Prayer of Jesus for the Holy Souls.

 

On October 24, 1944, Our Lord said the following to Maria Valtorta -

“The month devoted to the deceased is coming. Pray for them in the following way:

“O Jesus, who with your glorious Resurrection have shown us what the “children of God” will be like eternally, grant a holy resurrection to our loved ones who have died in your Grace and to us, when our hour comes.

“For the sake of the Sacrifice of your Blood, the tears of Mary, and the merits of all the saints, open your Kingdom to their spirits.

“O Mother, whose agony ended at dawn on Easter, before the Risen One, and whose waiting to rejoin your Son ceased in the joy of your glorious Assumption, console our sorrow by freeing from affliction those whom we love even beyond death, and pray for us, who await the time when we shall recover the embrace of those we lost.

“Martyrs and Saints who rejoice in heaven, turn a gaze of entreaty towards God and a fraternal gaze towards the deceased who are expiating, to pray to the Eternal for them and say to them, “See: peace is opening out for you.”

“Beloved ones, who are dear to us, not lost, but separated, may your prayers be for us the kiss we miss, and when, through our suffrages, you are free in blessed Paradise with the saints, protect us by loving us in Perfection, united to us through the invisible, active, loving Communion of the Saints, a foretaste of that reunion of the “blessed” which will be granted to us, in addition to the bliss of the vision of God, on regaining you just as we had you, but rendered sublime by the glory of Heaven.”

October 24, 1944, The Notebooks 1944, page 604, by Maria Valtorta.

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St. John Chrysostom on our Daily Bread and Forgiveness.

Give us this day our daily bread means to take no thought for tomorrow.

 

Perfection of conduct, says He, I require as great, not however freedom from passions; no, for the tyranny of nature permits it not: for it requires necessary food. But mark, I pray you, how even in things that are bodily, that which is spiritual abounds. For it is neither for riches, nor for delicate living, nor for costly raiment, nor for any other such thing, but for bread only, that He has commanded us to make our prayer. And for daily bread, so as not to take thought for the morrow (Matthew 6:34). Because of this He added, daily bread, that is, bread for one day (Matthew 6:11).

 

And not even with this expression is He satisfied, but adds another too, saying, give us this day; so that we may not, beyond this, wear ourselves out with the care of the following day. For that day, the interval before which you know not whether you shall see, wherefore do you submit to its cares? Take no thought for the morrow. He would have us be on every hand unencumbered and winged for flight, yielding just so much to nature as the compulsion of necessity requires of us.

 

Then inasmuch as it comes to pass that we sin even after the washing of regeneration, He, showing His love to man to be great even in this case, commands us for the remission of our sins to come unto God who loves man, and thus to say:

 

Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.

 

Do you see surpassing mercy? After taking away so great evils, and after the unspeakable greatness of His gift [of Baptism], if men sin again, He counts them such as may be forgiven. For that this prayer belongs to believers, is taught us both by the laws of the church, and by the beginning of the prayer. For the uninitiated could not call God Father. If then the prayer belongs to believers and they pray, entreating that sins may be forgiven them, it is clear that not even after the laver is the profit of repentance taken away. Since, had He not meant to signify this, He would not have made a law that we should so pray. 

 

Now He who both brings sins to remembrance, and bids us ask forgiveness, and teaches how we may obtain remission and so makes the way easy; it is perfectly clear that He introduced this rule of supplication, as knowing, and signifying, that it is possible even after the font to wash ourselves from our offenses; by reminding us of our sins, persuading us to be modest; by the command to forgive others, setting us free from all revengeful passion; while by promising in return for this to pardon us also, He holds out good hopes, and instructs us to have high views concerning the unspeakable mercy of God toward man.

