to a soul a vivid and instinctive grasp of those things about God that the Church knows and says to people who live in spiritual darkness.
The contemplative knows and ‘relishes’, through union with God in prayer, those things which the theologian knows through his or her intellect, and which both contemplatives and theologians know by faith.
That is the reason why the Three Persons can be ‘met’ and loved, in prayer, and then sometimes described with a clarity which might seem astonishing to someone who doesn’t pray, or who hasn’t yet progressed beyond a certain degree of prayer.
This is why, also, a description of the perceived distinctions between the Three Persons might give the impression - to someone who is unfamiliar with our doctrine of the Blessed Trinity - that the writer is describing three gods.
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At the heart of a comet.
Perhaps it’s worth risking a poor analogy to make it a bit plainer why it’s through prayer rather than through thought that God’s inner life can be better understood and God Himself be better known.
If observers of a huge and beautiful comet were to see it hurling itself in a great arc over the earth, far enough away not to be dangerous, but near enough for people to see its beauty, they would speak in unison about the direction in which the comet was flying, its origin, its age, and the length of its fiery tail; but no-one could be really sure of what was happening at the comet’s centre, except by scientific deduction. Details about temperature, mass and speed, when combined with facts about solids hurtling through our atmosphere, would allow a reasonable assumption to be made about conditions at the centre; but no-one would really know. Logical deduction is not the same as personal and tangible evidence and experience.
This analogy falls down, above all, I think, because God - unlike the comet - has revealed much of His nature and His purpose to mankind, through His own Divine Son. But much of the rest of the picture will ‘hold’. I mean that if someone, by an extraordinary power from a Divine ‘comet’, were to be brought to the centre of a comet during its flight, and were marvellously protected from what would normally harm it, for example, from the heat, that person would ‘see’ as being true what the scientists had only advanced as theory. But that person ‘at the heart’ would have another advantage; and it would be an advantage consisting not of having more facts nor of feeling a firmer assurance of the truth of those facts; he or she would have a better grasp of the relationship between one fact and another, and of which facts were really important for an understanding of the comet’s origin, present condition, and ‘purpose’.
What might have seemed immensely interesting, from below, might be seen to be of little importance: for example, the comet’s tail. What is unseen from below, such as the material at the comet’s centre: its condition, temperature and nature, is seen clearly at the centre; and so, by this poor illustration, I can offer a glimpse of the marvel of God-given contemplative ‘teaching’. The marvel is that someone who, when ‘outside’ prayer, believes in the Most Holy Trinity but who doesn’t understand the ways in which God ‘works’ - since she cannot see how God can be Three and One - can be lifted by God into Himself in a particular sort of prayer; and there, she can gaze upon the ‘workings’ of the Divine Persons within the One Godhead as clearly - though in a different manner - as the person in the illustration has gazed at the heart of the fiery comet.
Writing from experience.
Please excuse my speaking about God as if God were a ‘thing’ or a mere being, rather than Being itself. That’s part of the poverty of my analogy. But perhaps you can see that if we know a contemplative who writes from the vantage-point - if I dare to say this, yet I must - of the Heart of God, a Heart opened by God for brief periods to someone who has given his or her life to God in its entirety after responding to God’s invitation, we can be sure that she writes only what she knows. She writes only what she ‘sees’ through her soul’s faculties.
Her words may be badly expressed, and her faults plain, but the ‘picture’ which she paints of God’s Nature, His Will, and His methods of dealing with human souls, will be worth a hearing. She has experienced what others might have grasped by deduction. I’m not saying that she can’t be mistaken about minor matters; but it’s because she writes not unwisely from her genuine experiences of God that her writings are given a place in the Church’s life, as are the writings of numerous uneducated and prayerful persons who are usually known as Christian ‘mystics’.
Such people have been able to describe things, from experience, which no learned person can describe - even though the wisdom of a learned Christian writer who has had no mystical prayer experiences is invaluable.
