Give me back the joy of your salvation, 
sustain in me a generous spirit. 
I shall teach the wicked your paths, 
and sinners will return to you. 

Deliver me from bloodshed, God, God of my salvation, 
and my tongue will acclaim your saving justice. 
Lord, open my lips, 
and my mouth will speak out your praise. 

Sacrifice gives you no pleasure, 
burnt offering you do not desire. 
Sacrifice to God is a broken spirit, 
a broken, contrite heart you never scorn.

                R. Joy is not in hell. The devil roams the world
                trying to tempt a man to sin by the deadly
                sins of pride, anger, jealousy, envy,
                slothfulness, greed and lust.

                    Just as we may not understand how the
                angels can help guide us to God, we do not
                understand how the devils want to tempt
                men to live in hate and they know themselves
                they have sinned and cannot repent or
                change their fate – It is punishment in
                hell – forever punishment – So the devil
                tempts men and the men go from living virtuously
                when they give into living in the deadly sins
                without repentance.

                    There is no joy in hell! The soul who is living
                in darkness, rejecting God's call to joy and love
                and justice is a soul of remorse and despair.
                The souls of hell chose by their actions to go
                there. The devils cannot repent, they are doomed
                forever, but God gives the man who repents of
                his sin – mercy and forgiveness and the man
                then is to live according to God's plan – turning
                away from sin and darkness and making
                a firm purpose of amendment not to sin and
                to ask for grace to live in obedience to God's
                law of love, putting God first and loving
                his neighbor as himself. We are to be sorry
                for sin, we are to have a contrite heart for
                offending God – for we have been called to
                know, love and serve God. Heaven is a
                reward for those who gave their life in
                love, under God, serving and loving God
                as He commanded us to do and loving
                our neighbor as ourselves.

                    We can only rest in God! The devils
                do not find happiness – nor are they nice
                about how they seek to draw a man into evil.
                They seek to know the man to draw him into
                dark habits – only to know him for evil designs.
                The devil is the enemy. The devil hates, the devil
                seeks to destroy us, the devils are smart and
                they work to tempt man to sin, to hate, to
                live in darkness, to offend God, to offend
                their neighbor, to want to bring punishment
                and tricks down on the righteous man serving
                God and doing God's will – the devil wants
                men to do his work of offending and hating
                God and his fellow men, of hating himself.
                The devil is the enemy. The devil does not
                have peace or joy.

                    We are so blessed with the gifts God has given
                us to know Him and love Him more and more.
                God has imprinted on our soul the virtues of
                faith, hope and love in baptism and He wants
                to increase in us these virtues to see through
                the eyes of God, His goal for us of eternal
                happiness in heaven for those who love and
                serve Him as He desires.

                    God wants us to live the virtuous life
                to be temperant and courageous in our
                life in Him, to be just and prudent.
                God is love and to dwell in God is to be loving.
                God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
                God wants us to know His mercy and forgiveness
                    for the repentant sinner.

                God is all good.

                To see reality as it is – is to see the vision
                    of God, to live in the light, to love
                    God first and love our neighbor as
                    ourselves: to be possessed by God is
                    to live the Christ-life – to be more and
                    more as God intended in the image
                    and likeness of God –

                Satan is hate – Satan is the great deceiver –
                    Satan wants men to sin, to give into
                    vices of the deadly sins, to walk in
                    darkness and to distance themselves
                    from God by hating himself, hating his
                    fellow men.

                    We see we have a free will.
                    Judas despaired.
                    Peter became the pope.

                    Lucifer was a high angel and Lucifer
                because of pride turned toward eternal
                misery. Lucifer wanted to take others with
                him. Lucifer had such intelligence
                and he turned away from God and led
                others with him.

                    The devil wants man to give into vices
                and to be enslaved to him. The devil is
                hatred and he is not nice. The more we
                give into his temptation, the harder it
                is to resist temptation.

                    The devil is envious of man that man could
                go to the courts of heaven forever. The devil
                hates man – the devil wants to deceive man, the
                devil wants ultimately to have the soul be so
                enslaved to him – he wants to take him to
                hell eternally. The devil wants man
                enslaved to him. The devil wants man to
                use violence against other men and
                he tries to lure man to bring punishment and
                anger, envy and jealousy to
                other men. God commands us to love – to
                love our brothers, to love ourselves and
                seek eternal life with God in heaven.
                The devil wants to bring man down.
                The devil is envious that man can seek
                forgiveness, repent and have God's
                mercy and have eternal life, hopefully, someday.

                The devils fell in rebellion to God in
                    pride and envy.

                God wants to give us gifts forever we
                    cannot even imagine and the
                    devil is envious of
                    these gifts given to man.

