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Love and Faith

Five Sermons of the


Resurrectionist Spirituality

Piotr Semenenko, cr

Love and Faith


Five Sermons of the Resurrectionist Spirituality

Presentation by
Fr. Stanislaw Urbanski, cr
Director of the Institute of Spiritual Theology
University of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski

Sermons taken from:


Piotr Semenenko, cr, Kazania przygodne, t. 3 (Cracovie,
1923) and Kazania na niedziele i wita roku koscielnego. 1.
Od Adwentu do koca czasu Wielkanocnego (Lvov, 1913).
Translated from Polish by
Sr. Pascale-Dominique Nau, op

ISBN: 978-1-291-91914-1
English translation:
2014, Sr. Pascale-Dominique Nau, Rome.
All rights reserved.

Table of contents

Table of contents ............................................... 5


PRESENTATION .................................................. 7
SERMONS...........................................................13
On Faith............................................................15
Christ is in the Church ....................................35
Mans Love for God .......................................51
Mans Triple Resurrection ..............................69
Christs Peace and Peace of the World ........83

Presentation
Father Piotr Semenenko (1814-1886), a
Polish Resurrectionist, is the co-founder of a
Polish school of spirituality. He presented
this schools conception of spiritual life primarily in his sermons, which have been published in four volumes. The first two volumes
appeared in Lvov, in 1913, under the title:
Kazania na niedziele i wita roku kocielnego
(Sermons for Sundays and Feasts of the
Church Year). The first volume of this set
contains the sermons for Advent through to
the end of Eastertide, and the second volume
has those from Pentecost to the end of the
liturgical year, as well as sermons for the
feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The second two-volume set was published in Cracow
in 1923 under the title: Kazania przygodne (Circumstantial Sermons); the first of these two
volumes covers the years 1843 to 1857, and
the second goes from 1858 to 1881. In addition to the sermons, this collection also contains an outline of a homily for the Solemnity
of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. It should be noted that in addi-

tion to full texts of sermons, there are also 9


printed pages of detailed outlines for others.
Father Semenenko did not give titles to his
sermons, but in many cases they were added
by the editors, who used expressions from
their content. Father Semenenko addressed
his sermons especially to Poles living in exile
during the Partitions of their homeland by
Moscow, Berlin and Vienna, and to priests
and religious. He preached in Rome, Paris,
Poznan, Cracow and Lvov, and also at the
health spas in Ostend and for nuns in
French, Italian and Belgian convents. He was
28 years old when he began his preaching
activity.
Sister Pascale has translated five sermons; three are taken from the first volume
of the circumstantial sermons and two from
the first volume of sermons for Sundays and
feast days. In order to understand the content of the selected sermons well, it must be
noted that Father Semenenkos sermons represent a valuable resource for the concrete
application of the principles of spiritual life
that he preached and professed. Indeed, the
author transmitted a great wealth of spiritual
thought, built on a thorough knowledge of
theology and philosophy, and especially on
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the spiritual basis of his own mystical experience. He, therefore, presents an original doctrine of the spiritual life, recognizable in the
collection of his sermons. Indeed, on the
whole, Father Semenenkos sermons are
characterized by the fact that they are centered on his spiritual thought, which expresses both his knowledge of the human heart
and his own mystical experience.
These sermons reveal to us the following
spiritual doctrine, which applies a very original three-part method. The three approaches
to spiritual life are: the anthropology of selfknowledge, cooperation with God, and mystical union. In this framework, the author
discusses the entire process of spiritual life,
taking into account its significant components at various stages. The tripartite division
is present in all his teaching, from theology of
creation (God), through the history of salvation (Christ)which is divided into three
periods, and finally the doctrine of his
paschal spirituality (Resurrection), according
to which the spiritual life is developed with
humility on a threefold foundation: nothingness, poverty (sin) and the three theological
virtues (faith, love and hope) that lead to the
mystical union with God. Thus, the author
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gives spiritual life a dynamic character. In


fact, mans spiritual formation is brought
about through the action of the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In accordance with this conception, Sister
Pascales choice of Father Semenenkos sermons is excellent.
Moreover, the selected sermons show
the true dimension of Father Semenenkos
spirituality: mans end is God and His love,
which is the foundation of holiness and the
driving force that should motivate the efforts
that a Christian makes in his quest for the
mystical union with Him. This goal is
reached in Christ. Indeed, love was fully revealed in the Son of God and offered to man
in His Paschal Mystery. The Christian transfigured by Christ's love comes to eternal union with God, who is the Source of love. In
this way, the loving soul dies with Christ, in
order to later be resurrected with Him to
eternal life. The truth of the resurrection is
already contained in death itself. Yet, if death
is to bear fruit, all must be done in union
with the Risen Christ. So, it is not surprising
that Father Semenenko refers all things to
Christ and resolves everything in Him. Now,
Sister Pascale has perfectly extracted this
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element of spiritual life by selecting the sermons on the resurrection, because according
to the author the concept of holiness is characterized by conformation to Christ, and so
emphasizes life in Christ, the interaction with
Him and the supernatural Paschal dimension
of the spiritual life.
Father Semenenkos conception of the
spiritual life is also marked by optimism: This
comes to the fore in the sermons in the present volume and is illustrated especially by
those in which the author speaks about the
peace of Christ and Gods love for man. This
optimism is based on the Resurrection and
flows from the faith in Gods love, which
results in the presence of Christ in the Christian and leads him to union with the Risen
Christ.
We must acknowledge the merit of Sister Pascales work, because in this small selection of five sermons, she has succeeded in
clearly presenting the main principles of the
spiritual life taught by Father Semenenko. At
the same time, the pertinence of Father Semenenkos conception for modern man appears. Although these sermons were
preached over 150 years ago, their content is
still relevant in our time. Undeniably, Father
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Semenenko created an original school of


Resurrectionist spirituality, which can serve
for the formation of modern man in Europe
today. Yet, in order for the sermons to bear
real spiritual fruit in every Christian, the entire collection needs to be known. Hence, the
sermons translated by Sister Pascale are a
great incentive, both for her and for me, to
make them into the essential element of a
spiritual education based on the perfect gift
of self to God and on Jesus Paschal Mystery.
Fr. Stanislaw Urbanski, PhD
Director of the Institute of Spiritual Theology
University of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski
Warsaw, 7 June 2014

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Sermons

On Faith
(Preached in Paris in January 1843)

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not
perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16)
Beloved brethren!
These words of our Lord and Master are
the words of life that contain all our salvation. God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life. This is the
mystery of Christianity. Love and faith, faith
and love, constitute the foundation; that is
the entire content of this great mystery of
faith, whichas Paul sayswas revealed to
the angels announced to the people, believed
in the world, and brought to glory (1 Timothy 3:16). Indeed, not without a motive do
we call it a mystery. For reason alone is not
strong enough to grasp the motive of loves
wonderful interventions. Why did God create
the world? and even more: Why did He redeem it? This is an eternal mystery for the
reason, a cross perpetual human wisdom. We
try to understand this act; but it is mind-

boggling! In order to grasp it, we need love,


divine fire, and not the requisite of cold logic
that boasts about its own accomplishments,
without even imagining that it is destroying
life and human nature, and that it has killed
and crucified God. In fact, the reason will
never understand love, and when the word
love sounds in its ears, when love is
praised, the reasoning spirit can only respond
with a smile of contempt. Yet this Word created the world and man: all things were created by him (Colossians 1:16), this word
love brought redemption after the fall: God
so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son.
So, despite all, love is by nature an essential
aspect of human life. Man lives by love; he
loves himself or God, but he must always
love. His love can take many forms: in contact with the world through his senses or his
imagination, a man may try to satisfy his need
for love, by pampering the desires of the
flesh when it adheres to the senses and those
of his eyes when he follows his imagination;
he can also close himself off and enjoy his
knowledge or education, and in that case the
sin is the pride of reason, which is much
more serious than the vanity of his heart:
For in the world are the desire of the flesh,
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the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life


(cf. 1 John 2:16). Still, though, this love, the
source of all sins and our greatest misery,
directs man; for it is the reverse of our natures nobility, the deepest dimension of our
lives, of the love that is the real soul of our
soul.
The one God is the true object of our
love.
O man, God created you for Himself.
He created you in His image and likeness; but
you will be a likeness without the eternal
model, a lifeless image, if you do not let
yourself be completed by the Creator, if you
are not united with Him through love.
O man, God has directed your soul with
all its faculties to Himself, to union with
Him; He holds all the strings of your heart;
you can tear them out, but you will not be
able to connect their small ends to anything.
Separated from Him, you will be forever
empty, because God is your truth; you will be
eternally at war, for God is your good and
your peace; you will be forever in death, because God is your life.
My dear brothers! Who can refuse true
life? Who can say that Gods love is not the
deepest need of our being? At least not you,
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whose souls for so long already are shaped by


Gods hand, reviving the authentic sap of
divine love, which alone can restore your
health and make you bear everlasting fruit.
God has tried to mortify your self-centered
pride in its various forms, precisely in order
to pour His love into you and so make you
His child. He has sent suffering and hardship
to remove the desires of your flesh, to separate you and keep you away from everything
that might be pleasant to the eyes or that you
might consider as your possession, thus depriving you of the eyes desires; He gave you
needs and sorrows as a practical measure to
gauge the values of human wisdom, to free
you from the pride of reason; and the sins of
your country,1 its misery before God, your
own sin and your misery can be used as a
cure for arrogance. God, who sees the heart
and the mind, knows best how much heat
and rain to send to you and that the soil of
your soul can absorb; but it is certain that all
This is a reference to Poland and the misery in which
the country finds itself after the revolt of 1830. On the
history of Polish emigration in Paris in those years and
on Bogdan Janski and House of Janski, see J.
Klechta, 175 ans au service de la Polonia (Mission
Catholique Polonaise en France, Paris, 2011).
1