If I can throw out a few analogies, it seems to me that someone who wants to hear about the special beauties of Antarctica will speak first with an explorer, if possible - although he will be grateful for the work of the map-makers who have made it possible for him to have information which is vital for a journey to that region. Or if someone wants to learn French so that he can speak better with the French family with whom he stays each summer, he might prefer to spend time conversing in French with a French neighbour, even if that person happens to be illiterate, than in reading books of French grammar. He will absorb the sounds and the rhythm and the intonation of the language, through speech, in a way which cannot be learned from books - although books are essential for someone who wants to be sure that he can construct beautiful sentences in French, with the correct tenses, and with silent word-endings learned, so that his written French will be correct in every way. Or, to labour the point - and bearing in mind some of the torments of the spiritual life, as well as the astonishing joys and triumphs - we could imagine that someone who wants a first-hand account of a surgical operation, so that he can plan his own finances and his own convalescence, might first approach his neighbour for information, if that neighbour has had that operation, instead of dashing off to the surgeon. It’s true that the surgeon’s help will be essential - particularly his medications, his warnings about not eating before an anaesthetic, and his surgical skills, and so on. Yet someone who has suffered an operation, and has experienced the special problems as well as the delights of recovery can give an account of the whole episode which will be more vivid and accurate, in some senses, than anything which could be said by the surgeon.
So it is with prayer, of course. Accounts of prayer-experiences must be examined with caution, if indeed they have to be examined. There’s no substitute for the learning of a good and wise theologian, on this subject. Yet there are people who want to know more about prayer in order to be encouraged in their progress, to be urged to endure desert-patches, and to be assured that God’s sweetness and kindness are so astonishing that it’s worth enduring every sorrow in order to reach Him; and they will be helped in a special way if they seek not just information from the pages of a learned book, but inspiration from the heart and pen of someone who can say with conviction - and preferably with some evidence - “God is good. I believe this; but I say this, too, because I know Him; and this is what He is ‘like’ ......”
A Russian wedding ring.
If I continue to speak boldly about God while I have the ‘framework’ of this chapter in which to hold up a certain image, it seems to me that the work and unity of the Three Divine Persons in the One God Whom we adore is best described by a symbol; and the most apt symbol I have ever seen, by which to express the Mystery which is God’s Trinity-in-Unity, is what is called a “Russian Wedding ring”.
(I’m so unfit to write this, and untrained - except by Him. But I believe it’s His Will that I try. I’m sitting near my kitchen table, during a ‘heat-wave’, as one group of guests departs and another is about to arrive; the whole ‘piece’ has been written in bits and pieces between various kitchen tasks, rests, conversations and phone calls.)
Have you ever seen a wedding ring which consists of three shining bands of metal, each a circle, but a circle which is apparently twisted one way and then another to accommodate the ‘movements’ of the two other metallic circles which are inter-twined around it and with each other?
How simple it is, and how beautiful! No band is larger than another. None has a beginning or an end. Each is perfect in its own shape and its own beauty; each gains nothing by being with the others, since the three together are a ring just as the single band is a ring; yet if you can imagine the three bands flowing over and around and next to one another smoothly, unceasingly, and slowly - in a stately manner - in Eternity, you can share the picture in my mind which best symbolises, for me, God’s Trinity-in-Unity: God’s inner Life, of which He has revealed something to us, through Christ. It is a Life in which Three Divine Persons, One God, exist as beautiful and changeless, and yet are ‘at work’ unceasingly, ‘flowing’ in the heart of Eternity.
How amazing it is, that God is Love, and that He invites us to live within His life of unceasing Love, first through our faith and baptism, and in the union of Holy Communion, and then - as He draws the soul towards Him in contemplative union - in prayer, and, at the end of our lives - we hope with all our hearts - in Heaven. What more could He do for us, and how astonishing it is that we have ever complained about His requests, or about His care of us!
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Body and soul.
[You’ll notice that I’ve said a great deal about the soul, but very little about the body, which Christ and Christians believe to be so important that we rejoice in the thought of its resurrection and glorification. I hope I’ve said enough, however, about reverence in prayer, and therefore about posture, at least to indicate that each one of us is created body and soul: each of us one person who is bodily affected by spiritual good and evil and is also spiritually affected to some degree by bodily pains or delights. But this is such a vast subject that I’ll say no more, having chosen to stress, earlier, that whatever touches our lives - our bodies or souls - is ‘met’ and dealt with by us in our soul’s interior where, of our free will, in our inmost heart, we take up either a loving or a self-centred stance or attitude towards other people and towards God.]
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Unnecessary changes.
