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Ezekiel, Chapter 47
Jesus says:
“I said, ‘[In whoever accepts Me] I am a spring of living water welling up for eternal life.’156
“Whether it is a man or a nation, blessed are those who rewe Me and possess the prodigies of the Water of True Life in themselves. But there are now too few men who receive Me, and en fewer nations. And the fruits of this rejecting - or even just neglecting - Jesus Christ are visible. They are visible in their full tragic appearance and are savored in their poisonous taste, which leads you to despair, to death, after having made you delirious with a fear of the future which nearly drives you mad. And you are right to become mad.
“If you saw the full truth of the advancing future, not one of you - except someone supported by Satan - would resist. I say, ‘Satan,’ for you do not think of seeking support in Christ. On the contrary, the more you need merciful support, a light in the darkness, or a word to console and guide you, the more you turn your hostile gaze to these things, accusing God and directing towards Him the antipathy which you ought to direct towards those who are the cause of so much evil: Satan and your wicked passions.
“Observe what you have already become, and tremble, tremble, considering what you will become. Worse than the arid salt sands, in which every form of life is impossible and which are found in the most desolate parts of deserts - a desolation lacking even the poor robe extending over the barrenness of deserts, which, with its frail grass, thorny bushes, and the few animals dwelling there, bestows on that solitude a life of flights, chirps, and darts and shows that this patch of land is not dust which has been dead for centuries - worse than these salty areas, where nothing lives and no seed can sink its roots in and no bird can halt its flight and no reptile can pause on the ground or even slide its shiny skin over it in swift motion, you will become, are becoming, and have already become like this to a great extent because you have rejected the Christ, the Water bringing fecundity.
“From my heaven, I, the Head of the Mystical Body composed of all Christians, pour forth my waves of life and from my Church shed them upon the “world. I would shed them. But the world erects embankments and dikes and prevents Me from pouring Myself forth; the world shoves these dikes against the Church to engulf her, to bury her - and Me, along with her. It is a struggle with no respite. It is the true War, the one from which all the wars in the whole of mankind in the Christian era come. The struggle against Christ.
“Be aware of this: it is not necessary to engage in major persecutions or schisms to fight against Christ. Even the small, individual, interior struggle by each of you against my Law and the hidden, crafty struggle by the government of a country against the voice of Catholic Rome, against the voice speaking in my name from the lips of my Vicar and calling men - especially leaders - to the law of honesty, duty, and love are fights against Christ. They are the guerrillas. You are so familiar with the terminology of warfare that you understand Me if I characterize them in this way. They are the guerrillas. The real assaults, the major advances, the imposing maneuvers, and the cruel massacres then originate from them.
“Satan is the Captain of this army, which began in Jerusalem, within the Synedrium, in the caste of the Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees, which found its standardbearer in Judas, which has become increasingly numerous in the course of centuries of anti-Christian persecutions, which, like an avalanche, has become laden with ever-new elements, with schisms, demagogic doctrines, political parties, and new forms of government, and which will culminate in the Antichrist, who against my torrent of Grace will set a torrent of cruelty and blood in which you will wallow and fall, and only a few will fall as holy victims invoking Christ. Most will fall like slaughtered beasts, sated and fattened with vices, disturbed, poisoned, and bedeviled by accursed doctrines, devils in their blaspheming words, negating minds, and abjuring hearts.
“Oh, Water of Divine Grace, that on passing would have brought life, that would have purified and nourished the sands, that would have removed saltiness and corruption from the waves with which you would have mingled, enabling the former to be a cradle for strong trees laden with fruits of every kind and the latter to be a dwelling place for fish of every kind! O flowering language of my Prophet! The purifying water is the water issuing forth from my Heart, opened out of love for mankind. It brings with it the essence of this divine love, in contact with which every impurity falls, as if through a blessed filter.
“Your humanity filtered through mine! And can there be a greater poem of love than this - of a God who becomes man to save all mankind through Himself?
“The sands: souls, as numerous as the grains of sand, rendered fertile, good, and capable of yielding a tree of life by contact with Me, fusion with Me.
“And, again, the plants: souls, once more, that, because they live on land watered by Grace, thrive to the point of touching Heaven and bearing upon themselves fruits of every kind - that is, all the virtues.
“The waters, which were bitter and which Grace makes healthy in such fashion that numerous fish can flourish in them: good works.
“Comprehend the language of my Prophet. It is so transparent when observed with eyes rendered clear by the love of God. And, furthermore, do not wish to be putrid swamps and low-lying shores, where the acridity of salt - that is, evil -stagnates and where corruption - that is, the greatest evil - reigns. For if the evil of slight charity, lukewarmness, and negligence is salt hindering life for good works, the corruption of the great evil - that is, the seven vices - of anti-Christianity negates even the swift passing of a good thought.
“Do not descend to corruption. Try to climb back up from your baseness. Rise again towards the fount of God. Mingle with it. Ever advancing towards Me, have it submerge you, impose itself on you, and annul your poor selves under its great power for Redemption and make you holy, blessed, and happy. Even in this life, children, where there is already so much unhappiness, where, in order to weep, it is not necessary to add on the unhappiness of being against Christ, provoking so many individual and collective ruins.
“Listen to the Voice calling you. Listen to the voice of the One who loves you. There is not, no, there is not anyone else who loves you as your God does, and there is no one else who utters words for you truer than mine. Open yourselves to receive them. Open yourselves to Grace. It comes to heal your maladies; it comes to dry your tears. It comes... and waits on the threshold for you to say, ‘Come in,’ in order to rush into you with all its graces of peace, tranquillity, salvation, and, in short, eternal life, for the sum of all joy resides therein.”
I remark that I have written after a black day of desolation, during which it seemed to me that heaven and earth were nothing but a single punishment for me. For whose sake am I suffering like this? Jesus does not tell me. But He pours his word into me to introduce a balm into my chalice today.
156 John 4:13-14.