Be the Light to the World

At Sunday's mass, 2/5/17, the priest gave an amazing insight into the first reading which got me to thinking.  He told us about how there were three switches to turn the light of God on in us and three switches to turn off the darkness.  He also mentioned that there are some parts to this reading that were poorly translated from the original Hebrew. 

 

Reading 1 Is 58:7-10

Thus says the LORD:
Share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
clothe the naked when you see them,
and do not turn your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed;
your vindication shall go before you,
and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!
If you remove from your midst
oppression, false accusation and malicious speech;
if you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday.

 

The three switches to turn on the light are:  1- Share your bread with the hungry, 2 - shelter the oppressed and the homeless, 3- clothe the naked, not turning your back on your own.

 

The three switches to turn off the darkness are to remove from your midst: 1- oppression, 2- false accusation,  3- malicious speech.

 

The pieces of this reading which are subject to a relook at the original Hebrew are: 

 

"Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh."

 

"If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking wickedness;"

 

"And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in darkness, and thy gloom be as the noon-day"

Hebrew - English Translation

 

The points that he emphasized were the fact that the actual passage calls us to not just to shelter the homeless but to bring them into our own homes, that in clothing the naked, they are not just our own but our own flesh, our own family.  That in removing from our midst "oppression" the actual word is "the yoke" which has a much deeper association with slavery and overburdening as overburdening a beast.  A sense that people can be dehumanized and isolated.  Instead of false accusation the real phrase used is "putting forth of the finger" which is more of blaming others, and for that matter judging others.  And not just removing "malicious speech" but removing "speaking wickedness."  This is more to the idea of any focus on anything wicked.  In other words the focus should be God.  And the one that really caught my attention was:  "draw out thy soul to the hungry", not "bestow your bread on the hungry."  Now I can sympathize with the translators, in our own base frame of reference that doesn't make any sense but in the light of the Divine Will it makes a world of sense.

So in looking at these topics in the Volumes of feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless and feeding the hungry he calls us to do these things in imitation of how he deals with us but more so he even wants us to do these things in turn for him.

Now nakedness has such a deeper meaning in the light of God.  He speaks of how he was stripped in his passion and how this was necessary to repair for how Man stripped himself of his royal garment given to him by God.  We lost the light of the Divine Will which clothed us and we were left naked in our own base nothingness.

 

“My daughter, in my Passion there is a lament of mine which came out with immense sorrow from the depth of my tormented Heart:  ‘They divided my garments and drew lots for my tunic.’  How painful it was for Me to see my garments being divided among my very executioners, and my tunic being gambled away.  It was the only object I possessed, given to Me, with so much love, by my sorrowful Mama; and now, they not only stripped Me of it, but they made of it a game.  But do you know who pierced Me the most?  In those garments, Adam became present to Me, clothed with the garment of innocence and covered with the indivisible tunic of my Supreme Will.  In creating him, the uncreated Wisdom acted as more than a most loving mother; more than with a tunic, It clothed him with the unending light of my Will – a garment which is not subject to being either disarranged, or divided, or consumed; a garment which was to serve man in order to preserve the image of his Creator and the gifts received from Him, and which was to render him admirable and holy in all his things.  Not only this, but It covered him with the overgarment of innocence.  And Adam, in Eden, with his passions divided the garments of innocence, and he gambled away the tunic of my Will – a garment which is incomparable and of radiant light. 

Vol. 20, Dec 12, 1926

In My Passion I wanted to suffer being stripped in the flagellation and placed nude on the cross, being torn apart in such a horrible way that My bones could even be counted -[I wanted to suffer] all amid the confusion, abandonment, and unspeakable bitternesses.  All of that was nothing other than the fruit of the human volition which had stripped (the creature) of all goods, and with its poisonous breath had covered him with confusion and humiliations to the point of transforming him in a horrible way and making him the object of scorn for all his enemies. 

Vol. 21, April 14, 1927


But Jesus wants to cloth us again.  As God calls us to cloth the naked because they are our own flesh so he wants to cloth us.  We are his own flesh.  And he can only do this with the soul who wants to live in his Divine Will being willing to let go of the rags of her human will.

By entering into It[the Divine Will], the soul forms one single act with the Divine Will, and as though naturally she takes part in what It does and contains.  More so, since in order to live in my Will, the soul is first stripped of the garments of the old guilty Adam, and is clothed anew with the garments of the new and holy Adam.  Her garment is the light of the Supreme Will Itself, through which all Its divine manners are communicated to her, which are noble and communicative to all.  This light makes her lose the human features and restores in her the physiognomy of her Creator.

Vol. 19, February 28, 1926


But when Jesus asks us to cloth others he is also asking us to cloth him and as he does for us so are we to do for him.

