He will return with his immense heart, with his heart of fire, his poor man's soul
and his smile. He will return! And the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

THE LIGHT IN THE NIGHT (8)

WHAT IS THE FIRST COMMANDMENT?

One day, when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, « they came together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, to test Him: “Master, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? » (Mt 22.34-36)

The other day, in Manhattan, the scene was literally re-enacted: « A bay window in the south of Manhattan overlooks the Statue of Liberty. Not far off there is a now empty space where the Towers of 11 September 2001 once stood. The window is in the conference hall of New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage. On Monday and Tuesday, it hosted an international meeting of a new kind. Fifty high-ranking Jewish and Catholic officials met to answer the question: “What is the first commandment?” » (La Croix, 23 January 2004)

And the answer?

« There were as many opinions as there were people who attended. » It seems that everyone was unaware of the reply that Jesus had given to that same question two thousand years ago, and which the Roman Catholic Church has repeated throughout the centuries: « And Jesus said to him: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.” » (Mt 22.37-38)

The rabbis from the synagogues of Paris, Moscow and Israel, and even the chairman of the World Jewish Congress, Israel Singer, who had organised the meeting, may be pardoned for this lapse. But there were also cardinals from all over the world: India, the United States, Canada, Europe, with « a weighty French delegation led by Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger that included Philippe Cardinal Barbarin and Mgr Jean-Pierre Ricard, the president of the Bishops’ Conference, and Father Patrick Desbois, whom the episcopate has put in charge of Judeo-Christian relations. One must not fail to mention a video message from Rome in which Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also contributed his vision. »

« The proceedings will soon be published. » But what is important does not lie therein. Rather, it lies « in an exceptional encounter between individuals. “Contacts that will prove important in the future have been established, Gilles Bernheim acknowledges, and they are worth more than words.”

« For his part, Cardinal Lustiger was very enthusiastic and spoke emotionally about the quality of those relationships, especially during a visit to the Yeshiva University in New York that deeply impressed all the participants. »

It is a rabbinical university.

« Had such a procession of cardinals and archbishops ever been seen in the seats of a yeshiva, comments Henri Tincq, in Le Monde, amid Jewish students who gave a few words of explanation for reading the Talmud to these prelates wearing red or purple skull caps » “It was surrealistic”, commented Gilles Bernheim, the chief rabbi of Victoire synagogue in Paris », who was beside himself with joy! (Le Monde, 24 January 2004) It is quite understandable.

Fortunately, we have Sister Lucy, whose book shines like a « light in the night » in which we are plunged. During our annual pilgrimage to Fatima, Brother Francis had the opportunity to see for himself, last 18 February, that Sister Lucy’s original manuscript does not show the disparate nature which is so disconcerting in the “official” text we have been translating since August 2003. In the printed version she deals with « The Ten Commandments of God’s Law » in a third part, after having enumerated the twenty “Calls from the Message of Fatima”. Originally, Sister Lucy had placed this explanation of God’s commandments in her commentary on the second apparition of the « Guardian Angel », between the « sixth call », « Pray, pray hard. » and the seventh one, « Constantly offer prayers and sacrifices to the Most High ». And her manuscript ended with « The Call to Follow the Road to Heaven ». Yet the current form under which the text is presented, the result of the work of staff of the Secretariat of State’s office (!), takes us back to the Old Testament!

PART THREE

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

(Ch. 23, p. 207-213)

« We have seen that God created us to love and serve Him here on earth, and then to see and enjoy Him forever in Heaven. The Message of Fatima reminds us that we must follow the road to Heaven. And it is observance of the Commandments that will lead us to eternal life. »

So this editorial transition is not from Sister Lucy’s pen. Let us read then the poignant call with which she ended her eighth chapter, entitled « the Sixth Call of the Message: Pray, pray hard! » (Cf. He is Risen n^o 12, p. 25-26) to which she wished to add the following developments:

« We are well aware that our wills are weak and how much we need the strength of grace to enable us to overcome the temptations which assail us, the dangers surrounding us and the tendencies which incline us to evil. That is why Jesus Christ taught us to pray to the Father, saying: “Lead us not into temptation.” (Mt 6.13).