How much more I could say - about God and His creatures. But the main point has been made: that everything I’ve been permitted to learn of God, through the experience of being taught by Him and of hearing His words, has made me see more clearly the wonder of all that Christ taught his Apostles and now teaches us through His Church. The Three Divine Persons are equal in majesty and in purity and in every perfection; and it’s the Will of God the Holy Trinity that we delight in the Father’s Fatherhood, in the Son’s Sonship and in our in-corporation in Him, and also in the Spirit’s role as Consoler, as the Three Persons draw us into the wonder of life in the Glory of the Godhead, at our consent, and after penance and purification; and it’s God’s Will, also, that someone like myself who, in adult life, has met this Love in its mixture of majesty and tenderness, its purity and its fervour, should speak about it - about Him - through these writings, and so should invite other people to turn to Him in prayer.
Earlier this year - on February 16th 1998 - I thanked God once again for His goodness; and I asked Him: ‘Who am I, to speak with You: Lord God, and Creator!” Then, straightaway, the Father showed me that He lifts my soul in prayer to such a height because of our close union, and in order to teach me. He taught me that I’m right to put my trust in Him. His holiness lies far above those who are occupied with earthly desires or ambitions; and yet I mustn’t be afraid to say that I now live far ‘above’ earthly preoccupations, since I have truly reached the Father, “in” Christ, and now live joyfully in the Father’s presence.
A ‘return’ from the heights.
As I’ve already indicated, my every prayer in this degree of union is greeted with Bliss, whether my prayer be an act of praise, petition or contrition. Such is the Father’s delight in contrition and truth that Bliss is now His answer and gift to every movement of my heart towards Him; and that’s why I wasn’t surprised when Christ came to me in Holy Communion on 16th February and reassured me (in T:2503) that, truly, I love and greet the same God - the One, only God - whether I greet Father, Son or Holy Spirit. But then Christ also taught me, as I offered His Glory to the Father in praise and thanksgiving, that it is Christ Who brings my soul ‘high’ before the Father in contemplation: but not only so that I can praise God and delight in our prayer; it is also to give me so glorious a knowledge of Truth - of the Godhead - that I can help other people through my “return” from the heights of the mountain-tops of prayer.
At the same time, Christ reminded me that He once told a story about when Dives and Lazarus had died. The rich man called out to Father Abraham, who was cradling poor Lazarus in his bosom whilst he, Dives, the rich man, was in agony; and Dives begged for a warning to be given to his still-living brothers about selfishness and sin, and about God’s Commandments, and reward and punishment; yet Abraham replied - Christ said, in His story - that “... THEY WILL NOT BE CONVINCED EVEN IF SOMEONE SHOULD RISE FROM THE DEAD” (Lk 16:31).
Then Christ explained to me that although the brothers in the story weren’t given a special message about how to please God and save themselves from disaster, many people in our own day are being given useful reminders of the same things - and all because God has trained me, and has invited me to make a ‘return’ to the valley from the heights of the mountain-tops of prayer, in order to share the knowledge I’ve been given: to offer reminders of the Eternal Truths about God, and mankind, and Christ, and Salvation, and to do so through this spiritual autobiography and through several volumes of ‘Christ’s Instructions.’
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Further Volumes.
It’s time for me to finish this book, at last; and it gives me greater courage to share it, when I remember that Christ has shown me very recently - on July 3rd, 1998 - that this spiritual autobiography is reaching completion, as He had planned, just as I’m becoming bolder and more carefree, in doing this work. I’m so aware of the many good things that He has done for me that I yearn to do ‘Apostolic’ as well as contemplative work. I’m longing to “GO OUT TO THE WHOLE WORLD” to “PROCLAIM THE GOOD NEWS” (Mk 16:16): the good news about His Love, and about the good things which He’s done for me, and which He can do for everyone who will believe in Him.
Everything important in Christ’s sight - I mean everything to do with this task - is ready now. What we call the ‘red book’, or Volume Three of “Teachings-in-prayer: “Christ’s Instructions”, was written and printed by January this year; and the ‘yellow book - Volume Four - was ready by May of this same year, 1998. In August, only a month ago, as I write this, what we call ‘the Priests’ Book’ - “My Priests are Sacred” - was compiled and printed. It’s a collection of teachings selected from all four volumes of “Christ’s Instructions”: a selection of passages which are about the ministerial Priesthood or which are relevant to it; and I only produced it - as I only produced “How to pray,” which followed it - because it’s what Christ has asked me to do. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t worry about whether the books will help people. Another reason is that God the Father has plainly shown me how much He delights in the books of ‘Teachings’. He did so only this year, on 2nd April - and by an extraordinarily beautiful illustration.
