BOOK XXI
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4 |
The nonbelievers say: "This Book is nothing", but we say: "It is a monument that the believers of heaven and earth shall visit with veneration, while the name of the deniers will have disappeared forever from the memory of God and of men".
Let us not join the impious, for they shall not become believers, but they shall make us impious. |
4' |
Let us confess to the Highest in this way: "I accuse myself of having fallen here below through my own fault, and of being in the lamentable state in which you see me, but would your will deliver me from the horrible mud of the sin of death and clothe me in your holy light of life, oh, Merciful One, whose heart is a blaze of forgiveness and love, you, eternal Lover of beloved souls". |
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6 |
Christ wants to save us from the filthy ditch into which we have fallen, while the antichrist wants to install us there forever. Behold God's action and behold Satan's, here lies a fundamental difference that must separate once and for all the true believers, who trust in the action of divine nature, from the hardened impious ones, who only count on the labour of their hands to save themselves. |
6' |
Oh, all-powerful and merciful Lord, take off the sack that makes us blind and deaf, break the shackles that squeeze our necks and our hands, and untie the bonds that fetter our feet so that we can walk in your light of life, making public your bounty and raising our hands as an offering to your so-holy face. Praise be to you who delivers us from the outside through the inside, oh, Living One, for you make a mockery of all death forever! |
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17 |
Examined from outside, the rose windows of cathedrals only allow their framework to show, but seen from inside, their brilliance illuminates the believer. Thus, the word of life heard from outside only allows the bone of truth to be glimpsed, while this very word perceived from the inside allows us to taste the nourishing marrow of the creator of all things. |
17' |
Oh, important ones! oh, powerful ones! oh, wealthy ones! oh, scholars! oh, intelligent ones! what do you contribute to the Lord whom you question with such conceit? or rather, what do you offer to humanity in whose name you speak with such impudence?
Worthless words that meet with the silence of death, and empty works that rot on the surface of the earth. |
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36 |
Satan does not forgive and he is always at our heels, and the rebellious woman continues to be the main instrument he uses to drive us to despair and damn us here below. Wretched executioner, wretched victim of torture, wretched instrument of torture!
Oh, Lord, have pity on us and deliver us from the malice and the blows of the indomitable demon. Save us through the grace of the heavenly Mother submitted to your fertilizing love. |
36' |
Satan unknowingly leads us back towards God through kicks in the backside, and that is why, even torn and rolled in the mud, we must turn with confidence to the Lord of forgiveness, who shall save us and who shall restore us in his kingdom of peace through the grace of his love, which is incommensurable and mad. |
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41 |
We shall accept everything that offers itself and that is given, and we shall leave all that denies itself and that resists. Therefore, we shall accomplish God's will, which never does violence to anything or anyone.
"He who seizes is a criminal; he who picks up is none other than a parasite of God." |
41' |
Crushed by blows, mad with pain, inebriated with desperation, here am I like a stupid man who adores his Lord, crying in the dust. Scandalous stupidity, disarming stupidity, disturbing stupidity, blessed stupidity, triumphant stupidity that makes the light spring from the darkness. |
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44 |
The sterile heart is jealous of all friendship, even of God's love, for it embraces like the octopus that sucks life until the last drop and rejects the emptied remains. Let us therefore flee from the wicked who only love for themselves and never for God, for they take everything and give nothing. |
44' |
Your father, your mother, your brothers, your sisters, your companion, your children, your friends may turn against God and weigh you down with their bad thoughts and their sarcasm. It is not up to you to judge them, but you can run away from them as quickly and as far as your two legs can carry you, for the Lord shall accompany you and he shall replace your family of vanity to your advantage. |
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53 |
Let us be wary of the impious who, having denied God throughout their life, scorned his teachings and spat on his people, become afraid in their old age and attempt to underwrite an insurance by endowing religious works or by building and decorating chapels, for it is still their names that they attempt to impose proudly on God and on men, and not their hearts that they offer with repentance to the clear-sighted Lord. |
53' |
If we do not have the intelligence to do otherwise, let us accomplish our silly things in the world, but sometimes let us at least give thanks to God in our hearts for the life he grants us here below with his patience and generosity, and when we see something beautiful, great and noble in the world, let us abandon our wretched thoughts and let us praise the Lord for that small reflection of the admirable and secret work that is accomplished before our blinded eyes. |
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58 |
Workers and resourceful people sometimes succeed in the world, but few seem to notice that it is to end up at the same point of ignorance and poverty as the idlers and the incapable before death and future life, for impiety blinds them all equally, and nails them to the outer layer of things. |
58' |
Even destroyed and desperate, where shall we go if it is not to our Lord of compassion? For, who shall accept us in this lamentable state, if it is not the Generous and Merciful One, who consoles, fulfils and cures one of death?
"If we erase ourselves sincerely, God shall bring us into the light, but if we mean to shine, he shall plunge us in the darkness of oblivion." |
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64 |
We have not chosen to write the Book nor to preach the truth of God; it is the Lord who has chosen us and who has swooped down on us without warning like the eagle who snatches his prey and carries it up into the sky. If the Lord lets go right now, we would fall back heavily to the ground, and there would be nothing but a bag of mixed-up dumb and stupid bones. Really, we are all in the hand of God; some believe it, but very few experience it here below. |
64' |
This very day, if he so wishes, God can reverse his judgement and humiliate us to dust, ridiculing us before all, believers and the impious, scholars and the ignorant, the intelligent and brutes, but we would remain turned towards his holy face and, even though covered in mud, we would praise his holy NAME without doubting his wisdom and his mercifulness, for the love he has implanted in us is not the kind which one can easily rid oneself of. |
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65 |
How could we have contemplated on our own writing a Book that has taken the twelve best years of our youth according to the world, that has demanded a thousand cares and withdrawal from life that surrounds us, that has provoked the judgement and the rebellion of our nearest, that has cost us poverty, which nobody wants to accept, that leaves the world indifferent, that bores our close ones, that offends the religious, that makes us appear unbalanced, and that up to now engenders nothing but silence and abandonment?
How could we have contemplated losing our life in this world in order to gain it in God on our own? |
65' |
Oh, Lord of mercy and of peace, allow us now to hide ourselves and disappear behind you; allow us to complete your work in secret and in repose before the imbeciles, who let their inspired children die of poverty, come to congratulate us and shake our hand; before they pounce greedily on what they have always refused to buy for a piece of bread; before they seize our shadow and exhibit it in their circus shows; before they dismember our life stupidly and ferociously, as they do with beasts to surprise the soul in them. |
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