May 9, 1975
REDEMPTION IS COMPLETED
This is, in synthesis, what He told me today:
“Propter peccata veniunt adversa.” Because of sins, adverse events come.
Humanity sinned in its origin in Adam and Eve, and afterwards all men continued sinning. It was necessary to pay and to expiate, and humanity was impotent to expiate its debt. The Word was engrafted onto humanity, with the mystery of the Incarnation.
He expiates and offers satisfaction for the fault and for the faults of humanity. His triumph is constituted in the mystery of the cross: “Cum exaltatus fuero a terra omnia traham ad meipsum.” And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself. (Jn. 12, 32). He saves, expiates, offers satisfaction and redeems with an infinite suffering; his triumph springs from insults, from spittle, from the scourging.
In this manner he glorifies the Father and saves souls, he reconciles humanity with the Divinity and triumphs over his visible enemies, and above all over his invisible enemies, that is, Satan and his followers. From his side issues forth the mystery of the Church, his Mystical Body, of which he is the head.
It is a law of nature that the suffering of an organ is reflected and has repercussions in all the other members of the body; thus the Redemption, begun with the Incarnation and consummated on the Cross, is completed in all the members of the Mystical Body, with suffering, until the end of time.
Our human actions are never only personal; their consequences, whether good or evil, are not only personal, but they have repercussions in a positive or negative way, in the entire Mystical Body, of which each one is a member.
For this reason, the Christian is never more a Christian than when he suffers, whether he is guilty or innocent, whether on a large or small scale, because his suffering, in the same way as Christ's, is converted into the patrimony of everyone, although always conserving its personal worth. The Christian with his suffering approaches Christ more and more; he approaches closer and concurs, in order to complete the mystery of Redemption in the Church. And the Church, just as it came forth from the side of Christ, triumphs in sorrow, in humiliation and in persecution.
Spiritual injustices
Not to want to suffer is a lack of love for God; it is a lack of justice and of love for one's neighbor and for the brethren most in need of Divine Mercy. Social injustices are deplored, and justly so, but spiritual injustices are never deplored, that are perpetrated with harm for so many souls that are lost, because they have rejected suffering with him for their salvation. It is a terrible lack of Christian sensibility, that reveals the tremendous crisis of faith, and with faith in crisis, hope and charity are also brought into crisis.
Not to want to suffer manifests a lack of justice and of charity toward God and toward the brethren, and the lack of these two virtues that form the support of the entire Christian life. Those who are rebellious to suffering run the risk of eliminating themselves from the Mystical Body; they run the danger of making themselves arid, like dry and useless branches, and even more harmful branches, good only to be burned in the fire. There is lacking in Christians the vision of the great value of eternal goods, for which they were created and redeemed.
Not to want to suffer is a most grave evil of materialist society, of which, unfortunately, the clergy and religious men and women have been contaminated. In consequence, this society has smothered the true and authentic Christian life of faith, hope and charity; this society has made souls blind, has made the salt become insipid, and it has put out many lamps that should have radiated light and that do not radiate it any more.