Mystics

"It cannot therefore be true that images are the textbooks of laypersons. For they are unable to learn their salvation from them. ... How can you save lay persons when you ascribe to images the power which God gave to his word alone?"

"How can you save lay persons when you ascribe to images the power which God gave to his word alone?"

"Next to worship and realization of God and the Lord Christ, awareness of the Angelic Kingdom has helped and inspired me more than any other single reality my recognition has touched."

"When humans face testings and tragedy, they should remember the angels who are always standing ready to lend their celestial assistance, comfort and council. You should never feel lonely, neglected, fearful, or defeated when you remember that there are the shining ones. They are watching with keen interest and a great desire to help to raise you, to stimulate you into contact with your own superior inner resources."

"Who will believe us when we say that we do not love these stuffed dummies—carved or painted images—when our deeds convict us? God hates and despises images, as I shall show. He considers them an abomination and says that all human beings are in his eyes as the things they love. Images are an abomination; it follows therefore that we too shall become abominable, if we love them."

"If you were to really hate and dislike a picture with all your heart, so that you could not bear to see or hear of it, how would you like it if someone insisted on getting to know and honor you through such a hated, horrible book? ... And God says that he does not like any image which we make, and ... that he hates and despises all who love images."

"God desires to indwell in my whole and total heart and cannot in any way tolerate my having an image in my mind's eye."

"As purity in motivation is matched by the will to penetrate the barriers that separate one from God, then the wonderful event takes place; one begins to know and see God."

"Christ's entire ministry can be summarized in just two words, live love."

"Take in everything before you and let your eyes be drenched with beauty, and as you love beauty in a reverent way it becomes a sacrament to you."

"You'll never make the friendship of nature until you can approach her with the idea of learning all that she has, all that she is, all that she serves from the inner worlds outwards to this physical vestment. The more wildflowers you learn the names of the richer you are. The more birds you can identify the finer character you possess and the more you can love as well as appreciate and seek to protect beauty in every form, the higher and nobler becomes your character. For nature teaches your character to expand and it reaches out to your very soul to make it as pure as it is."

"Our Lord Jesus evolved just as each of us has. He was human, very human in the beginning of His evolution, but (throughout his physical incarnations) He more strangely than anyone else, more quickly had the power of excellence, that supreme ability to surrender Himself and to give himself to that which is higher than anyone else that has evolved through the earth. So, it was because of this excellence, because of this unusual ability, that Jesus, or better our Lord Emmanuel the only begotten Son, it means in esoteric fact, that our Lord was the only one who had this quality to become the Christ Officiant for our planet."

"The Christ Spirit is really the aura of Christ Jesus extending to and including every portion of the earth. Whatever is Christ-like in essence, quality, mentality and conduct adds to the content of the ever-expanding Christ Spirit. We might also consider it as a tremendous reservoir of Light, which encircles the earth, whose function is to bless, to redeem, to spiritualize, to love and to heal all who make prayerful requests in the name of the Christ Spirit."

"Mysticism is the art of the practice of divine union. It is the soul's endeavor to draw nearer to God. Mysticism is the path of the heart, the path of love, the path of reverence into the citadel of enlightenment."

"The work of the Christ is that of raying out Divine love and encouragement to every creature in existence. The living Christ is perpetually occupied with the offices of his Christship. One of its most vital services is that of bringing human beings into a state of regeneration and self-conquest. Christ will not finish His work until the whole planet and all of humanity is brought to its highest degree of development."

"Christ's mission is to release the divine into our conscious knowing. He awakens the impulse in humanity to rise above his lower nature and be aware of his higher nature that dwells within."

"Mysticism is the search for and recovery of our oneness with God."

"We are here in life for but one reason-to learn to climb through ascensions of consciousness into the true Selfhood which is within us-the Selfhood which belongs to the eternal, the Selfhood which is our real nativity, our home in God's spirit."

"The person who misses this adventure of kinship with the beauty that is to be found in nature temples, and fails to make the acquaintance of the creatures that are in those temples, misses so much."

"Life's drama of incarnation consists of one's eventual discovery of their inherent destiny. We are a creation of the Supreme Spirit in whose seed of divinity , Godhood, like the Godhood of Jesus, shall come into fruition."

"Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability."