 

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you (Matthew 6:14). So that the beginning is of us, and we ourselves have control over the judgment that is to be passed upon us. For in order that no one, even of the senseless, might have any complaint to make, either great or small, when brought to judgment; on you, who art to give account, He causes the sentence to depend; and in whatever way you have judged for yourself, in the same, says He, do I also judge you. And if you forgive your fellow servant, you shall obtain the same favor from me; though indeed the one be not equal to the other. For you forgive in your need, but God, having need of none: thou, your fellow slave; God, His slave: thou liable to unnumbered charges; God, being without sin. But yet even thus does He show forth His loving kindness towards man.

 

Since He might indeed, even without this, forgive you all your offenses; but He wills you hereby also to receive a benefit; affording you on all sides innumerable occasions of gentleness and love to man, casting out what is brutish in you, and quenching wrath, and in all ways cementing you to him who is your own member.

 

For what can you have to say? That you have wrongfully endured some ill of your neighbor? But you too are drawing near to receive forgiveness for such things, and for much greater. And even before the forgiveness, you have received no small gift, in being taught to have a human soul, and in being trained to all gentleness. And herewith a great reward shall also be laid up for you elsewhere, even to be called to account for none of your offenses.

 

What sort of punishment then do we not deserve, when after having received the privilege, we betray our salvation? And how shall we claim to be heard in the rest of our matters, if we will not, in those which depend on us, spare our own selves?

 

For if you forgive men, says He, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not, neither will He forgive you. And nothing makes us so like God, as being ready to forgive the wicked and wrong-doers; even as indeed He had taught before, when He spoke of His making the sun to shine on the evil and on the good (Matthew 5:45). How great punishment then must they deserve, who after all this, so far from themselves forgiving, do even entreat God for vengeance on their enemies, and diametrically as it were transgress this law; and this while He is doing and contriving all, to hinder our being at variance one with another?

 

For since love is the root of all that is good, He removing from all sides whatever mars it, brings us together, and cements us to each other. For there is not, there is not one, be he father, or mother, or friend, or what you will, who so loved us as the God who created us. And this, above all things, both His daily benefits and His precepts make manifest. But if you tell me of the pains, and of the sorrows, and of the evils of life; consider in how many things you offend Him every day. Which one has not been insolent, or vainglorious? Who has not spoken evil of his brother, has not admitted a wicked desire, has not looked with unchaste eyes, has not remembered things with hostile feeling, even till he made his heart swell?

 

But yet from our so great and so many sins, God has given us a short and easy way of deliverance, and one that is free from all toil. For what sort of toil is it to forgive him that has grieved us? Nay, it is a toil not to forgive, but to keep up our enmity: even as to be delivered from the anger, both works in us a great refreshment, and is very easy to him that is willing. For there is no sea to be crossed, nor long journey to be traveled, nor summits of mountains to be passed over, nor money to be spent, no need to torment your body; but it suffices to be willing only, and all our sins are done away.

 

But if so far from forgiving him yourself, you make intercession to God against him, what hope of salvation will you then have, if at the very time when you ought rather to appease God, even then you provoke Him; putting on the garb of a suppliant, but uttering the cries of a wild beast, and darting out against yourself those shafts of the wicked one? Wherefore Paul also, making mention of prayer, required nothing so much as the observance of this commandment. And if when you have need of mercy, not even then will you let go your anger, but art rather exceedingly mindful of it, and that, although you know you are thrusting the sword into yourself; when will it be possible for you to become merciful, and to spew out the evil venom of this wickedness?

 

Let us cease then from this disease and madness, and that kindliness which He commanded let us show forth towards them that have vexed us: that we may become like our Father which is in heaven. And we shall cease therefrom, if we call to mind our own sins; if we strictly search out all our misdeeds at home, abroad, and in the market, and in church.

 

Based on https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200119.htm

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Padre Pio predicted Trump's victory - kind of.

St. Padre Pio: 

Do not let your heart become troubled by the sad spectacle of human injustice, even this has its value in the face of all else.  And it is from this that one day you will see the justice of God rising with unfailing triumph.  

 

From "Padre Pio Councils," p. 25,  published by his Friary at San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. 

 

http://frankrega.com/index.html

 

The Our Father as Explained by Our Lord – Revelations to Luisa Piccarreta, Part Two.

