The Medallion of the Apostolate of the New Evangelization
The Great Crusade Of Love
The Passion Extract #17....
Reflections of Jesus....
Barrabas Is Set Free
Pilate was looking for ways to free Me. He
was worried because of his wife's warning and confused
between the guilt of his conscience and the fear that the
people would initiate a riot against him. In the pitiable
state in which I found Myself, he exposed Me to the sight of
the mob proposing that he give Me liberty and condemn
Barabbas, a famous thief and murderer, in My place. The
people answered in one voice: "Let him die and have Barabbas
set free!"
Souls who love Me, see how they have compared Me to a criminal, how they have lowered Me more than the most perverse of men. Listen to the furious shouts projected against Me. See with what fury they ask for My death. Did I refuse to go through such shameful confrontation? No, on the contrary, I embraced it for My Love of souls and to show them that this Love did not only take Me to death, but to the most ignominious death...
However, do not believe that My human nature did not feel revulsion nor pain. On the contrary, I wanted to feel all its revulsion, and be subject to its same condition, giving you an example that will give you strength in every circumstance in life and teach you to conquer the revulsion to what you are offered when it is a question of fulfilling the Divine Will.
I return to the souls I was talking about yesterday... those souls called to the state of perfection, who discuss with grace and retreat when faced with the humility of the path that I show them, fearing how they will be judged by the world or as they assess their capabilities, convince themselves that they will be more useful somewhere else to My service and for My Glory.
I will respond to those souls: Tell Me, did I refuse or even hesitate when I saw Myself being born at night to poor and humble parents in a stable, far from My Home and Country in the harshest season of the year?
Afterwards I lived thirty years fulfilling the hidden and gloomy occupation in the workshop: I went through humiliations and scorns from the people who requested work done by Joseph, My father. I did not detest helping My Mother in the most menial of tasks in the house. Nonetheless, did I not have more talent than that required for the rough work of a carpenter? I, who at the age of twelve, taught Doctors in the Temple... But it was the Will of My Celestial Father and, thus, I glorified Him. When I left Nazareth and started My public life, I could have had Myself known as the Messiah and Son of God, so that men would listen to My teachings with veneration, but I did not do it because My only wish was to do My Father's Will...
And when the time of My Passion came, through the cruelty of some and the insults of others, the abandonment of My own and the ingratitude of the mob, through the unspeakable martyrdom of My Body and the revulsion of My soul, see how with greater love, I was still revealing and embracing the Will of My Celestial Father.
Thus when overcoming difficulties and revulsion, the soul generously submits itself to the Will of God. There comes a moment in which, intimately united to Him, the soul enjoys the most indescribable sweetness.
What I have said to the souls who loathe the humble and hidden life, I repeat to those who are called to a constant contact with the world when, on the contrary, their preference would be toward complete solitude and humble and hidden work.
Chosen souls, your happiness and perfection does not consist in following the taste of your preference and inclinations of nature, in being known or unknown by creatures, in using or hiding the talent you have, but rather in uniting and conforming yourselves through love and with total submission to God's Will, to that which is asked of you for His Glory and your own sanctification.
Enough for today, My little daughter, love and embrace My Will joyfully; you know that it is always done for love.
Meditate for a moment upon the unspeakable martyrdom of My Heart, upon seeing it put behind Barabbas. How I remembered then My Mother's tenderness when she embraced Me against her Heart! And how vivid were the anxieties and fatigue that My adoptive father suffered to show Me his love. How I remembered the benefits I so freely poured over thankless people: giving sight to the blind, giving the sick their health, the use of their limbs to those who had lost them, feeding the crowds, and resurrecting the dead. Now to see Myself reduced to the most despicable state! I am the most hated of men, and I am being condemned to death like an infamous thief.
(continues…)
….EXTRACT CONCLUDES….
EDITOR’S NOTE: For Lent 2002, Scoop will be publishing a series of daily reflections on spiritual matters from Bolivian author Katya Rivas. Rivas, has received an official imprimatur from the Catholic Church for several books she says she was instructed to write by Jesus Christ, Mary and various Angels. Scoop’s extract, above, comes from Rivas’s book “The Passion”. In 1999 Katya Rivas was the subject of a top-rating documentary show hosted by Mike Willessee (see Scoop TV review - Jesus Christ Tells FOXNews He Wants To Hug World and Scoop Images ). More recently Rivas says she was instructed by Jesus to have her books translated and published on the internet with the intention of having the books distributed to as wide an audience as possible. Several of the books can now be read online at http://www.greatcrusade.org/, and more are coming soon.
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