« And, as Jesus Christ has told us that without Him we can do nothing: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who remains in Me and I in him will bear much fruit. For outside Me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15.5), let us take a strong grip on prayer through which God will grant us the grace that we need to understand His commandments, know how to carry them out and so win for ourselves the help of His Fatherly love: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened (...). If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Mt 7.7-11).

« This is the promise that inspires our confidence in prayer and assures us of its efficacy. »

« Ave Maria! »

In her manuscript, Sister Lucy deals with God’s commandments after the call to prayer asking for the grace of understanding and carrying them out:

« This is what Jesus Christ told the young man who asked Him: “Master, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life? – And He said to him: Why do you ask Me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. – He said to Him – Which? And Jesus said: You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honour your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mt 19.16-19) Therefore, the way to Heaven is this: keep the Commandments.

« Since, unfortunately, the great majority of people neither know nor understand the Commandments, it will be useful to many people to recall them here, so that we may all understand what we must do in order to obtain eternal life.

« It may possibly occur to someone to ask me: What have the ten Commandments got to do with the Message of Fatima? I answer that they have a great deal to do with it: they are among the chief aims of the Message. In fact, Our Lady ended the series of Her apparitions in Fatima with these words: “Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because He is already so much offended.” And, previously, on 13 July, She had already said: “In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want.” Thus, what Our Lady wanted and, therefore, the main object of the Message, was to beg us not to continue to offend Our Lord because He was already so deeply offended.

« There can be no doubt that what offends God most is the breaking of His Law: all Sacred Scripture confirms this. All the Prophets protested against the breaking of God’s Law; and, in the same way, Jesus Christ condemns it also, as does the Church, which continues to speak in His Name in our own day.

« In order to keep God’s commandments, we have to know Him. Who, then, is God?

« The Book of Deuteronomy tells us how Moses, on the threshold of the Promised Land, called around him the twelve tribes of Israel in order to remind them of how God had led them from the time they left Egypt until they had arrived where they now were, at the River Jordan. This is how Moses recalls God’s great gift to His people, the Decalogue: “Yahweh spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between Yahweh and you at that time, to declare to you the word of Yahweh; for you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. He said: I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” (Dt 5.4-6)

« God showed Himself to His people on Mount Sinai, so that they would acknowledge Him as the one true God. We were there, represented by the Israelites; to us also God made Himself known and addressed His word.

« All the Israelites saw the fire on the mountains and all understood that it was supernatural fire, since it neither burned nor consumed. In this fire, in some way, they saw God and they were terrified, as they themselves confessed, finally asking Moses to be their mediator: “Behold, Yahweh our God has shown us His glory and greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire; we have this day seen God speak with man and man still live. Now therefore why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of Yahweh our God any more, we shall die. For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out in the midst of fire, as we have, and has still lived? Go near, and hear all that Yahweh our God will say; and speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you; and we will hear and do it.” (Dt 5.24-27)

« All this gives me food for thought! »

To us too, who know and ceaselessly meditate on the events of Fatima, all this is food for thought!

« While Moses is going peacefully up the mountain to make his way to God and talk to Him intimately, the people are terrified and are afraid they are going to die. »

So, on 13 October 1917, while Lucy, Francisco and Jacinta contemplated the Holy Family, Our Lady of Sorrows, then Our Lady of Mount Carmel, “the people”, seeing that the sun was falling on them, shouted: “Oh Jesus! We are all going to die!” “Oh Jesus! We are all dying!” Others shouted: “Our Lady, help us!” And they recited the act of contrition.