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this is His work of love because you are the


object of His mercy, you are the child of His
womb; He leads you as you know along
difficult paths to the goal that His love has
indicated to you. So, there is no need to
prove His love, because if you have not yet
given Him your heart once and for all, its
because you think that your heart is strong
today; yet, it is not well without Him. It
seeks, sometimes not knowing what, but it
seeks Him. Oh, you will find Him, my brothers! Youve lost your dearest possession on
earth, but you will find God Himself, and in
Him you will find everything: He will be your
great reward: Your reward shall be very
great (Genesis 15:1). Indeed, the words
spoken by Christ cannot pass: Seek first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and
the rest shall be added unto you (Matthew
6:33). Still, in this quest, this longing for God
is the path He Himself has shown and that
no one should ignore because it is the only
one. Presenting this path will be the intent of
our teachings. To show His path God has
chosen us, we who are weak and shunned:
God chose what is low and despised in the world (cf.
1 Corinthians 1:28). Oh, how this pleases
Him! But you should not despise Gods truth
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because of the low value of the tool that


brings it to you. In fact, this truth concerns
God himself, your life or your death, and not
merely an idea; this is really a matter of your
life or death. Therefore, so that the grace of
God may accompany us in these teachings,
let us turn to our Queen and Mother to ask
her to intercede for us. Hail Mary.
I
Love binds together a large number of
people; it gathers and unites many in one.
Thus, the Son of God says about Himself
and His Father: I and the Father are one
(John 10:30). Here, however, love already has
its object, whereas we who are still on earth,
we are not yet in possession of God. We are
wandering far from the Lord (2 Corinthians
5:6), says the Apostle. During our journey,
we see many different roads, so many things
entice our imagination and are beyond our
understanding; on the other hand, so many
kinds of poison, unhealthy food, affect our
heart that we absolutely need a guide to lead
us away from these dangers. But who will be
our guide? Here, if love truly indestructible
love is really what makes us move toward
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our goal, then faith is the only road that will


lead us to that goal. Faith is the substance of
things hoped for.2 Faith is the foundation on
which we must rely in order to reach what we
hope for. And it cannot be otherwise. Our
pilgrimage is indeed the place where God
sees the manifestation of our love. God
loved us first, says the Apostle John, God
first gave us all the evidence of his love; so
now let us love Him and give Him now
proof of our love (cf. 1 John 4:19). This is
what the law of love requires. And because
the Lord has put many dangers on our road
to Him, He also gave us the guide: faith, that
whosoever believes in Him should not perish
but have eternal life (John 3:16). The guide
that God has put into our nature to give this
impulse is the love that leads us to Him, because the essence of love is to put his trust in
his beloved, to blindly accept his leadership;
and indeed! the more joyfully it spreads inside, the more blindly a person surrenders to
the pleasure of his beloved.
Therefore, my dear brethren, God has
given us, from the outside, the revelation
whose object is faith to be our guide. This
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae q. 4,
a. 1.
2

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revelation is the consequence of Gods love;


it somehow necessarily comes from it, that is
from the need to experience our love. Without the revelation, there would be no faith,
and without faith, there would be no way for
us to experience this.
However, my brothers, you must accept
the entire revelation, as the Lord God gives
it. The obedience of the intellect and of the
heart must be complete, as the Lord God
requires. The mind cannot reject what it
thinks is wrong, and the feeling should not
rearrange what seems unpleasant. In fact, by
rejecting even the smallest thing, one refuses
everything. This is so because not a given
thing is at stake but rather God Himself, who
gives it and whose dignity extends even to
the smallest things of His revelation. Moreover, we must receive the revelation not because it seems consistent with our reasoning
and acceptable to our feeling; in that case, we
would be judging the dignity of the revelation, while God is the One who gives us this
revelation, which is the only Truth and the
only Good. Finally, we must receive the revelation in the same way that God has given it,
by the same means He has appointed to keep
and transmit it, in a word: from the Church,
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without looking for or taking other means to


reach this revelation.
Beloved brothers! People who love not
God but iniquity that is to say the world or
its particular interests have turned away
from listening to the truth and wandered into myths,
as the Apostle says (2 Timothy 4:4). Their
example shows us the truth of what we have
just said. Abandoning the faith, they took
reason as their guide and their senseless
minds were darkened (Romans 1:21). Listen
to these masters of wisdom: what one says,
ten others refute it and disagreement over
the primary articles of faith and the foundation of morality is the most serious of all.
Everyone praises his own system, laying his
idol on the altar, and fiercely wages war
against others. Generalized war, the confusion of opinions and languages: this is truly a
Tower of Babel! And who will decide what
the truth is? Without the revelation, there is
no way to get out of this situation. Feeling,
on the other hand, leads to no other end.
When a man has broken away from faith, he
follows his own path.
My brothers! Mans spirit is created in
the image and likeness of God, and despite
this separation, he can still do great things
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and use the treasures that the Creator has put


into his hands for his own creations, in the
image and likeness of God. Man can arouse
admiration; he can be both sublime and deep;
he can make great signs and work wonders,
get enthused and be moved to tears and
nevertheless be mistaken. Whats more, a
man can give up everything: wealth, importance, glory, take up the cross and carry it,
apparently doing what Christ said: If any
want to become my followers, let them take
up their cross and follow me (Matthew
16:24); yet, in spite of all, he certainly fails to
meet the condition that Christ has set: If
any want to become my followers, let them
deny themselves, etc. (Mark 8:34). This is
always mere self-infatuation, even when simulating the love of God.
Lord! If these people were really denying
themselves and if they had Your love in
them, they would seek the truth elsewhere,
that is exclusively where You have placed it
so that we may find it there: in the Church.
They would then have no other masters than
those sent by the Church and established by
You once and for all, when you said: Whoever listens to you listens to me (Luke
10:16). They would seek Christ only in the
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place where he himself said he would remain


until the end of the world (cf. Matthew
28:20).
Today, however, people invent their
own truth, present their masters and a Christ
composed as they wish him; and when you
ask them: How do I know that these champions are not impostors, and that your Christ
is the true one? they answer that your feeling gives you the proof that should convince
you. Yet, their answer is precisely what condemns them: I will judge you by your own
words, you wicked slave (Luke 19:22). God
says that in His Revelation and the Church
is its interpreter and faith in this Revelation, together with the Tradition, constitutes
the only path and the only guide to salvation.
Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever
rejects you rejects me (Luke 10, 16); and you tell
me that my feelings show me the way and
guide me!? In Gods view, despite what these
people think when stating their differing
opinions and presenting masters who contradict one another, when they talk about these
things with each other, there are not united
by His Spirit, and what they say does not
correspond to the truth. So, can we find here
the love of God, or self-renunciation for the
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sake of the love, without which one cannot


Christs disciple and Gods child? Mans
blindness is great, my brothers, when he considers his feelings infallible. For us, God and
His Church are infallible, and for those people their feelings are. They think that the
truth is a feeling with which God has filled
them; but that is precisely the source of their
error and the arrogance of thinking that, for
them alone, God has changed the order of
what He established for all humanity and for
all time: Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, And remember, I am with you always, to
the end of the world (Matthew 28:19.20).
We should talk about this with great
sadness, because we love God with all our
soul, all our mind and all our heart. In fact, in
the situation we are describing, the mind
begins wandering here and there, and the
heart expresses its rebellion in so many subtle
ways. The harm is immense, because the faith
that God requires is destroyed, and consequently the whole relationship of the souls
love for God is damaged.
Do you want to know what happens
next and where the road ends? What follows
is inner turmoil? The soul may slumber for a
moment, but inner uncertainty always inevi26

tably comes to wake it up. Gods greatest


punishment, which often strikes false teachers, is precisely when He stops stirring the
conscience. The end of the road is either
despair, that is to say, the death of all other
feelings, or the assumption that all beliefs and
revelations are equivalent, and that leads to
the obliteration of the difference between
good and evil and, consequently, the destruction of feelings object, of what one senses as
good. Indeed, God gave, on the one hand,
the truth to reason and, on the other, goodness
as the object of sentiment; if a man does not
want to accept them, it means that he rejects
the Giver Himself, or His way of giving, and
he inevitably loses bit by bit all the forces of
both mind and heart and finally comes to the
death of both. Their end is destruction
(Philippians 3:19).
In fact there is only one path that leads
to life, the one God, in His love, sent us with
His only begotten Son, the path of faith: God
so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that
whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.

