Friday, July 19, 2013

The Cross of Wood and The Cross of Light





There is a passage in the Volumes that speaks on the meaning of the sign of the cross which so many of us do automatically and without
further thought.  We use the sign of the cross to bless ourselves and others.  We use it to begin and end our prayers.  Sometimes we use it to ward off evil.  Here Jesus speaks about the meaning of this blessing and it's true depth and breadth.

 


          I sought help from all, so that they would make Jesus come back to me. But He would not come; and I would continue my round in His adorable Will, and following all the acts He did when He was on this earth, I stopped when Jesus was blessing the children, blessing His Celestial Mama, blessing the crowds and other things, and I prayed Jesus to bless this little daughter of His, who so much needed it. And He, moving in my interior and raising His arm in the act of blessing me, told me: “My daughter, I bless you from the Heart in your soul and body - may my blessing be the confirmation of Our likeness in you. My blessing confirms in you what the Divinity did in the creation of man – that is, Our likeness. You must know that during the course of my mortal life, in everything I did, I always blessed. It was the first act of Creation that I called back over the creatures, and in order to confirm it, in blessing I invoked the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. The very Sacraments are animated by these blessings and invocations. So, while calling the likeness to the Creator within souls, my blessing calls also the life of my Divine Will, that It may return as in the beginning of Creation to reign in souls, because my Will alone has the virtue of painting in them, vividly, the likeness of the One who created them, of making it known and of preserving it with its divine live colors.
        See then, what blessing means: confirmation of Our creative work, because the work We do once is so filled with wisdom, with sublimity and with beauty, that We love to repeat it always. And if Our blessing is nothing other than the sigh of Our Heart to see Our image restored in the creatures, as well as the repetition of Our confirmation of what We want to do, the sign of the Cross that the Church teaches to the faithful is nothing other than impetrating Our likeness on the part of creatures; and so, echoing Our blessing, they repeat: ‘In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Therefore, without knowing it, the Church and all the faithful harmonize with the eternal Creator, and all want the same thing: God, by blessing and pronouncing the words, ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’, wants to give His likeness; the creatures impetrate it by making the sign of the Cross, pronouncing the same words.”
Vol. 24, July 29, 1928




So each time we make the sign of the cross we are echoing the same blessing that God gave in the beginning of Creation.  If we do this in the Divine Will we unite ourselves to this very act and each blessing that has occurred subsequently though out the ages.  We unite ourselves with the moment in which God created us in His image and likeness and we unite our will to His in confirming this union.  

The following is a lesson, given by Fr. Gary, on the cross.






The Story of the Cross.

The two crosses.

 

There is the glorious cross of Christ that saves us from our sins and the other is the one of the Risen Jesus.  They are two different crosses.  The first is of wood, it shares in the work of Redemption and is given to all of the redeemed as medicine, as cure, and as a cure for each sin.  It acts in a powerful way upon men, it resurrects the dead, heals the sick, consoles the dying, and it safely accompanies souls all the way to the door of paradise.  It strikes fear on the devils and drives them out.

 

The second, instead is a cross of light that illuminates, it is fire that burns and consumes all human residue, all the way to the redemption of our bodies (Rom 8:23), and immediately makes it rise to the divine.  This is Jesus Risen, that not only resurrects the dead but transforms them and makes them rise, rendering them “blessed and holy, priests of God and of Christ” (Apoc 20:6), in order to introduce them to His eternal and divine reign.  This is the resplendent cross of the Divine Will. 

 

The Chair of Peter.  The Primacy of Peter, the keys, and his Crucifixion

 

            Jesus chose Saint Peter as the visible head and a sign of unity for the whole Church: Ubi Petro ibi Ecclesia (Where Peter is there is the Church).  The Church is the body of Christ (Col 1:18), for now the mystical body, but must become His real body through a particular gift of love from Jesus.  In reference to this difference, that is to a mystical body or the real body of Jesus, Luisa asks Jesus:  "My love, Jesus, what you are telling me is nothing new; that whoever lives in your Will, your real life is lived in him?  Rather, isn't it that mystical life in the hearts that possess your grace?" and Jesus answers:  "No, no; it is not a mystical life, like in those that possess my grace.  They do not live with their acts united in my Will and they do not have sufficient substance to form the accidents to imprison me.  It would be the same as if the priest did not have the host and wants to pronounce the words of consecration.  He could say them but he would say them unto nothing; my sacramental life would certainly not be there.  It is the same in hearts that while they possess my grace, do not live their everything in my Will; I am in them by grace, but not really". (Volume 16, November 5, 1923).

 

            How can this come about for the whole Church?  In a simple way but incisively:  Through the crucifixion of the mystical body so that it rises into the real body of Christ.  Jesus, Lord and only Head of his body, generated the Church upon the bed of pain, upon the cross.  From Peter and the other apostles he asked for their crucifixion similar to his.  On one part this crucifixion was perpetrated and brought about by the heads of the people of God, through the hands of the pagans, but at the same time and first and foremost it was wanted by God, the Father:  “This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.  I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.  This command I have received from my Father.” (John 10:17-18).  This is what Jesus told Peter to indicate the death with which he would glorify God.  And having said this, he added:  “Follow me”. (John 21:19).  Therefore, Peter will follow Jesus on the sorrowful way of the crucifixion, while John will remain until the return of Jesus. (John 21:22).

