Jesus Before Christianity — Chap.IV
By the Spirit Francisco Leite Bittencourt Sampaio, through Frederico Pereira da Silva Júnior (August, 1898)*
Wedding at Cana. — Jesus expels the merchants from the temple. — The sacraments market. — Spiritism is the precursor of the Spirit of Truth. — Question from Nicodemus to the Divine Master. — Law of reincarnation. — Hell. — Tenants of the Lord’s Vineyard. — Resurrection of the Spirit. — Jesus and the Samaritan woman. (18)
(18) John, Chapter 2.
Terrified by Herod’s dreadful act, John’s disciples seek solace in the gentle and loving embrace of Our Lord Jesus Christ; they join the Lord’s disciples and together they try to fill the enormous void left in their souls by the disappearance of their dearly beloved Master.
Jesus welcomes them into his loving embrace, comforts their troubled hearts, and kindly allows them to be part of the communion of his disciples, the humble ones he had chosen to follow him in his bitter and sweet task.
In the company of Jesus’ family, they went to witness the wedding at Cana, the sublime pretext with which the Divine Master began the so-called miracles, showing once again to men that he was not the son of a woman.
Sitting on his stool, having chosen the last place at the table, Jesus had beside him the Most Holy Virgin, as well as his cousins, the sons of Mary Cleophas, who were also invited to the wedding.
The evangelist tells us that, as the banquet was almost over, the mother of Jesus, seeing that the amphorae were empty, turned to her beloved son and, in a sweet phrase of lament, said to him: They have no more wine; to which the Lord replied: Woman, what is it to me and to you in this; what is there in common between us?
The Virgin turns to the servants saying: Do everything he commands you to do.
In the banquet hall, there were various jars intended for the purifications used by the Jews; the Lord commanded that they be filled with water and, once his order was carried out, everyone was served the most delicious nectar one could imagine, which led the master of the feast to address the groom, asking him why he had saved the best wine for the end of the banquet, having first served the worst.
However, we who do not consider this fact in that way, will say that the Divine Master, having great power over the fluids that are part of the economy of life, both mineral, as well as vegetable and animal, imposed on the water the color of wine and its taste to the palate of those who were magnetized by His presence at the wedding of Cana.
There has never been, therefore, in those times, as there cannot be today, nor will there be in the future, miracles, if, as the orthodox want, this word means the repeal of natural laws.
Jesus, therefore, focused on those jars, by his simple will, the necessary fluids to satisfy the desire of the Virgin Mary and, at the same time, begin his great mission.
At the end of the banquet, the evangelist tells us, the Divine Master heads towards Capernaum, but as the Passover festivities are approaching, he spends little time there, continuing with the entire entourage to the city of Jerusalem.
Upon arriving there, entering the temple, he finds it turned into a house of the most shameful trade; and then, consumed by zeal, he takes some ropes and drives out the merchants, declaring that his Father’s house is a house of prayer and not a den of thieves. (19)
(19) Matthew, Chapter 21, verse 13. Mark, Chapter 11, verse 17. Luke, Chapter 19, verse 46.
But, we ask, is it possible that Jesus, meekness personified, the most extraordinary love that descended to Earth, Jesus, the compassionate, the pious, took a scourge and, in fits of rage, physically punished his brothers, even though he was devoured by the zealous of his Father’s house?
No, certainly not.
Place a whip of light in the hands of the Divine Master; imagine him showing himself, in all his grandeur, before the desecrators of the temple; imagine the crowd of merchants falling to the ground, astonished and confused, before the great light that radiated from the Divine Nazarene, and thus you will have the scourge that Jesus used!
And, despite all this moral punishment, and despite all its teachings that have been around for centuries, the market of Jerusalem sets up its tents inside the Church, and in the most ignominious way and what hurts the truly Christian spirits the most, because, if once the birds and gentle lambs destined for holocaust sacrifices were sold, today the market of sacraments takes place!
Oh! Let me tell you the whole truth, for if Jesus does not descend to Earth again to drive the merchants from the temple, he nevertheless allows his workers, the most humble of his disciples, to lift the slab of the tomb and reveal to Christianity his divine and sacred image, which is certainly not the one displayed in your pompous cathedrals!
And not even the gold trimmings, the grandeur of your temples will ever be able to silence, in your reliquaries, the voice of your own conscience, which cries out to you, in the name of Jesus, in the name of Peter, the founder of the Church, that what you practice today is nothing more nor less than what your ancestors, the slaves of idolatry, did within the temples of Jerusalem!