“It is true that the Church has been reciting the ‘Our Father’ from the time I came upon earth, in which one asks, ‘Thy Kingdom come’, so that my Will be done on earth as It is in Heaven, but who thinks about the request they make?  It can be said that the whole importance of such a request remained in my Will and that creatures recite it just to recite it, without understanding and without any interest in obtaining what they ask for.

“It is true that everything that the creature does is my grace, but my grace itself wants to find the prop of the dispositions and good will of the creature. Therefore, in order to restore the Kingdom of my Will upon earth it takes sufficient acts of the creature, so that my Kingdom may not remain in the air, but may descend, to be formed upon the very acts of the creature formed by her to obtain a good so great. Therefore, if you want It, continue your acts, so that, by reaching the established number, you may obtain what you long for with so much insistence.”

Then, I [Luisa] was thinking to myself:  “In the ‘Our Father,’ Our Lord teaches us to say—to pray: ‘Your Will be done.’  Now, why does He say that He wants us to live in It?” And Jesus, always benign, moving in my interior, told me:  “My daughter, ‘Your Will be done’ that I taught in the ‘Our Father’ meant that all were to pray that they might at least do the Will of God.  And this is for all Christians and for all times; nor can anyone call himself a Christian if he does not dispose himself to do the Will of his Celestial Father. But you have not thought of the other addition that comes immediately after:  ‘On earth as It is in Heaven.’ ‘On earth as It is in Heaven’ means to live in the Divine Will; it means to pray that the Kingdom of My Will may come on earth in order to live in It.

“In Heaven, they not only do My Will, but they live in It—they possess It as their own thing, and as their own Kingdom.  To do the Will of God does not mean to possess It, but to submit oneself to Its commands, while to live in It is possession.  Therefore, in the ‘Our Father’, in the words ‘Your Will be done’ is the prayer that all may do the Supreme Will, and in ‘on earth as It is in Heaven,’ that man may return into that Will from which he came, in order to reacquire his happiness, the lost goods, and the possession of his Divine Kingdom.”

Then I [Luisa] continued my acts in the Divine Fiat, and I offered everything in order to obtain Its Kingdom upon earth.  I wanted to invest the whole Creation, animate all created things with my voice, so that all of them might say, together with me: “Fiat Voluntas Tua on earth as It is in Heaven.  Hurry, hurry—let Your Kingdom come.”But while doing this, I thought to myself: “How can this Kingdom so holy come upon earth?  In creatures there is no change; no one occupies himself with It; sin and passions abound.  How, then, can this Kingdom ever come upon earth?”

So, while I was thinking about the Kingdom of the Divine Will, and Its reigning upon earth seemed as though difficult to me, my Beloved Jesus, coming out from within my interior, told me:  “My daughter, as Adam sinned, God made him the promise of the future Redeemer.  Centuries passed, but the promise did not fail, and the generations had the good of Redemption.  Now, as I came from Heaven and formed the Kingdom of Redemption, before departing for Heaven, I made another promise, more solemn, of the Kingdom of My Will; and this was in the ‘Our Father.’

“And so as to give it more value, and to obtain It more quickly, I made this formal promise in the solemnity of My prayer, praying the Father to let His Kingdom come, which is the Divine Will on earth as It is in Heaven.  I placed My very Self at the head of this prayer, knowing that such was His Will, and that, prayed by Me, He would deny Me nothing; more so, since I prayed with His very Will, and I asked for something that was wanted by My Father Himself.

“And after I had formed this prayer before My Celestial Father, certain that the Kingdom of My Divine Will upon earth would be granted to Me, I taught it to My Apostles, that they might teach it to the whole world, so that one might be the cry of all:  ‘Your Will be done, on earth as It is in Heaven.’  A promise more sure and solemn I could not make.  Centuries are like one single point for Us, but Our words are accomplished acts and facts.

