It's not often that a spiritual director advises you to pray less, but that's what mine has done. And she's right, of course. There is a subtle trap that is always waiting for us in our spiritual lives: we turn our practice into an achievement, set goals, steel ourselves to do more and more, push through, break barriers, all that stuff. It's all very commendable, of course, and makes us more proficient in the skills required but in the end our practice becomes just one more thing that I am doing. In other words, our practice, rather than being a way of dethroning the false self, becomes yet one more area where the false self can hustle around, pretending to run things, pretending to be all there is, pretending to exist.
I am reminded of a friend of mine who was very conversant with the need to give as a spiritual discipline. Rather than give a set amount each week, he would pray before he went to church, or while in church and ask the spirits guidance as to what he was to put in the plate, and usually his giving was well in excess of the Biblically recommended tithe. One week however, after entering the church with a large wad of high denomination banknotes in his pocket, and after his usual pre almsgiving prayer he heard the Spirit telling him this week's amount: 50 cents. He remonstrated and argued but the Spirit was very definite about this, so when the collection plate came around he put 50 cents into it. The plate was large, and brass, and his was the first offering for the day. His single coin made a very loud clang as it landed, and sat there, obvious for all those around, as a reminder that we walk by grace, not law. The aim isn't to buy God's favour or work our way to enlightenment by the gift of large sums of money or large blocks of time. The aim is surrender, and working that pattern of surrender into the warp and weft of our daily lives.
So to help me do just that, for the immediate forseeable future, I am contentedly, and in gratitude imbibing the minimum recommended daily dose of centering prayer
I am reminded of a friend of mine who was very conversant with the need to give as a spiritual discipline. Rather than give a set amount each week, he would pray before he went to church, or while in church and ask the spirits guidance as to what he was to put in the plate, and usually his giving was well in excess of the Biblically recommended tithe. One week however, after entering the church with a large wad of high denomination banknotes in his pocket, and after his usual pre almsgiving prayer he heard the Spirit telling him this week's amount: 50 cents. He remonstrated and argued but the Spirit was very definite about this, so when the collection plate came around he put 50 cents into it. The plate was large, and brass, and his was the first offering for the day. His single coin made a very loud clang as it landed, and sat there, obvious for all those around, as a reminder that we walk by grace, not law. The aim isn't to buy God's favour or work our way to enlightenment by the gift of large sums of money or large blocks of time. The aim is surrender, and working that pattern of surrender into the warp and weft of our daily lives.
So to help me do just that, for the immediate forseeable future, I am contentedly, and in gratitude imbibing the minimum recommended daily dose of centering prayer
Stefania Caterina was born in Genoa Italy 19 January 1959 by a Catholic family practitioner.
ReplyDeleteIn 1994 he decided to leave everything to dedicate himself totally to God and His work, by providing the gifts received from Him
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A dutiful introduction
Dearest Readers,
The messages Jesus is dictating to me these days and that will be published in the next months, definitely trace the path towards the events awaiting us. Therefore, I felt I had the duty to write this introduction, to help you enter more deeply in the subject you will be reading.
Up to today I shared with you the revelations I received from God. In my first book, Beyond the Great Barrier that ends with the 15th chapter entitled “The new Creation”, I amply presented to you the central message of the revelations received, that is: recapitulate in Christ all things in heaven and on earth. I tried to lead you to the events that have to do with the Earth and the universe. These days, Jesus told me that in the next months He wants to prepare us to face those events awaiting us in the immediate future.
How to face such events? I believe that in these years, through the many explanations I received and I communicated to you, we obtained the grace of understanding the interior walk which prepares us to enter the mind of Christ and to understand the mystery of God and of life, to elevate and transform us to the point of becoming new creatures. I spoke to you about this spiritual walk in particular in the book Writing History Anew – Vol. 1 In the mind of God. Furthermore, you have been accompanied by the messages published every month on this site; these messages continue and they introduce us, more and more, to a serious phase of preparation and decision making.
I cannot comment on these messages. Jesus Himself and His Holy Spirit will explain them to you in your heart. An answer is expected from you to understand the words that you will read. Finally, it is up to each one of us to commit ourselves, for the Earth and for the whole universe, so that the promises of God may be realized.
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“My Father is at work until now, so I am at work”
(John 5:17)
“I bless you my children! Today I wish to speak to you about God’s work in these times and about the general picture in which your life and your mission is inserted.
“Try to understand, above all, that you did not happen to be in the reality in which you are by accident, but you are here because of a precise divine project. Whatever you might think about yourselves or others might think about you, know that your life is precious and irreplaceable in the time and place in which you find yourselves to be, according to God’s projects. You have been preordained for this reality, and for this reason God gave you irreplaceable and original potentialities. No one in the universe is equal to you, because God’s creativity is unlimited and inexhaustable, and because each one of you is absolutely unique in his being and in his way of acting.
“Unfortunatly, many on Earth live below their potentiality, because they do not make of themselves a gift to Me. I am the only One to know pefectly the Father’s project for each one of you, because from Him I received the order to bring to completion His work in every person. I am acting in you by the power of the Holy Spirit, who enlightens you, cloaks you, constantly inspires you pointing out the avenue towards Me, so that I might reveal to you the Will of the Father for each one of you.
Without me you shall never truly be able to know yourselves, nor to be able to understand what is asked of you to do in this life.
“The Holy Spirit and I are constantely at work in order to realize the Father’s project in each one of you, but we can do this only with the help of your freedom, that is, only when you willingly and freely choose to love and serve God and you offer to Him your life. This is the indispensable condition so that your potentialities activate and are at work. In fact, by the moment you decide to live for God and to be totally abandoned to His will, within you the action of the Holy Trinity starts working, and little by little, transforms your life and your thoughts. Thus, you are beginning to become conscious of who you are in God and to make a mark on reality, a creative mark, because it is divine creativity working in you. I wish you to be conscious about what I am saying to you, because the knowledge that God is active in you, independently from your human limitations and frailties, is determinant for your mission in the time in which you live.
“Yours is a grand time and a difficult time for the entire universe. Grandiose for the power of the events that the hand of God is preparing, and difficult because it is a time of battle with the powers of evil, an always more open battle.
All this does not refer to the planet earth alone, but to the entire creation and all the people who inhabit many other planets. I have already told you that they are children of God as you are, and that I gave My life for them as well. They are your brothers in whom the project of My Father has to be perfectly accomplished, just as it is in yours.
“What is the project of the Father? To bring back the entire creation to the state of integrity and perfection it had before original sin; to bring back every person to the dignity and glory of a child of God. All men and every creature that exists in the universe must be made free from corruption and death which infiltrated themselves in the work of God because of the sin of your forefathers. Humanity must return to a correct relationship with God, by recognizing His authority and by submitting to His guide. How is the Father going to realize this project? By recapitulating all creation in Me, since He gave Me all power in the whole universe. /www.versolanuovacreazione.it /
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“This is why I am at