So what? He whom you claim to represent on Earth and who, less than the wild beasts that inhabit the hidden caves, had nowhere to lay his head (20) — Jesus, the pilgrim of love who sought everywhere to wipe away the tears of the afflicted, pouring the balm of his boundless love into their aching hearts — could it be that today you bring him to the bedside of the sick and dying, symbolically in the viaticum, in exchange for vile money?!
(20) Matthew, Chapter 8, verses 19 and 20. Luke, Chapter 9, verses 57 and 53.
Jesus, who entered the house of Levi to attend the publican’s feast and, when criticized for it, said that he had come into the world for the sick (21), he, who always preferred the unfortunate, now refuses to ascend, symbolically in the form of a host, in clouds of incense, to the hands of the priest, in supplication for those who lacked the courage to struggle in life?!
(21) Matthew, Chapter 9, verses 9 to 13. Mark, Chapter 2, verses 14 to 17. Luke, Chapter 5, verses 27 to 32.
Jesus, who recommended the prayer of the repentant away from the public square, so that they would not resemble the scribes and Pharisees who, in loud cries, boasted of their beliefs (22), today enters the confessional to, even in exchange for vile money, settle the sins of humanity?!
(22) Matthew, Chapter 6, verses 5 to 8.
He, who always protested against the will of the Jewish people, who tried to proclaim him king, can he influence the priests for theocratic dominions?
No, certainly not! This is not the Jesus that we intend to present to Christianity in our very humble work.
And, despite the whip of our words, we regret that you, priests, bear on your shoulders the most tremendous of responsibilities — the responsibility of conscience before God, the responsibility of your ministry, which you yourselves have asked for, not for the commerce of Jerusalem, not for the commerce of the sacraments, but for the upliftment of the Christian soul, until it meets its Divine Shepherd, there in the highlands of light, where the chosen ones, the true Christians dwell!
Forgive me if I speak to you in this way, but we too have responsibilities weighing upon us: we have great commitments that have not yet been resolved. And, before the time of harvest comes, before the Spirit of Truth comes to separate the tares from the wheat, giving to each one according to their deeds, let the children of the grave, let the living come to speak to the dead, awakening them from this lethargy of passions that has obsessed spirits to the point where it is rare to find, on the surface of the Earth, that path of light which for so many centuries has been tread by the Divine Lamb, attracting, like a sun of love, the souls that have been entrusted to Him by the Eternal One for salvation and happiness.
Let the living come from the tombs to tell all of you: Christians in Christ, take from the Gospel; meditate on these truths, do penance, for Spiritism is the precursor of the Spirit of Truth!
He is the Comforter promised by Our Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples, as well as to all humanity, to soothe their pains, alleviate their sorrows, and ease their afflictions in times of tribulation and great suffering!
Behold, it is among you, manifesting itself, day by day, all over the surface of the Earth, like the clamoring voice of John, calling the people to the new baptism of the Holy Spirit — to penance and repentance. And just as the scribes and Pharisees, the doctors of the law, restraining their spite and hatred, approached the Most Loving Lamb, asking by what authority he broke with the customs of the time and the laws established by them, the leaders of the Church, so too shall you today ask for prodigies, great miracles, so that you may know the authority that supports us to disturb the course of your ecclesiastical affairs, interrupting the apparent serenity of your consciences with the word of the tomb.
To the scribes and Pharisees, to the doctors of the law, Jesus replied: Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days — alluding, as the evangelist clearly tells us, to the temple of his body which, coveted by hatred, was to fall later, only to rise again later; to the modern doctors of the law, to the new scribes and Pharisees, the promised Comforter may respond, that is, the Spirits on a mission, in the service of the vineyard of the Beloved Master: Destroy the truth, if you can, and only then will Spiritualism disappear from the face of the Earth; summon new councils and in them determine the disappearance of the truth, and from the mouths of the tombs, like stones on the road to Jerusalem (23), the voice of the Lord’s envoys will cry out, clamoring everywhere for the observance of the true Gospel, for the fulfillment of the Doctrine of the Crucified One, so poorly understood and so cheapened by your ambitions!
(23) Luke, chapter 19, verse 40.
We fulfill our duty; we do not want bushels to hide the light that, by the mercy of the Most High, we have received.