“My Person is surrounded by all the works that souls do, as by a garment; and the more purity of intention and intensity of love they have, the more splendor they give Me, and I will give them more glory; so much so, that on the Day of Judgment I will show them to the whole world, to let the whole world know how my children have honored Me, and how I honor them.”

Vol. 2, May 7, 1899



But this is not all.  In the Divine Will all the creatures acts become veils, accidents, like in the Eucharist, to cloth, enclose our God so that he might have true life in us.  But life needs to be nourished.  So we ourselves feed him with our loving acts, which are all his acts which we take on as our own and return to him.  These nourish his Divine life in us.  So as he feeds us so we feed him, as he clothes us so we clothe him and as he shelters us in his own home so do we do so for him.  And so we "draw our soul" out to him to feed him.

The Divine Will forms the true and perfect consecration of the Divine Life in the soul.

 

Continuing in my usual state and being very afflicted because of the privations of Jesus, after many hardships He came, making Himself seen in all of my poor being.  It seemed to me as if I were the garment of Jesus.  Then, breaking the silence, He told me:

 

“My daughter, you too can form hosts and consecrate them.  Do you see the garment that covers Me in the Sacrament?  These are the accidents of the bread with which the host is formed.  The life which exists in this host is my Body, my Blood and my Divinity.  The attitude which contains this life is my Supreme Will, and this Will carries out the love, the reparation, the immolation, and all the rest that I do in the Sacrament, which never moves one point from my Volition.  There is nothing that comes from Me which is not led by my Volition.

“Here is how you too can form the host.  The host is material and totally human; you too have a material body and a human will.  This body and this will of yours - if you keep them pure, upright and far away from any shadow of sin - are the accidents, the veils, so that I may be able to consecrate Myself and live hidden within you.  But this is not enough; it would be like the host without consecration - my life is needed.  My life is composed of sanctity, of love, of wisdom, of power, etc., but the engine of all is my Will.  Therefore, after you have prepared the host, you must make your will die in this host; you must cook it well, so that it may not be born again.  Then you must let my Will permeate all your being; and my Will, which contains the whole of my life, will form the true and perfect consecration.  So, the human thought will have life no more, but only the thought of my Volition, and this consecration will create my wisdom in your mind; no more life for what is human, for weakness, for inconstancy, because my Will will form the consecration of the Divine Life, of fortitude, of firmness, and of all that I am.  So, each time you make your will, your desires, and all that you are and that you may do, flow into my Will, I will renew the consecration, and I will continue my life within you as in a living host - not a dead one, like the hosts without Me. 

“But this is not all.  In the consecrated hosts, in the pyxes, in the Tabernacles, everything is dead - mute; not a heartbeat sensibly, not a surge of love which may correspond to so much love of mine.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I wait for hearts in order to give Myself to them, I would be quite unhappy, I would remain defrauded in my love, and my sacramental life would remain without purpose.  And if I tolerate this in the Tabernacles, I would not tolerate it in living hosts.  So, life needs nourishment, and in the Sacrament I want to be nourished, and I want to be nourished with my own food – that is, the soul will make my Will, my love, my prayers, reparations and sacrifices her own; she will give them to Me as if they were her own things, and I will nourish Myself.  The soul will unite with Me, she will prick up her ears to hear what I am doing so as to do it together with Me; and as she keeps repeating my own acts, she will give Me her food, and I will be happy.  Only in these living hosts will I find the compensation for the loneliness, the starvation, and all that I suffer in the Tabernacles.”

Vol. 11, December 17, 1914   


We are not only called to help our neighbor in these acts of feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked.  These are only the beginning lessons that God is leading us in.  As in all things everything returns to God and so must our acts.  He calls us to imitate him as he feeds us, clothes us, and brings us into his home.  So that we might in turn, feed him, clothe him and make a life together with him.