When I’d only just arrived in church, that morning, I was lifted in prayer to Glory; this was how Christ rewarded me for being obedient and for having shown the latest book to my parish priest. Then, as Christ led me towards God the Father, it seemed more important than ever that I be simple and honest in prayer. That’s why I said to the Father, immediately: “Father: Do You like the book?” - by which I meant the ‘yellow book’: Volume Four of “Christ’s Instructions,” which contains a dialogue between myself and the Father.
Straightaway, the Father gave me an image of Creation: of the Earth, teeming with life, before sin and sadness; and He explained, through this image, and with infused knowledge, (in T:2575) just what delights Him about this work which He Himself led me to undertake.
Our ‘creation’.
The Father explained that He delights in seeing that my expressions of delight in Him are being broadcast to other people. He delights in work done in difficult circumstances - especially when that work consists of re-statement of His truths about certain subjects; and He delights in the love which has led me to follow His promptings - though I have to add that I haven’t a scrap of love in my heart that He hasn’t placed there first.
But the reason why He showed me an image of created beauty was this: the Father explained that if He were to express His delight about the books in a way which involved the natural world which He has made, and as if to provide me with an illustration of His delight, He would show me a bright ocean such as I could now see before me, teeming with life. He’d show me all the water-spouts where the whales are surfacing. He’d show me the waves glinting in the sunlight as shoals of fish encircle gaily beneath the surface of the water. He’d show me the flocks of birds which are soaring through the bright sky in the soft, sweet, breezy evening air, as His Glory is shining on high, over everything; and through this image, the Father explained, He is expressing delight in my love. This image of His own beautiful Creation is His way of showing me His delight in the special work which He and I have ‘created’ together.
He explained to me, then, that this image is like a toy for a child on a special occasion; and the reason for this gift is that just as God the Father gazes upon all that is good, unspoiled and beautiful in His own Creation, so does He gaze upon my work: with delight.
Then the Father told me something more. He told me that He was giving me this ‘gift’ today - this illustration - as an indirect means of showing delight, instead of giving an immediate expression of His delight, precisely because He loves and cares for me. He knows that the plain sight of His Divine Love and delight would crush me, were I to see it here, in my present state: when I’m still a feeble soul, still in earthly life and therefore unable to bear the full sight of His beauty.
Good things to share.
Isn’t it astonishing that God rewards me for work which He Himself has planned, prompted, inspired, made possible, and almost brought to fruition? Who is like God? Who could be kinder? That’s why I say that I don’t worry any more about the books, or about any part of this task. I’m sure that if Christ asks me to distribute books, He’s bound to bring good results from such work; and I say this so boldly today, because I know Him.
He’s so good: wiser and kinder than we’ve ever dared imagine - and longing to hear us welcome His friendship: longing to see us enjoy the good things He wants to share with us.
I count amongst those ‘good things’ all the further teachings I’ve received in the past two years - few of which are included here, but which can be found later on - God Willing - in Volumes Five and Six of “Instructions from Christ.” Other ‘good things’ include the faith of my family. My husband was received into full Communion in January 1998 - by our elder son Stephen who, by then, had been ordained to the Sacred Priesthood, to my tremendous delight and gratitude.
By then, also, many volumes of teachings had been distributed. By that time, Christ had led me in prayer into “THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE LORD,” (2 Co 3:18), as St. Paul says, and in doing so had given me the sign which would help both my parish priest and our Bishop to recognise that God Who uses, as St. Paul also says, “THOSE WHO ARE NOTHING AT ALL” (1 Co 1:28) has indeed used me to give a message to His People.
That message is a reminder that He is at work, to help us, as much today as in past ages. It’s a reminder that He can help all who turn Him in trust and repentance, and that He does so from the depths of His Infinite tenderness and compassion. He is longing to see us leave behind all sin and danger so that we can enjoy the blissful friendship of Himself and of His Saints, though not just as joyful and obedient members of His Church on earth who already enjoy the riches of her Tradition and the gifts to be found in her in everyday life. He yearns for us to enter Heaven, as Saints, to share and to enjoy for all Eternity, in Bliss and Glory, the sights of God and Our Lady: and to meet all the Saints and Angels who have shared, invisibly, in all the worship which we’ve offered to the Holy Trinity during our life on earth.