 

“My very praying to the Celestial Father: ‘Let It come—let Your Kingdom come; Your Will be done on earth as It is in Heaven,’ meant that with My coming upon earth the Kingdom of My Will was not established in the midst of creatures; otherwise I would have said:  ‘My Father, let Our Kingdom, that I have already established on earth, be confirmed, and let Our Will dominate and reign.’  Instead, I said:  ‘Let It come.’  This meant that It must come, and creatures must await It with that certainty with which they awaited the future Redeemer, because there is My Divine Will, bound and committed, in those words of the ‘Our Father’; and when It binds Itself, whatever It promises is more than certain.  More so, since everything was prepared by Me; nothing else was needed but the manifestation of My Kingdom—and this I am doing.

“Do you think that My giving you so many truths about My Fiat is only to give you simple news?  No, no; it is because I want everyone to know that Its Kingdom is near, and to know Its beautiful prerogatives, so that all may love—may yearn to enter, to live in a Kingdom so holy, full of happiness and of all goods. Therefore, what seems difficult to you is easy for the power of Our Fiat, because It knows how to remove all difficulties, and to conquer everything—the way It wants, and when It wants.”

“My daughter, God is order, and when He wants to give a good to creatures, He always places His Divine order in it, and everything that is done in order to obtain a good so great begins from God, as He places Himself at the head of it to take on the commitment, and then orders the creature for the same purpose.

“I did this in order to give, Myself, the Redemption, and so that creatures might receive It; and I am doing this, Myself, to give the Kingdom of the Divine Fiat, and so that creatures may receive It. By forming, Myself, the ‘Our Father,’ I placed Myself at the head of it and took on the commitment to give this Kingdom; and by teaching it to My Apostles, I placed in the creatures the order of how to be able to obtain a good so great.  So, the whole Church is praying—there is not one soul who belongs to Her that does not recite the ‘Our Father.’

“And even though many recite it without interest in wanting and asking for a Kingdom so holy—that the Divine Will be done on earth as It is in Heaven—since the interest is in He who taught it, by their reciting it, My interest is renewed, and I hear My own prayer asking:  ‘May Your Kingdom come, so that Your Will be done on earth as It is in Heaven.’  However, if the creature, in reciting the ‘Our Father,’ had this interest of wanting and longing for My Kingdom, she would take part in My own interest, and her will would be fused in Mine for the same purpose.  But, regardless of this, My Will and interest always run in each ‘Our Father.’

“See then, the Divine order:  all asking for one thing.  Among these who ask there are some who want to do My Will, others who do It.  All this is braided together, and they knock at the doors of My Divine Will—they repeat the knocking, and some knock strongly, some slowly.  However, there is always someone who knocks and asks that the doors be opened, so that My Will may descend to reign upon earth.”

Based on the revelations of Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta recorded in The Book of Heaven.

Volume 19, September 13, 1926; Volume 20, October 15, 1926; Volume 21, November 27, 1927; Volume 24, May 26, 1928.

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Proof of Authenticity.

Maria Valtorta’s The Gospel as Revealed to Me mentions 255 geographical sites in Palestine, of which 79 were completely unknown to archaeologists and biblical scholars in the mid-1940’s when she wrote her work. Since then, of the 79 unknown sites, at least 29 have now been confirmed as actually existing in first century Palestine, including six ancient cities that she described. How could she have known about these places? [Probably more have been confirmed, since the below article was written in 2004.]

Proof of Authenticity. Research done by David J. Webster M.Div. 11/15/04.

Maria Valtorta was an eye-witness to the first century life and ministry of Our Lord Jesus! Her numerous strikingly accurate descriptions of first century Palestine Prove it!

 

While it may be difficult for some to grasp, “in the spirit” where all time is one, one can, if allowed by providence, literally see any event in history as it actually takes place. That Maria Valtorta’s revelations are literally packed with strikingly accurate descriptions of first century Palestine reveals that what she saw was the very life and ministry of our Lord.

This would mean that The Gospel as Revealed to Me is not the product of mere pious imagination as seems at least partly true with other revelations of biblical persons and times. Over thirty percent or 79 of the 255 geographical sites in Palestine mentioned in her work were not listed in the 1939 International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE) Atlas. 62 of these 79 were not even listed in the 184 page Macmillan Bible Atlas (MBA) published in 1968.