“My daughter, the Creation of man was the center where our Divinity centralized all the goods that should rise in the creature, we put in her Divine Life and Divine Will, human life and human will; human life should serve us as residence, and the two Wills fused together should make life in common with highest accord, indeed the human will should take from ours in order to form her acts, and ours should remain in the continuous act to give of his, in order to make that the human will might remain modeled and all informed in the Divine Will.  Now, there is no life, as much human, spiritual and divine, that doesn’t have need of food in order to grow, in order to become stronger, to embellish and to felicitate himself.  More so that we put our Divine life in man, [and] because he was incapable of receiving the whole fullness of our Divine Being, we put in him how much he could contain of our life, giving him the liberty to let him grow how much more he could and wanted.  Hence our life in man for growth had need of food, behold the necessity to put in him a Divine Will; our Divine life would not have adapted himself to foods of the human will.  Behold therefore all the acts of the creature done in virtue of and in our Divine Will, would serve to feed and to make our Divine Life grow in her, in a way that as soon as she went doing her acts in our Fiat, now she took our love and fed us, now she took our fortitude, now our infinite sweetness, now our Divine joys in order to feed us.  What order, what harmony put between him and us in creating man between him and us, even to ask of him our own foods through his means, not because we had need, no, but in order to maintain the enthusiasm of love, the correspondence, the inseparable union between him and us.  And while he occupied himself with us, we occupied ourselves with feeding him and with conserving our dear residence, not only, but making him other more beautiful gifts in order to render him more happy, to love him more and make ourselves more loved.  But do you want to know what are our most beautiful gifts that we make the creature?  To manifest to her a knowledge of our Supreme Being, a truth that pertains to us, one secret of ours is the most beautiful gift that we make her; each of these gifts is one more bond that we put between Her and us, our every truth is a property that we put in her soul.  Behold therefore that in the soul where our Will reigns we find our Divine foods, our property for how much it is possible for a creature, our residence, hence we find ourselves in our house, in our center, in the midst of our properties.  Do you see therefore what it means to make our Will reign and the great good to make you know our truths?  Our every knowledge carries, each one, its distinct gift, some carry his light, some fortitude, some goodness, some wisdom, some love and so on, each one of them binds the creature in a special way to God and God to her.  Therefore know how to correspond to the so many gifts that your Jesus has made you, and you live always in our Volition.”

Vol. 29, Aug 3, 1931


 All of this can only happen when one makes a firm decision to turn from one's own human will and asks to live only of His Divine Will.  This is the starting point to switching off the darkness in ourselves and switching on the light of God.

"The suit makes the man"

OK, "The suit makes the man" is a bit tongue in cheek but at the same time the gifts that come with living in the Divine Will are beyond comprehension.  Here I want to finish up on the idea of royal garments with the several other places in the Volumes where Jesus speaks about this.

The Fiat Voluntas Tua on earth as It is in Heaven is precisely this: that man return into my Divine Will; and only when It sees again Its child happy, living in Its house, with the opulence of Its goods - then will It calm Itself. And so It will be able to say: ‘My child has come back, he is clothed with his royal garments, he wears the crown of king, he lives together with Me, and I have given back to him the rights which I gave him in creating him. So, the disorder in Creation is ended, because man has come back into my Divine Will’.”
Vol. 25, March 22, 1929

Living in the Divine Will is the fulfillment of the Our Father and returns us to our place and position in the family of God bringing with it all the inherent rights as well as the royal garments.  And here Jesus goes on to speak in more detail about these clothes.

“My daughter, my Will is wheel, and one who enters into It remains encircled inside, to the point of not being able to find an opening to go out; and everything she does remains fixed on the eternal point, and pours into the wheel of eternity. But do you know what the garments are of the soul who lives in my Will? They are not of gold, but of most pure light; and this garment of light will serve her as mirror to make all of Heaven see how many acts she has done in my Will. In fact, in each act she has done in my Will, she enclosed the whole of Me, and this garment will be adorned with many mirrors, and in each mirror the whole of Me will appear. So, from whatever side she will be looked at - from behind, from the front, to the right, to the left- they will see Me, and multiplied for as many acts as she has done in my Volition. A more beautiful garment I could not give her; it will be the distinction of only the souls who live in my Will.”
Vol. 12, Jan. 1, 1920

So depending on the acts done in the Divine Will each garment will be unique.  But first the creature must be stripped of the human rags in order to take on the Divine.

“My daughter, it is just for one who is born in my Will to know the secrets It contains; and besides, the thing in itself is very easy and as though natural. Suppose that you went to live in a house, either for a short time or forever, in which there is beautiful music and a fragrant air, through which one feels infused with new life. Indeed you had not put that music or that balsamic air in it, but since you find yourself in that house, which is not yours, you come to enjoy both the music and the fragrant air, which regenerates your strengths to new life. Add that this house contains enchanting paintings, beautiful things that enrapture, gardens which you had never seen before, with so many different plants and flowers that it is impossible to count them all; delicious lunches which you had never enjoyed before.… Oh! how you amuse yourself; how you delight and enjoy yourself in admiring so many beauties, in savoring foods so tasty. However, of all this, nothing was made or placed by you; yet, you take part in everything just because you are in that house.