« Would that not be because, by the sin of idolatry, they have lost the strength of grace and can no longer, like Moses, see God and hear his voice? »

The same question arises concerning the Portuguese people, who were prevented from seeing, as Lucy, Francisco and Jacinta did, « next to the sun, St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle. St. Joseph and the Child Jesus appeared to bless the world, tracing the sign of the Cross with their hands. »

« The fear which the Israelites felt certainly was not caused by the presence of God but came rather from the reproach of their own conscience, because that is what accuses us before God and condemns us. »

By writing « us », Sister Lucy counts herself among us poor sinners, whom the voice of our conscience accuses and condemns, but only to incite us to cleanse ourselves in the fire of the burning Bush:

« As for me, how much I would give to be absorbed in that divine flame! »

Indeed, there is no middle way, as Sister Lucy told Father Fuentes in 1957: « either we are for God or we are for the Devil. » She reminds us of that here and goes on:

« In this passage from Sacred Scripture, I seem to see in Moses the figure of pure souls who are continually moving up towards God, climbing the mountain of holiness, while those who live sunk in a life of sin are descending all the time, burying themselves in a swamp of vice and moving further and further away from God. They cease to love Him, because sin extinguishes the flame of love in them; they no longer trust in Him, because sin confuses their minds and they cannot be touched by the mercy of God; they lose the faith, because passion blinds them and prevents them from seeing the light of God. »

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, sat down at the “table” of these souls, after having believed that they « were speaking contrary to their thinking by denying the existence of Heaven, of the beautiful Heaven where God Himself would be their eternal reward ». Last month we recalled this trial of the saint of Lisieux (Heaven is the Reward, He is Risen n^o 18, p. 10). This is not the case for the saint of Fatima. Continuing her meditation on the vocation of Moses, she unwittingly identifies herself with him:

« In Moses, I see an image of the person who corresponds to God’s call. Nothing frightens him because his conscience is at peace; he believes in God, keeps His commandments and runs to meet Him. He knows that his Creator is the one true God, the Source of all that exists; therefore, he trusts in His power, His goodness, His wisdom, and His love.

« God showed Himself to the Israelites in order to assure them of the reality of His existence and thus to make it possible for them to pass on the certainty of that truth. »

The same can be said today of Sister Lucy, our Moses, and of the Portuguese who will always keep the dogma of the faith, in spite of many infidelities… like the Jews!

« We, too, belong, spiritually, to that same people. Made one with Christ in Baptism, we became part of the People of God. We were chosen by God to become members of the mystical Body of Christ, which is His Church. And it is this Church which, all over the world, forms the People of God, as we see from the command she received from Christ: “Go into the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” (Mk 16.15-16)

God showed himself to Moses so that we could not doubt His existence. Now, if He exists, we cannot, even at school, especially at school! act as though He does not exist. For this existence imposes itself upon the people as a whole, and not only individual consciences:

« Thus, it is necessary to believe in God, and be baptised, in order to be saved, to belong to the People of God and to be counted among His chosen ones. »

This is what Mgr Lustiger should have preached to the students at the New York yeshiva the other day, or Mgr Stenger to the rabbi and the imam whom he had invited to Troyes’ city hall last February. For, Our Lord shed His Blood for the salvation of all. If our bishops were to do their duty, they would deserve to hear today’s Israelites make the same request that those of bygone days had made to Moses:

« Terrified not only by the fire which God caused on the mountain, which itself trembled, but also by the voice of thunder with which God spoke to them, the Israelites begged Moses to be their intermediary with God. When Moses returned from God’s presence, he told them the laws which God had given him, and, then, said to them: “These words Yahweh spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to me.

“And when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes, and your elders; and you said (...): Go near, and hear all that Yahweh our God will say, and speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you; and we will listen and obey.”