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II
Without faith it is impossible to please God. If
faith, seen from the outside, is the only guide
on the path of salvation, on the inside it is
also necessary in our relationship with God.
Faith gives our thinking the characteristic of
truth, our feeling the inclination toward holiness, and our actions real value. Our deeds
are fruits that make it possible to see whether
the tree of our soul is good or bad; they go
with us from this world to the next: Their
deeds follow them (Revelation 14:13), and God
will reward each person according to his actions: He will repay every man for what he has done
(Matthew 16:27). However, our deeds are not
good simply because we think or feel they
are, or because they are in harmony with
what people think; they have to be good before God. Indeed, if what we do is good only
because people approve it, then there seems
to be really no reason to worry about it. Yet,
what is more unjust or changing than human
judgment? And besides, what would be the
rule of the judgment or of the approval? I
can heartily laugh at human judgment, and
who could convince me that my derision is
bad? or in the name of what? on behalf of
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some human authority? I am a man with the


same rights. Or is it that my works are good
because I say they are. Am I God, that I
make my own nature the rule of good and
evil? Are my mind and feelings the highest
truth and the greatest good to the point that
what they approve is necessarily infallible?
No, not at all; faith is this infallible rule, and
only works coming from faith are good, because faith is given by God, and only God
can say of His own nature: This is good, and,
similarly, this is opposed to evil. Therefore, only
actions coming from faith have value; moreover, they are the only ones that count in
mans relationship of love with God, a relationship of which faith is a prerequisite here
on earth; and so these actions alone are pleasing to God. Without faith it is impossible to please
God.
My brothers! People who have abandoned the faith and follow their own reason
or feeling do not want their actions to be
impeded. They consider the virtue of faith
too demanding and not solid enough; and,
moreover, it is based on humility. Some people have introduced, humming, the words of
tolerance, charity, love of the common good
and sacrifice; others use those of God, Lord
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and Spirit; and there are even more words.


With regard to them, the Apostle says that
they hold to the outward form of godliness but deny its
reality (2 Tim 3:5). The appearance is the
sheepskin that covers the outside; the tomb is
bleached, but there is a decaying corpse inside, and a stench emerges from human nature when the relation between faith and love
of God is broken. Once again: Man lives by
love and faith; by love, as his element by
faith, as a link that connects the element to its
subject, its life, with God; when that bond is
broken, and this element becomes detached
from its life, man shall inevitably suffer corruption and death, and then, whatever he
does in this agony, he is in any case doomed
to die, all his deeds are unhealthy, they contain the germ of death and die with him.
My brothers, my dear brothers! You
have done much in your life, and you have
tried to achieve great things. You proclaim
your work before the world and astonish
people. You alone, you alone, laying your
hand on your conscience, tranquilly state that
you have fully done your duty and you will
totally fulfill it. You have consecrated everything to this; the greatest sacrifices cost you
nothing, and both physically and spiritually
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you could continue like this for many years;


and if you bravely shed your blood for your
country on the battlefield, with incomparably
greater valor, you will pour out your souls
blood in bitter and long suffering and in inner battles.
Men of Antiquity sang the glory of human models of virtue and of the greatest of
them: the souls courage, in the assemblies of
the people am d, now, you have given
your witness not just as individuals but as a
crowd. Yet, are these deeds, virtues and sacrifices born of faith, my brothers, my dear
brothers, or were they done for God, or do
they have a value on the balance of the Judge
of time and of the generations? I do not have
the courage to deny it; but Ill say it again and
I will always say what I have to say, because I
cannot lie: only actions born of faith have
value before the Judge, they alone may tilt
the balance of eternal judgment one way or
the other; and if you want your cry of pain
not only to reach God because it resonates
and accuses your enemies but also to
touch His heart and make Him turn to you,
my brethren, it takes faith, faith, faith. And
this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith!
(1 John 5:4)
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The just shall live by faith (Hebrews 2:4).


Oh, if only this need to believe entered once
for all into your heart! This great, important,
essential need! Oh, if you could understand
clearly that without faith all the treasures of
your virtues and suffering, all the pearls of
your tears will be considered worthless and
remain buried in oblivion when they
should be shining on the head of the Son of
God among the thorns of his crown.
The enemy of your soul knows better
than you the great price of faith. He knows
that if you return to the faith, repenting and
humbly asking the Father that His justice,
His Kingdom and His Will come on earth as
in heaven, you would not only asking for this
immediately but you would also become His
dearly beloved son, defenders of faith, valiant
men of His glory. That is why, when faith
begins to awaken in you, a heavy temptation
will hit you. God, in turn, permits it because
temptation is necessary; it will purify your
faith of all earthly and human additions. This
is necessary, because your faith has to be
stronger than your suffering, nobler than
your sacrifice, and absolutely pure. Your
souls enemy has already laid before your
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mind the different feelings and religious fantasies of the world in order to tear you away
from the faith which alone leads to life, and
he has spurred you onto the path of reason
and pride, to the pride of the heart that leads
to death. He tried especially to make you
leave the Church, the Mother of our faith,
because he knows that He can no longer
have God for his Father, who has not the
Church for his mother;3 your enemy knows
very well that, once away from the Church,
you cannot have faith. Now, your love for
the Church must correspond to the purity
God requires of you in your faith. If, despite
all temptations, faith is always burning in
your heart, it will be truly eloquent before
God! How strong justice the foundation of
faith will be in His eyes! Each of you will
come to eternal salvation, and everything else
that you want here on earth, you will want it
henceforth in God. Only remember that you
can no longer give any excuses, claiming inadvertence. Given these dangers and temptations, Gods voice has resounded with His
warnings in your conscience, and you know
what to do. You have before you the truth
3

Cyprian of Carthage, The Unity of the Catholic Church 4.


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and falsehood, good and evil, life and death.


The choice is yours!
Amen.

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Christ is in the Church


(Preached in Paris on March 19th, 1843)

When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith


on earth? (Luke 18:8)
My brethren!
Faith teaches us that the world shall end,
that the history of the human race will come
to a close and culminate in a universal judgment. According to the Apostles Creed, the
Son of God himself, who was crucified under
Pontius Pilate, died, rose again, ascended into
heaven and is seated at the right hand of God
the Almighty Father, our Lord Jesus Christ,
will come to judge the living and the dead. As
he ascended to heaven, he blessed his five
hundred disciples gathered around him. And
when they were watching him lifted towards
heaven, a cloud came and hid him from their
sight. Then, while they were still looking attentively toward the sky, two men dressed in
white appeared to them and said: Men of
Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward
heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken away
from you into heaven, will come in the same

way as you saw him go into heaven (Acts


1:11). He will come to judge the living and the dead.
When speaking about this coming of the
Lord Jesus, the question arises: When the Son
of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? What
does this mean? Shall there no longer be faith
on earth? Can the sacred fire that descended
from heaven really go out on the entire earth
and no longer be found in hearts that were
beating for Christ? Will there still be noble
souls in large numbers so that it can be said:
there is still faith on earth? Because it is really
with a doubt that the question is asked:
What do you think, does one find faith on
earth? as if adding: I tell you, it shall no
longer exist. But heres the answer: The name
of Christ will not cease to resound on earth,
because there will always be souls turned
towards him. The saving name will always be
invoked, but wrongly. There will be something like faith, but it will not be true faith.
People will not accept Christ where he is,
that is to say in the Church; on the contrary,
man will praise his own intellect with songs
of worship, saying: that it is Christ; and he
will fall at the feet of different people, claiming that they are Christ. He personally
warned us about this when he was on earth:
36

Then if anyone says to you, Look! Here is


Christ! or There he is! do not believe it
(Matthew 24:23). For false christs and false
prophets will arise; they will make great signs
and work wonders in order to deceive people
and, if possible, mislead even the chosen.
See, I have warned you. My brothers, it is
necessary to say, and remember this well, it
has been said often enough: Here is Christ,
or there; but do not believe it, and be certain
that this Christ is a fake. Christ himself asks
us to be careful, for he is not found in the
desert of human reasoning or in secret constructions of the human sentiment. Christ is
truly continuously before the eyes of all, as
the light that illuminates the world; Christ is
in the Church, in the one visible and universal Church.
Look, my brothers, at todays world! Is it
not true that there is something that resembles faith, but very little true faith? We are
not saying that the end of the world is about
to come, because nobody knows the time or
the hour except the Father; but it is certain
that we now have an idea of what the end of
the world will be like. Today, there are many
false prophets, who deceive themselves and
make the chosen sway! Now, it really is not
37

surprising that almost all abuse the Name of


Jesus Christ, thus fulfilling His prediction:
Many will come in my name. And did he
say anything to let us think that at least one
of these men could be the true Christ? Not at
all! He repeated over and over: Do not believe,
do not believe it! Indeed, my brethren, it is an
error to believe, when we must not, in a
Christ who is not the Christ and we are
saying that todays world is full of these imposters. What is more contrary to Christs
teaching than the system of human wisdom
which prevails today So, in our days,
when false prophets are deceiving people
everywhere, the object of true faith disappears; Christ, living in the Church, is abandoned, when the hearts inclination turns
away from God, as is the case today, and puts
its trust in the errors of the false teachers
who are leading the hearts away from the
true masters who, like us, come not on their
own initiative and do not seek their own advantage. As for us, we simply come shouting
like the One who sent us: Dont believe, do not
believe it! Jesus Christ, who is truth, freedom
and life, who is your salvation, without whom
you cannot live, the true Christ is neither
here nor there, neither in the desert nor in
38

secret constructions; Christ is in the Church! Do


you want to live? Believe in Jesus Christ. Do
you want to believe in Jesus Christ? Come to
church. Only here will you find not something like faith but the faith itself, the true
faith that will save you.
Therefore, beloved brethren assembled
today, with the help of God and the full doctrine of the Church which I have tried to
expose for you more broadly, and in order
to progress logically in what will I say next,
we must first talk about what a man is in the
Church and then what the same man is outside the Church. We ask God to illuminate
our hearts and incline them to His truth, so
that we can really benefit from these teachings, and we entrust this to the intercession
of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of St. Joseph,
whose feast the Church is celebrating today.
I
Man was created for God and, when He
created him, God put in his heart the law of
love, of which He Himself is the object; and
the motor, although it belongs to a finite
source (as is the human being), mans poor
little heart is nevertheless as infinite as the
39

