R. 40 days of Lent.

        Do whatever you do for God.

        It is in loving we are most like Him.
 

        Pray for special intentions please.

         

                R. The joy of the resurrection tells
                us Jesus has risen. They whipped
                Jesus, scourged Jesus, crowned Him
                with thorns and Jesus rose triumphant
                from the dead.

                    Did you ever think of what it
                would be to have every bone, every
                muscle, every inch of your head
                and body hurt – all at the same
                time. Jesus said "They numbered
                all my bones." When we think
                of the Passion and how Jesus
                was beaten, wounded on every inch
                of His body – How He must have
                hurt and he didn't have an
                ibuprofen to take his pain and
                soreness away.

                    Look at the words

                        HEART

                        HURT

                    If we don't have a good
                operating heart in our body –
                we have a lot of hurt –

                    If we don't have a good
                operating love in our heart – we
                have a lot of hurt inside of us.

                    Love comes from the source –
                God is love and we must want
                Him to fill us. We have to surrender
                to Him and let Him operate in
                us – so we love with His Heart
                on fire for love of us. It is
                such a gift we receive in
                baptism.

                    God gives us a sharing
                in His life, God gives us
                His vision – He opens the supernatural
                world to us. We love with His Heart –
                We forgive with His Heart – We
                see truth because He is absolute
                truth.

                    I remember a phase of
                AL-anon – it was called "stinkin thinkin"
                In a message Jesus gave me a few
                days ago Jesus said "sin is
                twisting in on ourselves"
                We can see more and more thru
                God's eyes because the truth
                is in us – or we can keep seeing
                more and more with distorted
                vision as we give into the bad habits
                of the deadly sins – rather than
                asking God to operate in us –
                fill us with good habits or
                supernatural virtues of faith,
                hope and love –

                    Faith demands we let go
                and we see not only that
                before us, but we see beyond –
                we see and know the unknown
                more and more that
                which we don't see –
 

John 20: 29

Jesus said to him:
    You believe because you can see me.
    Blessed are those who have not seen
        and yet believe. 

 

Revelation 5: 9-10

They sang a new hymn:
You are worthy to take the scroll
and to break its seals,
because you were sacrificed,
    and with your blood
you bought people for God
of every race, language, people and nation
and made them a line of kings and priests for God,
to rule the world.

 

                R. I have seen the Lord, I know
                Him in my heart – even though
                a person may not have really seen
                Him, a person knows Him
                in their heart, they know presence
                of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in
                their heart –

                    The Good News – we see God in
                others, we see God in His Church,
                we see and we believe – we know
                His presence in us – We let go to
                God and He operates in us in
                His grace in us. His grace in
                us is His life in us.

                    We believe with all our hearts –
                Christ is risen – He is alive –
                We believe in Him – His life
                in us, operating in us,
                dwelling in us. We love
                His will – we obey God's will –
                We seek His will – we live in
                love doing God's will.

                    We were created with a unique
                purpose to help in the building of
                the Kingdom of God – to go out and
                spread the Good News – to be
                by our example witnesses of
                Christ – Christ our Light –

                    God has given us a Garden
                in Florida with special
                waters and the message of
                Jesus and Mary to spread
                the Good News. In a Garden
                we plant things to grow and bear
                fruit. Adam and Eve were in
                the Garden and they sinned so they
                were cast from the Garden of Paradise.
                Jesus, the New Adam, sweat His
                saving Blood in the Agony of the Garden
                as He saw before Him all who
                would reject His love.

                    God is giving us His love
                and it is up to us not to
                reject Him. We have to be
                open to Him, want the Light
                in our hearts – welcome Him
                with open arms, let Him operate
                in us.

 

John 3: 31-36

He who comes from above
is above all others;
he who is of the earth
is earthly himself
   and speaks in an earthly way.
He who comes from heaven
bears witness to the things
   he has seen and heard,
but his testimony
   is not accepted by anybody;
though anyone
   who does accept his testimony
is attesting that God is true,
since he whom God has sent
speaks God’s own words,
for God gives him the Spirit
   without reserve.
The Father loves the Son
and has entrusted everything to his hands.
Anyone who believes in the Son
   has eternal life,
but anyone who refuses
   to believe in the Son
      will never see life:
God’s retribution hangs over him.’

