«When this command and teaching had not been given and repeated tirelessly by Christ, and for a very limited number of times had been given to only one: Moses, feeling that the end of his mortal life was near, gathered his people so that they, once he had died, would not deviate from the way of the Lord and promulgated the Law in the presence of the Elders and tribes, and the curses and blessings joined to works made according to or against the Law of God, ending with the words that Paul remembers.
In truth, justice comes from the fulfillment of the Law, nor even in the days before Christ, or of Christ, was there an excuse for one who did not practice the Law. Because the commandments had been given clearly, and they had been made manifest to all the people by the one who had received them.
God had given His orders to His children at other times. From Adam to Moses, God had often instructed this or that one of His children. But never as on Sinai were the orders and the instructions as complete, and not for this or that child of God, but for all His chosen People. And so that those laws would not be lost, they had been written by the hand of God on the tables of stone more still than by the hand of Moses upon the tables of the testimony and preserved in the Holy Ark. Those of Israel, therefore, could not have any excuses if they did not practice the Law, no longer enclosed in Heaven and in the divine Mind; nor was it any longer necessary so that they would believe it to be from Heaven that a man elected for this purpose by God would be carried off with his spirit to Heaven in order to know the revelation, or that a spirit of Heaven would descend in order to communicate the revelation to him.
The word of God from Sinai, as Moses says, was by now "very close to the members of the People of Israel", in the Ark placed in the Tabernacle that was always in the midst of the People of Israel; rather, it was by now noted to be "in the mouth and heart" of the children of that people, and the just amongst them could live according to the Law.
With more reason should those who were the fellow countrymen and contemporaries of Christ have lived the Law of justice, who, besides the Law and prophecy of Moses on the future Messiah, - "The Lord your God will raise in your Nation and amongst her children (and brothers of Moses) a great prophet: listen to Him. He will be a prophet like you, however, I will place my Word into His mouth, and He will say all that I will command Him to say. And if someone will not want to listen to him, nor listen to my Word which He will speak in my Name, I myself, will require it of him" (Deut. c. XVIII, v. 15-19) - heard these words on the mouth of Christ, "My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me (John c. VII, v. 16). I say that which the Father has taught me (John VIII, v. 28). He who does not believe in Me is condemned (John c. III, v. 18). I have come in the name of my Father and you do not receive me... I will not accuse you to the Father because there is already one who accuses you: that Moses in whom you set your hope... who said of Me, 'If you do not believe His words and you will not listen to them, how will you believe and listen to mine?' (John c. V, v. 43-47). You seek to kill me because my word has no place in you (John VIII, v. 37)."
However, according to the prophesy of Isaiah, "they had eyes and they did not see, ears and they did not hear, a hard heart which did not understand because it did not want to understand;" and therefore, although the Word of God Itself had descended from Heaven in order to instruct them and had returned from the underworld in order to persuade them and teach them again in order to convert them, they did not convert, they did not want to acknowledge Christ as the end and perfection of the Law, and from this came their condemnation.
That same condemnation that, on Earth and even from Earth and beyond Earth, will strike with a more or less transitory condemnation, and tremendously, all those who do not believe in Christ and who do not practice the Law; not only, but new Jews, they deny Him the right to be able to still perform holy works of continual evangelization through His elect, and they do not receive, but scorn and persecute the mystical lamps that God continuously lights so that this world does not perish into darkness and spiritual coldness.
It is not enough to believe in the existence of God, in Christ, in the other life, the reward, and in many truths of faith in which it is sinful not to believe. One also needs to believe in the infinite power and mercy of God who, as He sent His Son to evangelize the world, and His Spirit to give His lights and His gifts to the Apostles and disciples of the new Church so that the Earth could know the Christ, Saviour of as many who believe in Him, so He sends the fires and lights of the Holy Spirit to those whom He wishes and to those who have merited such a gift so that they can make the flames of charity glow, and re-awaken and complete the truth in hearts. And so that faith and love can be continuously nourished in the crowds of men who, many times, do not perish because they want to, but for lack of extraordinary aids that can draw them out from weaknesses and from the death of the spirit, just as Jesus drew to salvation and to a new life those languishing or those who had died in the flesh and in the spirit.
