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The Kingdom of the Father vs. the kingdom of self

The Kingdom of the Father is the Kingdom of God mentioned in the Gospels.  Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within you.  The Kingdom of God is where God dwells.  This means it is Heaven and the soul of man because this is where He dwells.  This is why St. Thomas Aquinas called grace, “the seed of glory.” 

So what does it mean to live in the Kingdom of the Father?  The Kingdom of the Father is what the Father has called the Era of Peace.  That is the time where man will live in peace, without sin, without the devil, without illness and strife, without all the consequences of sin on all matter, and on the spirit of man. 

This is what He had in mind when He created us, what He wanted for us, so that our life on earth could be full of Joy and Peace, and a foretaste of Heaven so that we would not experience the pain of separation but rather that our union with Love and each other would only grow and grow into a perfection that ultimately reaches its peak in Heaven. In fact many Saints have died when the love that filled them was too great for their earthly body, so their souls had to continue to journey on in Heaven in order to be fed and filled their with more Love and Light.  This was Adam and Eve’s gratuitous gift, then after the fall, Jesus and Mary reinstated it for us, only now suffering is incorporated as a means of sanctification, (expiation & redemption).  That’s why the Saints can suffer but have Joy and Peace and still feel close to God. They also experience a kind of living outside of time as they become more aware of their souls residing in God and His Being outside of space and time. They experience some of His attributes and are consoled by them.  God wants this for us all and as proof, He provides all the means to bring us with haste, into this.  Living the last devotion of these times, the Father devotion which incorporates the Consecration and Feast Day, the daily chaplet and all the wisdom and direction in the seeing with the eyes of the soul books as well as the Father Speaks book, is the foundation of the means He Himself has given us. 

So how do we live in the Kingdom of the Father now?  This means to live as Our Father intended when He created man.  He made us to love and honor Him by being united to Him and living in His will, which gives us life.  The first thing is to allow God to dwell in us.  We do this foundationally by being in the state of grace, by not sinning and by repenting when we do sin.  Then in order to be even more united to Him we can consecrate ourselves to Him and pray the Father Chaplet daily which He tells us binds us to Him every time we pray it.  These things keep us united to Him but to live in the Kingdom and live a life that is more fully living in Him we must eat of the tree of life and not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

The tree of life is first of all good things; they must be things which are not evil.  Secondly, they must be good for us, life giving for us.  Therefore the thing must either be good in itself and good for us and done with a good intention, or neutral and good for us and done with a good intention. 

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is basically that which draws us toward evil.  Therefore even if it does not seem an evil thing, does it draw us toward evil?  Is it harmful to us, instead of being life giving does it seem to drain the life from us?  Does it lessen our charity, toward God or neighbor?

The Kingdom of the world opposes the Kingdom of the Father.  The kingdom of the world embraces the spirit of the world.  The world, Our Lord says, has been seduced by the devil.  He says this because it is not concerned with truth, or God, or goodness, or virtue, or charity, it is concerned with things like appearance, not having to suffer, ultimate freedom, money, and that thing called the self.  Not the true self, the true self is an image of God, a child of God, a self that naturally seeks God his creator and Father because he somehow remembers the love that created him, that longs to be with him, take care of him, and give Himself to him.  I am here talking of the false self, the selfish self, the self that seeks only itself but in a disordered way, not seeking its good but seeking to fill itself with things that are harmful to its nature as a child of God.  In some way these disordered self-seekings always tend to make an idol of self.  Whether its pride, vainglory, self-pity, anger, hatred, self-protectiveness, affirmation, money, power, fame, denial, intellect, pain & suffering, emotional freedom, absolute freedom, responsibility, fear, sensuality, accomplishment, etc.   All these things in some way serve the ego.  Our ego is a functioning part of our person; it allows us to know how we are reacting to our life experiences.  And in this instinctive response we can see a reflection of our true self’s conscience and beliefs.  It is a tool for self knowledge.  And as such it is meant to be subordinate to our reason.  But when it is our king and we become its slave, we then have a despotic king who demands allegiance at the cost of our true freedom, the freedom to make choices for our good which in turn enables us to pursue our good in the face of obstacles, adversaries, and evil.  Without this freedom, we haven’t the strength, conviction or ability to do anything other than follow our ego and serve it as a slave, bound and gagged, a eunuch without a will of its own, unable to determine its own future, fated fatally to be dragged by an undercurrent it neither sees nor perceives to a destiny it did not choose; the loss of the true self and a life lived with purpose and filled with the satisfaction of knowing and loving oneself and God and the consequential peace of mind and heart. 