Where did Maria Valtorta get all these names? For a first century eye-witness to include so many obscure and unknown names would, of course, be expected. And most surprising is that these names, obscure and unknown in the 1940’s, are being proven authentic. 52 of these 62 have no biblical reference whatever and 17 of these with no biblical reference have been either indirectly confirmed as authentic by recent “ancient external sources” found in the Macmillan Bible Atlas (1968) or actually listed in the HarperCollins Atlas of the Bible (1989). This makes a total of 29 confirmations since the 1939 ISBE atlas listing.

Also among those 62 sites are mentioned the ruins of 6 ancient Palestinian cities, some corresponding to the modern consensus on location.

In addition, Valtorta’s precise descriptions of the natural topography of Palestine from numerous locations and the information about the outside pagan world of that day, including people, places, customs, Greek and Roman mythology, related in the conversations of that day, are strikingly correct. Along with this material you will find refutation to the foolish charges by enemies of this work that apples were not grown in Palestine and that Maria Valtorta could not have seen screw drivers on Joseph’s bench! [And also the charge that there are a lot of useless conversations in the Work.]

While literarily gifted, Maria Valtorta had only an average education, had never been to Palestine, was sick, suffering and bed-ridden for most of her life, and in this condition had access to only her Bible and small catechism during the years of her writing. Verification of so many of these locations and descriptions known only by experts in their fields and that these details were included at Jesus’ own request for “the difficult doctor’s of the Church,” is not only proof this is an eye-witness account but that these revelations were intended by Heaven to be accepted by the Church as authoritative for providing definitive clarification on so much of the Church’s teachings that had become clouded and confused by too many human elements.

Source: https://www.academia.edu/49143359/IN_VIAGGIO_CON_MARIA_VALTORTA?email_work_card=abstract-read-more

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St. Gregory of Nyssa’s meditation on the words “Our Father Who Art in Heaven.”

When therefore the Lord teaches us in this prayer to call God “Father,” I believe He is doing nothing less than ordaining an exalted and sublime way of life. 

 

Christ leads us to heaven itself, having made it accessible to all. He does so through the practice of goodness and virtue. In this manner He brings us close to God through prayer. For this is the power of His words in the Lord's Prayer, a prayer by which we learn not merely sounds uttered through syllables of speech, but the knowledge of the ascent to God achieved through a spiritual way of life. We can comprehend the divine mystery through the words of the Lord's Prayer.

 

Christ begins with the words, "When you pray" (Mt 6:7). The Lord said to the disciples: "When you pray, say,‘Our Father who art in heaven’" (Mt 6:9). Somewhere in the Psalms the great David says, "Who will give me wings like a dove?" (Ps 55:6). I, too, would dare speak with the same voice. Who will give me such wings as to fly with my mind to the height of the noble meaning of these words? I need to leave the whole earth behind. I would have to remove my mind far from all things that change and are in flux. By attaining to an unchanging and unwavering disposition of the soul, I would first earnestly make Him my friend who is eternal and unchangeable. Only then would I invoke that most intimate Name and say, "Father!"

 

What quality of soul must the speaker possess to speak of God as "Our Father!" What confidence of spirit! What purity of conscience! To perceive God's ineffable glory, he must comprehend the mystery of God as far as it is possible from the names that have been conceived of and attributed to God in the Scriptures. He must learn that the divine nature of God is goodness, holiness, joy, power, glory, purity and eternity. Whatever God may be in His deep mystery, He possesses all these eternal and many other conceivable attributes that properly belong to the Divine Nature. Let us say that a person could understand all these endowments of God through the study of Holy Scriptures as well as one's own creative reflection. Could such a person even then dare to utter the sacred Name and call such a God his own Father?

