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Matthew 8:22
Jesus unexpectedly speaks, while I am making my daily offerings and thus have not opened any book, and his voice resounds clearly and swiftly for me, mentioning the verse and bringing me to understand that it is today’s lesson. Jesus says, then:
“Let the dead bury their dead. The dead of the dead are vain concerns, the cares of the world, and affections felt in a human way. The ‘living’ should not be concerned about these dead things.”
(This is what He said at once. He then continued.)
“I use the term ‘dead’ for those who, because they have not given themselves entirely to Life, are rendered heavy and slow, cold and inactive, like dead or dying bodies. The dead are not just the notably dead with no more trace of life - that is, those who, because of their sins, belong to Satan. Those who, because of their lukewarmness and quietism, lack impulses towards Goodness are also dead. They are like stones not buried in the depths of the ground, but resting upon it. A stone, even if it is not buried, does not move by its own power. A foot is needed to roll it, a hand, to throw it, so that it will go further.
“These souls, that I would call embryonic souls, for with their apathy they have atrophied, becoming ever so faint and extremely weak, are no different from those stones. Mercifully, my hand sometimes picks them up and tosses them, to see if I can make them desirous of movement. But they proceed only as far as I throw them and then fall back into immobility. My friends, with their penances, examples, and words, spur them on and drag them upwards. But as soon as they are left alone, they then stop - that is, if they don’t slide back down to the place they were before. Attached like oysters to the cliff of life and like moss to the trunk of humanity, they live for these two things, which pass as quickly as summer lightning. I call them. I indicate to them, ‘Come. Follow Me.’ But they are unable to do so. To follow Me means to make life and humanity secondary and God and the spirit the principal concern. They are unable because they are unwilling to do this.
“To you and my faithful disciples I say, ‘Let the dead bury their dead. Follow me, passing above everything which is not of God. Follow me, neglecting every voice which is not my voice. Follow me, without any concern except to do what I ask you. My true followers must be even freer than the foxes and the birds. Without attachment to the things of the world, not even to the nest and the foxhole. An attachment which creates an obstacle to following Me, for I do not condemn a holy affection for one’s native home. I, too, felt this. But, do you see? I was able to detach Myself from my home and Mother to do God’s will. To love everything in God in holy fashion. Beginning on earth, start to love as you will in Heaven - that is, by giving those dear to you, relatives and friends, the assistance which charity suggests, but not the absolute affection which keeps you from loving Me more than them. You love them more than Me if, when having to choose between doing something pleasing to God and doing something else pleasing to them, you prefer to please them and displease Me. O my beloved, observe the face of your Jesus as you walk. Observe it as what is most beautiful and deserving of every gaze. Let others and other things be observed by way of Me. Oh, if into everything you do or say or love you were to introduce love for Me as a sieve, how pure and holy your affections would become! They would be stripped of all selfishness and, rendered more tenuous, but much more precious, perfectly precious, they would become a source of good for you and those you love.’
“I tell you this, little John. I want you to come without any noose’s slowing down your flight. Rise up! Above what is earth. There is so much Heaven for you!
“The foxes have holes, and the birds, nests. The Son of Man had nowhere to rest his head.575 But the little John has a pillow and a nest: the heart and the breast of his Jesus. But he must have nothing but that.
“Let all that is not your Master and of your Master fall away. There are so many of the ‘dead’ to concern themselves with the dead...! Be someone who is ‘alive’ and concern yourself only with Jesus as Life.
“Come and rest.”
575Matthew 8:20; Luke 9:58.