The Nobility of the Cross
by Vassula
In Your great condescendance, You have hymned to us to rejoice us; Like a bridegroom who prepares for his bride a banquet, You have, Lover of mankind, prepared for all of us a royal banquet, so that we can feast on the bounty of Your House. You give us drink from Your river of pleasure; For with you, my Lord, is the Fountain of Life; Let our soul, like a doe which longs for running streams thirst for the God of Life, The God of Hope, The God of Consolation. Let our soul now enjoy Your sweetness, And school us in a most delightful way; Amen
Jesus said in a message: "Today any delicacy from the part of My creatures to restore My tottering House touches Me profoundly; any step towards Unity, all heaven rejoices; any prayer offered for the restoration of My Body, My Father's wrath diminishes; any gathering in My Name for Unity, my blessings are poured out on those sharing these meetings." (5.10.94)
Praised be the Lord who, through the power of His Holy Spirit, assembled us here in the holy land to join in one spirit and pray together for reconciliation and unity. In spite of all the obstacles we knew we had to face, we never lost hope or courage to go forward, because we knew all along that Jesus was on our side, and by putting together these meetings touches the Heart of Jesus profoundly as He said in the message I've just read out to you.
Jesus, as you know, uses weakness to demonstrate His powerful Hand. He has given us, as He once said in one of His messages: "a task far beyond our capacity." This task is to lead everyone to repentance, reconciliation and unity of the heart. So that God may accomplish His plan in us we have to remember to remain totally effaced and evaporate into nothingness; for only then, God, who is the distributor of all gifts, will enrich and adorn our soul with royal prodigality. In this way, we will be completely united to God and the greater His works would be in us.
Humility is when we are reduced to nothing. We should never ever forget the day He lifted us from the dust of sin and out of the powers of darkness, without any merit from our side, and made us close partners of His Salvific Plan of Unity and Reconciliation to become a sweet fragrance spreading the knowledge of God.
All the work that has been accomplished so far for Reconciliation through True Life in God comes only from his overwhelming power. Our Lord says it clearly through these messages that the inner power of His Church is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a living breath that breathes in our withered soul a true resurrection, lifting us, renewing us and transfiguring us into columns of fire and into true and fearless apostles, to patrol the world and proclaim the truth. Today the Holy Spirit calls all of us, and it is our debt to God and our duty, to christinize this dechristianized society. Here is what our Lord says:
"It had been said that at the end of times Our Hearts would raise apostels and they would be called apostles of the end of times – these would be instructed by the Queen of Heaven and by Myself to go forward in every nation, to proclaim without fear the Word of God. Even when they would be drenched with blood by the enemy`s vicious attacks, they shall not be broken ; their tongue would pierce the enemies of my church, like a double-edged sword, by exposing their heresies.
They would never stagger nor would they know fear because I would provide them with a spirit of courage… they would pursue the sinners, the lofty speakers, the great and the proud, the hypocrites, the traitors of My Church, they would pursue them with My Cross in one hand and the Rosary in the other. And We would stand by their side. They would shatter the heresies and build faithfulness and truth in their place. They would be the antidote of the poison, because they would sprout like buds from the Royal Heart of Mary." (3.4.96)
Indeed, God is raising apostles in these end of times for the benefit of the Church.With grace these souls are elevated to the height of their mission filling them with divine love. The Holy Spirit entrusts these souls with missions not according to the measure of their human capacity, but through the power and the help of the Holy Spirit they are able to accomplish these difficult missions.
The Holy Spirit unites them to an inseparable union with God the Father, Jesus Christ and Himself to be ready to go even through fire to gain souls for God, for having given them a light of understanding, they would know the value of each soul. They would know through the light of the Holy Spirit that to gain one soul for God surpasses all sort of services one could render God, for He prizes one soul more than anything else. So an apostolate mission applies to each one of us.