 

One thing is very clear. If he had any sense, he would not dare address God with such a Name and say "Father," unless he perceived a reflection of the same attributes in himself. For it is impossible that God who is good in His very essence should be the Father of anyone engaged in evil activities. God who is holy could not be the Father of one defiled in life, nor He who is Eternal be the Father of one prone to every change, nor He who is the Father of life be the Father of one dead in sin. Similarly, God who is pure and spotless cannot be the Father of those who behave unseemly, neither can God who is generous be the Father of those who are greedy, nor the All Good One be the Father of those who in any way participate in evil things.

 

Someone may indeed dare seek intimacy with God while yet knowing himself to be in need of purification, discerning that his wicked conscience is filled with stains and evil wounds. If such a person, prior to being cleansed from these many evils, approaches God to call Him "Father," it would be like a person who is unjust and impure, and yet dares to address the One who is Most just and pure. It would be, at it were, to name God as the Father of one's own wickedness, a flagrant insolence. Such a person's words would amount to no less than mockery. Why? Because the word "Father" signifies fatherhood–the source and cause of a person who is made to exist by God. Therefore, whoever invokes God as Father and still possesses a wicked conscience, he in fact accuses God of nothing less than being the source and cause of his own evils.

 

According to the apostle Paul, however, "there is no communion between light and darkness" (2 Cor 6:14). Rather, the contrary is true. The light seeks intimacy, with what is just, the good with what is good, the incorruptible with what is incorruptible. The opposite things seek intimacy with their own kind. The Lord said: "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit" (Mt 7:18). 

 

If someone is possessed, as Scripture puts it, by hardness of heart and dares to utter the words of the Lord's Prayer, he pursues falsehood. Let him know that such a person calls Father not the Heavenly One, but the Infernal One. The latter is himself a liar and the father of lies (Jn 8:44) that may arise in any given person. He is sin and the father of sin. For this reason, those whose soul is given to evil passions are called “children of wrath" (Eph 2:3) by the Apostle Paul. He who separates himself from true life is named "son of perdition” (Jn 17:12). And someone who is loose and immoral is called "the son of traitorous maidens” (1 Sam 20:30). on the contrary, those who have a conscience full of light are called "sons of light and of the day" (1 Thess 5:5). And those who have sought to fortify themselves with divine power are called “sons of power” (1 Sam 10:26).

 

When therefore the Lord teaches us in this prayer to call God “Father,” I believe He is doing nothing less than ordaining an exalted and sublime way of life. For He who is the Truth does not of course teach us to lie, that is, to state that which we are not. He does not want us to name God as Father when it is not our right. But when we dare call the Incorruptible God, the One perfectly just and good, "our Father," we must attest to our kinship with Him by our way of life. Do you see how much preparation we need? What quality of life? How much and what kind of diligence in order that our conscience rise to that level of confidence to dare address God as "Father?" 

 

When we approach God, let us first examine our way of life. Let us see if we inwardly possess some quality worthy of divine kinship. And then we can take courage to speak those words. For the Lord who has directed us to say "Father" did not thereby permit us to speak a lie. Therefore, whoever conducts himself worthily of God, it is he who rightly gazes toward the heavenly city. It is he who rightly names the King of heaven "Father" and calls the heavenly blessedness his own homeland. Where does the aim of our advice lead? To think of the things above, where God is. It is there that each should lay the foundation stones of his home. It is there that each should lay up treasures and each lift up his heart. "For where the treasure is, there is also the heart" (Mt 6:21). Then one can continuously behold the beauty of the Father and adorn his own soul with that same beauty.

 

Extracted from: 

https://www.orthodoxprayer.org/Lords_Prayer.html

 

St. Gregory of Nyssa, (c. 335 – c. 394), was an early Roman Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Nyssa (in Turkey) from 372 to 376 and from 378 until his death in 394. He is venerated as a saint in Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and Lutheranism. Gregory, his elder brother St. Basil of Caesarea, and their friend St. Gregory of Nazianzus are collectively known as the Cappadocian Fathers. He was an erudite Christian theologian who made significant contributions to the doctrine of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed.

