Notes for this theme
GRM 80.8
After My Baptism I came here: I was clean, but one is never clean enough with regards to God, and the humility in saying: “I am a man and a sinner” is already a baptism which makes the heart clean.
After John’s baptism, Jesus made the following statement.
GRM 80.9
And here I experienced the weariness of the hero and of the ascetic who in an hour of forewarning realise the uselessness of their efforts… I cried… Sadness… a lure for Satan. It is not a sin to be sad in painful circumstances. It is a sin to go beyond sadness and fall into inertness and despair.
Jesus speaks about his temptation in the desert.
GRM 80.11
My first contacts with the world had sickened and depressed Me. It is too ugly. My soul has now been nourished with the lion’s marrow: the union with the Father in prayer and solitude. And I can go back to the world and take My cross upon Me once again, the first cross of the Redeemer: the cross of the contact with the world. With the world, in which there are too few souls called Mary, called John…
GRM 83
Jesus is in the countryside. He is talking to a peasant who confides the good he gets from listening to Jesus (it's exactly the same for us who read the Work). Jesus talks about God's blessing, and about suffering, about how it is atonement and grace. Then John leaves, and Judas asks to go to Jerusalem to meet a friend. Jesus is disheartened by Judas, and weeps quietly in a bushy grove. He prays. Finally, he is joined by Simon the Zealot, who guesses his pain. They talk about Judas... And Simon also expresses his desire for him to meet Lazarus.
GRM 83.2
«Is pain not always evil?»
«No, My friend, It is evil from a human point of view, but from a supernatural one it is good. It increases the merits of just people, who accept it without despairing or rebelling and they offer it, as they offer themselves with resignation, as a sacrifice to expiate their own imperfections and the faults of the world, and it is a redemption for those who are not good.»
«It is so difficult to suffer!» says the farmer, who has been joined by his relatives, about ten people in all, adults and children.
«I know that man finds it difficult. And knowing that he would find it so difficult, the Father had not given His children any sorrow. It came due to sin. But how long does sorrow last on the earth? In the life of a man? A short time. It is always short, even if it lasts a whole lifetime. Now I say: is it not better to suffer for a short time rather than forever? Is it not better to suffer here than in Purgatory? Consider that time there is multiplied one thousand fold. Oh! I solemnly tell you: you ought not to curse pain, but bless it, and you should call it “grace” and “mercy”.
GRM 83.4
Why are You sad, Master? I am not John and I am not capable of giving You what John gives you. But I would like to give You every possible comfort, and I am only sorry that I am not able to do so.
GRM 83.6
I am on the side of those who suffer, but I do not force anybody’s confidence. Tears deserve respect.
GRM 83.7
The better one is, the more one suffers.
GRM 83.7
83.7 Jesus then says:
«My little John, how many times have I cried with My face on the ground because of men! And you would like to be less than Me?
Also amongst you, good people are in the proportion that existed between good people and Judas. And the better one is, the more one suffers. But also for you it is necessary to learn by studying Judas, and I say that particularly for those who are responsible for the spiritual care of souls. Each of you, priests, is a “Peter”. And you have to forgive and retain. But how much power of observation you must have, how much union with God, what great pains you must take and how many comparisons with the method of the Master you must make, in order to be a priest as it is your duty to be!
Some people may think that what I am saying is useless, human, impossible. They are the usual people who deny the human phases of Jesus’ life and they make of Me a being so remote from human life as to be only a divine being. What happens then to the most holy Humanity, to the sacrifice of the Second Person in becoming flesh? Oh! I was truly a Man amongst men. I was the Man. And that is why I suffered in seeing the traitor and ungrateful people. That is why I rejoiced on account of those who loved Me or were converted to Me. That is why I shuddered and cried before Judas’ spiritual corpse. I shuddered and cried before My dead friend. But I knew that I would call him back to life and I rejoiced seeing his soul already in Limbo. Here… I had the Demon in front of Me. And I will say no more.
Follow Me, John. Let us give men also this gift. And then… Blessed are those who listen to the Word of God and strive to do what it says. Blessed are those who want to know Me in order to love Me. In them and to them I shall be a blessing.»
GRM 84.3
«Whom are we in Israel expecting, but You?»
«And do you believe that I am the Expected One?»
«Simon has never lied, neither is he a boy that gets excited over nothing. Age and sorrow have made him as mature as a wise man. In any case… even if he had not recognised Your true nature, Your deeds would have spoken and said that You are a “Saint”. He who accomplishes the deeds of God, must be a man of God. And You accomplish them. And You do things in a way that says how truly You are the Man of God. My friend came to You because of the fame of Your miracles and he received a miracle. And I know that Your way is strewn with miracles. Why, then, not believe that You are the Expected One? Oh! It is so sweet to believe what is good! We have to pretend to believe as good, many things which are good, for peace sake, because it would be useless to change them; many dubious words that seem adulation, praise, kindness of heart, and instead are sarcasm and blame, poison concealed by honey, we must pretend we believe them, although we know they are poison, blame, sarcasm… we must do so because… it is not possible to do otherwise, and we are weak against a whole world which is strong, and we are alone against a whole world which is hostile to us… why, then, should we have difficulty in believing what is good? On the other hand the time is ripe and the signs of the time are here. What might still be missing to make belief certain and beyond all possible doubt, should be supplied by our anxiety to believe and to appease our hearts in the certainty that the expectation is finished and that the Redeemer has come, the Messiah is here… He Who will give peace to Israel, and to the children of Israel, Who will let us die without anguish, knowing that we have been redeemed, and will enable us to live without that nostalgic feeling for our dead ones… Oh! the dead! Why mourn their death, if not because, as they have no longer any children, they have not yet the Father and God?»
«Has your father been dead long?»
«Three years, and my mother seven… but I no longer lament their deaths… I also would like to be where I hope they are awaiting Heaven.»
«In which case you would not have the Messiah as your guest.»
«That is true. Now I am in a better position than they are, because I have You… and my heart is calmed by this joy.»