How to Cultivate True Life in God

A talk given by Vassula in Jerusalem, May 1998

I would like to concentrate my talk in this end of the day by giving you some instructions on the way you could cultivate True Life in God. Perhaps I should remind you that whatever step I take, which concerns this noble theme that our Lord has given us, I ask Him for His counsel. Even such a little thing as the title of this speech, I asked Jesus to give it to me; the speech is called: "How to cultivate "True Life in God. But before I continue I would like to share with you a line from a message given to me by Our Blessed Mother last month, on the 9th April: before She ended Her message, I had briefly asked Her to help me put the right things on paper for our two day meeting and She said:

"Jesus will reveal to you His intentions, remain in His Peace."

So, in my child-like faith, I believe that what I've written here are really His intentions.

I want to thank everyone here, not only for coming all the way to the Holy Land for this retreat and pilgrimage, but also for all the hard work you have been undertaking for TLIG and for the efforts you are putting in to spreading this divine Work.

My brothers and sisters, you were called, as you know, to share in our Lord's Works. Nevertheless, you will have always to stay vigilant and awake in case you fall into self-indulgence or many other grave temptations. We are all called in the peace of God to work with effacement, with harmony with peace and love and with the Spirit of Jesus. If so far, True Life in God is still alive and spreading even more powerfully than before, in spite of all the blockages put before it and the wild persecution it suffered it is because the Spirit of the Lord sustains it. "We are only the earthenware jars that hold this treasure, to make it clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from us. We are in difficulties on all sides, but never cornered; we see no answer to our problems, but never despair; we have been persecuted, but never deserted; knocked down, but never killed..." (2 Cor 4:8-9)

As I said last year, Jesus wants us humble. No one should work with a spirit of competition or conceit, for you would be contradicting the image of Christ. Saint Paul instructed his apostles and told them to consider always the other person to be better than himself. (Ph 2:3) That is why no one should give himself names such as coordinator or president or secretary of TLIG. We are all labourers of this divine message and we should work together.

The Holy Spirit urges us to work fast but with efficiency, never losing our harmony and peace; Jesus' pace is quick and the sign of this urgency is the tremendous work Jesus asked of me these past months, sending me to go out to missions impossible but possible in the Name of God. I sometimes want to tell Jesus about certain events that should come now that my "soon" is beginning to resemble His "soon", the events are nevertheless very near us. The sign of this is the swiftness that our Lord taking to work. When I talk about events, they are not to be placed in the doom and gloom catalogue but in the catalogue of hope and jubilee.

Like last year, I would ask you again to give to God a proof of your love. Last year I said, and I'm taking the same words:

"I would have liked to see more of the Associations spread the messages of Christ in a more powerful and efficacious way." What I meant by this was to evangelize by preparing conferences. And I had said: "suppose I can't go out anymore, then what would you do with True Life in God?" What about the message we received saying that at the end of times Jesus and Mary would raise apostles, train them and send them out to evangelize? I had asked you in the Name of Jesus, to start evangelizing; here, before putting in print the words "in the Name of Jesus", I hesitated and I asked Jesus about it and to show me through the Scriptures that it is right. I opened and read the words of St. Paul : "I am saying all this, not just to make you ashamed but to bring you, as my dearest children, to your senses. You might have thousands of guardians in Christ, but not more than one father and it was I who begot you in Christ Jesus by preaching the Good News. That is why I beg you to copy me and why I have sent you Timothy, my dear and faithful son in the Lord: he will remind you of the way that I live in Christ, as I teach it everywhere in all the churches." (1 Cor 4:14-17)

Jesus says that if you say you have faith without evangelizing, it is in vain... to evangelize is also an act of charity, because you do it for the salvation of souls. But now, a year after, this message from Jesus did not get much of a response. Only very few acted on His words.

I would say that really, Fr. Milheiro of Portugal together with Sr. Isabelle have done a tremendous work of charity by evangelizing TLIG in all the prisons of Portugal and leaving them the books. For instance, in Greece, the young group of Athens, managed to find different TV channels who would accept their witnessing regularly. So they do it through TV. Anyone of you who would like to take tips off these people, please do go ahead and talk to them while they are among us. If anyone wants to discuss this with me also, please do not hesitate to come and talk to me about it during these days. Any future meeting you want to organize for the year 1999, please come to me in the coming days and we will discuss about it, fixing dates. Already next year many dates are taken for several countries.

What I want really to emphasize more than ever to you today is that many of you are "ripe" to become witnesses on the messages. Jesus needs apostles. So why are you hesitating and fearing to do this step forward? Let me tell you a true story:

This is a story of how our Lord bonded Fr. "X"' wrist to His wrist and dragged Him to go on the podium in Kerala and witness on TLIG, the way I do. It was when I could not go inside India, because of no visa, Fr. "X", who accompanied me had a visa and was able to enter India. Now I had a program from the first day after my arrival. The meetings were not small; they consisted of several thousands of people. Thanks to Fr. Mattam and other collaborators they were superbly organized. But here I was, stuck without a visa and there in India people were waiting. I knew then that Jesus wanted Fr. "X" to start this apostolate and on the phone I said to him so that he understands me exactly what our Lord wanted, I said to him: "Just be my echo; copy me; be the echo of the Echo".

Our Lord Jesus Christ has prepared many of you and nourished you sufficiently through these messages and given you graces to be able to go and serve Him with works of love. In serving Him in this way you would be serving your neighbour too. To serve as I said is an act of charity, because you give yourself to others; you sacrifice yourself. You would have to rely on the Holy Spirit though once you do this work, because if at anytime you will start relying on your own strength even though your performance shows zeal, it will not be too long before you fall.