 

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The Our Father as explained by Our Lord – Part Two.

[In Maria Valtorta’s writings there are a number of separate teachings on the Lord’s Prayer given by Jesus Himself.]

 

If the world were able to live out the “Our Father,” the Kingdom of God would be in the world.

 

In the “Our Father” the perfection of prayer is found. Observe: no act is absent in the brevity of the formula. Faith, hope, charity, obedience, resignation, abandonment, entreaty, contrition, and mercy are present. In saying it, you pray with all Paradise, during the first four petitions; then, leaving Heaven, which is the dwelling that awaits you, you return to the earth, remaining with your arms upraised towards Heaven to make entreaties for your earthly needs and to ask for aid in the battle to be won in order to go back up above.

 

“Our Father, who art in heaven.”

 

[…] Only my love could tell you, “Say 'Our Father'.” By this expression I publicly invested you with the sublime title of sons and daughters of the Most High and brothers and sisters of mine. If someone, burdened by the consideration of his human nothingness, may doubt that he is a child of God, created in his image and likeness, on considering these words of mine, he can no longer doubt. The Word of God does not err and does not lie. And the Word tells you, “Say 'Our Father'.”

 

To have a father is something sweet and a powerful aid. In the material order, I wanted to have a father on earth to protect my existence as a baby, as a boy, and as a young man. By this I wanted to teach you − both children and fathers − how great the moral figure of the father is. But to have a Father of absolute perfection, as the Father in Heaven is, is the sweetness of sweetnesses, the aid of aids. Look at this Father-God with holy fear, but let grateful love for the Giver of life in heaven and on earth always be stronger than fear.

 

“Hallowed be thy Name.”

 

With the same movement as the seraphim and all the angelic choirs, to whom and with whom you join in glorifying the name of God, repeat this exalting, grateful, just praise to the Holy of Holies. Repeat it while thinking of Me − I, God, the Son of God, who, before you, pronounced it with supreme veneration and supreme love. Repeat it in joy and in sorrow, in light and in darkness, in peace and in war. Blessed are those children who have never doubted the Father and at every hour and in every event have been able to say to Him, “Blessed be thy Name!”

 

“Thy kingdom come.”

 

This invocation ought to be the pulsation of the pendulum of your entire life, and everything should gravitate around this invocation of Goodness. For the Kingdom of God in hearts, and passing from hearts into the world, would like to say, “Goodness, Peace, and every other virtue”. Accentuate your lives, then, with numberless appeals for the advent of this Kingdom. But let them be living appeals − that is, to act in life by applying your sacrifice of every hour, for to act well means to sacrifice nature to this end.

 

“Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

 

The Kingdom of Heaven will belong to whoever has done the Will of the Father, not to those who have heaped words upon words and then rebelled against the Father's will […]. Here, too, you unite to all of Paradise, which does the Will of the Father. And if the inhabitants of the Kingdom do it, won't you do so to become, in turn, the inhabitants of Heaven? Oh, the joy that has been prepared for you by the Triune Love of God! How can you fail to work with a persevering will so as to conquer it?

 

Those doing the Will of the Father live in God. In living in God, they cannot err, cannot sin, and cannot lose their dwelling in Heaven, for the Father has you do nothing except what is Good and what, in being Good, saves from sinning and leads to Heaven. Those making the Father's Will their own, while annulling their will, know and savor − while on earth − the Peace which is the endowment of the blessed. Those doing the Will of the Father, while killing their perverse and perverted will, are no longer men: they are already spirits moved by love and living in love. You must, with good will, tear your will out of your heart and replace it with the Will of the Father.

 

After having provided for the petitions regarding the spirit, since you are poor, living amidst the needs of the flesh, ask Him who supplies food to the birds of the air and clothing for the lilies of the field for bread.

 

“Give us this day our daily bread.” 

 

I said this day and I said bread. I never say anything useless. “This day. Ask the Father for help day by day. It is a measure of prudence, justice, and humility.