"You are other christs" is said by the inspired mouth. And for the true "other christs", is it to be denied that they can do works of wisdom and of salvation as Christ used to do them? Did He not say, "You will do works similar to mine, and greater still?" Did He not perhaps call to the light and bring to His Kingdom Pagans, Gentiles, Greeks and Jews? Have not events perhaps confirmed the word of Paul, "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek?"; and again, "No one who speaks through the Spirit of God says 'Jesus be cursed!'... There are varieties of gifts, but it is the same Holy Spirit who works in all for the common good?"
Therefore, whoever believes and invokes the Lord - and if he invokes Him, it is because he loves Him - is saved, lives in God, and serves God in the way that God wants to be served by His servant; and an equal reward awaits those who, in various of ways, having received from God different missions and gifts fit for every mission, have served the Lord.
Beautiful are the feet that tire by going about to evangelize. Equally beautiful are the intellects and the hearts of the contemplative ones who pray for those who pine themselves away in life. And beautiful are the obedient, attentive and humble spirits who do the will of God, even if extraordinary, and who do not wander with their spirits nor fall into pride for having become the ear who listens to the Lord and the instrument of private revelation to their brothers.
Beautiful are the persecuted for this. To the crown of the just is adjoined the crown of the martyrs for them because they have suffered for justice. In truth, they are blessed in all the beatitudes.
They, the poor in spirit, because they do not have attachments neither to riches nor to honours, they do not market the gifts of God, they do not announce their extraordinary service. On the secret of the King, they descend the veils of their humility, giving hidden sources of wisdom to their brothers in need without wanting to receive not even the praise of the people which, rather, only disquiets them. And for this reason, the Kingdom of Heaven is already theirs, in their hearts, and it opens its mysteries to their spiritual senses in anticipation of receiving them forever beyond life.
They, meek towards the will of God, even if the will becomes sorrow for them, they possess the Earth, that is, they work in a hidden manner as only very few can work, winning innumerable souls for God. They are the kings and the masters of many during and beyond life, and it can be said of them that which is said in the Canticle, "We will run after the odour of their perfumes of wisdom diffused like a balsam, so that many can be healed and spiritually restored."
They who, forasmuch as the world is not darkness, but the smoky fog of pride it is, are afflicted and weep bitter tears because of human incomprehension; they are consoled by the King of sorrows and by the desolate Mother here and beyond, a thousand times a thousand more for however much they have wept.
They who, through hunger and thirst for justice, have had to taste ashes, gall, wormwood and vinegar on the part of men, are only satiated in the spirit and by the Spirit of Love, their daily manna; they will be seated, in the end, at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and God himself will sate them by revealing Himself to them and by revealing all the joyous mysteries of God.
They who, through the spirit of mercy, did not refuse to render service to God — knowing fully well that they would have to encounter and experience the non mercy of humans which is envy towards the elect and it vindicates itself in a thousand ways in order to make of their election, a cross - find and will find every mercy in the heart of indestructible Mercy: Jesus, and in that of the Woman who did not hate the killers of Her Son, but prayed for their conversion.
They, the pure of heart, not having any other gaze but that for their Lord, so as to serve Him always more readily - nor could they listen to other voices, neither of senses nor of temptations, because they were straining only to listen to Heaven - already taste the beatitude of the vision of God, of His knowledge, great even if still limited, and purely await the hour of seeing Him as He really is, forever.
They, the peaceful ones, because they are the children and the servants of the King of peace, penetrated by the words of the Peaceful One whose example they follow even towards their adversaries; they are the true children of God and thus will they be called forever, and they will live in His tabernacles after having hosted Him in their hearts because God is with the man of peace.