Some would ask: "How are we to go about then?"

We have many videos of half hours or an hour that I've made, both in English and in French, and Tom Austin from Switzerland has these. You could show in your conference one of the videos, especially those that talk about the beginning of the messages, but it varies to which people you would show it. You could announce your conference on a small poster as though you would be doing it for me. You could do this in different cities in your own country and introduce the messages; or you could copy me giving your own witness by quoting passages of the messages. You could talk on the Holy Spirit, or The Triumph of the Two Hearts, or on Unity, or about the Apostasy, or the intimate Love of the Holy Trinity etc.

Having said all this, I want to ask people to be faithful to the message of TLIG when witnessing and never mix it with comparisons to other messages even though they may be authentic. If people want to know why they can come and ask me.

Many of you have listened to me several times and so you know what I say, and all that I learnt, I learnt from the messages. But for this step that is a higher step than the formation of prayer groups, the ones who would do the evangelizing should have read several times the messages. Fr. Umana, who is not with us, from Colombia, and has written a book on TLIG told me that he read it six times. I know that Fr. Ed O'Connor from the Univ. of Notre Dame, in USA who wrote several articles on TLIG also read the messages several times.

I would warn all those who have tendencies to bring up subjects which are not really in the messages to be careful when they witness. Those that would witness should give the message of TLIG in all its purity. Remember that the message is a message of Hope that gives peace to souls. It is the Love Letter of the Holy Trinity. If anyone would present the message not as such, and speak more of Satan than of God, I would be obliged to tell them to stop evangelizing, for their talks would not be in the light of the message. Jesus instructed me once and I never forgot what He said. He said that when I talk, I should use only the things He instructed me in the messages and nothing more. This is one of His precious rules that I follow so as not to deviate.

Unfortunately, there are some people in our own groups who always tend to go off the straight course and take a road that leads to empty speculations. Some others believe they have the charism of healing and of reading souls. Some proclaim things that do not exist in the messages, inventing seasons and events that Jesus never announced. Their acts and their sayings are only likely to raise irrelevant doubts, from any outsider, on the messages, instead of furthering the designs of God which are revealed in faith. By upholding their beliefs they are damaging the messages and their truthfulness. I would ask them to turn their hearts towards the love of God and the fortitude of Christ instead.

And so when you witness let your talk be agreeable and with a flavour of wit, and try to fit your answers to the needs of each one. Pray that our Father in heaven gives us opportunities and doors open for announcing the message and proclaiming the love and mercy of God.

Jesus said in a message to me:

"The fruit of your labour should multiply in their hands." (March 3, 1995)

Meaning that He desires from you now deeds and evangelization. It is not sufficient to be just a prayer group enclosed like in a cocoon without acts of charity. One has to give away their time, their leisure and in fact even give away one's life for your brothers and sisters out there in the desert who are also so much in need to know the Love of God.

I received some time ago a card from a priest. In the card were printed these words: "You go out of your way to be thoughtful, you go out of your way to be nice, you go out of your way to do favours, and you do them without thinking twice." So let us all follow these inspired words too. Yes, if you love your neighbour as yourself, you will go out of your way to reach every soul who needs to know that Jesus loves them too.

So stop being afraid; go out and evangelize proving your faith in evangelizing. In this manner you will glorify God. Many times God said to me: "be My Echo!" Today I tell you: "copy me." Because by being the echo of the Echo you are echoing God's messages, as I have been echoing them, and remember always our motto: to repay evil with love.

If you allow yourselves to be guided by the Spirit you will be in no danger of yielding to temptations or to deviations. If anyone goes on snapping at one another and tearing one another to pieces, Saint Paul says: "You had better watch or you will destroy the whole community." For this sort of spirit does not come from God. What the Spirit brings is very different: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control. So let us abandon ourselves to the Holy Spirit and let Him be our director and guide us.

We have more magazines or newsletters than last year, which is a sign of good fruit; we have this year many more prayer groups than last year, so this is also a good fruit; and what I have are more invitations for new countries that want to hear the messages. From where do you think all this comes if it is not from our Lord Himself who gives us His Powerful Hand when we are open to Him and doing His Will!

As Jesus says to me: your race is not over and so I am telling you too, your race is not over. That mile I had to go with Him that He was talking about sometime ago seems to have stretched like an elastic and became now endless. So here I am, clinging on the hem of His robe while His Steps become swifter by the minute...

Never forget that the Lord is on our side. He always stood by me and gave me His power in the days of persecution and from those who are still contesting everything I do or say. "I believed and therefore I spoke" (Ex 34:33). God shall never fail me but will always give me the power so that through me the whole of His message might be proclaimed for all the world to hear. The Lord will always rescue me with His powerful Hand from all evil attempts on me, and He will bring me safely to his heavenly courts one day. To Him be glory, for ever and ever.

Let us then become as docile as lambs for in that docility we would feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. His presence will be felt inside us like a consuming fire of love. Let our Ruler rule our lives and lead us with strings of love to become witnesses of the Most High and proclaim without fear His Word, thus becoming zealous apostles of these end of times. In a message our Lord says:

"These apostles of the end of times would call on God their Father and God their Father would call on their spirit; their tongues would pierce the enemies of My Church, like a double-edged sword, by exposing their heresies; they would not stagger nor would they know fear because I would provide them with a spirit of courage... They would shatter the heresies and build faithfulness and truth in their place."

So let us plunge in the Heart of Jesus and Mary and draw strength from those Two Hearts to go out into the world and be the warriors in this battle of the end of times to proclaim without fear the Word of God, to proclaim the Truth. Amen