From atop the roofs of your own homes, we will cry out for the truth, and only the truth, that we have learned. And as a humble plant, perhaps born on rocky soil, amid thorns, flourishing by the dew of divine mercy, we seek, in the narrowness of our earthly scope, to grow and bear fruit, thus testifying that we have received, in the corolla of our soul, the divine and sacred dew that descends upon us, out of love for Our Lord Jesus Christ.
By doing so, we fulfill our duty; let the Church fulfill its own, but let it do so with a truly Christian conscience!
Jesus, after having refused to perform miracles in front of the scribes and Pharisees who asked him to do so, so that they could bear witness to him, as if the Divine Master needed any other testimony other than his own, descended from Jerusalem to Judea, where he was sought out by one of the teachers in Israel, named Nicodemus (24), who, ashamed and fearing the criticism that the people would make when they found out that he was seeking the son of a humble carpenter to hear him on religious matters, waited for the shadows of the night, as if he were a great criminal, to approach the Divine Lamb.
(24) John, chapter III, verses 1 to 12.
Greeting the Divine Master, Nicodemus, who sensed that he was a great Spirit sent to Earth, because his deeds bore witness to his spiritual hierarchy, declared to him, asking what he should do to save himself.
Jesus, taking advantage of the opportunity that presents itself, responds to the old priest, saying, under the veil of the letter, that no Spirit who has descended to Earth can enter the Kingdom of God without being born again of water and the Holy Spirit.
The word water, used by the Divine Master, reveals two thoughts, one of which is appropriate for the scientific knowledge of that time, and another that, even today, can well serve all those who do not know the truth, according to the doctrine of salvation.
This is how, among the Jews, water was considered the generative principle of all things, the primitive element from which everything in the organic realms was derived; and this for them constituted a dogma, whose basis we find in Moses’ Genesis, chapter I, verses 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 20 and chapter II, verses 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7. (25)
(25) Genesis, chapter I, verses 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 20 and chapter II, verses 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
Now, being water the generating principle of all material things, it was, consequently, the generator of new bodies indispensable to the Spirits who, once condemned to suffering due to their deviations from the path of light, needed them in order to progress and purify themselves, so they could reach the kingdom of God, entering into that pure and luminous existence that is the true life of the Spirit.
But, this word also translated, as we said, another thought: the new birth through the waters of baptism, that is, through repentance, through the conversion of souls to the domains of truth and the Holy Spirit, reaching the relative perfection that we all must achieve in order to know God in the fullness of His grace and His infinite love.
Nicodemus, imbued with the prejudices of his ancestors, despite being a master in Israel, believed that Jesus was referring to the resurrection, that is, the entry of the Spirit into the same body, which also constituted a dogma among the Jews. And that is how they believed that the prophets returned to Earth, and therefore awaited the return of Elijah, as seen in the Gospels of Mark, chapter VIII, Luke, chapter IX, and Matthew, chapter XVI.
However, Jesus, surprised by the ignorance of Nicodemus, who, being a teacher in Israel, had not yet understood his words, openly declares to him: You must be born again.
And, faced with this categorical statement from the Divine Master, we will ask those who study sacred things in good faith: can the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ be explained without considering the reincarnation of Spirits?
Is there an argument capable of demonstrating that the Divine Master, telling Nicodemus that he must be born again, was referring to being born through baptism?
No, certainly not.
Jesus confirmed the natural law of the reincarnation of Spirits; and it is in this law, which expresses all the love of our Creator and Father, that creatures, even those who are condemned to eternal hellfire by the Church, seek their salvation; it is in this sublime law of justice and love that the repentant Spirit finds the means of their regeneration and happiness; it is through it that fallen angels return to Heaven, making use of the symbolic ladder of Jacob — the grace, the love of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Hell, purgatory, heaven, all of this is concentrated within the creature itself; in its passions, more or less developed, it has its hell, its purgatory, just as in the virtues sanctified by the Doctrine of the Beloved Master, it finds its heaven, its paradise, where it enjoys its happiness.
And what other law shall we seek, Christians in Christ, that better expresses the divine mercy than that of the reincarnation of Spirits, which is a truth because it was confirmed by the Divine Master, speaking to Nicodemus?
Wouldn’t it be preferable, wouldn’t it be more acceptable than this other monstrous creation of hell and purgatory, where only pain, eternal torment can exist in the sinful soul, in the delinquent Spirit?
Hell?
But, then, God, who condemns His creature to eternal suffering for the lack of a moment, would be below you, who do not do this! His justice would be inferior to yours, which is carried out according to the degree of criminality, while His always punishes with eternal penalties!
No, that is not the truth!