                Sin is disorder –

                God is perfect order –

                Opposing God's will is disorder.

                God calls man to be more and more in
                    His image and likeness –
                    God is all good –
                    God gives to man so he can pursue
                        eternal happiness forever
                        in heaven.

                The devils are darkness, lies, chaos, disorder,
                    hatred, envy, prideful, wanting man to
                    bring violence and punishment to his fellow
                    men and not love and goodness, order
                    and obedience to God's law of love.

                The evil angels rejected God – they put
                    themselves above God – they rejected
                    the beauty that God gave to them and
                    tried to raise themselves above God.
                    It is punishment they brought on
                    themselves in rejecting God.

                The good angels loved God as they
                    should.

                The more a man gives into satan, the more
                    he becomes enslaved to satan and
                    his tricks. He can tell himself he
                    wants to be independent and he
                    seeks this independence in
                    pride seeing himself above,
                    even God. Satan is the father
                    of Lies – his intent to bring
                    man down, down, down.

                The more a man lives in darkness he can
                    live in self-enclosure, blaming
                    others for his self made misery
                    and sins and wanting to punish
                    others for offenses against him –
                    he believes they deserve because of
                    his own distorted, tainted thinking.

                The more a man lives in darkness, the
                    more he does not want to give
                    at all – his life becomes punishment
                    for those he thinks deserves his
                    anger and wrath –

                    Where a man is given a lifetime here below,
                given baptism, a sharing in God's Divine life
                he can choose to reject God's gifts with
                his free will, reject the law of love God
                gives us and keep giving into this darkness
                he can self impose on himself by
                rejecting God and serving satan.

                    Eve disobeyed God and she wanted to
                be equal to God – her sin was pride.

                    The bad angels rebelled against God
                because of pride and envy.

                    God gives us the gift of going to Him and
                repenting for our sins, of being reconciled
                in our relationship with God, of loving
                God and others, of saying we are sorry
                and trying to be good as God created us
                to be.

                    The biggest sadness is that a man
                sin and in the stubbornness in his heart,
                the hardness of his heart – he refuses
                to repent and make amends for his
                sin – that he refuses to repent –
                when God forgives our sins and gives us
                    mercy –

                Satan tricks a man into being so hard
                    in heart – he wants people to come
                    to him and he quits going out,
                    but wants to bring deception, violence
                    and punishment to his brother –
                    It is hatred and not love –

                The devil can be seen as one pulling the
                    wool over a man's eyes, while
                    he keeps giving in to him and
                    calling himself independent.

                What we are is dependent on God.
                What we are is under God.

                I remember a problem I was having with
                    someone I was over and I kept
                    seeing them through my reality –
                    my focus on being in God's reality
                    of truth.

                But one of my music teachers seeing
                    my sadness said –
                    Rita, he won't change –
                    Tomorrow he will do the same thing –
                        until he decides to change –

                It has been like this – almost an act on
                    a stage –
                    the same merry-go-round called
                        denial –
                    the sadness is – is the play begins
                        and it keeps being the same
                        dark play people do when
                        they see darkness inside,
                        when they do not know
                        truly the presence of God that
                        God wants to give from His
                        23 years of messages.

Prayer for Union with Jesus

Come to me, Lord, and possess my soul. Come into my heart and permeate my soul. Help me to sit in silence with You and let You work in my heart.

    I am Yours to possess. I am Yours to use. I want to be selfless and only exist in You. Help me to spoon out all that is me and be an empty vessel ready to be filled by You. Help me to die to myself and live only for You. Use me as You will. Let me never draw my attention back to myself. I only want to operate as You do, dwelling within me.

    I am Yours, Lord. I want to have my life in You. I want to do the will of the Father. Give me the strength to put aside the world and let You operate my very being. Help me to act as You desire. Strengthen me against the distractions of the devil to take me from Your work.

    When I worry, I have taken my focus off of You and placed it on myself. Help me not to give in to the promptings of others to change what in my heart You are making very clear to me. I worship You, I adore You and I love You. Come and dwell in me now.

-God's Blue Book, January 17, 1994

                R. When God gives a grace to us to love
                    we must want to live by His
                    law of love and pray for the
                    grace to love –
                    If we are loving it is because
                        of God's grace and we cooperate
                        with this grace –
                        We must pray for the grace to
                            see to live virtuously –

                The devil tempts the man to give into
                    the deadly sins. The man becomes
                    stuck in his darkness through pride –
                    with this he distances himself further
                    and further from God as he refuses
                    to admit the truth about his offenses
                    against God and others and he
                    therefore is not even admitting he
                    sinned in the darkness – He refuses
                    to repent. Year after year of pride rejecting
                    the law of love God commands of us.