object of love that little hearts desire is as


limitless as God Himself. Now, man lived in
accordance with this law until the fall. God
had given him a full measure, and he lived
with God without obstacles, and following
Him he would have possessed it forever.
Now, after the fall, faith is the only link
that binds man to God, the bond which
flows from love as the source and leads to
love as the goal. But all of faith has its foundation in Christ and without him it would not
exist. This is so because Christ implored
God, and he alone could earn His favor after
mans first sin. Christ reconciled humanity to
the Father, and if we can bring forth from
our chests the invocation: Father!, we owe
this to Christ. The ancients did not know this
title, but somehow remembered or prophesied it, recalling the past or foretelling the
future. Yet, man is free; he can receive the
faith in Christ, which raises him from the fall,
or reject it. In fact, all of history owes its existence to Christ, because without him that
is to say without the reparation after the
fall, it would have ended with the first
man; consequently, history as a whole bears
the two-fold mark of conflict and war. Those
who do not receive this faith, in their revolt,
40

accomplish the deeds of perdition and bear


all the consequences of sin: they are heading
to certain death and destruction. For those
who have received the faith of Christ, they
are engaged in the great and powerful work
of reparation; they edify Gods Church,
which advances securely towards its end: life
and salvation and God himself.
That, my brothers, is the introduction to
the doctrine of the Church; it is not our invention or a construction of our minds; we
have received it from the mouth of our Lord
Jesus Christ himself, whose parables and
explanations are always the basis of our
teaching. Now, Christ said: God so loved the
world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who
believes in him may not perish but have eternal life
(John 3:16), and also: The gate is wide and the
way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who
enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the
way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it
are few (Matthew 7:1314). Consequently,
mans relationship with God, repaired by His
love, rests on faith in his only Son; that is the
straight and narrow path that leads to life,
and next to it there is another one Christ
says there are two paths, and each one leads
to a different end: one to destruction, the
41

other to life. This second path is Gods


Church.
Christ the Lord is therefore the only
mediator between God and men. There is
one God, as St. Paul says, and there is also
one mediator between God and humanity,
Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for
all, who is God, blessed forever (cf. 1 Timothy 2:5; Romans 1:25). He is the Mediator
between God and men precisely because he
is both God and man, as we want to explain
in greater detail, when God will allow us to
expose other mysteries of our faith to you.
Now, Christ in his office of mediator
not only asks God to forgive our sins, but
this forgiveness has also given us all the
treasures of his merits, which each of us can
and must appropriate. To this end, he
brought us the truth, that is to say he told us
about our beginning, our state and our end;
he showed us the way, that is what we must
do in our state to reach this end; he gave us
life, which is God Himself we had lost
Him, but Christ reconciled us to Him, with
whom he is one: I and the Father are one
(John 10:30). In a word: Christ has become
for us the truth, the way and the life. I am the
way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). By be42

coming all of this, he corresponded in an


extraordinary way to our nature, he who
knows all its glory and its weakness: the glory
because he created it, and the weakness because he adopted it, by taking our nature,
which is as it is because it creates nothing
from itself but receives everything from outside, and especially in its weakness. It was
therefore necessary that Christ bring us the
truth, show us the way, reconcile us to God,
indicate the purpose of our lives, and give us
life.
The Church has taken Christs place
with the aim of accomplishing the same mission with the same power. This is why the
Church, like Christ himself or rather Christ
through the Church firstly unites us to
God, then gives us the truth, shows us the
way and gives us life.
Thus, it is through Christ that God gives
Himself to man, and Christ is only found in
the Church. Consequently, everything: our
relationship with God, the supernatural
bond, the bond of faith, is established
through its center, through the Church.
What does a man receive in the Church
and what does he become there? What does
God do for man through the Church? First
43

of all, He cleanses him from sin. Holy Baptism, the door of the Church, removes original sin and all the other sins that followed it.
Indeed, nothing impure can enter into the
Holy of Holies of the Temple, into Gods
Church. Through Baptism, man becomes a
member of Christ, for the Church is His
Body; through the Son he becomes a son of
God, because Christ, the true Son of God,
lives within each of its members. Yet, when
man has become Gods son, this new son of
God must necessarily live the new life. So,
this man lives by the truth and for goodness.
He will therefore find in the Church both in
their fullness but most of all the truth. In
the Church he hears Gods word, written in
the book without a title, since Bible means
book or, as we call it, Scripture. This is a
unique book, or Scripture, of humanity,
where its fate is recorded, and God, the
world and man are described; there history,
with all its mystery, is explained. This is the
only scripture in the world that has a beginning and an end, that says where we come
from and where we are going. However,
Scripture is incomprehensible to a man who
is not in the Church, just as was the book
that John saw in the Apocalypse, the book
44

sealed with seven seals; nobody could open it


and look inside. Only the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, Davids descendant, can open the
book and break its seven seals (cf. Revelation
5). Only the Church where the living
Christ dwells gives the right understanding of the Scriptures, for it is Christ himself
who does this through it. The Church is the
science of Christ, and the voice of the
Church is His voice; she is just as holy as he
is because she shares his personal power; she
is just as real, just as infallible. Infallibility is
necessarily a property of the Church, without
which Christ would not be Christ, and God
Himself would not be God, as we have tried
to announce Him. Man, then, not only has
the truth in the Church, but the infallible
truth approved by God Himself and as sure
as God. This certainty is the life of the mind;
it is a mans absolute conviction, his full faith.
This man may boldly confess the truth everywhere, lovingly devoting his life to it; and,
without being fanatical because this faith is
not his own invention or an illusion of his
mind but the truth received from outside,
from God through the Church, he freely
gives his life The one who gives it for the
love of Gods truth received from the
45

Church is the wise man, the sage, the true


and holy martyr about whom Christ spoke,
when he said: Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before
my Father in heaven (Matthew 10:32).
So, my brethren, a man has the whole
truth in the Church alone, not a truth that
comes from himself, but the absolutely certain and infallible divinely revealed truth; and
there is nowhere else in this world where he
could find it.
However, just as the truth, introduced
and put into practice in life, becomes an asset, and as the truth is whole and complete,
likewise goodness in the Church is also whole
and complete. Here, man has the true aim of
life; he does not wander right and left, but he
knows where he is going and that what he
does leads to the end, which inevitably awaits
him. Oh, how happy are the effects of the
certainty of truth and goodness! If you want
to know the consequences, do not look at
those who are in the Church only with their
bodies, but without their souls; look at those
whom the Church recognizes before the
world as her true children, those she places
on the altar to be honored by all believers:
46

look at the Saints. For, you know, my brethren, that the Church has a body and a soul;
this body is composed of all the unjust and
the sinners, and the soul of the righteous.
The soul is in fact the essential part of the
Church, the part that vivifies her; and this
soul is everything in Gods eyes. Christ said
to her: You are altogether beautiful, my
love; there is no flaw in you (Song of Solomon 4:7). The body of the Church is often
sick and some parts are rotting, but her soul
is always beautiful and healthy Look, my
brothers, at the soul of the Church; I assure
you that all your ideal social organizations, all
your dreams of happiness for mankind, have
never seen anything like it. How can your
glory be told, O Daughter of the King, our
Mother, Supreme Beloved? You are worthy
of all reverence, because you are Queen, you
replace Christ who is in the place of God! We
have access to Him only thanks to you. You
purify us by baptism and penance. You give
us the whole and infallible truth; you show us
the straight road and guide us towards the
goal of this life, which is God, and you give
us all good. Through you is accomplished the
great work of love for which man is made.
The fundamental law of God is love, and the
47

law of the human, given through the creation, is also love. This bond was demolished,
but in you it is restored, and the great need of
the human being finds its full satisfaction in
you, in you alone. O Mother! I will add more
words to praise you, yet something is always
missing. I cannot find words beautiful
enough to describe your purity and immortal
beauty; I cannot see terms strong enough to
express the power and strength of your truth;
I do not know from where to take the words
that are lively enough to portray the great
importance, the very necessity, all the life that
are in you, entirely in you, and in you alone.
O You, at least, light of God, sacred fire,
descend into the hearts of my brethren, reveal Yourself to them, and convince them all!
May they confess again with all their heart
that apart from You, Lord, there is nothing;
that you are the One who exists, and that
You sent Jesus Christ and established only
one Holy Church; that in the Trinity is the
wisdom of life, and that man finds everything
in these three: God, Christ and the Church.
This short encounter, which we have so
far devoted to speaking about the Church, is
48

also the completion of our teachings about


her. Let us finish all of this by recalling again
and repeating the Lords words: The one who
believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one
who does not believe will be condemned (Mark
16:16).