“And Yahweh heard your words, when you spoke to me; and Yahweh said to me, I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they have rightly said all that they have spoken. Oh that they had such a mind as this always to fear Me and to keep all My commandments, that it might go well with them and with their children for ever (...). You shall be careful to do therefore as Yahweh your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.” (Dt 5.22-24; 27-29;32) »

As Jesus had said to the Pharisees, « the greatest and first commandment. » is that of love. Sister Lucy does not forget this. She continues:

« It is Moses who transmits God’s message to His people. Could it be that no one else is capable of speaking directly to God? It is God who chooses each one of us and endows each of us with the capacity and the necessary gifts for the accomplishment of the mission that He entrusts to us. The fear to which God refers – of such a mind to fear Me – is the love, which should lead us not to want to offend Him, in order not to lose His friendship and His grace.

« In Moses, we see represented the Head of the Church, commissioned by Jesus Christ with the task of passing on to us the laws and words of God. Therefore, we have to believe in God and in His Church, just as the Israelites believed and said to Moses: “Go near, and hear all that Yahweh our God will say, and speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you; and we will listen and obey.” This should be our response too: to listen to the Church, and believe what she says – certain that what she tells us is the word of God – and obey. “We will listen and obey.” »

It is therefore a question of « listening to the Church », and not of “reforming” her. This is why, in past centuries, the pride of reformers always came up against the holy fidelity of the apostolic Magisterium to Christ her Founder.

« Just as God said to Moses: “Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them” (Dt 10.11) so also He said to His Church: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Mt 28.19) Thus, the Church is the Messenger of God to direct His People in the ways which He Himself has traced out for them by means of the laws and the doctrine which He has confided to it. »

These ways are certainly not those of religious freedom and the “spirit of Assisi”!

« And just as the Israelites believed and followed the instructions of Moses because He was the messenger of God, so we must follow the guidance of the Church because she is, for us, the messenger of God. »

These words apply literally to Sister Lucy, « because she is, for us, the messenger of God », to turn us away form the « orientations » of a Pope who preaches the cult of man to us. Nevertheless, the aberrations of a Pope are no grounds for leaving the Church.

« And let us not waver or move away from the Church when we see imperfections in some of her members, because, individually, we are all weak and sinful. But the Church does not cease to be holy for all that: holy in her laws and in the doctrine entrusted to her by God, holy in her Head, Jesus Christ, her divine Founder and Saviour, holy in the Divine Spirit which animates and helps her, and in the life of grace generated and nourished by the Sacraments.

« In Moses, God found imperfections also; and, as a punishment, He did not grant him the grace of entering the Promised Land with his people. But, in spite of that, he was still the man chosen by God as leader of his people.

« Moses doubted when he struck the rock in the desert, as God had commanded, so that water would gush from it. Because of this, the Lord said to him, and to Aaron: “Because you did not believe in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.” (Nb 20.12) This passage of Sacred Scripture shows us how God wants us to believe not only in His existence from all eternity, but also in the efficacy of His word. Moses carried out the command that God had given him; he struck the rock as God had ordered him to do, but with a certain lack of faith and confidence. He was afraid that God would not work the promised miracle. »

In contrast, on the eve of 13 October 1917, Lucy calmly replied to her mother, who wanted to go to confession before « dying », “killed by the people”: « If you want to go to confession, I will go as well; but not for that reason. I have no fear of being killed. I am absolutely certain that tomorrow Our Lady will do everything that She promised. »

Today, at 97 years of age, Sister Lucy still gives us the example of an unshakeable confidence in the promises of Our Lady. But Moses doubted:

« As a punishment, he was not to enter the Promised Land, but only glimpsed it from afar, as the sacred text tells us: “And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And Yahweh showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, all the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the valley of Jericho and the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. And Yahweh said to him, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, I will give it to your descendants: I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there. So Moses the servant of Yahweh died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of Yahweh, and He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-Peor.” (Dt 34.1-6)

But as for Sister Lucy, she will not die before we see the deliverance of the Church. This is our firm hope, according to what she writes in concluding this admirable chapter:

« All this shows how firm our conviction should be and the extent of our faith in God; we have to believe in the immense power of His operative word, in the eternal wisdom of His Being, which is the very source of life, in His laws which trace out the way we should go, in His creative and redemptive work, in what His Word, His Son Jesus, says and in the truths which He taught us, in His Church which is the treasure-house of the truths entrusted to Her by the Eternal Word, in His mercy, in His forgiveness and in His love.

