May 9, 1977

CONSTANT PERSEVERANCE

Write, my son: Don Orione speaks to you.

The drop of water that constantly falls upon a stone, ends by making a hole in it; nevertheless, what is it, except a solitary, small and invisible drop of water? What strength should it have to realize an action that demands great force and power? The drop of water needs an ally, time, to be able to carve the stone. Fr. Octavio, he called you: “an invisible drop of water, strongly drawn downward,” and he told you the reason for such a definition; now I, Don Orione, repeat it: just as the drop of water needs an ally, time, to carve the stone, thus you have need of the ally, perseverance.

One needs to persevere in well-doing; the human creature destroyed the natural equilibrium in which it was created; by original sin it remained subject to continuous changes of mood, to continuous changes of temperament; it is changeable, just like the wind that now blows from the east, now from the west; if a stabilizing element of just equilibrium is not inserted into this disordered, frail, changeable, human nature, it cannot produce anything good; it can bring forth only bitter, wild fruits. This higher element of equilibrium is divine grace, and in this grace is also the gift of perseverance, an essential gift, without which eternal salvation is compromised.

To know the good, to want to do it, and to desire it, is not enough; one needs to persevere in the good. How many, after their first steps on the way of perfection, have stopped; how many others became stuck in the middle of the path; others stopped when they were already close to the goal, in this way compromising renunciations, sacrifices, sufferings; they lost everything, for not having persevered.

An infernal game

Why, Fr. Octavio, this discourse about perseverance? Because if you observe what is happening in the Church today, you will easily realize how much necessity there is of perseverance, for the inconstancy and volubility of this generation is so great, that it does not have a precedent. Since men do not live in the grace of God today, with the exception of a few, they remain left to their own weakness and left to the oppressive influence of the demon; for this reason the obscure forces of evil play with souls with the same cynical sadism, with which the cat plays with the mouse that it captured with astuteness. The main cause of inconstancy is certainly the absence in the human spirit of divine grace, of the interior life, the absence in Christian life of prayer; the crisis of faith and the pagan conception of life.

The new Church will reform the central concept of Christian formation, re-evaluating the interior life, the austerity of family life, and consequently of all ecclesial life.

The new communities will greatly emphasize the interior and exterior spirit of mortification; this will serve to form souls to tend to perfection, to create genuine soldiers of Christ, well tempered in the battles against the enemies of God, of the Church and of souls: the demon, the passions, and the world.

Jesus has given to his Church the sacrament of Confirmation, to transform each baptized soul into a strong soldier, who is clearly conscious of his role of combatant in the great army of the Church. The life of a soldier is a life of renunciation; it is a life of discipline; it is a life of sacrifices; it is a life of battle. Is this perchance the vision and the conviction of the confirmed souls in our times?

There has not been, there is not, and there will never be, in the Church of God, holy men who have not molded their lives with a severe austerity of customs.

Either with Him or against Him

In the new Church many things should be changed, and they will change; the false prophets, the pseudo-teachers, the vain foolishness of so many pseudo-theologians, will be proscribed. He alone is the genuine and universal Teacher, who, with the mystery of his Incarnation, Passion and death, has traced out the master path, that pastors, priests and the faithful should travel to the end, if they do not want to be condemned. Either with him, or against him!

In the new Church no one will dare to adapt Christ, his Church, his Gospel, and his moral teaching, to the false progress of modern technology, that has not known how to give either justice or peace or love to men, who need these things and thirst for them. They have attempted and they are attempting, in their proud manner, to blot God out of the heart and of the mind of man, to put technology in place of God, affirming that this is sufficient for man, for his happiness. It is men who should adapt to God, the Creator and Lord of the universe, to God, the Redeemer and Savior, to God the Sanctifier.

It is a most grave and tremendous responsibility of the hierarchy that, with the exception of a few holy bishops, it has made true civilization retrogress, through human calculations, through the fatuity of a false material progress, called technology. True civilization belongs more to the spirit than to material things; for true civilization, it would be better to have one machine less, and more honesty and virtue.

Fr. Octavio, a new Church means adamantine purity of doctrine and of customs. The purification will tear to pieces and end all the products of pride and of arrogance, that have contaminated everything.

May God, one and three, bless you; pray, brother, and offer your tribulations, so that tranquility may return to the Church and to humanity.

Don Orione