49

Mans Love for God


(Preached in Paris 1843)

We now love God because He first loved us


(1 John 4: 19)
Beloved brothers in Christ the Lord!
We recently spoke of Gods love for
mankind.4 We saw how God created man
with the need to love in his soul, and that He
gave to this being His Law of love and Himself as that loves object. All this was the
done by divine love, the love which is the
essence of Gods being. Man betrayed that
love and, breaking the relationship, created a
separation. We saw how, when man suddenly
turned away and fled his God, in order to
seek his satisfaction and happiness elsewhere,
he encountered nothing but emptiness and
the death of the soul. Yet, we also saw how
God, in His love, sought man and pursued
him with His commandments, and in the end
reached him by His presence, when God
came down to earth and was born among us
The homily that Father Semenenko refers to here has
unfortunately not been preserved.
4

51

as our Savior. And when did God in His love


pursue us? When? When the world was
plunged into the deepest oblivion of God,
when the first sin had produced millions of
others and finally reached its ultimate consequences, the ugliest ones, when mans ingratitude knew no limits and, having killed God
not only in his heart but also in his conscience, had placed on the tomb of Gods
love the altars of arrogance and its abominations. So, God loved us first, when we had
broken the relationship of love, when we had
stopped loving God, when we had despised
and forgotten Him. God loved us first.
Therein resides the greatness of His love.
And He did not limit it to a certain time but
extends it for ever and ever through His
presence in the Blessed Sacrament, giving us
His love fully. Gods love for us was revealed in this way, says John, not that we
loved God but that He loved us and sent His
Son. And so, St. John continues, let us
love God, since He loved us first (cf. 1 John
4:910).
I come to you today with these words,
dear brothers: Let us love God! Ah, may the
depths of your soul open to recognize in this
word a source of joy, happiness and peace
52

and having understood this word, may you


welcome this word and respond to it, by the
grace of divine love and the intercession of
the Blessed Virgin Mary! Hail Mary.
I
Let us love God! But do we know,
brethren, what love is? what love is based on?
Ah, man by himself does not know the secrets to which he is nevertheless destined!
For him the love of God is born into the
world. Let us travel throughout this old
world that lives without God, and seek love
there we will not find it. And now, my
brethren, the further this world moves away
from God, the less it knows what love is,
even human love. In its heart is the ice of
pride, which chills everything, darkens and
extinguishes everything. And, if there are
some exceptions, if in the heart of some
people the imagination kindles the fire of
human love, this love is sick, feverish, and at
least never completely devoid of selfcenteredness; always, ultimately, it draws everything to itself. In order to know what love
is, and to be able to respond with a single
voice: Let us love God, we do not need to
53

search for models; we just have to look at


how God has loved us. There, and only
there, will we find a true model of love. We
have seen this authentic model, but now I
want to summarize in one word all that I
have already said to you. Look, my brothers,
God has given Himself to us, He has given
Himself entirely to us, He has given all that
He has and all that He is. And He has given
Himself to us in such a way that He remains
continually present, alive, and so close that
we just need to take a few steps in order to
have everything. God loved us that much. So,
let us also love this God, that is to say: we
must give ourselves to God, we must give
Him ourselves entirely; we must give Him
everything we have and everything we are.
That, my brothers, is the meaning of these
words: Let us also love God.
Now, before all else, we should give
Him our spirit. God gave us His truth; we,
for our part, must give our faith. Faith, my
brethren, is the strong consent of our intelligence to the truth revealed by God; it is the
complete submission of our minds to Gods
truth. He who doubts does not believe; he
who does not believe does not love God and
does not respond to that voice indeed, his
54

whole soul turns away in order to avoid answering the call of this voice that says: Let us
also love God! Here, the whole sea of accusations comes to my mind. I know, I know
them well but today we have not chosen to
answer; moreover, the history of response to
human folly, and wanting to be understood,
is strange and long. Now, we can only say
that anyone who does not submit his mind
does not love. On the other hand, someone
who loves joyfully submits his intellect to
divine truth; he does so without reserve, and
does so as God asked. He submits his mind
completely, because he does not exclude any
bit of the truth nor the smallest part of dogma; on the contrary, he receives all and believes in everything; his mind completely
assents, because it receives both what it understands and what it does not grasp, be it in
the light or in darkness. Ah, my brethren,
Gods wisdom resides in this: there are things
He has taught us that are not clear to our
mind; in the truth that He has given us to
believe, He mixed light with darkness. Otherwise, if everything were clear for our intellect, there would be no faith - in fact, when
things are clear, I know, I know them well, but
I do not have faith; I only have faith in what
55

is not clear, what I do not see and do not


know, but with the assurance given by someone I consider trustworthy, I believe because
of this person. Therefore, I am indebted to
him, and, if I love him and he loves me, my
gratitude is for him the proof of my love.
This is how it is in regard to God. If everything were clear for the reason, there would
be no faith, nor would there be any debt;
and, consequently, with nothing to repay,
there would be no proof of our love. But
God, who organizes everything appropriately,
thus gave us His truth as a field where our
love can experience it and express our gratitude; to the clarity of His revelation God
added enough obscurity so there is sufficient
light for those who love and believe and sufficient darkness for those who do not. Its a
question of love, my brothers, and whoever
loves willingly submits his entire intelligence
and is happy to believe; truly, his joy grows as
he more blindly believes in the One he loves.
However, he does not just submit his
entire mind, but he does in the way God
wants him to. God, on the one hand for
greater security of the truth and, on the other, for the greatest experience of our love,
placed the truth in mans hand. He estab56

lished His Church, and made her the guardian and interpreter of His truth, saying: Go
to the ends of the earth and teach; behold, I
am with you always, until the end of the
world; whoever will listen to you, listens to
me (Matthew 28:1920; Luke 10:16). Thus,
human reason must receive the doctrine of
Gods truth; if you want to listen to His
voice, His truth, you shall only hear it there,
you will not find it in any other place and you
will not have it elsewhere. The mind of man,
who is so proud and thinks that he can
measure the heavens and penetrate the earth,
in matters of faith must absolutely humble
himself before the Churchs authority. Anyone who has love quickly crosses the threshold; but he does not, stumbles or withdraws.
That, my brothers, is the secret of all heresies, of all errors, in matters of faith. The
Lord God, for the sake of the experience of
human love, became man in order to preach
us the truth and then put man in His place to
transmit the truth from one generation to the
next until the end of the world. And, just as
He was not received by those who did not
love Him, now the people who replace Him
are not welcomed by those who do not love
Him. This is the mystery of love itself. They
57

did not love God but rather themselves; and


when they were struck by the idea of accepting Gods truth, they saw people without
recognizing God behind them, because they
had forgotten Him and did not love Him;
looking instead towards people from whom
they should receive His truth, they said: Why
not us? Self-love is that black god who by his
power, whose only strength is to kill, has
created the world of lies, errors and heresy,
and established the miserable kingdom of
darkness and obscurity, where man exhausts
himself in the midst of errors; and all this
came to be because people did not have the
love of God in them and could not resist the
test of faith, precisely because they lacked
love. Oh no, it was not love that inspired
these men, because if it had, they would have
subjected their minds to Gods truth, they
would have submitted them entirely, in accordance with Gods will. They would not
have turned back at the sight of others. They
feared humiliation, and they are humiliated;
they thought of themselves, because they had
no love in them! For love there is indeed no
humiliation. With love, the most miserable,
the poorest man serves and whole-heartedly
offers a noble sacrifice, purely to please the
58

One he loves. If people had really loved God,


they would have done what His love was
asking them; they would have submitted their
intelligence to the authority of those established by Him. But they did not have the love
of God in their hearts. O my brethren, let us
examine our own conscience; let us see if we
have submitted our reason to Gods truth
and believe what He has revealed to us. Or
perhaps we believe because this pleases us,
because it seems good to us and is in agreement with our own ideas? In that case, its
not faith, but rather reason is infatuated with
itself and very far from submitting to Gods
truth. Let us see if we gave our whole intellect, that is to say, if we believe in everything -because if theres one thing that we do
not believe, we do not believe at all. In fact,
when we reject something, we do so by the
power of reason, through its judgment; and,
consequently, what we accept, we receive it
with reasons judgment and assent; hence, the
mind is not subjected to Gods truth, because
if it were then it would assent completely and
be submitted to everything. Here, however,
the mind dominates and its self-love prevails
over Gods truth, accepting it in part while
partially rejecting it, on the basis of its own
59

authority and power. Let us see, finally, if we


submit our reason as God wants, if we really
take His truth from where He has established
it and from whence He wants us to take it. If
this is so, then, brethren, we have subjected
our mind to the Lord, we have really offered
it to Him: consequently, our faith is also
complete, our gratitude whole and the experience of our love complete. So, our conscience being filled with the internal testimony of love, we can safely and happily respond
to the voice that says: Let us also love God! Yes!
I gave him what I have, I really love my God!
II
Just as God gives Himself to the mind as
truth, He gives Himself to our heart as goodness. Therefore, in the same way we should
submit our minds to Gods truth, we must
also submit our hearts to the divine goodness. Now the truth comes to the intellect in
the form of dogmas and divine goodness is
present in the heart in the form of commandments. We should submit to Gods
commandments with all our heart and determination, and submit as God wills.