 

Prudence: if you had everything at once, you would waste a great deal. You are eternal children and capricious, in addition. The gifts of God should not be wasted. Furthermore, if you had everything, you would forget God.

 

Justice: Why should you have everything at once when I received help from the Father day by day? And would it not be unjust to think that it is well for God to give you everything together, […] in the fear that God will not provide tomorrow? Distrust − you do not reflect on this − is a sin. God must not be distrusted. He loves you perfectly. He is the most perfect Father. To ask for everything at once affronts trust and offends the Father.

 

Humility: having to ask day by day refreshes in your mind the concept of your nothingness, of your condition as poor ones, and of the All and Wealth of God. Bread. I said “bread” because bread is the king of foods, the one indispensable for life. With one word and in the word I have enclosed − so that all of you would request them − all the needs of your stay on earth. But as the temperature of your spirituality varies, so does the extent of the word. 

 

Bread as food for those who have an embryonic spirituality, to such a degree that it is already a great deal if they are able to ask God for the food to fill their stomachs. There are some who do not ask for it and take it with violence, cursing God and their brothers and sisters. These are looked upon with wrath by the Father because they trample upon the precept from which the others come: “Love your God with all your heart; love your neighbor as yourself.'

 

Bread as help in moral and material needs for those living not only for their stomachs, but who are able to live for thought as well, possessing a more highly-formed spirituality. 

 

Bread as religion for those who, even more highly formed, place God before the satisfactions of sense and of human sentiment and are already capable of spreading their wings in the supernatural.

 

Bread as spirit, bread as sacrifice for those who, once the full age of the spirit is reached, are able to live in spirit and in truth, concerning themselves with the flesh only to the extent that is strictly necessary to continue to exist in mortal life, until it is time to go to God. They have now chiseled themselves according to my model and are living copies of Me over whom the Father bends in a loving embrace.

 

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

 

There is no one, among the number of those created, except for my Mother, who has not had to seek the Father's forgiveness for more or less serious sins, according to each one's capacity to be a child of God. Ask the Father to erase you from the list of his debtors. If you do so in a humble, sincere, and contrite spirit, you will incline the Eternal in your favor.

 

But an essential condition to receive, to be forgiven, is to forgive. If you only seek mercy and do not grant it to your neighbor, you will not experience God's forgiveness. God does not like the hypocritical and the cruel, and whoever refuses to forgive his brother refuses the Father's forgiveness for himself. Consider, moreover, that no matter how much you may have been wounded by your neighbor, the wounds you have inflicted upon God are infinitely more serious. Let this thought spur you to forgive everything, as I forgave through my Perfection and to teach you forgiveness.

 

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

 

God does not lead you into temptation. God tempts you with gifts of Goodness alone, and to attract you to Himself. You, interpreting my words incorrectly, think they mean that God leads you into temptation to test you. No. The good Father who is in Heaven permits evil, but does not create it. He is the Good from which every good flows. But Evil exists. It existed from the moment Lucifer set himself up against God. It is up to you to make Evil a Good by overcoming it and by beseeching the Father for the strength to overcome it. 

 

This is what you request in the last petition. That God may grant you enough strength to be able to withstand temptation. Without his aid temptation would bend you, for it is cunning and strong, and you are dull and weak. But the Father's Light illuminates you, and the Father's Power strengthens you, and the Father's Love protects you, so that Evil dies and you are left freed from it.

 

This is what you ask for in the “Our Father” which I have taught to you. Therein everything is comprehended; everything understood; everything which it is just to request and grant, requested. If the world were able to live out the “Our Father,” the Kingdom of God would be in the world. But the world is unable to pray. It is unable to love. It is unable to save itself. It is capable only of hating, sinning, and condemning itself.

 

But I did not give and make this prayer for the world, which has preferred to be the kingdom of Satan. I have given and made this prayer for those whom the Father has given to Me because they are his, and I have made it so that they may be one with the Father and with Me, beginning in this life, so as to reach the fullness of union in the other. 

 

Based on Jesus’ Commentary from The Notebooks, July 7, 1943.

 

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