 

                R. Jesus was killed by men
                and Jesus rose from the dead!
                Life after death – this is
                a message for us – In God
                there is life after death!

                    God loved the world, so
                much, He gave His only Son.

 

John 3: 16

For this is how God loved the world:
he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him 
    may not perish
but may have eternal life.

  

                R. The Jewish religious authorities
                were jealous the people were
                listening to the Apostles so they
                arrested the apostles and
                demanded they quit talking
                about Jesus.

                    Jealousy is a tendency in
                us from original sin. The
                devil uses jealousy and people
                give into satan many times
                when a person is doing God's
                work, according to God's will
                and they want to punish the
                person because they are jealous.
                They should be spreading the Good News
                too and rejoicing the person is
                spreading the Good News – it's
                God's will – we are commissioned
                in baptism to do this and to
                be witnesses before other men
                of God dwelling in us – not
                try to stop God's plan –

                    The resurrection tells us –
                They murdered Jesus, but the
                empty tomb tells us
                    "They didn't get away with
                        their ugliness."

                    God commissions us in baptism
                to spread the Good News – It's
                God's will for us when we are
                baptized! The Apostles were
                arrested again because they
                were miraculously released.

                    Jesus was nailed to the cross
                because of our sins and
                He rose from the dead.
                Dear God we want to spread
                Easter joy and be a witness
                to You before others.

                    Heaven is our true home.

Philippians 3: 20

But our homeland is in heaven and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,

 

                R. Jesus is alive.

                Jesus told me
                    "I am alive", "I am alive",
                    "I am alive".

                God wants us to prepare for
                our true home in heaven,
                by doing His will in love.
                Conversion – Our Lady calls
                us to conversion.

                    "Death / Resurrection"
                God calls us to surrender,
                to let go – to let Him
                run our lives.

                    To be holy – we must die to
                ourselves and live the life
                of resurrection. Death / Resurrection –
                dying to the ways not like Jesus,
                living the life of conversion –
                This is what makes us have
                joy and happiness in our
                hearts –

                    Mary calls us to Consecrate
                our hearts to Jesus and Mary. We must
                live out the life of consecration
                to Their Hearts –

                Mary has called us at Fatima
                and in the Shepherds of Christ, She
                has appeared in Clearwater
                calling us to Consecration
                to Their 2 Hearts –

                    We should answer
                Mary's call. As I write
                this I smell strong incense.
                 

Excerpt from Mother at Our Side, by Fr. Edward J. Carter, S.J.
 

nine

The Cross Leads To Life
 

   . . .and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." (Lk. 2:35).
 

   Our incorporation into the mystery of Christ at baptism, and our growth in this life, is centered in the pattern of death-resurrection: Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. (Rom. 6:3-4).

   The theme of death-resurrection is at the heart of salvation history. It is a recurrent theme in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.

   The Jewish people, under the leadership of Moses, experienced death-resurrection as they were formed into the people of the covenant—Yahweh's people. In the great Exodus event, they escaped Egyptian slavery, went on to Mt. Sinai where the covenant was ratified, and then progressed to the Promised Land. As members of the Mosaic covenant, the Jews experienced a religious transition; they passed over to a higher level of religious existence—to a more intimate union with God.

   This religious transition contained death-resurrection. For the Jews to become people of the covenant, to remain so, and to grow in the life of the covenant, it was necessary that they undergo a mystical or spiritual death. In short, they had to be willing to pay a price. They had to be willing to bear with that which was difficult in covenant life. This mystical death, however, had a very positive purpose; it was directed at life in the covenant and at growth in that life. This spiritual death, in other words, was for the purpose of resurrection.
 

   Christ perfectly fulfilled the Old Testament theme of death-resurrection. In doing so, He was experiencing a religious transition. He was passing over—gradually, at first, and then definitively in His death—to a new kind of existence, to the life of resurrection. He achieved this life not only for Himself, but for us also. To achieve this new life of resurrection, Jesus was willing to pay the price. He was willing to suffer, even unto death. That it had to be this way—that the only way Jesus could have achieved resurrection was through suffering and death—was pointed out by Jesus Himself to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" (Lk. 24:25-26).