60

Above all, we should accept the commandments and subject ourselves to them
for God, since Christ himself said: Whoever
has my commandments and accepts them, he
is the one who loves me (John 16:21). In
fact, there are people in the world who do a
lot of things that Christ commanded; yes,
they are the ones who keep all the commandments. The world today has a good
sense of smell, so to speak; it recognizes
beauty; it senses goodness; however, the
world accomplishes the commandments precisely because this pleases it and in order to
be able to boast and display its righteousness.
The world does not act out of love, or because God gave the commandment, as Christ
clearly requires: Whoever has my commandment and he repeated once, twice and
even three times: If someone loves me, he
will keep my word (v. 23), If you keep my
commandments, you shall abide in my love
(John 15:10). Love seeks the will of his beloved, simply wanting to accomplish it. The
world, therefore, in search of his good pleasure and doing only what pleases it, shows us
what we have already known about it for a
long time: it loves only itself. On the other
hand, someone who loves God in doing
61

good does not seek anything but the will of


God alone, with the desire to act according
to His commandment; and in his love he
rejoices simply to accomplish the will of his
God; and, as to God, He is happy with and
accepts only a testimony of love for Him.
Therefore, brethren, we should subject
our whole heart to Gods commandment, in
all its totality. We should accept everything
and do everything, and not maintain our own
will in the slightest thing. Just as when giving
the truth to the mind God mixed darkness
with clarity, giving us goodness for our will
He mixed sweetness and bitterness. But, once
again, He did this in His loving wisdom, in
order to put our love to the test, so that we
may give Him some evidence and testimony.
These commandments are so sweet, Yes,
my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:30), but at the same time they are
bitter: As the road is narrow and the door
small (Matthew 7:14). Theres enough
sweetness to attract all those who love and
enough bitterness to repel those who do not.
And these unhappy people, who do not have
the love of God in them, are immediately
repelled by the bitterness of the difficulty;
they see everything in black, all the com62

mandments seem bitter and unbearable to


them, and they reduce everything to a narrow
road and the small door. They are so afraid
of true love and fear so much for themselves.
As to those who have completely given their
heart to God, as their love grows, they see
the bitterness gradually reduced, then transformed into unspeakable sweetness, and finally they no longer feel it; so, in the end,
they say: That yoke is easy and the burden is light!
Love does this; moreover, it is characteristic
of love, because true love is nourished by
difficulties, sacrifice and suffering; it is happy
where it can offer the greatest sacrifice, and it
finds the supreme sweetness in the greatest
bitterness, and through suffering it can show
the fullness of its devotion.
Finally, brethren, we must attach our will
to Gods goodness and submit it to His
commandments as God wants for the sanctification of our souls. To adapt our hearts to
His law and give us strength as we walk along
the path of His commandments, He instituted the Sacraments, placing them also in the
hands of men. What I am saying applies especially to the Sacrament of Penance. That is, my
brothers, the school, where Gods general
commandments are inscribed in each soul.
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Here, everyone looks at how he has sinned


against God, repents and in so doing receives
forgiveness in His name; thereafter each person reinforces his commitment promising to
sin no more, and receives the necessary
grace; there we choose the means to keep
vigilance over ourselves in the future and we
get advice on how best to do this. In a word:
there God, through a man, is for everyone
the Judge who forgives, the Doctor who
heals, and the Master who advises. And that
means, my brethren, that it is necessary; it is
the only means that can give us the strength
and power necessary to advance on the path
of Gods commandments. Only then, by
Gods decision, are we cleansed from our
past sins, cured of our diseases, freed from
our inveterate weakness, and become strong
again and solid enough to walk this difficult
path. There, the man who loves God, will
kneel down and thank Him for having created such a treasure for his weakness. This man
is not afraid to humble himself. There is too
much self-pride in the world; and thats what
we should fear. The love of God, however,
knows no such fears; moreover, we should
think of the gift to which the door of repentance gives free access, we have in mind the
64

other sacrament that we cannot receive


without the first one where we receive
God Himself.
Oh, now, my brethren, having come to
this point, we will discover the entire foundation of the mystery of love. Love, in fact, as
we have seen, is based entirely on giving, the
gift of self, and full offering. Now the specific aim of this gift is the mutual self-giving,
which unites the two beings in one, making
them into one thing. This is loves goal.
Gods infinite devotion to us had no other
objective. Christ came into the world, as he
said in his last prayer to the Father, that the
love with which you loved me may be in
them and I in them (John 17:26). Therefore,
he assumed human flesh and became what
we are by nature, in order to be able, through
it, to settle in and become one with each of
us. I am he says the vine, and you are
the branches. Whoever remains in me, I will
remain in him! (John 15:5). He did not institute the Most Blessed Sacrament for anything
else; this memorial that contains him is the
living memorial of His total self-giving love
for us, as he again said: Whoever eats my
flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I
in him (John 6:56). It is His gift to the end,
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and our donation must have the same objective. But because we are created and He is
God, this union can only be achieved if we
become what He is, that is to say, if He transforms us into Him. Now, everything that we
told you about mans submission to God
leads precisely to that end. We give Him our
minds so that His truth may transform them,
and so that Christ may think in us; we give
Him our heart, our will, our desire, so that
He may transform them and so that Christ
may feel in us, that Christ may desire in us,
and that Christ may act through us. We give
Him our whole being so that Christ may live
in us, and in order to come to this blessed
state of which St. Paul said: It is no longer I
who live, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians
2:20). Yet, at the same time, my brothers, you
see that we can reach this state only by renouncing ourselves; we can receive the life of
Christ in us only through mortification and
death to ourselves; man must go out and
Christ must enter. That happened through
the death on the cross of the One who came
back to life, and who had said: Whoever
wants to be my disciple, (or simply) who
wants to belong to me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross (Matthew 9:34). That,
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my brothers, is the goal of our love, and at


the same time the highest degree of our
Gods self-giving to us. The life of God in us
is the goal of love and we reach it through
death to ourselves, which is the last stage of
love. When my ego shall have been killed,
when it is dead, then I will be able to say: It is
no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
How far our little heart is from that today! The source of St. Pauls happiness, the
delight of so many saints, and of those who
cherished God, is for us today almost incomprehensible. To submit not only our
mind, not only our heart, but even the depths
of our being, to renounce our ego and annihilate it in order to make room for God, so
that He may truly dwell and live in us, so that
He may be everything for us and we may be
nothing who can understand this? and
who does it? Happy, blessed, is the one who
at least begins to do so and truly commits
himself to it. Brethren, do you understand
the disgust that the Saints felt for themselves?
They recognized that their ego is the main
stumbling block to their love, in their relationship with God, to unity and transformation. This is why they worked so hard to
mortify themselves. Otherwise, they couldnt
67

receive Gods life within them. May God


help us to engage effectively in this work!
Oh, if we had a little love, we would already
have started on this path of total self-giving
to God, giving ourselves more and more,
mortifying ourselves more; if we dont dawdle but begin to despise ourselves according
to what Christ tells us (Luke 14:26), how
easily we will lose our soul, as he also tells us
(Matthew 10:39); oh, if we wanted to reject it
quickly in order to possess God Himself and
have a foretaste of the happiness that is the
goal of this love, that no eye has seen, nor ear
heard, which is not entered into the heart of
man and that God gives us!
Amen.

68

Mans Triple Resurrection


(1860)
Hallelujah! sings the Church.
What does Hallelujah mean? - Praise the
Lord, give thanks, bless the Lord!
The whole Church sings hallelujah to
Christ, and in the Church and through the
Church everything sings.
Hallelujah - the whole earth.
Hallelujah - Heaven and the Angels.
Hallelujah - the entire past: the Ancestors and Patriarchs.
Hallelujah - the present, at the moment
of the Resurrection, the souls of the believers, the living.
New generations arrive, and all sing:
Hallelujah!
Every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth
and under the earth (Philippians 2:10), and everyone sings: Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!
Let us also add our voices and sing: Hallelujah!
Why? Our heart knows this, and trembles, and rejoices. But let the intelligence say
it!

Because we were dead. In order to know


this joy, we must also know the abyss of
death.
What a picture I have to show! The
death of man, of the human race, after sin.
The tomb in which he was for such a long
time! Where can I find enough time and
words and colors bright enough to describe
this?
But we have a very short way. We will
look at Christs tomb! and not without reason, because every detail has been planned
and prepared eternally.
Go there, look, and learn the mystery of
the Hallelujah. Then, with a freer chest and a
fuller voice, we too will sing our Hallelujah!
Hail Mary.
I
Go to the tomb first with Mary and then
with Peter and John.
1) Look the stone has been removed. - But
this was not the case a while ago. This Stone
with all its weight rested on the tomb.
2) Look there is the angel of light. - Heaven
and light. But a moment ago there was only
darkness and the power of hell.
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3) Look at the soldiers who are like dead at


their guard. But shortly before they were not
so: like lords, they were making noise and
dominating.
The seal of human power, of the world,
was on the tomb, and the soldiers, allpowerful instruments, a living seal, on guard,
were watching to make sure that the corpse
would not escape them and return to life.
This is the picture of reality before the
Resurrection and of what followed it.
This was also the case of man and of
mankind before Christs Resurrection, and
this is what happens in the soul before
Christs resurrection in it.
1) Before the Resurrection: the stone.
The flesh and its passions. A heavy, appalling
stone! How can I describe it? You know the
pressure of the yoke of the passions.
Lust, awakened by the first sin, became
sovereign, the flesh dominated and the soul
became its slave. What a horrible death! For
the soul must live, and it does not: it continually dies. See, this soul is living but its life is
confined within the walls of a tomb. It continuously awakes and unceasingly dies. It
wants to remove the stone and cannot. How
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dreadful! This is the death of the soul enslaved by the flesh here on earth.
Have you ever seen a man seized by passion? What am I saying: have you seen? How
could you not see? There are so many! You
are perhaps, dear brother, one of them? But I
ask: Have you seen what happens to such a
man? Unfortunately, there is no more pitiful
sight! A man under the influence of passion
is unable to move. He has an itch; but this
Lazarus, Christ alone can raise him from the
dead. He is not only under a rock but also
held from head to foot by straps and ties
he cant move. Above him, the word of God
that performs miracles has resonated: Take
away the stone! And then: Lazarus, come
out! Hes already getting up, but he cant
walk until after the third word: Untie him!
(John 11:44) To fully revive and heal this
man, God must do a miracle, a triple miracle,
and people must help to accomplish it. - A
holy confession is necessary. But first Gods
voice must resonate in this mans consciousness: Lazarus, come out! (John 11:43)
The Apostle cried out: Who will rescue
me from this mortal body? (Romans 7:24)
How much more does a man lying in death
cry out: Who will save me? Who will save me?
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And here is the answer: The grace of


Our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 7:25), that
is to say, his Resurrection.
Man finds himself in this state before
Christ. His soul is in this state and so is the
world today. Matter must be deified. Matter
is this stone. But when Christ has raised a
man from the dead, he lives and sings: Hallelujah!
2) Then, the darkness and the powers of
hell are all around. Look at Christs tomb.
The human soul was in this state. How can I
describe it to you? After the first sin, God
abandoned the human soul and Satan became its lord. Then the darkness grew even
thicker. It made man lose the sense of truth.
The soul must live, and it lives thanks to
light. Oh, how terrible its agony is in this
darkness! Yet, it cannot die. Imagine this
tomb and its terrible darkness. When someone is in the middle of the night, in an unknown place, he sees horror on every side!
Then monstrous forms appear to him, frightening monsters! For Satan is not just darkness, he also teaches his doctrines, errors,
contradictions horrible specters and the
closer man looks at them, the more he is
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convinced, as they consume and devour him.