No hell, no purgatory! There are no designated places for the sacrifice of the Creator’s children! These places, I assure you, only exist in the imagination of men, capable of attributing to the Divinity the qualities of their spirit.
The representatives of the Roman Church, however, will tell me: your argument is false and unsustainable because hell is not a creation of this Church, but a logical and indisputable deduction from what is found in the biblical texts.
If, however, logic were the predominant element in the minds of those who took upon their shoulders the task of spreading the light of Christianity within humanity, certainly the Church’s motivation would be different, as would the fruits of the proselytism carried out for nineteen centuries in the name of Jesus.
They will also say: the idea of hell is enshrined in the biblical texts, which represent it to us through the fires of Gehenna, through the outer darkness, where one hears the gnashing of teeth in the vortex of that fire that never goes out. (26)
(26) Matthew, chapter 3, verse 12. Same, chapter 8, verse 12. Same, chapter 13, verses 49 and 50. Luke, chapter 13, verse 28.
But, we need to be logical; following Paul’s advice, we must extract from the ‘letter that kills’ the spirit that gives life. (27)
(27) 2nd Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter III, verse 6.
Jesus, questioned by Peter, the leader of his Church, who asked him how many times he should forgive the faults of his brothers, whether seven times would be enough, received from the Divine Master, in response, that he should do it not seven, but seventy times seven, as the evangelist Matthew tells us in his chapter XVIII, verses 21 and 22.
And, if that is the case, how can we accept that Jesus, who advised the sinful creature to grant unlimited forgiveness, would affirm in his divine conscience to his disciples the existence of hell, which is the denial of love and mercy from the Almighty?
Can the part, perhaps, be greater than the whole, the love for Earth surpass the love for Heaven? Will the mercy of the creature exceed that of its Creator?
This is the logic of biblical texts; and, therefore, why not tell the truth?
Why argue, systematically, against one’s own conscience? For is it not within the intelligence, the understanding of all, that the Divine Master spoke a language appropriate to the people who listened to him?
It is not in the consciousness of all those who form the true judgment of the Creator that this unquenchable fire is the fire of the Spirit’s remorse; that these outer darknesses are the darkness of the very soul dulled in sin; that this Gehenna is none other than the very conscience that devours in its intimate and profound dictates the delinquent Spirit?
This is the truth, which, however, it is not advisable to persuade the Spirits of, for it is necessary to terrify them in order to maintain this status quo of nineteen centuries, which benefits not the true church, but individual interests!
Studying, meditating on the Gospel, extracting the essence of the doctrine of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in spirit and truth, teaching and, above all, exemplifying is very difficult; and so, either we have, within humanity, simple and ignorant Spirits, obeying the laws of the Gospel, not by the essence of these laws, but by the terror they inspire, or the chosen Spirits, that is, the better prepared part, are faced with the necessity of creating new religions, new philosophical systems that better satisfy human reason.
And yet, you are the priests, the tenants of the vineyard! You are now the Spirits of the great parable (28) of the Divine Master, for you find yourselves invested with the highest ministry — representing our God, our Creator on Earth!
(28) Matthew, chapter 21, verses 33 to 46. Mark, chapter 12, verses 1 to 12. Luke, chapter 20, verses 9 to 19.
The prophets came to speak to humanity through the inspiration of their elders, and by condemning idolatry and fighting instincts, they tried to make the Earth the true paradise of Adam’s legends; you, the tenants, the orthodox, the priests of the Church, gave them death! After these, other missionaries still come to awaken your conscience, and these, stoned and mocked, are also banished from the surface of the Earth, until the Creator, by the grace of his infinite mercy, sends his own Son! And even to him, the priests, the orthodox, the doctors of the law, fearing that he would absorb into his divine hands the powers that had been given to them, take him to the top of the Cross, to ignominy, to contempt, just as they had done to their predecessor Spirits.
But, the times are approaching and the Divine Lord needs to know the work of the tenants of his vineyard.
He needs to know about his production, and if neither the prophets nor his own Son could get the fulfillment of duty from the wicked workers, he will take the vineyard out of the hands of the tenants who were given it to cultivate, giving it to other more worthy and faithful workers.
Behold Spiritualism, spreading across the entire surface of the Earth, inch by inch, covering both the threshing floor and the sown fields! Here it is, the forerunner of the Spirit of Truth, competing for the possession of consciousness, bringing to spirits the understanding of the true doctrine of the Beloved Master, and presenting to human consciousness the gentle and most loving Lamb of the Most High who, in His love, His affection, and His divine mercy, did not measure the greatness of the sacrifices made for the redemption of our sins!
