I softly complain to the Lord, for, as I open a book of the Gospel, or the Bible, at random, as is my habit, He has my eyes fall upon a very sad point (Jeremiah, chapter 10).
A word of hope for my poor country would be so necessary for me...! I acknowledge that we are guilty of the sins we are accused of and punished for. But love for my country makes me feel pain over the afflictions with which God strikes us.
Jesus lets me lament and then calls my attention to verses 23 and 24 and the last phrase in verse 25. I understand that I shall be instructed on this - and I wait.
Jesus118 says:
“Prayer is a good and holy thing, as it is also good to meditate on and study Wisdom. But nothing is more useful to man than one form of knowledge: to be convinced of God.
“When one has truly experienced who the Lord is, one no longer errs; one is able to pray, not with a mechanical movement of the lips foreign to serious purposes of goodness, forgiveness, continence, and humility, but with true adherence to God, a true purpose of practicing the Law better and better so as to be blessed by God.
“When one has experienced who the Lord is, one forever possesses Knowledge, Wealth, and Strength, which give the true Glory which never dies and which is pleasing to God.
“You offer prayer after prayer in these times. But they are not so useful as they should be. Do not think that your God has changed his Nature of infinite Goodness and perfect Fatherhood!119 The fact is that you present to Him prayers contaminated by too many things.
“Strip yourselves of the threefold robe oppressing your spirit and contaminating it. Away with hypocrisy, away with hatred, away with lust. There are other things to be removed as well. But these are the vilest ones in my eyes. And you are hypocrites when you come to Me for religious ceremonies you perform in a human, not a supernatural, sense.
“Who do you want to deceive, though? Me? O unfortunates! You can deceive each other, putting on a religious face - rather, a mask - over the real face, which involves irreligion, for Religion means obedience to the desires and intentions of God, and you disobey God in big and little things. can deceive each other, but you do not deceive your God.
“What would you say, Maria, and what would you do if someone offered you a bunch of flowers or a dish of fruit that was completely dirty or rotten? That he would do better not to offer it to you because it disgusts and offends you. Exactly: I say the same thing about most of your prayers.
“You hate. Certainly. You hate. And you are so dull in spirit that you don’t even realize you are full of acrimony towards all and of selfishness. But - what did I tell you? ‘If, when you are about to pray, you remember that you have offended your brother or that he has something against you in his heart, first become reconciled with him and then come.’ An essential condition in order to be heard is not to have hatred in one’s heart which kills love. How can you come to Me, who am Mercy, when you are not merciful? How can you judge and think that I, who am Justice, do not judge you? Don’t you see that in condemning, with hatred, those who harm you - and perhaps they were not the first, but you were - you condemn yourselves all by yourselves?
“You are lustful. How much lust - of the flesh, of the mind, of the heart - spreads over the world, issuing forth from you as if from the orifices of many springs whose origins lie in the depths, where the Enemy reigns! It is a flood - not willed by God, but by Satan - to which you have lent yourselves, that is pouring over the earth and driving Light, Truth, and Life away from you. And Light and Truth and Life, like a dove that does not like foul-smelling slime, withdraws into the Heavens, descending swiftly to center its flight over the rare creatures that, like mountain peaks, rise up over the ooze which dishonors you.
“My, beloved Son has his dwelling among men barred by men themselves. Listen to Him, O you that are still able to do so, you that resist the corrupting wave, out of love for Us. In Him there is salvation, for He is the eternal Redeemer, and the infinite merits of his infinite pain work eternally. But you render them barren under the corrosive of the Satanic evil you are full of. Even more than his Blood upon the Jews, this destruction by you, in yourselves, of the effects of his Blood, through sin, which you love like your lives lasting an hour, condemns you and makes you worthy of my punishment.
“You are uncircumcised hearts. You are unable and unwilling to place the ring of threefold penance upon those hearts of yours, which you have taken from God and given to the Enemy of God and of the human race. This is what is necessary in order for Me to intervene: for you to repent and do penance. Without these two things every prayer of yours, every religious act, is a lie and an offense you commit against God.
“And if the Spirit of Love can no longer work prodigies of love in you because your way of acting neutralizes his action, and if the Word of the Father can no longer work the miracles of his Blood and his Word because there are contrary forces in you, the Father, the Lord God, can always swing the lash of punishment over you and defend in Himself the three Divine Persons, excessively offended by mankind.”
118 From the beginning of the tenth paragraph of this locution on, however, the words seem to have been dictated by the Eternal Father.
119 The exclamation mark has been added, in keeping with the tone of the sentence.