                God the Holy Spirit gives us the gift of knowledge
                    to help us see ourselves so we
                    can change.

                    We pray for faith to see the vision
                        of God - to prepare us
                        for the beatific vision in heaven.

e) Relationship with Members of the Church

There is but one true Church of Christ. Yet this one Church has three different states of existence. There is the pilgrim Church, the Church of this world, composed of members who have received the grace of Christ and strive for its development. They have not yet obtained the goal of their efforts, as have the members of the heavenly Church, who enjoy God in eternal happiness. The Church suffering is an intermediate state of existence necessary for those who had not achieved the required purification as members of the pilgrim Church. Although there are these three phases of the Church’s existence, there is a profound union existing between all the members. All these members possess the same basic life of grace in Christ, and this common life establishes the most intimate bonds of love. In our preceding chapter, we discussed the pilgrim Church. Let us now consider the Church suffering and the heavenly Church.

The members of the Church suffering are those who have departed from this life in an incomplete state of Christian development. Their development is incomplete in the sense that grace has not fully taken possession of them, and, as a result, they are yet closed in upon themselves to a greater or lesser degree. They as yet cannot open themselves out in complete love to the Triune God in the beatific vision. They must undergo a further purification, a purification which could have been achieved upon earth with merit. Now the purification must be achieved with no merit attached. The pain of this purification is mixed with the certain expectation of achieving the vision of God. We can hasten the advent of this vision for this people by the offering of prayers and other good works. Scripture itself refers to our action on behalf of those in purgatory in Chapter 12 of the Second Book of Maccabees beginning with verse 38.

The members of the heavenly Church are those in whom the life of grace has taken full possession and has reached its completion in the life of glory. Faith now is unnecessary, as the light of glory gives the human intellect a new strength and capacity for seeing God face-to-face. While the Christian was a wayfarer, he received the imprint of the indwelling Trinity as he shared in God’s own life. Now in heaven that grace-life and possession of God reaches its completion—the absolute completion is not achieved, however, until the resurrection of the body. The divine persons give Themselves to the beatified in a profound union far surpassing that of the indwelling of the Trinity experienced here below.

This life of heaven is still the Christ-life, for just as we possess a share in Trinitarian life here below as mediated by Christ, and exercise this grace-life as structured by Him, so also in heaven is the mediation of Christ present. In the words of Rahner, "One always sees the Father through Jesus. Just as immediately as this, for the directness of the vision of God is not a denial of the mediatorship of Christ as man."¹⁴ And not only does the humanity of Christ unite the blessed to God, but also, in some way, to the whole of creation. This is merely a completion of what is begun here below, namely, the union with Christ in His humanity establishing the Christian in a special relationship with God, with other men, and with the whole of creation. We have a glimpse, therefore, of the fullness of life which members of the heavenly Church possess.

The heavenly Church, as St. Thomas says, is the true Church.¹⁵ The Church of this earth and the Church of purgatory are, each in its own way, reaching out in loving hope for the heavenly Jerusalem. Vatican II puts it very simply: "The Church, to which we are called in Christ Jesus, and in which we acquire sanctity through the grace of God, will attain her full perfection only in the glory of heaven."¹⁶

The members of the heavenly Church can help us in living our life of grace until we too share its fullness with them. Their power of intercession on our behalf is but another ramification of the communal aspect of Christianity. We are meant to help others grow in Christ. We, in turn, are intended by God to receive aid from others—yes, from members of the heavenly Church, as well as from those with whom we dwell here below.

Not only can we be aided by the saints’ intercession, but the example of the canonized saints can also be of great value to us. They have concretely proved that full holiness is possible. Such an inspiration is of real worth when we are tempted to think that Christian sanctity in its higher degrees is impossible of attainment. Moreover, the canonized saints, in their diversity, teach us that there are many authentic versions of Christian holiness. They can be innovators in showing us that there are numerous possibilities in assimilating the mystery of Christ, although the basic assimilation remains the same for all Christians of all times. In the opinion of Rahner this is one of the chief roles the canonized saints exert in the life of the Church.¹⁷

 

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NOTES:

 ¹⁴Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. III (Baltimore: Helicon, 1967), p. 44.
 ¹⁵ Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In Ad Ephes., c. 3, Lect. 3.
 ¹⁶Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Church, No. 48.
 ¹⁷Cf. Karl Rahner, Op. cit., pp. 100-101.

                R. The more we give into sin where they become
                vices and bad habits, it distorts our vision,
                it darkens the light of reason – it
                distances us from God. Even mortal sin
                can be forgiven if we go to God and
                ask for forgiveness and repent –
                God gives us the Sacrament of Penance.