Here is Spiritism, representatives of the clergy, which comes to tell you openly, except for the honorable exceptions to which I have already referred to in another chapter: you constantly distort your priestly mission, for your care has been to give Caesar what is Caesar’s, very little, caring very little about what you should give to God; and, seeking to serve two masters, without serving either of them, you mold the holy scriptures to your conveniences and your individual needs!
And so, once again you take stones for the stoning of the prophets, once again you take the cross for the crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, once again you present yourselves, after nineteen centuries, as whitewashed tombs (29), in the pompous display of your monuments and your ecclesiastical garments, without considering that the Spirit of Truth searches your consciences and, analyzing the impurities within your souls, prepares and hastens the moment of your departure from this vineyard that can no longer belong to you, due to your indolence, and the distortion you impose on the truths of Christianity, which are well known to the majority of Spirits.
(29) Matthew, chapter 23, verses 27 and 28. Luke, chapter 11, verse 44. Acts of the Apostles, chapter 23, verse 3.
Jesus, after speaking to his disciples in this parabolic language of the vineyard, which I, perhaps somewhat harshly, applied to today’s times, was sought by the Sadducees who, not believing in the resurrection, presented him with the question of knowing to whom should belong as a wife, on the day of the resurrection, the woman who had been married several times. (30)
(30) Matthew, chapter 22, verses 23 to 30. Mark, chapter 12, verses 18 to 25. Luke, chapter 20, verses 27 to 36.
The Divine Master took the opportunity to, once again, affirm that what is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is Spirit, answering them that the children of this age married men with women, but on the day of the resurrection there would be neither men nor women, since in the bosom of God all would be Spirits, all would be brothers.
From this simple and concise answer of Jesus, it is clear that gender is a mere incident of the flesh, and that the Spirits who achieve the true resurrection will not have such concerns, which die and end in their earthly lives.
Those who do not understand any love other than that of the flesh do not understand Our Lord Jesus Christ; those who only seek to develop the flower of this noble sentiment in impure instincts, only they can consider marriage beyond death, beyond life, we should say, with passions that belong exclusively to the laws of matter always prevailing in them.
But, how to rise again, how not to see death eternally, if we deny reincarnation?
Or, even better, how can the Spirit experience eternal death and at the same time rise again, as the Sacred Scriptures affirm to us?
Here is a question that will find an easy solution, as long as we consider the resurrection, as our Divine Master did, as the simple passage of the creature from the realms of the flesh to the realms of the spirit, a passage that will occur as many times as there are inconsistencies in obeying the laws of their Creator.
However, those who manage to rise from the flesh, filled with the virtues taught by the Divine Master; those who, through their work, in whose souls, inspired by Our Lord Jesus Christ, have germinated the seeds given to them by the Creator, these will no longer experience the laws of death and, leaving with the flesh the instincts of needs that belong to it, will be able to find themselves, not with seven wives, but with seventy times seven wives, seeing in them only loving Spirits, but of the love of angels, fraternal Spirits, but of the fraternity of heaven, a fraternity of which we have the most sublime of teachings in this beautiful poem dictated by Our Lord Jesus Christ at the edge of Jacob’s well, speaking to the Samaritan woman. (31)
(31) John, Chapter 4, verses 5 through 14.
As the Sacred History tells us, after the reign of Solomon, with the establishment of the kingdom of Israel, having Jeroboam as its first leader, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin separated from the ten tribes, taking as their legal representative Rehoboam, son of Solomon.
From the beginning, an extraordinary struggle over religious principles was established between the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel, a struggle that lasted until the arrival of the times of the appearance of Our Lord Jesus Christ on Earth.
Jeroboam, definitively breaking away from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, abolished the worship of Jehovah, created new gods for the adoration of the people he led; the tribe of Judah, guided by Solomon’s son, preserved the Mosaic laws for some time and, naturally, began to look at their idolatrous brothers with that iron contempt that biblical texts inform us of, to the point of not having any commerce between them and not even greeting one another.
Each one believed they held the truth: the people of Israel had raised their temple for the revelations of their worship; the people of Judah, in turn, had also sought a specific point for their adorations, and thus this state of religious dissent had been established, in which absolute intransigence prevailed in all minds, when Our Lord Jesus Christ, provoking the Samaritan woman, asked her for some water to quench the thirst he did not have.