The kingdom of self has two extremes.  On the right side of the pendulum, severity to self: repressing emotions and feelings, value in doing instead of being, enslaved to jobs, practices, and strictures, bound to serving others and good works to try to justify oneself to others, oneself or to God, asceticism without love.  Charity to our neighbor comes from, and is dependent on, charity to God.  And without charity to God all the good works and practices and service turn into severity.  When someone has ulterior motives in their service to others they are not serving God but the self and they undermine the good works and their fruitfulness.  We all need purification and healing on our way to union with God, but when a soul resists this action of the Holy Spirit in order to hold on to their ulterior motives, to feed the self’s ego, then it will turn into living for the kingdom of self.  Even though a soul intends to do the right thing, if they do so by repressing their feelings to do so, they will live in that severity.  And when they repress to do so, the repressed emotion, whether it be fear or anger, will become the dominant underlying force which controls their decision making.  This is slavery not charity, and it is serving the kingdom of self and not God. 

The left side of the Pendulum, total liberty with self, is no strictures, if possible, no pressures, only desires and freedom in the absolute sense with no sensitivity toward other’s good or feelings.  While one can attempt to get to ones feelings more on this side, and try to be more true to one’s self, it becomes difficult to not be passive to the feelings instead of using the feelings to gauge how one is experiencing an event, which is the function of feelings.   While it is good to oppose severity, we do not have to go to the opposite extreme to do so.  All extremes cause disorder and all disorder leads to harm of oneself.  Just because it feels better to satisfy one’s feelings instead of repressing them or doing violence to them with severity, it does not mean that we are obtaining our true good by obeying them.  When feelings are allowed to dominate over reason and faith we become a slave to them as well, obeying them as a salve to a master.  We are then slaves to passions, wounds, messages, errors, the past, and perceptions.  And when we bow to anything other than God with servility or docility putting it above faith and reason, it becomes an idol eventually.  Scripture says that we become the idols we worship and when we worship our emotions and feelings, giving them free reign, allowing them to make our decisions for us instead of informing our intellect of what we are experiencing, nurturing them to the extent that we defend them against all else including what is right, good, and true, with no regard to love, compassion or charity; what do we become then?  We become one big sensory emoter.  We no longer think but simply react.  We become a leaf riding a wave with no ability to chart our own course because that takes consideration, thought, reason, prudence, wisdom and discernment; the ability to have discretion and make choices for our good while experiencing pulls from many areas at once.  It feels freeing to have no strictures, but true freedom is primarily interior.  I can be a slave or a prisoner or live in an oppressive environment and still be free.  Being free does not mean I can do whatever I want, it means I can choose my true good.  My true good is to be in the rhythm and harmony of God’s will.  Freedom means not being a slave to sin and disorder and all that is harmful to my person.  It means not being bound to anything that does not come from love.  Love always gives life because love is God and God creates.  Being obedient to, or passive or docile to what does not come from love is slavery and leads to death.  Therefore, living for the kingdom of self leads to death. 

Here is an example of this as well as Jesus teaching how to live in the Kingdom of God. It is taken from an excerpt from the Poem of the Man-God and is a conversation between Jesus and one of His disciples.

Disciple:  What must I leave, Master?

Jesus:  Everything you know that upsets you.  Because God is peace and if you want to follow the path of God, you must clear your mind, your heart and your flesh of everything that is not peace producing and causes perturbation.  I know it is difficult to amend one’s way of living.  But I am here to help man to become the son of God once again, to re-create himself by means of a new creation, of an autogenesis wanted by man himself.  But let Me reply to your question, so that you many not say that you were left in error through a fault of Mine.  It is true that to kill oneself is the same as killing other people.  Both our own and other people’s lives are the gift of God and only God Who gives life, has the authority to take it.  Who kills himself, confesses his own pride, and pride is hated by God.

D:  He confesses his pride?  I would say his despair.

J:  And what is despair but pride?  Just think.. Why does one despair?  Either because misfortunes persistently perturb him and he wants to overcome them by himself, but is unable to do so.  Or because he is guilty and he thinks that he cannot be forgiven my God.  In both cases, is not pride the basic reason?  The man who wants to do all by himself, is no longer humble enough to stretch out his hand to the Father and say to Him:  I am not able, but You are.  Help me, because I hope and wait for everything from You.”   The other man who says:  “God cannot forgive me” says so, because measuring God by his own standards, he knows that another person could not forgive him, if that person had been offended, as he offended God.  So here again it is pride.  A humble man understands and forgives, even if he suffers for the offence received.  A proud man does not forgive.  He is proud also because he is not capable of lowering his head and saying:  “Father, I have sinned, forgive Your poor guilty son”.   But do you knot know, …that the Father will forgive everything, if one asks to be forgiven with a sincere, contrite, humble, heart willing to rise again to new life?

D:  But certain crimes are not to be forgiven.  They cannot be forgiven.