They who, for love of justice and for having employed themselves so that it would flourish in many and so that many would operate in it, suffered persecutions of every type, nor can one say that a persecution is only a bloody martyrdom however expeditious. No. The master of the world and his servants, more or less conscious of being his servants, have a thousand ways in order to persecute, underhanded ways that are hidden, slow, based on lies, calumny, injustice, and these they use on the servants of God, with refined astuteness, by martyrizing them, even and above all, in those parts of the T that no executioner can martyr, the incorporeal parts: the mind, and above all, the spirit. These strip the servants of justice of everything, as far as the right of serving the Lord and of working in order to bring their brothers to justice, as far as their good name, and as far as to the truth of their condition, and they re-clothe them with the garment of scorn with which the enemies of Christ re-clothed Him and they mock them with the same words, "If it is true that you are who you say you are, tell the Lord that He intervene for you and help you." However, at each stripping, at each mockery suffered by them on Earth, there corresponds a new ornament upon the wedding garment that awaits them in Heaven, an increase in glory for these unfailing citizens of the Kingdom and a greater praise from the part of the people of the saints and of the angels who see and judge all the actions of men with supernatural justice from above the Heavens.
Who, alas, do not all obey the Gospel, the law and doctrine of charity, truth and justice. A truth which teaches how God does not make personal distinctions and does not pay attention to wealth, ranks or culture, but looks at the heart, at peoples' spirits. And given that the more there is humility of life and simplicity of customs, the more, generally, there is also humility of the mind and of the heart, a simplicity of sentiments and purity of ends; so generally, like Christ took those who were simple and humble so as to make them into His Twelve, in the same way, God chooses His instruments amongst those who are simple, humble, pure of heart and of intentions.
The poverty of the instrument serves, on the other hand, to make the direct power and actions of God shine. However, these instruments of God can very well cry to the Lord the lament of the prophets and apostles, repeated and summarized by Paul, "Who has believed that which we say?"
However, these should not become discouraged on account of persecutions, vexations, oppressions, calumnies and the scorn which they can experience by those who repeat the ways of the ancient Temple and the mighty wealthy and proud of Palestine towards the Christ, but these should look at the Same and imitate Him without ending their mission and becoming discouraged.
The Word of God was derided, calumniated and put out upon a cross. But for twenty centuries, It triumphs and fills the Earth, and resounds not only as far as to the extreme ends of it [the earth] but, like an echo that cannot be suffocated and a light which cannnot be put out, It [the Word] is also there where Christ is persecuted in His children. Neither the sword nor the torments, as Paul has said, can separate from Christ one who loves Christ. The Roman pagans were not able to do so with the early Christians. And nor are the possessed servants of the current Anti-christ able to do so with their subjects.
It is like a mystical lamp that is enclosed in hearts, ready to be drawn out and set aflame once again. The tears of those who are persecuted in the faith nourish it, of those who, never as now, seek Christ and His Kingdom, their sole peace and their sole light in the darkness and in the atrocities that reign there where Christ is proscribed, their sole hope of a life of joy after earthly oppression.
Nothing is more powerful than the persecution of an idea or of a religion in order to strengthen its power. Christ Himself, through the long, moral persecution and ferocious final persecution, obtained that seal of imperishable glory, and thus He reigns and will reign as the Saint of saints even in His nature of man. And how they find Him, the however many seek Him for love, and how He presents Himself to the however many are oppressed and afflicted, bent under a temporary yoke and presents Himself with unexpected comforts known only to Him, so too, does He present Himself and lets Himself be found with His severe judgement to the however many, from the Hebrews of His day, enemies to Him, to His present day enemies who have persecuted Him and who persecute Him in His faithful ones.
Not only "all day long", but for all His life amongst men, He spread His hands, opened His heart and poured out the treasures of the eternal Word to the people of Israel. However, the mighty of it [Israel] did not want to see that gesture, they did not want to go to that heart, and they did not want to draw from those treasures.
Even on the Cross, He accepted - because only His free acceptance could have made it possible that He could be raised in that way - to remain with arms open and spread, the Priest and Lover who offered and who invited Himself for and to His People, and though dead, wanted to open His heart, the silent and posthumous teaching to the whole of humanity of the immense love of God and of the holy door which gathers into the kingdom of infinite mercy as many as those who turn to the Man-God with a benevolent spirit.
But while the nations have accepted the extreme invitation and teachings of Christ, Israel, incredulous and rebellious, who did not have an excuse for its persistent judgement on Christ after all the proofs He gave - from His miracles to His doctrine, from His resurrection to His ascension - it [Israel] persisted in its voluntary blindness thereby meriting the reproachfulness of God.»