“Give me a drink,” said the Divine Master; and the woman, full of astonishment, asked him how, being a Jew, he asked for water from a Samaritan woman.
“If you knew who is asking you for a drink, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”
“How, Lord,” says the woman, “the well is deep and you have nothing to draw with! Could you possibly be greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, from which he himself drank, his family, and his cattle?”
“Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,” answers the Divine Master, “but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst again, and this water will become in him a fountain that springs up to eternal life.”
As can be seen, this scene of the Most Loving Lamb was nothing more than a pretext to teach men the principles of true fraternity; it was nothing more than a pretext to tell the people of that time, as well as those of today, that for the worship of God, there are no specific places, neither on the mountain of the Samaritans, nor in the temples of Jerusalem.
Jesus took this opportunity to, under the veil of the letter, tell all humanity that the true temple, the true church is the heart of man, with the soul’s bosom being the true tabernacle from which the creature draws the incense of prayers, in the aroma of the flower of beautiful feelings, to rise to its Creator, to Our Lord Jesus Christ, the guide, the protector, the ruler of this planet.
No; Jesus did not understand, nor can we understand, that creatures, worshipping and paying homage to a Creator, would hate their peers, their equals, because of a simple divergence in religious outward appearances. He did not understand that someone who sincerely believes in God, while failing to follow the precepts of true brotherhood, could, through the mere formulas of their belief, anathematize and condemn their brothers, instead of trying to impose on them through virtues, through the evangelical morals, and ultimately, through all those feelings that attract the attention, admiration, and respect of their fellow beings.
Jesus, a Jew, asked the Samaritan woman for water, that is, Jesus absolutely condemned the divergence that existed between the two peoples at that time; and so, logically, he cannot fail to condemn the divergence of the existing churches today, because one of two things is true: either these churches do not have within them the true believers who, above the externalities of worship, place the holy doctrine of Our Lord Jesus Christ; or they are empty of the evangelical sentiment and, consequently, tend to disappear, to give way to the true church of which the Divine Master spoke to the Samaritan woman, saying: A time will come when, neither in Jerusalem nor on the mountain top, will people worship God, but they will understand that God is spirit and that He must be worshiped only in spirit.
God is spirit, God is intelligence, God is thought, God is the fluid that dominates all fluids that fill Nature. Let us not make God corporeal, because we cannot imagine His bodily form.
God is spirit, and we, as Spirits, should seek to draw closer to this great Creative Center, through the Milky Way shown to us by Jesus in his pilgrimage on Earth, raising in our souls the beautiful feelings that have been given to us, in order to enjoy this blessedness, this immeasurable paradise that we lost when we tasted the fruit of sin.
God is spirit, and let us not be deceived: external worship is merely the mask that the Spirit creates to conceal the ugliness of its self; it is the whitewash of the tombs that seemingly beautifies the creature, while inside, in its core, lies the decay, the corruption, which cannot escape the penetrating gaze of Our Lord Jesus Christ, despite the whitewash that could not whiten them.
When man understands, in spirit and truth, the words of the Beloved Master — sweep and adorn your houses; when he understands that nothing is hidden from God and, whatever formulas are invented, the spirit will always be what it really is; when he understands that the only true worship that can be given to the Creator is that of good feelings, and that in the public square as well as in the privacy of one’s room, he is under the eyes of God, who is everywhere, on that day, then, neither the temples of Jerusalem nor the mountains of the Samaritans, for man will be convinced that his body is the true church, where his spirit retreats in contemplation of the infinite, seeking, through his constant efforts, the pure essence of the joys he had once lost and that Jesus, good, gentle, and loving, brought back to him, in the holy promises of his love, abundantly diffused in the pages of his Gospel.
When man becomes convinced of all these truths, the wall of pride that still separates the children of Samaria from the children of Israel today will have disappeared forever, and then the true disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ will sit at the edge of Jacob’s well to, without distinction of races or schisms, offer to all their brothers before God and before Jesus the flower of their affections.
“I am the resurrection and the life,” said the Most Loving Lamb, in his poem of light and love. “I am the resurrection and the life” means: those who follow my holy doctrine, those who gladly taste the bitterness of my sorrow, those who understand the words of my Gospel, they will have their resurgence to eternal life, never sitting in the shadows of death, for I am the light, I am the truth, I am the life.
And, indeed, JESUS IS THE RESURRECTION, JESUS IS THE TRUTH, JESUS IS THE LIFE!
*Translated from the 1st Brazilian Edition, by FEB