   Christ has structured the Christian life by the way He lived, died, and rose from the dead. It is obvious, then, that the pattern of death-resurrection must be at the heart of the Church's life. Mary, as Mother of the Church and our mother, is in a most advantageous position to show us our own individual roads to Calvary and support us as we carry the cross, each of us on our own as well as the Church as a whole. She already traveled that road in perfect acceptance of the death-resurrection struggle as she was always most closely united with the work of her Son. Individually and collectively, we are meant to continually die in Christ so that we may continually rise in Christ. We thus pass over in a process of continued religious transition to a greater participation in Jesus' resurrection. It is true that our participation in Christ's resurrection will reach its culmination only in eternity. Nevertheless, we begin the life of resurrection here upon this earth, in the here-and-now of human life, in the midst of joy and pain, in the experience of success and failure, in the sweat of our brow, in the enjoyment of God's gifts.

   We cannot maintain the life of resurrection or grow in it without a willingness to suffer. This does not mean that we need to feel overwhelmed and heavily burdened by the suffering in our lives. The greater portion of suffering for most of us seems to be an accumulation of ordinary hardships and pains. At times, more penetrating suffering—even suffering of agonizing proportions—can enter our life. Whether the sufferings are either of the more ordinary variety or the rare and extreme type, Christians must convince themselves that to properly relate to the cross is to grow in resurrection.
 

   The great tragedy regarding human suffering is not that there is so much of it, but that apparently so much of it is wasted. Apparently many do not relate to suffering properly—according to God's will. Consequently, they fail to use suffering as a means to growth. Again, our mother's fiat can be a vivid reminder to persevere through even our most difficult trials.

   As the opening Scripture passage tells us, Our Lady was no stranger to suffering. As we well know, her life of suffering culminated in her extreme agony beneath the cross. Who can fathom the depth of her grief as she watched her innocent Son suffer the excruciating pain and death of crucifixion? In the church of San Domingo in Puebla, Mexico, there is one of the most striking representations of Mary that I have ever seen. Near the front of the church, and to the right as one faces the altar, there is a figure of our Blessed Mother seated in a chair. She is dressed in a black robe with gold trim. Atop her white veil is a black lace veil of mourning. On her lap is Christ's crown of thorns. Mary gazes down at this crown which had been so cruelly and derisively placed upon Jesus. The expression on Mary's face is one of the most moving I have seen. It is a combination of grief, dignity, and beauty. It is indeed easy to shed tears as one beholds this figure of Mary. It tells us so much about Mary. It tells us that she not only is the Mother of Joy, but also the Mother of Sorrows.

   Yes, our dearest Mother Mary knows what it is like to suffer. She knows so well the purpose of suffering in God's plan. By asking her to obtain for us the grace to grow in wisdom, we can increasingly understand the role of suffering in our own lives. Asking her for the grace not to waste suffering, we can learn to use it as a means of growth for ourselves and others.
 

   One of the most traditional forms of the experience of the cross which spiritual masters have always discussed is self-discipline or asceticism. People in all walks of life require self-discipline. The athlete must subject himself or herself to rigorous training; the musician must endure long hours of practice; the doctor must be willing to order his or her life to the vigorous demands of the medical profession.

   The Christian life, too, has its own form of discipline, and it is necessary for the greater assimilation of our total being to Christ. Christian self-discipline, or asceticism, helps us grow in the Christ-life. It extends to all aspects of the person—intellect, will, imagination, memory, sight, hearing, taste, touch, and so forth.

   Renunciation is another form of dying with Jesus, which, over the years, has been given much attention in the teaching of the spiritual masters. Indeed, the New Testament itself attests to the undeniable role that renunciation plays in the Christian life. The gentle St. Luke, for example, teaches Jesus' message of renunciation—a message which Jesus Himself lived. Renunciation was obviously not the only aspect of Christ's life, but it was an undeniable one. Christians, because they are followers of Christ, must also include renunciation in their lives regardless of their individual vocations. Again, it is well to remind ourselves that we embrace renunciation for the sake of life. This was the purpose of renunciation in Jesus' life, and it must have the same purpose in ours.
 