« The beginning of the whole spiritual life is belief in God. This faith opens up to us the marvels of infinite Being, leads us to find God in His works, to live the life of God present within us. We ourselves are poor and have nothing; but in God we possess everything and lack for nothing.

« The person who believes in God is happy, because he knows he has a Father from whom all things come, yet is above all human paternity. He loves His Father, rests in His arms and lives for this Father who is goodness, mercy, forgiveness and love! One thing is required of him: “Fidelity in the observance of His laws”. »

Ego promitto fidelitatem!

« God gave this advice to His people through Moses, who hastened to communicate it to his people in these terms: “Yahweh said to me (...): Go and say to them: Return to your tents. But you, stand here by Me, and I will tell you all the commandments and the statutes and the ordinances which you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess: You shall be careful to do therefore as Yahweh your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way which Yahweh your God has commanded you, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land which you shall possess.” (Dt 5.28, 30-33).

« The fact that God is invisible does not justify the incredulity of those who do not want to believe in His existence. God created, for the good of humanity, many invisible forces, whose existence nobody doubts. Who, for instance, has seen the wind? We hear it, we feel it when it blows upon us, and we see its effects when it shakes the trees and tosses the seas. The same is true of oxygen, hydrogen, electricity, etc. There are other invisible elements, which are used for the benefit of humanity. Well then! Before all this existed, God, who created it and formed it from nothing, was already present. And it was to these invisible forces that God conferred greater power: electric energy, different sounds, etc.

« God manifests Himself also in the preservation of created beings. We see that the achievements of men are realised by using materials created by God; and, with time and use, these wear out, deteriorate and disappear. How different is the destiny of the works which originate solely from the hand of God! Consider the sun: it has always the same strength, the same degree of heat, the same brilliance, follows always the same course laid out for it by God. »

Unless it must be changed by a gesture of Our Lady as on 13 October 1917 when it modified its « brilliance », by dimming it, and its « course » by falling on the crowd gathered at the Cova da Iria!

« The same is true of the moon, the stars, the planets, the earth, the seas and all that exists and was created by God! It will all remain the same as long as God wishes, since that depends on His omnipotent will. And they are here, before our eyes, indisputable witnesses to the power, the wisdom, the will and the eternal existence of God.

« We have no difficulty in believing that such and such famous men lived, because history mentions them. But it also speaks of the existence of God, His deeds, and His works. Why, then, do we not believe? Is sacred history less worthy of belief than profane history? Are the sacred writers less truthful than profane ones? Now, the sacred writers tell us: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gn 1.1) “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (Jn 1.1-3) “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for You did create all things, and by Your will they existed and were created.” (Ap 4.11)

« Ave Maria! »

YOU SHALL ADORE THE TRUE GOD AND HIM ALONE

(Ch. 24, pp. 214-216)

« “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I Yahweh your God am a jealous God.” (Dt 5.7-9)

This is the first commandment, excluding the worship of any divinity other than Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

« Already, in the second Call of the Message, we spoke of the adoration which we must give to God. We will now look at the reasons why God commands us to adore Him only. Does God need our adoration? Certainly not! God is infinitely happy in Himself. He does not need anyone or anything; He already has in Himself all that is good, and all that exists belongs to Him, since He created it. He can freely dispose of everything without any possible opposition. Why, then, does He require us to adore Him only?

« The reason for giving us such a command is that He is the one living and true God, eternal and worthy of being adored; He is the only God capable of accepting our adoration and rewarding it.