 

            Now that Jesus wants to render the Church as his beloved spouse, “the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27) and wants to render it as such in a real way, it is necessary for it to follow the sorrowful way all the way to Calvary, because its members have gone away from their only Lord and Head, following every crooked way and with a life of vice.  It has abandoned its first love, going about selling its favors to every passer by.  In a major way, it has lost faith, preferring the idol of human reasoning; its hope is no longer upon its Head but on its merchants; it has become cold in the true charity, loving those from whom they expect a recompense (John 6: 33-34) and not “as I have loved you” (John 13:34).  The heads are often not united, to the Head and neither to the visible representative on earth; and that which is worse is that having gone away from the source of light, these unhappy heads have confined themselves to darkness and they spread nothing other than dense darkness.  They have ousted their Head just like the tenants in the parable (Matt 21:33-45), for which if they don’t mend their way, they will have the same fate:  “Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.  The one who falls on this stone will be dashed to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” (Matt 21:43-44).  They are bound with those that are only intent on undermining the Church and to destroy it from within.  In a word: corruption, interests, power, ambition, aspired dignity, impurity, hypocrisy, masonry, etc.

 

The Regal Priesthood


 

            So, then tell me, is there another remedy for so many evils if not the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is the crucifixion of these heads that are sick?  And isn’t this the taking away of the Kingdom of God from them, to take it from the heads, that is the ministerial priesthood, and give the keys of the Kingdom to the real priesthood?  Isn’t it this John that awaits the return of Jesus, when he will receive the keys from Peter, and Jesus waiting to have his regal priesthood in his loved Johns?  “What if I want him to remain until I come?  What concern is it of yours?  You follow me.” (John 21:22).  If in John, Jesus has recognized and deposited all of the human family in order to give to his Most Holy Mother (John 19: 25-27), why isn’t this apostle that Jesus loves the depository of the Church of the eternal and only regal priesthood of Jesus?  So, the regal priesthood remains, in John, which will remain until the return of Jesus, since this priesthood is the base and the foundation of the ministerial priesthood and as such it is necessary for it.  During the time of the Redemption then, the regal priesthood is not practiced in the church, but it yields its place to the practice of the ministerial priesthood, but is hidden in it in order to nourish it.

 

            Doesn’t it seem right that the ministerial priesthood give its place to the one that has wanted to nourish it, causing it to be resplendent as life in the Church and as life in all creatures?

 

            In the Old Testament, God gave off a semblance of the regal priesthood (Rom 8:5) and therefore through Moses, he said to the people:  “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests” (Ex 19:6); that is a consecrated people from among all people, and from this people he chose one of the twelve tribes of Israel, the Tribe of Levi, to make of it a priesthood that would attend to the rituals of the Temple and to teach the laws and the rules to the people.

 

            Arriving to the New Testament, from a few, God made a new people that with grace and the truth of the Gospel, is not only a semblance of the regal priesthood but also a reflection of it:  “and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5)  Then from the people he chose twelve, as apostles, consecrating them as ministerial priests, so that they would continue, they and their successors, to give the goods of the Redemption to the Church until its end is mandated.

 

            Finally, to the priesthood of the first two, the ritual and the ministerial one, the fulfillment will be given by means of the third, that is the regal priesthood, during the time of the diffusion of the New Testament of Love, that is the “new Gospel of the Kingdom” (Vol. 24, August 23, 1928); this is the time of the “first resurrection” of those that on whom “the second death has no power over these; they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for the thousand years.” (Apoc 20:6).

 

            Of this triple priesthood Jesus speaks of it in the Volumes:  “…and as I had the first priesthood upon my coming in order to prepare the people, then the priesthood of my church in order to confirm my coming and everything that I said and did, likewise, I will have the priesthood of the Kingdom of My Will” (volume 23, January 18, 1928).  The third priesthood has been hidden in the second to nourish it for many centuries; now the second is called to give the first place to the third, the priesthood of the Kingdom of the Divine Will, that is the regal priesthood.  Peter is invited to consign the keys to John that has been waiting for them for 2000 years with the return of our Lord. (John 21:22)..

 

The Keys


 

            What are the keys good for?  To enter.  Without keys, you remain outside.  And see that it isn’t just any key, no; every door has its key.  In the Redemption Jesus opened the doors of heaven and has prepared everything until one day, our human will, crucified with that of Jesus’ can rise in the Will of God, allowing us to pass from the cross of wood to the cross of light, in order to enter into the Kingdom of God upon the Earth.  This, he has done with a key that the Father has placed upon his shoulders, the cross:  “I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder;” (Is 22:22).  Jesus has carried this cross for the duration of his earthly life, by keeping his human will sacrificed in the Will of the Father and from the Will of the Father.