   Acts of renunciation are life-promoting regarding ourselves and others. Let us always remember what Our Lady of Fatima has said: Pray, pray, a great deal, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to Hell because they have no one to make sacrifices and pray for them.²⁴ And the angel said to the Fatima visionaries: Make everything you do a sacrifice, and offer it as an act of reparation for the sins by which God is offended, and as a petition for the conversion of sinners.²⁵ All our good actions, including the enjoyable and pleasant ones, can be offered as sacrifices. In the stricter sense, our sacrifices include those actions which involve doing that which is difficult or which involves acts of renunciation.

   A good example of an act of renunciation is the practice of fasting which Our Lady of Medjugorje requests of us. She asks us to renounce our regular habits of eating and drinking on Wednesdays and Fridays. Mary tells us that the best way to fast on these days is to partake only of bread and water. If one is unable to fast in this manner, he or she should practice that type of renunciation which is possible. We should remember that fasting is a practice contained in New Testament teaching.

   There are, of course, many other forms of carrying the cross besides those of self-discipline and renunciation. There is that very common form of bearing the cross which is involved in the proper living of every day. There is nothing dramatic about this form of suffering, and, precisely because it seems so uneventful, it is difficult to properly relate to it in a consistent fashion. On particular occasions, we might feel that a quick death by martyrdom would be easier than the daily dying which involves all sorts of little sufferings or crosses. But this daily dying is a precious type of suffering, and to grow in the realization of its importance is a significant sign of spiritual progress. It is a sign that we have the spiritual discernment to comprehend that God so often situates the cross within the ordinariness of everyday life.
 

   Crucial decision-making is also a form of the cross. Making a decision, we realize, is extremely important for both ourselves and others. We can seek advice from others, but in the last analysis we know—oh, how well we know—that, ultimately, we alone must make the decision before God. We pray for light and strength, for we realize that we need help not only to make the proper decision, but also to deal with the pain which is inevitably involved.

   The experience of failure is another suffering that we encounter in various degrees along the path of life. In failure there is a twofold pain—the pain of having failed and that involved in having to begin again. The pain of having failed must not be wasted. We must use it to become better persons.

   Rejection, in various forms, is another pain not uncommon to human experience. Many have experienced rejection because of race or ethnic origin. Although we ourselves might not have experienced this type of rejection, there are other kinds. We may have felt, for instance, a certain ostracism in not being accepted. When our ideas and opinions are not accepted by others, we feel the sting of yet another kind of rejection. And how many there are who have experienced that very painful rejection, being rejected in a romantic relationship.

   Another common form of suffering is the experience of loneliness. There are two basic kinds of loneliness—that which need not be and that which cannot be avoided. And who has not experienced the pain connected with illness or injury? Some must bear this cross to a much greater degree than others. Some, indeed, have had their lives very significantly changed because of serious illness or injury. Let us pray for these so that they may have the love and courage to live with their cross according to God's will.

   The above examples describe some of the ways in which the cross enters our lives. We can each probably add one or two more to our own list. In any case, we need to remember that we have a special prayer partner to help guide us along the way. She knows suffering and she certainly knows her Son. She is always by our side.

   In conclusion, let us again remind ourselves that the cross is meant to lead us to greater life—here and in eternity. Let us always strive to live by the words Jesus has left as: Then he said to all, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. (Lk. 9:23-24).

 

ten

Mother Of Our Christian Virtues

   Being mother of our Christ-life, Mary is also mother of our life of Christian virtues. Many of them are listed above, including the three most important ones—faith, hope, and love.

Faith

   Ideally, faith is the commitment of one's entire being to the truth of Jesus. We must live the truth of Jesus, not merely intellectually assent to it. We properly comprehend religious truth only when we live it, savor it, experience it to the depths of our being. How much more we understand the truth of Christ in its wisdom, power, and beauty when we not only believe this truth with our graced intellects, but also allow it to permeate and transform our entire existence. As a corollary, we see the danger of intellectually assenting to Christ's truth without attempting to live accordingly. Faith can grow weak and even die if there is a constant and serious division between what we believe and the manner in which we live.

