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Matthew 23:19
Yesterday, Friday, silence. Only pain received as a gift and offered as a gift. Today Jesus says this:
“One of the deviations of your thought as Catholics, as Christians in general, lies in this. You get the offering and the altar mixed up. You think the offering is greater than the altar. And this occurs even to those among you who are good sons and daughters of the Lord. I will speak to you about this to correct you.
“Your offerings of prayers and sacrifices are very dear to me, and only in Paradise will you see how I have used them and how much good I have done with them.
“You give Me your poor things, always permeated with humanity, always sullied with imperfections. You have nothing more beautiful to give Me. Man, even the best of men, is always subject to being imperfect. When you are here, with Me, you will no longer be such.
“Your actions are always imperfect in my eyes. But I look at your effort and affection, at the uprightness with which you offer them. And I do not disdain them. Quite the contrary. Rather, I take them with love and sanctify them; I purify them by contact with Me, and, when they have been rendered entirely holy and pure, I use them for the good of the world. And for your good.
“Oh, I am an honest, good banker! I do not leave your savings idle. I do not use them for Myself or for others, leaving you deprived of their fruits. But, rather, I treasure them up for you, and, though spending your coins for the needs of the world, with love I accumulate their fruit so that you will find it at the hour of death and it may be your endowment to enter my Kingdom.
“You, then, give Me your poor, always imperfect things, which, however, are so dear to Me. You give them to Me. For - as I said256 - everything you do by way of good works to and for your neighbor you do to Me. And to give bread, water, hospitality, clothing, comfort, teaching, and example is to give so much to your neighbor, as is giving your life for him, offering it to Me for the salvation of one or many and for the triumph of good, of my Good, in the world.
“But, whatever you give Me, always consider that it is not because of it that you receive what you ask for, but because of your God. It is I - that is, the altar - for the altar stands for the throne of God - who grant you grace. It is I who sanctify the offering, and not the offering that sanctifies Me. It is I who will and am able, and not you that are able and will.
“When you say, ‘Thy will be done’ in the ‘Our Father,’ you must thus consider that even in your requests you have to accept my will to listen to you and to grant you what you ask for. And don’t say, ‘But I have given and ought to receive.’ You have given, and the fact that you have such great faith and trust in Me that it seems impossible to you that I would not intervene to heed you is sweeter to Me than a son’s caress. But, if for the sake of a consideration which you cannot understand, I do not grant something, you must give Me, not a caress, but a kiss, a deeper manifestation of love than a caress - the kiss of your prompt, cheerful, humble, holy obedience and resignation to my will.
“The altar is much more than the offering which is upon it, and it is the altar that speaks. Do not confuse the thing, then, with the One to whom the thing is given.
“I don’t want to call you pharisees, for into this slight fault precisely those of you that are most generous fall, those most willing to love Me with uprightness of heart. Pharisees act with varied errors; you have this one alone in your attitude towards God. But since I said, ‘Be perfect,’257 remove this, too, from your hearts.
“When you have placed your gift on the altar, when you have given your offerings to Me, your God, let the altar uplift them; let God consecrate them. Remember when I had divine fire descend upon poor offerings to consume them in sacrifice with a pleasing odor.258 No priest, no fire is greater than I, who take your gift and consecrate it and consume it and use it for what I find to be useful, even if it does not appear so to you, and no gift becomes more beautiful than the one which is given not only in form, but also with one’s thought. Given. And, once given, no longer recalled with haughtiness before Him to whom it has been given. My intelligence suffices for Me to remember you. Your smile, your saying, ‘Jesus! - your saying, ‘Father!’ - is enough for Me, to keep Me present, as if your angel lifted your offering to the height of my gaze.
“Cheer up, my children. The world is fierce. But it is something which passes and never returns. I remain with my goodness, and with Me my celestial world remains, where you are awaited in order to forget all the horrors of the Earth in an eternal joy.”
256 Mattew 25:31-46
257 Matthew 5:48.
258 1 Kings 18:36-39.