 

            So then, if the door of heaven was opened by Jesus, the New Adam, with the key of his cross, by whom was it closed?  By Adam.  How?  With the key of his human will, by having refused to keep it sacrificed at the time of the test of keeping it sacrificed in love offering as homage to God.  That same key of the human will acting outside the divine, while it closes the key of heaven, it opens the door of the abyss, while enslaving man to sin gives to the tyrant of hell freedom and dominion over man.

 

The Keys of Peter

 

            “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matt 16:19)  The Gospel recounts how sometimes Peter has momentarily lost these keys.  For example, when he counseled Jesus about going to Jerusalem to die:  “God forbid, Lord!  No such thing shall ever happen to you.”  He turned and said to Peter:   “Get behind me, Satan!  You are an obstacle to me.  You are thinking not as God does, but as human being do.”  Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (Matt 16:22-24).

 

            Before the scandal of the cross, Peter is still very weak in faith and allows the keys to fall from his hands, denying Jesus:  “I do not know him” (Luke 22:57).  But Jesus beseeches the Father for all the graces necessary to strengthen and sustain Peter’s faith in view of his election as the head of the Church:  “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed that your own faith many not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-33)  After mending his ways, Peter confirms his brothers in the faith, and with word and example, and above all with his life he will confirm them with his crucifixion and death.  In this way, with the key of the crucifixion, turned with his death on the cross, for his union with Jesus, Peter opens the door of the kingdom of heaven to every member of the Church so that each one will not lose his own key, the meaning of living and dying united to Jesus crucified.  Peter, then with his death on the cross, he obtains the passage of the keys of the kingdom to all his successors, throughout the centuries, until the return of Jesus when the last Peter will consign the keys to John, who will receive them in order for the regal priesthood of Jesus from his hidden life so that it can be manifested as life of the Church and of all souls.

 

            The power of the keys that is the power to govern the Universal Church of Christ is linked directly to the operating faith of Peter crucified.  If his union with Christ was less than what he lived in charity through faith, the power of the keys would be annulled, while it is on the cross where it confirmed.  It is certainly Jesus’ effective prayer that strengthens and sustains the faith of Peter as the indefectable head of the Church, nevertheless it doesn’t exempt him from freely corresponding to the grace of the office entrusted to him.  Then it will be up to Peter to confirm his brothers in the faith of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

 

The Divine Will: Keys and Cross of Light

 

            To conclude, I state two brief extracts of Volume 11, wanting to communicate the way, the truth, and the love that is contained in it.  The first regards Jesus and Luisa:  Jesus gives to Luisa the cross of the light of his Will, in order to suffer together with it for the good of all creatures.  The second is a light of love that invites each creature to call the Divine Will for the total crucifixion with as many nails for as many acts of the Divine Will that God disposes.

 

1.      “You and I in these sad times will pass a time that is painful; things will get worse.  But you must know that if I remove the cross of wood, I give you the cross of My Will that does not have height or width, but it is interminable.  A more noble cross I cannot give to you; it is not one of wood but of light, and in this light, which scorches more than any fire, we will suffer together in each creature and in their agony and torture, and we will try and be the life of everyone.” (Volume 11, June 17, 1915).

 

2.      The cross sanctifies, crucifies part of the person, but my Will does not spare anything.  It sanctifies everything, and it crucifies the thoughts, desires, will, affections, heart, everything.  And, my Will being light, makes the soul see the necessity of this sanctification and complete crucifixion, in such a way that the soul itself incites me to want to accomplish the work of my Will upon it.  Therefore, the cross and the other virtues, because they have something, they content themselves and, if they are able to crucify the creature with three nails, they boast of triumph.  Instead, my Will, not knowing how to do incomplete works, does not content Itself with three nails, but with as many nails as my Will disposes upon creatures." (Volume 11, November 18, 1913).

 

The human will acting outside the Divine Will opens the door to hell; the human will crucified in and by the Will of God closes and seals the door of hell. (Apoc 20:1).  Therefore, nails of light that crucify the human will in every part are as many keys that will seal the doors to hell.  The human will crucified in everything rises in the Glorious Cross, which is the key that opens the door of the Kingdom of the Divine Will on earth.  The Church, when it is crucified in its members will be become one only thing with the cross, and therefore it will itself become the key.

 

            In conclusion, a last observation: the image of the Church, always, but more than ever in this actual moment, a solemn and grave moment is this: the cross suspended between heaven and earth.  It is a difficult passage, a difficult wait, but for the faith of the true faithful, consecrated in the operating faith of Mary, the Sorrowful Mother of the Church, soon will be seen the awaited Resurrection of it: Holy Church, no longer wounded, weak, and thrusted, but as a Spouse of Christ, one, pure, holy, and immaculate!  My Church, My Spouse, come with me upon the Glorious Cross of My Will!

Fr. Gary, SDW


 

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