Letter from a blessed Spirit
To his earthly friend, about the first sight of the Lord
Dear Friend,
Of a thousand things I would have liked to talk to you about, this time I will only say one thing that will interest you more than all others. I have obtained permission to do so. The Spirits cannot do anything without special permission. They live without their own will, in the sole will of the Heavenly Father, who transmits his orders to thousands of beings at once, as if to one, and responds instantly to an infinite number of subjects, to thousands of his creatures who address themselves to him.
How can I make you understand how I see the Lord? Oh! In a very different way from what you, still mortals, can imagine.
After many appearances, instructions, explanations, and pleasures bestowed upon me by the grace of the Lord, I once crossed a paradisiac land, with about twelve other Spirits, who had roughly ascended the same degrees of perfection that I had. We hovered, hovered next to each other, in a soft and pleasant harmony, forming like a light cloud, and we seemed to experience the same drive, the same propensity towards a very elevated goal. We approached one another more and more. As we went along, we became more and more intimate, freer, more joyful, more enjoyable, and more able to enjoy, and we would say, “Oh! How good and merciful is he who created us! Hallelujah to the Creator! He is the love that created us! Hallelujah to the loving Being! Animated by such feelings, we continued our flight and we stopped by a fountain.
There we felt a light breeze approaching. It was not carrying a man or an angel, and yet there was something so human about what was coming towards us that it caught our attention. A resplendent light, similar in some way to that of the blessed Spirits, but not surpassing it, inundated us. "That one is also one of us!" we thought simultaneously and as if by intuition. It disappeared, and at first it seemed to us that we were deprived of something. “What an extraordinary being!” we said to ourselves; “What a royal behavior and at the same time what childish grace! What amenity and what majesty!"
While we were talking to ourselves like that, suddenly a graceful form appeared to us, emerging from a delicious grove, and gave us a friendly greeting. The newcomer was unlike the previous apparition, but there was something superbly elevated and indescribably simple at the same time. - “Welcome, brothers and sisters!”, he said. We answered with one voice:
- "Welcome, you, blessed of the Lord! The sky is reflected in your face and the love of God shines from your eyes."
- “Who are you?”, asked the stranger.
- “We are the happy worshipers of the Almighty Love”, we answered.
- “Who is the Almighty Love”, he asked with a perfect grace.
- “Don’t you know the Almighty Love?”, we asked in turn, or better, I was the one who asked in the name of all.
- “I know him”, said the stranger, with an even sweeter voice.
- “Ah if we were worthy of seeing Him and hearing His voice! But we do not feel pure enough to deserve to directly contemplate the holiest purity.”
In response to these words, we heard an echoing voice behind us, saying: "You are cleansed from all filth, you are cleansed. You are declared righteous by Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of the living God!"
An inexpressible bliss spread through us while turning to the direction from which the voice was coming, wanting to rush to our knees to worship the invisible interlocutor.
What happened? Each of us instantly heard a name, that we had never heard spoken, but that each of us understood and, at the same time, recognized to be our own new name, expressed by the voice of the stranger. Spontaneously, with the speed of lightning, we turned, as one being, to the adorable interlocutor, who addressed us thus with an unspeakable grace:
- "You have found what you were looking for. Whoever sees me, also sees the Almighty Love. I know that are mine and those that are mine know me. I give my sheep eternal life, and they will not perish in eternity; no one will be able to yank them out of my hand, or out of my Father's hand. My Father and I are one!"
How could I express in words the sweet and supreme bliss in which we blossomed, when the one who, at each moment, became more luminous, more graceful, more sublime, extended towards us his arms and spoke the following words, that will vibrate eternally for us, and that no power would be able to remove from our ears and from our hearts:
"Come here, chosen of my Father: inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you from the beginning of the universe.”
After that, he embraced us all simultaneously, and disappeared. We remained silent, feeling ourselves closely united for eternity, we spread, without moving, one into the other, gently and filled with supreme happiness. The Infinite Being became one with us, and at the same time, our whole, our heaven, our life in its truest sense. A thousand new lives seemed to enter us. Our previous existence vanished for us; we began to be again; we felt immortality, that is, an overabundance of life and strength, that carried the stamp of indestructibility.
Finally, we recovered our speech. Ah! if I could communicate to you, even if only one sound of our joyful adoration!
He exists! We are! By Him, by Him alone! - He is - his being is life and love! - He who sees Him, lives, and loves Him, is inundated with the scent of immortality and the love coming from His divine face, from His gaze filled with supreme happiness!
We have seen you, Almighty Love! You showed yourself to us in human form, You, God of the gods! And yet You were neither man nor God, You, Man-God!
You were only love, almighty only as love! - You support us with your omnipotence, to prevent the force, even softened by your love, from absorbing us into it.
Is it You, is it You? - You whom all heavens glorify; You, ocean of bliss; - You, omnipotence; - You, who once embodied yourself in human bones, carried the burdens of Earth, and streaming with blood, hanging on the cross, made yourself a corpse?
Yes, it is You, - You, glory of all beings! A Being before whom all natures bow, that disappear before You, to be called to live in You!
One of your rays contains the life of all worlds, and from your breath only love springs!
This, dear friend, is only a very small crumb that fell to the floor of the table filled with an ineffable bliss on which I was nourishing. Take advantage of it, and soon more will be given to you. - Love, and you will be loved. - Love alone can aspire the supreme bliss. - Love alone can give happiness, but only to those who love.
Oh! my darling, it is because you love that I can approach you, communicate myself to you, and lead you faster to the source of life.
Love! God and heaven live in you, just as they live in the face and in the heart of Jesus Christ!
I am writing this, from your earthly chronology on November 13th, 1798.
Makariosenagape.
(Ends in the next issue)