   When we live according to faith, we are living according to a vision of God, humanity, and the rest of creation. Faith tells us things about God and creation we could either not otherwise know or know only with greater difficulty and with less certainty. A good example of the former is the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. Reason can never arrive at this sublime truth. Only the intellect that has been elevated with the grace of faith can believe in the Triune God. If we are to progress in the spiritual life, we must allow this vision of faith to more and more influence our activities. Increasingly, we should become contemplatives in action. The more we allow Mary to lead us into such a way of life, the more our lives will have meaning for ourselves as well as for the betterment of the lives of people around us. As our mother, she happily guides us to the peace we can find as contemplatives in action.

   The vision of faith should inspire us to action according to our vocation, talents, opportunity, time, and energy. We should always strive to make the world more reflective of Christ's image. To the extent we do not, we are betraying the vision of faith.

   Mother Mary, deepen our faith. Help us to follow ever more closely the light of faith. And we pray, dear Mother, that you will lead us ever closer to your Son Who is Himself the source of faith's light.

Hope

   Christian hope is a virtue that allows us to desire God as the goal of our existence. Hope also allows us to trust that God will grant us the graces necessary to achieve this goal.

   The necessity of hope in our lives is obvious. Without a sustained desire for God we will not be able to live as we should. If God is not our goal, then our lives will be miserably shaped by something infinitely less, whether it be money, sex, social status, or anything else that can grip the human heart as an unauthentic end rather than as a legitimate means to God.

   Without God's grace we cannot initially attain supernatural life, we cannot maintain ourselves in it, and we cannot grow in it. At times God allows us to strikingly and intensely experience how helpless we are without Him. Such episodes in the spiritual life can be very painful, but they are also opportunities for great growth. We are meant to emerge from these experiences with an increase of trust in God. We realize how weak we are in ourselves, but how strong we are if we rely on God.

   One of Mary's functions as our spiritual mother is to help us grow in trust. In countless ways Mary shows us her maternal love. If we are to love her in return, if we are to allow her to increasingly possess us, we must trust her. 

   We should always remember: when we trust Mary, we are putting our trust in God; when we abandon ourselves to Mary, we are abandoning ourselves to God.

Love

   St. Paul tells us:

   If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor. 13:1-3).

   The above words of Paul point out the great importance of the virtue of love. Love is the Christian virtue. Jesus Himself has summarized Christianity in terms of love; all the other virtues variously serve love's purpose.

   As Jesus walked this earth, His life was a life of love. He mightily loved His Father. With a deep and tender love He loved all members of the human race, and He would die an agonizing and horrible death for them. One of the members of this race He loved in an extraordinarily special way—His Mother Mary. And she was the one person created who could return that love in a perfect way. By following her example, we can also learn to love more perfectly.

   The poverty, the hiddenness, the disappointments, the weariness, the joy and the happiness, the pain and the agony—all that constituted the earthly life of Christ was experienced within the framework of love. Jesus loved in everything He did—tenderly, manfully, with understanding and sympathy. He loved with a complete devotedness and a deep, sincere concern for the individual. He loved with a passion for that which is true and good and beautiful. He loved with a complete conformity to His Father's will. He loved always and completely. He loved with a gift of Himself, always pouring Himself out, even to the extreme of death on the wood of a cross. This was the poignant beauty of Christ's life.

   Christ shows us His Heart as the symbol of this life of love. It is a symbol which calls for our love in return. The Heart of Christ, source of our own capacity to love, calls us to imitation. Christ, in revealing His Heart to us as symbol of His love, invites us to the closest discipleship as He leads us along the path of love.

   We can be tempted to reject this marvelous example of love which Jesus has left us. We can seek our own greatness and fulfillment in a manner which necessarily results in disappointment. We can strive after greatness in ways which God does not intend. These wayward wanderings, however, result in a feeling of dissatisfaction and frustration and we will eventually come to realize they have betrayed us because they are not rooted in Christ and His way of life—the way of true personal greatness.