The soul always seeks the light, but it continually encounters darkness and, in this darkness, threats. It finally reaches the point of
desperation! What a horrible death!
Now, consider a second image. Just as a
man needs air to breathe, his soul needs this
air that is God. But there is none in this
tomb, just as there is no light. The soul is
suffocating here, and the suffocation is constant. This is appalling! But this image has a
third section and comparison that you need
to look at. A man needs food and his soul
does too. This food is grace and the Sacrament. But they are not to be found in this
tomb. The human soul is starving. Oh, what
a tomb and what death! The human soul was
in this state before Christ: and it would still
be there if he had not risen.
This was mans situation on earth and in
time. Who will save him? Who can save
them?
Christ is Risen!
If the Son sets you free, you shall be
free indeed (John 8:36).
3) The soldiers. Omnipotence, slavery,
tyranny. Love is expelled, and here are hatred
74

and slavery. This is the third death in mans


life. The death in the life of society. This one
is the most difficult to describe. It affects
most those who should be its support, spring
and pole, as I will say. This death comes from
the fact that a man falls under the slavery of
another. Love is excluded and replaced by
slavery and hatred. This is the third lord, the
third tomb, the third death. (The world). In
this context, on one side there is the strong
man and, on the other, the weak person who
is suffocating. This cannot happen in the
name of God, and therefore man is acting in
his own name. This can be understood from
the meaning of the words of the King of
Egypt: I am Pharaoh, and without my approval no one shall move hand or foot in all
the land of Egypt (Genesis 41:44). Protect
me, O God, against this kind of legitimate
authority, and let me be the first to attack it.
Oh, of course, with the Lord Jesus Christ I
respect civil authority, but I am talking about
the power that Christ called the world
when he said: You do not belong to the
world any more than I belong to the world.
(John 17:16), this power that, beginning with
the father and the most miserable little guy,
climbs ever higher, taking everything for its
75

own benefit, and finally puts itself in the


place of God. Now, let there be no ambiguity: this power personified in the Roman Empire and throughout antiquity - when the
nation was a god and religion, errors and
anarchy a very sacred order - put every man
of the people into the chains of slavery. That
system, that slavery, from which no one in
the ancient world could break free, was nothing! Take another example: Socrates. The
poor man! He knew the truth, and how much
better it would have been not to say it! Of
course, it can be whispered in secret to a few
trusted men, while publicly worshiping a god
without believing in him, living like a hypocrite, but without escaping and breaking the
yoke of slavery and of human power for lack
of courage, because one doesnt have the
boldness to put up opposition and shout:
Woe to you! This Socrates was doubly
unfortunate, precisely because, being a coward, he did not trample the world, and so the
world crushed this coward. But we shouldnt
be surprised: he was like every other man and
groaned in slavery! Someone else had to
come to shout against all the Pharisees, the
Herods and the Pilates: Woe to you! Thats
what the slavery of one man to another was!
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Now, what can be said about other forms of


enslavement of prisoners, women, children,
animals? You often have this image before
your eyes: the whole world in slavery, and a
small number reigning at the top, precisely to
enslave everyone else. Oh, how heavy is
mans slavery under the yoke of another,
under the worlds lord and his power! It really is another tomb and another death!
But why am I talking about the ancient
world, an old tomb and death in the past? Its
like that now too, isnt it? Yet, it is true: today, alongside death there is life, and that was
not the case at that time. Moreover, this is
not the same tomb as in the past; on the contrary, there is the Mothers womb full of life;
there is the Church, the assembly of believers
and saints, Gods house and paradise. And all
this exists thanks to God! and flourishes
within; in the soul this divine holy land blossoms, and it grows ever more fertile and
more beautiful. Now, in contrast, this tomb,
this world, the kingdom of death, are they
not constantly more frightening, dangerous
and terrible? And those who walk in their
chains, are they not always more unhappy?
Understand that you must have pity for the
unfortunate, for those born in this sad world,
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in this tomb and in this death! May God deliver us from this sorrow! But no, He doesnt
take it away. We will be safe enough if He
gives us a nearby haven, His house built on
the rock, his city on the height, the city of
heaven, the abode of safety, clarity, life and
happiness. We have all of that. Oh, my
brothers, we have the Church! There alone
life is found; only there is resurrection from
this continual death that surrounds us everywhere.
Oh, resurrection is only there, because
that is the only place where we meet the Risen Christ!
II
And now look how things are after the
Resurrection!
See! - The stone is removed. - The flesh
is no longer weighty. - Whoever has risen
with Christ treads on the passions, crushes
this stone, and breaks his chains - he is free,
truly free, for he is risen. Hallelujah!
Look, here the angel dressed in white is
seated on the tomb! You can touch heaven.
Go to Galilee, go to the Church - Christ is
there - there is the clarity of teaching, the
fresh air of divine grace, the bread of life, the
78

power of the Sacraments; there you can find


the unction of the Holy Spirit and your soul
is illuminated, bright, clear and strong, because it is resurrected with Christ. Hallelujah!
Look, here the soldiers are seized by fear
and like dead. The slavery of the world has
already been destroyed. Whoever has Christ
does not fear, and he says with Peter: We
must serve God rather than men (Acts
5:29). (This is vast - also from a human point
of view.)
Thus the human will, the soul, gets out
of this slavery and is already strong because it
is resurrected.
What a change!
Just like nature, that was dying in the
darkness, awakes to life when the rays of the
sun strike it
Like prisoners, after having been enchained for many years, are suddenly freed
Just like when the dying, engaged in the
final battle and already close to falling into
the torpor of death, are touched by the finger
of the One who works miracles
so man, so the human soul and the world, are
led out to the light of freedom, to life; full of
joy they bathe in the divine light, breathe
deeply open air, gladly welcome this new, full
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and reinvigorated life; man, who was lost is


now saved and happy; the one who was dead
now lives, and the one who was put to death
is now risen!
He lifts up his heart, his mind and his
soul to the Savior who brought him the resurrection; he rises and sings joyfully with
strength the holy Hallelujah!
Through Baptism, Christ was born in us;
but at the same time, he began to relive.
Since we are born with sin, we purify
ourselves so that Christ may live in us more
and more; dead through sin, everyone comes
to life through penance and purification. And
this continues until we reach the fullness of
life.
This life of Christ in us is doubly immortal: indestructible here on earth and inviolable
in heaven.
They tortured Christ in vain, and they
buried him uselessly. Likewise, in us, they
torture for nothing the one who has come
back to life, and in vain they put him into a
tomb.
In vain the intellect tries to demolish divine truth and put into the tomb of athe-

80

ism - Christ lives in the minds of the faithful


and constantly resurrects there.
Human pride seeks vainly to destroy
Gods Law, divine justice, in the world and to
put it into the tomb of slavery the faithful
souls still bow down before Him. He lives in
the Church and constantly revives it.
Thus, all ages and all peoples sing to
Him: Hallelujah.
Oh, let us also sing to Him: Hallelujah!
If all rejoice, He also rejoices. Let us celebrate, my brothers, today - and Christ will
rejoice! Only then our joy will be authentic
and just.
His joy is to resurrect in us, to live in us
through faith, love and justice.
Then
we
will
begin
singing
jah. - But with us, that is to say with Christ
who is in us, heaven and earth and the world
will sing, and the angels, all peoples and living things will sing: Hallelujah!
And they will sing for us forever, that is
to say, for Christ living in us:
jah - forever!
Amen.

81

Christs Peace
and Peace of the World
First Sunday after Easter

Gospel of John 20:19-31


Christ the Lord said: Peace be with
you!- This is not an earthly voice. It suffices
to show that Christ is not of the earth but of
heaven.
Peace be with you! Is that a voice of
the earth? Where on earth is there peace?
Nowhere; war is continuous, and there is no
peace.
Yet, man wants peace. He seeks and
pursues it; and he does so with such ardor
that if there were peace on earth, he would
certainly find it. But what does he encounter?
War. And why? Because he does not seek his
peace in Christ.
Christ alone gives peace. I give you my
peace (John 14:27).
Indeed, who else could give it to us?
ourselves? or some people? or the world? Ah,
no, no! Christ alone. Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give to you. I do not give it to you
as the world gives it. Do not let your hearts

be troubled, and do not let them be afraid


(John 14:27).
Oh, man, you who want peace and cannot live without it, listen to this voice and
understand it! Understand what this peace is,
and you will truly find it.
This understanding of Christs peace is
what I want to teach you. Hail Mary.
How true it is that man seeks peace on
earth and finds only war.
Yes, here he is searching for peace!
You, man, where are you running so fast
on the path of this life? why you are so busily
toiling to move up? by what work do you try
to overcome your problems? why all this
effort, work, fighting? - I want to rest, he says, I
want to reach my goal and rest. I need peace, peace!
You who are so proud in your reasoning, why do you wear yourself out like this?
Im looking for knowledge, clarity, so I may rejoice
and rest. - You, the sensual man, what are you
running after? I am looking for comfort, pleasure,
to delight in it, fill me, and rest. You, the insatiable merchant, why do you count, work,
cheat, and count again? I want to have enough to
take advantage of and get some rest. - And you, the
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fearless and pitiless soldier, why do you continuously torture both yourself and others? I
want to win, in order to dominate tranquilly. Peace!
Peace!
The world cries: Peace!
What do you want? Man was created for
peace. Ascend to heights of your mind, go
down in to the very depth of your
heart - what are you looking for? Clarity, satisfaction, fulfillment, everything in order to
get rest, ah, peace! peace!
There are two who come proposing it to
us: the world and Christ.
We must choose.
The worlds peace is only apparent; it is
false peace. The peace of Christ is authentic.
The peace of the world is outside while
war is inside; in Christ, there is war outside
and peace within. The first ends in confusion,
a tempest and the fall; the second in victorious, strength and eternal peace.
In a word: the peace of Christ is the true
peace, while the worlds peace is turmoil and
war.
1. Since before the ages, Christ is the
Prince of Peace.

