Sheep of His pasture

We should remember what name Christ calls His people, what title He gives to His flock.  He calls them sheep, that their Christian innocence might be like that of sheep.  He calls them lambs, that their simplicity of mind might imitate the simple nature of lambs.  Why does the wolf lurk under the appearance of sheep?  Why does he who falsely claims to be a Christian dishonor the flock of Christ?  To put on the name of Christ and not to walk in the way of Christ is a mockery of the Divine name and a desertion of the way of salvation.  Christ teaches that the one who keeps His commandments will receive life, and one who hears and does His words is wise. 

 

The Christian curative

From the sacrament of the cross you receive both food and drink; let the wood, which availed at Mara in a figure for sweetening the taste, avail you in truth for soothing the softened breast, and you will not labor for the remedy for increasing the health. Cure yourself at the source from which you had been wounded. Love those whom you hated before; esteem those whom you envied with unjust disparagements. Imitate the good, if you can follow them; if you cannot follow them, surely rejoice with them and congratulate your betters. Your debts will be forgiven you, when you yourself shall forgive. Your sacrifices will be accepted, when you shall come to God as a peacemaker.  

Mutually beneficial prayer and love

 

 

Let us be mutually mindful of one another, of one heart and one mind.  Let us ever pray for one another, and by mutual love lighten our burdens and difficulties.  And if one of us should, by the swiftness of divine action, depart from here first, let our love continue in the presence of the Lord.  Let not prayer for our brothers and sisters cease in the presence of the mercy of the Father. 

 

Pray and Watch

 

Let us pray urgently and groan with continual requests.  For not long ago, I was scolded in a vision because we were sleepy in our prayers and didn't pray with watchfulness.  Undoubtedly, God, Who "rebukes whom He loves," rebukes in order to correct and correct to preserve.  Therefore, let us break away from the bonds of sleep and pray with urgency and watchfulness.  As the Apostle Paul commands us, "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same."  For the Apostles continually prayed day and night. 

 

Drawing the grace of God

If you keep the way of innocence, the way of righteousness, if you walk with a firm and steady step, if, depending on God with your whole strength and with your whole heart, you only 'be' what you have begun to be, liberty and power to do is given you in proportion to the increase of your spiritual grace.  For there is not, as in the case with earthly benefits, any measure of stint in the dispensing of the heavenly gift.  The Spirit freely flowing forth is restrained by no limits, is checked by no closed barriers within certain bounded spaces; It flows perpetually, It is exuberant in Its affluence. Let our hearts only be athirst, and be ready to receive: in the degree in which we bring to it a capacious faith, in that measure we draw from It an overflowing grace.