of all beings. There is no being who does not emanate from you. You have life in you, and nothing has life that does not participate in your life. However, even though you are the essential life who came into the world only to give life to humans, you had to suffer death. As you were immortal by nature, you wanted because of your generous love and charity to take a mortal body so that you could destroy death in us by submitting to death. Therefore, you were dead, O Essential Life, you submitted to a voluntary death to deliver all humanity from a necessary death. You have been among the dead, but you are now living to die no more, and you have entered into all your rights. You have destroyed death by your same death that appeared to leave you destroyed. Instead, you destroyed death and received essential life in your womb. You were given death and rested in full life. My Savior holds in his hands the keys of Death and Hades. O Love, if you close a door, who can open? If you open, who can close? Opening and closing are done according to your will. But I say that the soul trusts you has a singular advantage because no one is put into hell without you opening the door. You close this door for those who trust in their own merit and you open your breast to those who recognize themselves as unworthy.
Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this. 20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. (Rev 1:19–20)
Jesus Christ again called to John to write all that he has seen. Revelation shows what Jesus Christ has said and done since his resurrection. John is not only writing what is to take place but what Jesus Christ is speaking.
These words of Revelation are admirable. We see well the dignity of the pastors since Jesus Christ himself compares them to angels who are in his hand like stars to enlighten and guide people. What virtue and wisdom do we see in them? We have to watch them as brilliant stars, like distinguished lights in the sky of the church? If pastors are like stars, the faithful who compose the church, must be in a perfect union, as they are like a golden lampstand that it to say in love, burning like fire and illuminated with the same light.
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. 3 I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” (Rev 2:1–4)
Revelation tell of the faithfulness of God towards us and the faithfulness that he requires from us. We see the contrast between the purity of God and the impurity of the creature. The pastors can see the greatness of their obligations to their ministry. God will ask an accounting of their virtues, such as love toward their flock and their pastoral zeal. The faithfulness of God is admirable in how he gives his servants knowledge of the defects of souls and his exactitude in accounting all the good that they do. But also, what faithfulness does he require in the soul, what purity does he ask, since his divine light would find obscurity and impurity even in the Sun?
For finally, there is nothing, it seems, more virtuous than this pastor and church, according to the description that the Savior himself makes. However, he reproaches him that he has abandoned the love he had at first. O Love, it seems to me, there are no followers to whom you should not make this reproach! Where are those who have conserved their first ardor? Alas! Where do you find them? They are very rare! In the beginning, it is only service and love; after that, it is only money and misery. We need to have ardor at the beginning, so we can love and serve, yet frequently this is imperfect. We must never tire of doing the will of God or leave God’s way because of pains, dangers, fears, uncertainties, and persecutions.
Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (Rev 2:5–6)
Remember the state from which you have fallen. Who of us has the pure faith of our early belief? We need to repent and gain the faith we have lost.
Jesus Christ loves those who do not do actions of heresy, yet do not hate the people involved. Indeed, the more we experience trouble because of their false faith and deregulated morals, and yet have love for their person, we have zeal to pull them out of their mistakes by gentleness more than disputes.
Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God. (Rev 2:7)
O God, you are the victorious victor and only through you can we conquer. You are, O Jesus, the Lamb victorious over the demon and nature. No one can conquer except in you and through you. But whoever will be victorious through the loss of herself will eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God. But what is the fruit from the tree of life? O Jesus, you give yourself to eat in communion, and the annihilated soul eats in her interior. She receives you as life. To the measure that we are lost in you, you become our life, food, and support. You are the tree of life in the paradise of my God, because you have life within you and all the saints live only in your life. You make all the blessed alive in your life and they live only the life that you communicate as you live only the life that your Father communicates. But it is for those who have an ear to listen and to hear God.
“And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of the first and the last, who was dead and came to life. 9 I know your affliction and your poverty, even though you are rich. I know the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan. 10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Beware, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have affliction. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Rev 2:8–10)
God says many times that he is the first and the last, so that we understand that he is our animating principle and end. The same faith which tells us that he created us tells us that we desire to return to him. We use our strength to return to him as our end and the consummation of all perfection through unity. However, in this century, all who place on God all their hopes and desires, are called heretics and fools. O God, your judgments are different than those of people, as your ways are different from ours!
Jesus Christ is the first and the last, God and man, who being the first in the bosom of the Father is the last for humanity, as it says in the prophets, But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people (Psalm 22:6). He was dead, but now he is alive. We who share in his death, have hope to share in his life. O humans, who are in desolation and in death, think that he died for you and you live in him.
Is there anything more comforting for a poor afflicted soul? I know, says God, your affliction. I know you. Isn’t this the greatest consolation for you? I know your poverty, even though you are rich. What does that mean? It means that the greatest of riches is found in the greatest of poverty. A human who is deprived of all good, desires nothing and finds in her deprivation contentment, even though abandoned from all help and support. She consecrates herself all the more to God even with the estrangement that she feels and because of this possesses a treasure and immense wealth. Because the rich can desire something, they are neither contented or satisfied. But the poor of this type are perfectly content and full and have no care about anything. Without cares, they are perfectly rich.
But these people so peaceful and happy are not known to others because God hides them in his sanctuary from the eyes of others. Their holiness will only be known in eternity. They are slandered and condemned by all the world. They pass for the most miserable in the earth. But who persecutes and slanders them? Those who say that they are Jews