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He was born when the universe was at


peace. For centuries it had been waiting for
this moment.
The angels sang: Peace to men of good will.
(Luke 2:14) These words are also addressed
to us. In them we have the explanation and
the contents of Christs peace.
of good will. - What does that mean?
What is good according to God. Good will is
the will according to God. Hence, peace to
men who want what God wants.
Understand this well.
Peace is within us, when we fully achieve
the order of our being. Our entire being is a
creation of God. Its order is set by the divine
will. Consequently, we find peace by doing
the will of God. Peace to men of good will.
When God created us, He put into the
depth of our being His order, His thus. It
continuously summons - in our mind: believe
thus! in our heart: love thus! in our soul: act thus!
Our conscience is the voice of God: I wanted
thus and I want thus. Blessed is he who likewise
says: and I as well want thus. Then there is
agreement, happiness and harmony. Oh,
what peace there is then, true peace! Peace to
men of good will!

86

On the contrary, one who does not say


this -you can already see- then has no peace.
It is in vain that he goes looking elsewhere
for a moment to breathe. Gods thus constantly resounds; hence the contradiction,
discord and fighting. By often saying no
man silences Gods thus and comes to some
peace. But it is only apparent! The more
Gods voice is suppressed, the more it forcefully shouts. Watch how this man exhausts
himself in vain, coercively and cruelly, trying
to stifle Gods voice within himself. And
what a pity -yes a true misfortune- if here on
earth we manage to smother it completely,
because it will rise with greater force on the
Last Day. And how do you think people shall
not suppress Gods thus forever? Yet, that
shall not happen! And if here on earth (when
God is invisible) His voice is often so strong,
how great do you think the power of His
voice will be when He appears? With what
omnipotence Gods word shall then destroy
his adversary and his false peace! Ah, the
false, fraudulent peace of the man opposed
to God!
Consequently, war and destruction to
the people of ill will! For people of good will,
and for them alone, peace!
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2. But the worlds peace is not only false;


it is also external and superficial, while
Christs peace is internal and deep.
Come to me, all you who labor ... you will find
rest for your souls (Matthew 11:29).
For your souls! Really, this peace reaches
to the depths of mans being.
For consider what Christ is for the revealed truth, goodness and divine holiness:
Peace of the mind in truth.
Peace in the heart in goodness.
Peace of the soul in God himself.
Thus, the whole mans peace is found in
Christ. And therefore: Come to me, all you who
labor ... you will find rest for your souls!
Christ comes into us, and there He is the
source of overall peace, of inner peace, that
nothing can take away.
Human peace, on the other hand is:
that of the mind, of the ego, claimed or
rather denied by Satan.
that of the heart, in matter, in the carnal
desires, in the goods of this world, and often
of the street.
that of the soul, in the vagaries of the
world and its standards.
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As long as the mind is at peace, it does


not stop voicing its opinions, that is to say,
its errors (negation).
As long as the heart is at peace, it can
find satisfaction in an object, that it sucks like
a bee gathering nectar from a flower.
As long as the soul is at peace, nothing
else matters, and the world does not change a
whim.
But this is exterior, and everything that is
exterior can be removed. So, this is always
feared, and there is never peace. In the very
notion of peace, there is anxiety. And the
greater it is, the more the soul seeks peace in
external things. The more it clings to them;
the more it fills itself with them and then
suffers when they are lost; and the greater the
frustration from the failure to possess.
O poor soul, if you do not attach yourself to these things, if you do not cling to
them and repose in them with all your passion, you will have no consolation, no joy, no
peace! And when you do this, youre still a
hundred times more miserable! So, your consolation flies by, this peace shall straightaway
be mercilessly ripped away from you, and it
becomes for you a much more painful bitterness, a more harassing disorder, and you
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curse what you were looking for, preferring


to have never experienced the thing in which
you reveled because of your desire.
Oh, this is a heavy yoke and a weighty
burden - and all of you who do not go to
Christ must bear it! Look in your heart - you
will not find rest in your soul. Oh, do not go
to the world! Its yoke is a heavy, deadly burden.
3. In its consequences, worldly, human
peace leads lastly to confusion, falling and
destruction; on the contrary, the peace of
Christ lead to order, victory, triumph and
eternal peace.
In todays Gospel, after the Resurrection, Christ says: Peace be with you! As the Father sent me, I send you (John 20:21).
With this peace, the Apostles went on
their mission. And to every nation, they said,
Peace be with you! to every city: Peace to you!
to every home and every person: Peace, peace
to you! To the whole human race, they announced: Peace, peace! And miracle of miracles, it came down from heaven: peace came
to earth. Glory in heaven Peace on Earth.

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And what are the consequences of human peace? Oh, they are as different as they
are opposed!
When I look at man and the world, I see
an angry sea; and, on the other side, I see
Christianity and peace; and I am seized by
amazement. All of history is a continual miracle.
Look at these raging waves of various
studies, delusions, and systems! How they
rise, fall, run, splash, and then disperse as a
fine mist - and the Christian idea, the Christian faith, shining like the sun above them,
serene, clear and peaceful, tends to its secure
repose, toward God, toward eternity.
Look again at this horrible abyss of passions! It boils, and how! Each passion
seeks another satisfaction, is concerned about
another depth in the depth of the human
being the passions are unleashed and prevail.
Where is peace?! But Christ dominates
over the waves: A single word is followed by
great tranquility and the coast appears:
heaven, and without difficulty we reach it.

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Look at this terrible spectacle, the most


frightening of all; look at the world! What
chaos, real chaos, chaos without order or
purpose, or law! The rich strip the poor. The
powerful oppress the weak. Deception and
fraud torture the innocent and virtuous man.
Injustice and violence are in the government,
while those who defend peoples rights and
virtue are imprisoned. War, war, war! Chaos!
And, on the other side, the little flock of
Christs disciples. Look carefully, because it
cant be seen from on high; you have to enter
into it. His true Holy Church, composed of
saints. Here, there is a law and a right: Love.
Here, there is true order and purity: the
unique heart and soul. Such a Church endures forever. There have always been saints,
and there always will be. Here love is found.
By this shall all men know that you are my
disciples (John 13:35). Peace, peace, peace!
And this has existed continuously since
Christ the Lord came. Oh, this is really a
constant miracle!
Now I understand why the angels sang,
Peace on earth to men!

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Now I admit that these words are true:


Come to me, all you who labor ... you will find rest
for your souls.
Now I look and I see how powerful
those words were: I give you my peace ... as my
Father has sent me, even so I send you.
I see the miracle and I contemplate Divine Power!
You Christian, it depends on you to experience this personally! This is not only a
miracle, it is also happiness. Listen to these
few words.
Christian soul, perhaps you lack peace?
maybe you are suffering?
You strongly desire peace and you sigh
after it?
Listen!
The angels have already taught you.
Keep the good will! Good, that is to say, according to God, but also the will! You have to
want with determination. Its not enough not
to oppose God, to have no ill will this is
not yet the good will; you have to have the
determination. Oh, how many people do not
have the will! And this is the principle, the
main source of trouble, sorrows and regrets.

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Learn, first of all, that the primary foundation of peace is the sincere and strong desire to want what God wants.
Listen again! Here, after the Angels,
Christ teaches you: Come to me ... my yoke is
easy - my burden is light. Good will shall meet
the cross, and it may lose peace; this precisely
is why Christ teaches us yet another mystery.
This teaching is at the beginning and then all
along the road. Take up the cross, take the
yoke, willingly and with joy - otherwise you will
not have peace. This is the second source of
anxiety, sadness and of collapse along the
road.
Learn that, just as the primary foundation is the willingness to accept what God
wants, the second is to take up willingly the
cross of Christ.
And when you reach the complete submission of yourself through penance, then at
the spiritual resurrection, Christ will say to
you as he did to the apostles: Peace to you!
complete, constant, abundant, peace, overflowing on other people. As the Father has
sent me, I also send you. Then you shall
bear the vast peace of Christ in the world;
being happy yourself, you will sow happiness
around you, and Christs blessing will follow
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you: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they


shall be called sons of God!
You, who not only enjoy peace but also
do the work of peace, you, Christs associate
and son of God, we reiterate what Christ
said: Youre truly happy, truly blessed, truly
the child of God! Peace to you from God
himself, here and forever!
O my brothers! May God make us into
such children of peace, such children of God!
Amen.

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