January 5, 1978
MY CHURCH
«The near total deficiency of spiritual directors»
Write, my son: I am Jesus.
I want to continue the messages that I pointed out in a previous colloquy. I want to return to a theme already discussed: “The near total deficiency of spiritual directors.”
And what are the causes?
I will point out the main ones:
- A lack of pastoral sensitivity in many pastors.
- The penetration of materialism in all structures of my Church: seminaries, religious orders, convents, etc.
- A deficient knowledge of the Fathers of the Church and of ascetical and mystical theology.
- A great lack of interior life, with the consequent impossibility and logical incapacity of directing souls, due to the strident contrast between the manifest demands of souls who thirst for truth, who are thirsting for spiritual advancement, and the glacial coldness that exists in priests who were requested to carry out this most delicate ministry.
Son, if you enter an obscure and cold house, where will you find light and heat, if that house is totally lacking in both? If a soul is desirous of being conducted to God, how can it find help in one who is even farther from God? How many souls are detained, and as if paralyzed and incapable of walking, precisely because they have no one to help them!
Eternal salvation, the final goal of life
At the head of the local churches are the bishops, who have the grave responsibility of fostering the spiritual life of the flock committed to them. The spiritual life means the fluid circulation of divine life in their church, in the souls that form it; therefore, it is incumbent upon the bishop to be aware of the grave necessities of the souls entrusted to him. If the bishop is holy, wisdom will not be lacking to him; I said: wisdom, which is the intuition that comes to him from the Spirit that is in his heart, by which he will be consumed by zeal, to give and to provide souls with all the valid helps that they need, so that they may walk with uprightness toward the final goal of life, which is eternal salvation. Only in this manner will the bishop see with clarity all the omissions, the deficiencies, the needs of the souls of the flock that he should shepherd, and he will do everything to provide for them. Only in this way will he be aware of the vacillating life of pious families; only in this way will he see the paralysis of many souls, of many communities and groups of prayer, that are so often deceived, all this happening precisely because of the lack of a trustworthy spiritual guide.
His first great preoccupation, deprived of all material and human interest, will be that of calling around him the best priests, to make good spiritual guides of them. With these priests, he will then decide what it is necessary to do, to seek a genuine spiritual rebirth in his church, so his church will not be lacking in anything, in order to walk upon the path of sanctity.
The bishop is not only the “president” of an assembly, but also the spiritual father of his church, that he should care for and nourish, preserving it from heresy, from error, from immorality. Therefore, great is his task, a task that should be assumed with prudence and with courage, with a great faith and love, laying aside the judgments of men, and making account only of the divine will. Therefore, my son, it is my will that bishops be holy, so that they may reflect in themselves my life of God man, for this reason I became man, and so that they may put the axe to the root, to root out evil wherever it has grown, and that they do all this without fear or timidity. My help will never be denied to them, if they wish to work only for the GLORY OF GOD, for the ADVENT OF HIS KINGDOM, and for the REALIZATION OF HIS WILL. Is not this what I, Jesus, have taught you to ask every day?
Thus there is needed a radical disinfection of all the infect structures. If a bishop does not feel that he is consumed by this zeal, he cannot be my apostle in the world.
To snatch souls from satan: the central problem of pastoral theology
The materialistic conception that has enveloped my Church in profound darkness, never before seen, this crisis of faith that has separated not only Christians but even unbelieving nations from God can be overcome, only by returning to the faith. Therefore it is the task of bishops to develop a wise and enlightened pastoral practice, directed to their priests and to all the faithful; to establish centers for the formation of catechism teachers, and a center for the formation of studies of the Holy Scriptures, of the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church. I do not need scientific priests; nor presumptuous theologians, but I very much need wise and holy priests, who are fully aware and conscious of their priestly grandeur and of their priestly powers!
Bishops should understand all this, and for this they should act; toward this they should orient their pastoral practice, putting everything else to one side, for it is marginal!
Once again, son, I affirm THAT THE CENTRAL PROBLEM OF PASTORAL THEOLOGY to which pastors and priests should direct their spiritual and material energies, for the body is the support of the soul and has been given for the soul IS THAT OF SNATCHING SOULS FROM SATAN AND HIS FOLLOWERS,
TO GIVE THEM ONCE AGAIN TO ME, for to Me they belong, and in every possible way to prevent the upright and pure heart from being deceived and swept away by the astuteness of the enemy. Whether they want this or not, this is what I want! And the purification, now taking place, will accomplish what the foolishness my consecrated ones has neither known how, nor desired, to accomplish.
I bless you, son. Love Me intensely.