I have just talked about how the Holy Spirit elevates us and brings us into a divine union of love, transfiguring us into columns of fire, yet the road to this union of divine love is when you will embrace with love the Cross. Jesus says: "To embrace Me is to embrace My Cross." (11.11.98) "Anyone who is united with Me takes the same road I had taken – the road to Calvary; anyone who follows the Supreme Victim becomes part of the Victim."(30.5.93)
"I, the Lord, am showing you the steps I have taken for My Passion. Since you are serving Me, you must follow Me. What do you want Me to say: 'Follow Me but not in My Footprints?' This cannot be – whoever serves Me, will follow My blood-stained Footprints." (3.6.93)
"The way, and I would say again, the only way to a union of divine love with Me is when you voluntarily embrace with love My Cross which you know bears its sufferings but its joys as well and which would lead you where your soul will be exalted, that is: to Calvary... In My sweet embrace you will find joys but the greatest joy of all is when you discover that you became a copy of My Passion and part of Me, the supreme Victim: another sacrifice of love, another living crucifix, another slave to be sold to the whole world; but being in My embrace your soul will be drawing from Me strength and all the virtues to resemble Me." (11.11.98)
How many are willing to offer themselves and become slaves to God? Not many. God had even shown me once how people who say they belong to God are unwilling to become His slave; He made me experience in a moment of difficulty how people are weak and tremble and run away hiding, when it comes to be face to face with the Cross; at that moment of difficulty these words were thrust in my face: 'but you are the slave of Jesus, not me' just like Jesus' disciples ran away when the Romans came to capture Him, leaving Him all alone in His enemies' hands. How few really accept divine slavery and the Cross...
To give your freedom to God is to offer yourself to God as His slave and be branded with His sign which is the Cross, in token for having given Him your freedom. If you say you are followers of Christ than allow our Lord to sell you as a slave to the whole world, as He Himself was sold. I tell you, greater honour than being branded as one of His own, one could not receive. Jesus says:
"I, Myself, came into the world to serve and not to be served, I had, although My state was Divine, emptied Myself to assume the condition of a slave."
and further down in this message, Jesus said this reality:
"No king has ever been known to have served his subordinates as I, who am the King of kings, served."
(28.1.97)
So long as you do not allow God to capture your soul, to encompass it with His divine love and open your spiritual eyes by His Holy Spirit to see the nobility of the Cross, you would never accept the conditions of slavery, you would never accept to be another living crucifix, another sacrifice of love to share in the works and immolation of Christ for His Church. So who is ready to follow Christ in His bloodstained Footprints? Who is ready to leave his comfort and serve the Lord in these conditions? I will remind you from Scriptures what Jesus tells us about following Him: this passage is taken from Mt. 10:37-39 "Anyone who prefers father or mother to Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone who prefers son or daughter to Me is not worthy of me. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in My Footsteps is not worthy of Me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it."
Jesus tells us in a message:"I need servants who are able to serve Me where love is needed most."
Jesus says in agony that this generation is dragging Him into new Gethsemanes; reminding us that He had assumed the condition of a slave, He asks: "What could I have done more that I have not done? ... to this day this generation is not satisfied. My House is in ruin and I, anxious to save My people from ruin, have raised with My Royal Sceptre, prophets, to assume the condition of a slave and to voluntarily serve My House and fortify It, this House that I have bought with My Own Blood."(30.11.98)
"Since My Father gave Me to all of you as a gift for your redemption with My entire Will too, I, in My turn, in your days, call for My purpose, My chosen ones and lift them for My Salvific Plan, turning them into copies of Myself, chosen long before their creation with the intention to become the true image of Myself and co-operators of My Love Plan." And now listen to this: "I honour them to be branded with the same marks I Myself had been branded with, to make them fully Mine and to show the world that they are truly Mine and that they are My seed ... So when these are exposed to persecution, spittle, and are threatened, when they are misunderstood, calumniated and attacked, know that they come from Me and they are the bone of My bone, the flesh of My flesh." 12.11.98
So according to Jesus, it is an honour to be branded with the same marks as Jesus Himself was branded. These marks Jesus is talking about are persecution, spittle, calumny, attacks and finally crucifixion. Jesus explains, He says:"Branded with all these noble signs that I received for your redemption, these noble souls too, for your sake, impious generation, are being tread upon, massacred daily and brought to judgement even by the dignitaries of My Church! Just as sheep brought for the slaughter, they too are led by the false accusations of those who contribute to this day, the slaughter of My saints and prophets of all times; and how ingeniously they get round My words in order to justify their incredulity!"12.11.98
Dear brothers and sisters, it is only through the light of the Cross that we would perceive those things that Scriptures tell us, that are invisible but eternal and not those things that are visible and wear away. So let us accept the Cross so that we look for the things that It can offer us later on in heaven; all the Riches that can be found in Jesus' Heart could be seen through the Eye of our Redemptive Instrument, the Instrument of our slavation: The Cross.
Let us, therefore, check ourselves and see whether we are of those who are joined with Christ and one with Him: Let us check ourselves and see whether we have been formed in Christ and knit with Him. We will know the spiritual state of our soul by checking to see where our heart is grafted on. If you have accepted divine slavery, your heart then is not only grafted on Jesus but as well as on His Cross with all its bearings; anybody who is convinced that he belongs to Christ must understand that he belongs to His Cross as well.
A video of this talk can be viewed HERE |