"You have made me so rich, oh God, please let me share Your beauty with open hands. My life has become an uninterrupted dialogue with You, oh God, one great dialogue. At night, when I lie in my bed and rest in You, oh God, tears of gratitude run down my face, and that is my prayer."

"Dear God, these are anxious times. Tonight for the first time I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me. I shall promise You one thing, God, just one very small thing: I shall never burden my today with cares about my tomorrow, although that takes some practice. Each day is sufficient unto itself. I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn't seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last."

"And if God does not help me to go on, then I shall have to help God. — The surface of the earth is gradually turning into one great prison camp, and soon there will be nobody left outside. … I don't fool myself about the real state of affairs, and I've even dropped the pretense that I'm out to help others. I shall merely try to help God as best I can, and if I succeed in doing that, then I shall be of use to others as well. But I mustn't have heroic illusions about that either."

"The absence of hatred in no way implies the absence of moral indig­nation."

"The sky is full of birds, the purple lupins stand up so regally and peacefully, two little old women have sat down on the box for a chat, the sun is shining on my face — and right before our eyes, mass murder. The whole thing is simply beyond comprehension."

"There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then He must be dug out again."

"Keep the crucified Jesus in your heart and all the crosses of the world will seem like roses to you. Those who have felt the pricks of the crown of thorns of the Savior, who is our head, do not feel the other wounds in any way. (III, 827)"

"Vainglory is an enemy of souls who have consecrated themselves to the Lord and given themselves to the spiritual life. (396, 1995)"

"My God! What martyrdom is the temptation of vainglory. (314, 1995)"

"This blessed war will be a salutary purge for our Italy, for the Church of God; it will reawaken in the Italian heart the faith that lay there hidden, as if asleep and suffocated by evil desires; it will cause beautiful flowers to bloom in the Church of God, from soil that was almost parched and dry. But, my God, before this happens, what a harsh trial awaits us. We must go through an entire night covered in the thickest darkness, the likes of which our homeland has never seen before. (583, 1995)"

"I want to suffer. This is my desire. (1051, 1995)"

"The sight of Jesus in distress caused me great pain, so I wanted to ask him why he was suffering so much. I received no answer. However, his gaze returned to those priests. But shortly afterwards, almost horrified and as if tired of looking, he withdrew his gaze and when he raised it towards me, to my great horror, I saw two tears running down his cheeks. He moved away from that crowd of priests, with a great expression of disgust on his face, shouting: Butchers! (350, 1995)"

"Only one thing remains my friend: death. (767, 1995)"

"Jesus tells me that in love it is he who delights me; in pain, however, it is I who delight him. (335, 1995)"

"Here, finally, is the return of the month of beautiful Mommy. (357, 1995)"

"I seek God, but where can I find him? (1028, 1995)"

"Patience!... I suffer, it is true, but I enjoy it very much. (206, 1995)"

"(At the beginning of Giacomo Gaglione‘s book, ’'Allo specchio della mia anima'‘ (In the Mirror of My Soul)) Never let the Passion of Christ leave your mind if you want to share in his triumphs."

"Before coming here to see me... go to Monte Sant'Angelo and invoke the help and protection of the Archangel Michael."

"God's omnipotence is not limited to planet Earth alone. On other planets there are creatures and other beings who have not sinned as we have and who pray to God."

"The most beautiful creed is the one that bursts from your lips in the darkness, in sacrifice, in pain, in the supreme effort of an infallible will for good; it is the one that, like a bolt of lightning, pierces the darkness of your soul; it is the one that, in the flash of the storm, lifts you up and leads you to God."

"(About the wife of the champion, when they went to San Giovanni Rotondo in 1953; a week later, as widely predicted by journalists at the time, Coppi left his wife to go and live with Giulia Occhini) Mrs. Coppi, be careful not to get hit on."

"Blasphemy brings God's curse upon your home and is the surest way to go to hell."

"But what torments me most are those strong and sharp pains in my chest. At times they cause me such great discomfort that it seems as if they want to break my back and chest. (107, 1995)"

"Circumstances make the hero, but everyday courage makes the righteous man."

"Better a mouse between two cats than a sick man between two doctors."

"I will never tire of praying to Jesus. It is true that my prayers are more deserving of punishment than reward, because I have disgusted Jesus too much with my countless sins; but in the end, he will take pity on me. (209, 1995)"

"Where there is more sacrifice, there is more generosity."

"Is he a saint? Giacomino is a great saint!"