God Forming You

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author.

“Have you forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines Him whom He loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. Later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”  Our purpose, my purpose, in preaching here on Sundays is different from the situation, for instance, in a parish. Because you know that the Lord has been speaking to us about the special times, critical times that we’re living; that He and the great reconquest that He put in March, and that He is calling us and calling this poor little mission to be part of, forming His luminous army. And so, an army in this great war, it often doesn’t need complicated instructions, but it needs very simple guidance, and especially it often needs a lot of encouragement to keep going. And so, my preaching is, for instance, if you read the messages, you’ll notice that there’s certain He’s not trying to cover all sorts of different topics. He comes back over and over again to a few simple key essentials. And so that’s what guides me in the Sunday homilies. And so that’s why I’m choosing this passage. And the passage of this letter to the Hebrews, is addressed to the Jewish Christians, who were very, it seemed like they were very discouraged, and they were dealing, they were part of this new Christian religion, and it was causing a lot of hardship and a lot of persecution for them. And some of them were perhaps wondering, well, should we turn back and go back to what we were doing? And so, the passage that this comes right after that, the famous Chapter 11, which is a great call to heroism, looking at the heroes of faith and sacrifice that have gone before them, and calling them to this heroic faith and sacrifice. And so, then we come to this passage here that we just read, and it’s talking about discipline, and discipline can be understood in two sences. It can be understood as punishment, or it can be understood as formation and education. And sometimes those are confused, but they’re very different. Sometimes we can think God is punishing us for doing something wrong, and on the contrary, it’s very different. He’s actually forming us. And for instance, say, in the military, those who have the most difficult missions, are given a harsher formation. And the harsher formation is not to punish them, but it’s because they have been specially chosen. And so, it’s very important for us to distinguish what is because of punishment and what is because of formation. And this passage says, “the Lord disciplines him whom He loves.” So, the discipline is a sign of love, and it says “God is treating you as sons, sons of God. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. Later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” And this passage reminds me of a of a message the Lord gave, and this was a message that He gave way back in 2018, February 7 of 2018 and it was given to his team here, to his, the staff here, but I thought it’s good to share it with you all and with the other people who listen to these homilies. Because I think that when a person accepts the messages and becomes part of his luminous army, they’re part of His team. And so, I’ll read this. I’ll read the first two thirds of this message. I’m going to read it actually twice, because it’s talking about this, how the Lord is forming us. So, this is a message that Sister got, and it says, “Let us write for My children, on our team, on our staff. My beloved ones, little ones of My heart, who feel so discouraged, upset, frustrated, sad, even angry. Come to your Jesus. Come and drink of My love for you that you may be able to continue on this difficult road where everything is so painful, dark, confusing, I take you along this path My little chosen handful, because only in this way could you learn to rely only and exclusively and absolutely on Me. My Little ones to cooperate in My plans, to survive what is coming, you must be completely abandoned to Me. I repeat this often My little ones, so that you remember that what you are living is not just human situations that seem to go from bad to worse, that seem to be full of contradiction. Know what you are living is a divine mystery of My formation, a harsh formation. Yes, a painful one, yes, a very confusing and unsettling one, yes, I need to detach all your moorings, all your anchors, all that ties you down to your way of thinking, feeling, acting, deciding that I may anchor you to Me and only to Me. But how difficult is this detachment process? Sometimes it is gentler, but My children, there is no time left, so I must finish this detachment swiftly and to your eyes harshly. This is the reason why each of you is struggling, why the difficulties seem to pile up, why so many changes, why I ask you to do things that are impossible without my direct help. Do not be afraid. I know what I am doing. Trust Me. Trust your Jesus, who has brought each of you here to help Me. Do you see how I address you as My team, My staff, My community, you are here, each of you because of Me, I ask you to believe Me, to abandon yourselves to Me, to entrust yourselves entirely to Me. And by doing so, you have become doubly Mine. What is mine is plunged in the divine fire that it may be refined as pure as gold. What is Mine is submerged in the darkness that faith may become the bright light that illumines all. What is mine is taken along the desert like me, then after long, tiresome days like Mine, the hour of pain of obedience comes like it came to Me, then the final offering like I did to Our Abba, then death like Mine, then life, light, infinite love and joy.” So, the Lord is speaking to us of this formation and for me, it’s very encouraging to go back to messages like this, because it has been such a painful path, such a painful path. And those who are close to the mission, our staff and so forth, others involved, many of them have experienced this. And so, this is addressed not just our community, but to all this team. And I wish, I almost think that we should invent a new diagnosis, which would be missionitis – missionitis would be all problems that begin to develop when you get too close to this mission. There’s so many, so many, it’s been such a difficult path. And so, like the people, the recipients of this letter to the Hebrews, we need encouragement. We need to be encouraged, and we need to see the situation with faith so that we can understand that our suffering does not mean that we have failed, but it’s actually a preparation for success. It’s not – what the Lord is permitting. It’s not to destroy us, though it often feels that way, but it’s actually preparing us to bear fruit that will last. And so the suffering is not a sign of rejection, but actually of being chosen by him, for this special formation. So, I’ll read to you that first part of the message again. “My beloved ones, little ones of My heart, who feel so discouraged, upset, frustrated, sad, even angry.” And I think that anger can be anger at God. He says, “come to your Jesus, come and drink of My love for you that you may be able to continue on this difficult road where everything is so painful, so dark, so confusing. I take you along this path My little chosen handful, because only in this way could you learn,” so see it’s formation, “could you learn to rely only and exclusively and absolutely on Me. My little ones, to cooperate in My plans to survive what is coming. You must be completely abandoned to Me.”  