   We grow as Christians as we grow in love. We exercise this love within the milieu of the human condition. This is the only framework we have for achieving our greatness, and, consequently, we must not shirk this human condition. Jesus did not shirk it, but rather accepted it and manifested His greatness within it, despite the pain and even agony that the human condition at times heaped upon Him. It is true that Jesus rejoiced during the course of His life because of the goodness, sincerity, and response of some of those with whom He dealt. For example, the love which Mary and Joseph showered upon Jesus gave Him great joy. During His life, however, Jesus often suffered because of the evil side of humans—their pettiness, cowardice, insensitivity, selfishness, egotism. In other words, Jesus suffered at the hands of others because they were not what they should have been. Nonetheless, these experiences did not thwart the greatness of Jesus. Jesus was always the tremendous lover, and He loved even at those times when it was very painful to do so.

   As Christ suffered because of others, we, too, as we try to love, suffer because of others. We may suffer because others do not always understand us—this can be true even of those who dearly love us. We may suffer because some do not appreciate what we do for them, sometimes at great personal cost, or because others reject us, or make us the objects of their meanness and selfishness. We may suffer because there are some who ignore us. At times we suffer so much that we are tempted to quit loving as we should and are tempted to withdraw from the pain of giving ourselves to an egotistic world. To surrender to such a temptation, however, is to forget what true Christian greatness really is—namely, a life of love for God and others, a love that does not shrink from the pain that results from loving in an imperfect world, a love that is meant to become greater regardless of the way others might treat us. Christian love, then, accepts both the pain and the joy of life and carries on under both conditions.

   We should ask Mary our mother, who takes such great pride in us when we love as we should, to lead us daily to the Heart of her Son. This Heart, burning furnace of charity, is the source we must draw from if we are to love and progress in love.

   Lead us, dear Mother, to this Heart of your Son. As we rest secure in the love of your Immaculate Heart, instill within us daily a growing desire to take on the likeness of the Heart of Jesus. Obtain for us, dearest Mother, the grace to make the Heart of Jesus the center of our existence. Living within this pierced Heart of Jesus, we will more and more be consumed with the desire to love God and neighbor. We will become increasingly aware that to truly live is to love.  end of excerpt

 
 

 

The Bell Tolls

R. On April 3, 1996, at All Saints Church I wrote: I was at All Saints, April 3, at the 6:45 a.m. Mass. At 7:00 a.m. the bells rang at the Consecration of the Mass. The Sacrifice of Calvary rings out all over the world and I can be joined at every moment to this Sacrifice. We unite to this Sacrifice praying for ourselves and our brothers. The bell tolls at every moment I live. Whether I am doing dishes, being with my family, or whatever, I make this my offering united to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass being offered around the world. I make my Morning Offering. United to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass being celebrated around the world, I give myself completely to the Father in the name of Jesus in the Holy Spirit with all the angels and saints. I make this offering of my life to help in the salvation of souls. My offering is most pure and holy as I unite to the pure and holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

What is pleasing to my Father is that at every second I am trying to live in His will operating in love. My heroic or mundane tasks are most important as I give them in sacrifice united to Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

I live in this way, always united to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass sacramentally made present on our altars around the world through the hands of His beloved priests.

This is the moment of sacrifice. The bells toll all over the earth and Christ, Chief-Priest and Victim, gives Himself in the Mass through the hands of the priest. I give myself in love to help in the work of redemption.

Jesus: It is most difficult to present any description similar to the original mystical vision. The sketches provide a basis for reference. Nothing in words or pictures even comes close to the original experience. I wish these writings and sketches to appear that you will more fully experience my love through these revelations. Pictures are concrete descriptions of true realities. The sketches provided are more to My liking, employing the element of mystery, for nothing here on this earth will ever show even minutely the splendor of a genuine mystical vision. In expressing the visions in concrete pictures, the element of mystery is overshadowed. You must pray for grace to experience that element of mystery in these writings, knowing the infinitude of the mystery of God can never be expressed concretely through words and pictures. It is through grace that one experiences that which I reveal here.

R. God is the ultimate mystery and He reveals Himself to man as He so chooses. Man must be open, soft and supple, ready for His touch.