“Now, if this happens in the natural order, much more easily can it happen in the supernatural order of my Will. By entering into It, the soul forms one single act with the Divine Will, and as though naturally she takes part in what It does and contains. More so, since in order to live in my Will, the soul is first stripped of the garments of the old guilty Adam, and is clothed anew with the garments of the new and holy Adam. Her garment is the light of the Supreme Will Itself, through which all Its divine manners are communicated to her, which are noble and communicative to all. This light makes her lose the human features and restores in her the physiognomy of her Creator. What is the wonder, then, if you take part in all that the Divine Will possesses, since one is the life and one the Will? Therefore, be attentive. I recommend to you - be always faithful to Me, and your Jesus will keep the pace of making you live always in my Will. I will be on guard, that you may never go out of It.”

Vol. 19, Feb. 28, 1926

“My daughter, as soon as the soul enters into my Volition and decides to live in It, all doubts and all fears depart from her. It happens as to a daughter of a king, who, no matter how much people might say that she is not the daughter of her father, pays no heed. On the contrary, she goes on, proud, and says to everyone: ‘It is useless for you to tell me the contrary, to put doubts and fears in me; I am the true daughter of the king -he is my father. I live with him; even more, his very kingdom is mine.’

“So, among the many goods which the living in my Will brings, it also brings the state of security. And since she makes what is mine her own, how can she fear what she possesses? Therefore, fear, doubt, hell, get lost and cannot find the door, the way, the key to enter into the soul. Even more, as the soul enters into the Divine Volition, she strips herself of herself, and I clothe her of Me, with royal garments; and these garments place on her the seal that she is my daughter.

Vol. 12, Oct. 15, 1919

When I want to call a soul into my Will, that she may establish her dwelling in It, I act like a great lord who would want to take one of the poorest women into his palace, so that, laying down her clothes as a poor one, she may be clothed according to his condition, living together with him, and sharing in all of his goods. Now, this lord goes around all the streets of the city, and as he finds one of the poorest women, homeless, without a bed, covered only with filthy rags, he takes her and brings her to his palace as triumph of his charity. However, he orders her to lay down her rags, to clean herself and to clothe herself with the most beautiful garments; and in order to keep no memory of her poverty, to burn her rags. In fact, since he is extremely rich, he does not admit anything into his house which gives of poverty. Now, if the poor one sadly misses her rags, and afflicts herself because she has brought nothing of her own, would she not offend the goodness, the magnanimity of that lord?Vol. 13, Jan. 20, 1922



 
The benefits are great as with the following promise by Jesus but again firstly the creature must undergo the death of human will and taken as life that of the Divine.  Fortunately Jesus has said that although for the creature this may be hard for God it is easy and all he needs is the firm commitment from the creature.

 

For the soul who does the Divine Will and live in It there is no death and no judgement.

As I was feeling a little in suffering, I was saying to my always lovable Jesus: ‘When will You take me with You? O please! hurry, O Jesus; let death cut this life of mine and unite me with You in Heaven.’

And Jesus: “My daughter, for the soul who does my Will and lives of my Volition there is no death. Death is for one who does not do my Will, because she has to die to many things: to herself, to passions, to the earth. But one who does my Will has nothing to die to; she is already used to living in Heaven. For her, it is nothing other than laying down her remains, like one who would lay down the clothes of a poor one to wear the garments of a queen, in order to leave exile and take possession of the Fatherland. The soul who does my Will is not subject to death, she receives no judgment; her living is eternal. That which death was supposed to do, love has done in advance, and my Will has reordered her completely in Me, in such a way that I have nothing for which to judge her. Therefore, remain in my Will and, when you least expect it, you will find yourself in my Will in Heaven.”
Vol. 11, June 9, 19

“Hence the kingdom exists.  And if I have spoken so much to you about my Divine Will, they have been none other than the preparations of so many centuries of my Church, the prayers, the sacrifices and the continuous recitations of the Pater Noster, that has inclined our goodness to select a creature in order to manifest to her the so many knowledges of our Will, his great prodigies, thus I bound my Will to creatures, giving them new pledges of his kingdom.  And as you listened and sought to model yourself to my teachings that I gave you, thus you formed new bonds in order to bind creatures in my Will.  You should know that I am the God of everyone and when I do a good I don’t ever do it isolated, I do it for everyone, except those who not wanting to take it don’t take it, and when a creature corresponds to me, I look at her not as alone, but (as) belonging to the whole human family, and hence the good of the one is communicated to the others.  Now if the Kingdom exists, live Humanity has possessed him and made life in Him, my Will wants to reign in the midst of creatures, my knowledges themselves say it in clear notes, how therefore can you think that it is impossible that this kingdom comes?  To me everything is possible, I will make use of the tempests themselves and of new events, in order to prepare for me those people that must occupy themselves with making my Will known.  The tempests will serve to purify the bad air and also to empty the harmful things.  Therefore I will dispose everything, I know how to do everything, I have the times at my disposition.  Hence leave your Jesus to do it, and you will see how my Will will be known and completed.”

Vol. 29, June 30, 1931