You know, there’s a lot of people making preparations because they’re concerned about what is coming, like maybe stockpiling food, and some people, rich or buying an island or something or an abandoned nuclear tunnel or base hidden underground, or so forth. But here, the Lord who knows what is coming, like no one does, is telling us what are the essential things to do, to be prepared. He says, “I repeat this often.” So again there’s certain key things that he’s so, I’m saying this to defend myself from repeating the same things a lot. Because if you come here, you know that, you hear certain things often. But the Lord Himself is doing this. He says, “I repeat this often, so that you remember that what you are living is not just human situations that seem to go from bad to worse that seem full of contradiction. No, what you are living is a divine mystery.” So, we are living a divine mystery. Certainly, there’s a lot of, we’re humans and we’re living a human situation. But what He’s saying is there’s much more than that. It’s like there’s a whole other dimension. Like Jesus and Mary and Joseph, they were obviously living a human life, but in their human life, there was something much deeper, a divine mystery. And He’s saying that that’s what we’re living. There’s a divine mystery that we’re living. And He says, “a divine mystery of My formation.” So, He is forming us. He says, “yes, a harsh formation, a painful one, yes, a very confusing and unsettling one, yes. I need to detach all your moorings, all your anchors, all that ties you down to your way of thinking, feeling, acting, deciding that I may anchor you to Me, and only to Me.” You know, Christians know that we often speak of detachment, and we can think of detachment from the goods of this world, from the pleasures from power. But here He’s speaking of even more fundamental detachment that we might not realize. It’s a detachment to our way of thinking, our way of feeling, our way of deciding. “To anchor you to Me and only to Me.” But how difficult is this detachment process? It’s a difficult process, but the more we hold on, the more painful it is, the more we accept to let ourselves be detached. It’s still painful, but it’s not as painful. But if we’re holding on and holding on and holding on, he has two choices. He can either keep pulling us to make this detachment, which is painful, we’re making more and more painful, or He can stop, and then that’s not as painful, but then we’re still attached. “This is the reason some how difficult is this detachment process. Sometimes it is gentler, but My children, there is no time left, so I must finish this detachment swiftly and to your eyes harshly. This is the reason why each of you are struggling, why the difficulties seem to pile up, why so many changes, why I ask you to do things that are impossible without My direct help?” That’s why it often, I mean, we often experience this here at the mission where He’s asking us to do things which are impossible unless he helps us. I’ve said before that we hear the common law people say, Oh, it’s so peaceful here at the mission, such a beautiful, peaceful place. It is. But for those of us who are here, it’s not so peaceful. “Do not be afraid. I know what I am doing. Trust me. Trust your Jesus, who has brought each of you here to help Me. Do you see how I address you as My team, My staff, My community, you are here, each of you because of Me. I ask you to believe Me, to abandon yourselves to Me, to entrust yourselves entirely to Me. And by doing so, you have become doubly Mine. What is Mine is plunged in the divine fire that it may be refined as pure as gold.” So we’re being refined, purified. “What is Mine is submerged in the darkness that faith may become the bright light that illumines all.” And this is – that’s very hard to understand, because we think, Well, I believe, so I should be understanding more and more and more. And yet the Lord, as St John of the Cross, says, “He often plunges us in darkness, so that we learn to be guided just by the light of faith, not by our own understanding.” “What is Mine is taken along the desert like Me.”  You know, here in the hill country here in the middle of August, so many, so much like our mission in so many places, are just being dried up. The grass is being dried up by the sun, which is so intense, and we haven’t had much rain recently. I look at the grass, you know, the barren ground and the grass, this brown grass, which is crunchy now, and that’s what I feel like. I feel like that grass, sometimes the desert. “What is mine has taken along the desert like me. Then, after long, tiresome days like mine. The hour of pain of obedience comes like it came to Me, then the final offering like I did to our Abba, then death like Mine. Then life, light, infinite love and joy.”  So, then now I’ll read you the conclusion of the message. “My children, My beloved for whom My heart is open as a treasure house, come to your Jesus, come. Come and rest, come and be nourished. Look to Me, always in everything, be at rest and peace that all is in My hands, that I am God, and all is subject to Me. I can do what I want, how I want, when I want, and you belong to Me, and I will take care of what is Mine. Trust Me, my little ones, as up to now, you have done and given Me great joy. Yes, as the hour approaches, things seem grayer, darker and as a fantasy. Do not be afraid of this. It is necessary that you feel this for the sake of your brothers. My little ones, lift up your heads. Look to Me. Smile at me, for I smile upon each of you. Smile because I am coming. Smile because you will surely see Me. Smile because I take everything you do and live, and I make use of it as graces of conversion for so many of My children that refuse My love. Smile because I love you, and I want you here helping Me, and I want you with Me forever in the beatitude of heaven, where we will be united in love. My little ones, lift up your heads, put your gaze on Me and let Me take care of all else. I am coming soon, very soon. Your Jesus who loves you immeasurably and who will wash away every tear, every anguish, frustration or anger and leave only My love.” Amen.
 

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13
Luke 13:22-30
Isaiah 66:18-21