« This commandment is an order inspired by love. God has commanded us to adore Him only, so that we may not turn to adoring false gods – gods which in reality are nothing, of no value, and can do nothing for us. »

For example the Dalai Lama, who calls himself the « living god » and was invited to Assisi by John Paul II ». Or again « Man » whom Paul VI proclaimed that he wanted to worship at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council,: « man as he really is today, living man, man totally taken up with himself, man who not only makes himself the centre of his own interests, but who dares to claim that he is the end and aim of all existence... »

« I call it also the precept of love, since our adoration should be the result of our love of God, and of our gratitude, because He loved us first: He loved us with an everlasting love and it was because of that love that He created us, surrounded us with so many benefits in the order of nature and in the order of grace, and destined us for eternal life where we will share in all His gifts.

« In observing this commandment, we make our way to God; through it we will find mercy, forgiveness and grace. »

« We make our way to God » is yet another reminiscence of the Third Secret: « Beneath the two arms of the Cross, there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God. »

What then is this “dew” sprinkled on « the souls that were making their way to God », obtained at the price of the blood of Martyrs? It is « mercy, forgiveness and grace ».

On the other hand, here is the fruit of idolatry:

« Sacred Scripture tells us that, when Moses went up to Mount Sinai to receive from God the laws that were to govern His people, they, who meanwhile had remained at the foot of the mountain, made a golden calf and began to adore it. Seeing this, God complained to Moses, saying: “Go down; for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves; they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it, and said: These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt (...). And Moses turned, and went down from the mountain with the two tables of the Testimony in his hands, tables that were written on both sides, on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God graven upon the tables (...). And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tables out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it upon the water, and made the people of Israel drink it.” (Ex 32.7-20)

« On the morrow Moses said to the people: You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to Yahweh, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. So Moses returned to Yahweh and said: Alas, this people have sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now if it should please You to forgive their sin – and if not, please blot me out of Your book which you have written. But Yahweh said to Moses: Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of My book. But now go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you.” (Ex 32.30-34)

« “Moses said to Yahweh: See, You say to me: Bring up this people but You have not let me know whom You will send with me (...) Yahweh said: My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. Moses said: If Your presence will not go with me, do not carry us up from here (...). Please show me Your glory. And He said: I will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you My Name “Yahweh” and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” » (Ex 33.12-19)

« And Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Yahweh (...). And Moses made haste to bow his bead toward the earth, and worshipped. And he said: If now I have found favour in Your sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray you, go in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your inheritance.” (Ex 34.5-9)

« These events show us how Moses, with the love he had for God and his neighbour, with his humble prayer and adoration, obtained pardon for the people, reconciling them with God from whom they had turned away by the sin of idolatry. »

This is precisely, in our times of apostasy, Sister Lucy’s role; she is the lightning conductor of her people and of all those who consent to abjure the worship of man and embrace the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

« By divine choice, we are the successors of this people of God, as Jesus Christ shows us in the parable of the Good Shepherd: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down His life for His sheep (…). And there are other sheep I have that are not of this fold, and I must lead these too. They too will listen to My voice, and there will be only one flock and one shepherd.” (Jn 10.11-16) I have no doubt that these sheep which the divine Saviour came to gather and lead to His sheepfold are all the people who have heard His voice and followed Him. Therefore, I believe we must consider as addressed to us, the words spoken by Moses to the Israelites: “Behold, to Yahweh your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it; yet Yahweh set His heart in love upon your fathers and chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as at this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. For Yahweh your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. (...). You shall fear Yahweh your God; you shall serve Him and cleave to Him and by His name you shall swear.” (Dt 10.14-20)

« As Moses tells us here, we hold fast to God, Him only we adore, Him only we serve and love, because our adoration is the result of a love which believes, hopes, trusts and loves, giving itself in complete surrender to the loved One, who is God.

« My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee! »

« Ave Maria! »

Brother Bruno de Jesus