J:  “That is what you say.  And it will be true only because man wants it to be true.* But, oh!  I solemnly tell you that even after the crime of crimes, if the guilty man should rush to the Father’s feet — He is called Father.. just for that, and He is a Father of infinite perfection—and crying, implored Him to be forgiven offering to expiate, without despairing, the Father would make it possible for him to expiate and thus deserve forgiveness and save his soul.”(p.356 Poem Vol.1)

The fruits of living for the kingdom of self are dissatisfaction, impatience, incredulity, intolerance of any difficulty, greed, envy, deprivation, depression, severity toward self and others, having a lack of self and identity as a child of God, an aversion to things that are good for you; just to name a few. 

Whereas, living for the Kingdom of the Father produces peace, joy, contentment, self-knowledge, a firm identity as a child of God, mercy, compassion, faith, hope, charity, an aversion to harmful things. 

How will the Kingdom of the Father be fully realized and come on earth as it is in heaven?  This next excerpt is from Seeing with the Eyes of the Soul. 

“[I just said the Chaplet and afterward I spent quiet time with the Lord.  He
(the Father) showed me that all this suffering is to be passed on to Him so it can be transformed in Love.  He said an instrument, bridge, or conduit has to work both ways:  His love goes through us to the world; the sin has to come back through us to Him to be transformed.  We feel “suffering,” we “collect” or absorb the sin and pain around us so we can pass it on to the Father.  Like a light passing in and going out.  Our job is not to wallow
but to pass it on—both the love and the suffering. …  The (God the Father)
Chaplet, I believe, is very powerful (towards this end)!  Some of us are born with a greater capacity for “sensitivity” to picking up, feeling, or absorbing the sin and suffering around us.  Also our conduit can be “dilated” through prayer, suffering, purification, etc.  Chosen conduits are for bigger work of this type, although all God’s children are capable of this.  Depending on (1) how God made us and (2) spiritual growth and purification, we are Little Jesus’s, little co-redeemers.  We are conduits through which pass and are offered the disharmony of the world. This suffering was meant to PASS THROUGH, not be retained so it stagnates inside us.  We need to keep passing it on:  back and forth.  There must be a constant flow:  when it gets stuck, it putrefies inside us and even Love can’t get through.  (TRANSDUCTIO—to move across; to move back and forth through something (or someone).  Jesus is in us—the connecting link.  He attaches or grounds us at both ends, like a pipe or cable over us or in us.  The Holy Spirit prepares us, purifies us, is the energy that moves the suffering in to go to the Father.  Our Father is the “Transformer.”  We don’t do the “Transforming,” HE DOES.  We are only the conduit through which it moves to Him, and then transformed, back out to the world.]

The Father: This is how My Kingdom will come on earth as it is in Heaven— THROUGH MY CHILDREN!”(entry Feb. 20, 1997)

If we trust our Father we can live in peace and confidence, experiencing the relationship we were meant to have with Him with all the benefits of living in His Kingdom.  But if we do not trust Him, we will end up seeking to control our lives, our happiness, our ability to feel safe and secure, to procure for ourselves heaven on earth.  The problem is that if we do this we will be seeking the kingdom of self instead of the Kingdom of the Father because that kind of control places me as my own God and savior and removes me from relationship with God as a child to a Father.  And it makes me so egocentric that I can’t help but become self centered and selfish and again a slave to my own ego. 

Let us follow the path that leads to life, that allows us to receive all the good Our Father intends and desires for us.  Let us love ourselves enough to will our true good over what seems to make us happy or feels pleasurable or seems the least inconvenient or the least painful or non-conflict or least difficult or all those reasons which make it seems easier but are really excuses for not trying hard and fighting for our true good that is not just a temporary fix but will bear lasting fruits because love is of God and God is eternal.  If we only knew how much we are loved by Our Father this would not be a difficult choice to make.  And let us keep our hearts open, that we may be good vessels of transformation, that through us He may dwell on earth and transform it.  Let us all pray for all His children, that they may come to know His infinite love, and choose His Kingdom, a Kingdom of life, love, joy, peace, compassion, mercy and forgiveness.  The Kingdom of the Father.

God bless you and Mary keep you

                                                                   Br. Mariamartin de la Cruz    SDBV

(* because if man refuses God’s Mercy, He cannot force him to against his will.)

Here are some links that support the authenticity of the Poem of the Man-God.

This one shows St. Pio’s and Blessed Mother Theresa’s (among many others) support of the Poem of the Man-God.   http://www.mariavaltortawebring.com/Index.htm

These two links are from Bishop Danylak who is currently serving as a canon of Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.   http://www.bardstown.com/~brchrys/Imprmatur.htm  

 http://www.sacredheartofjesus.ca/MariaValtorta/inDefense.htm

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