I returned to Revelations 21 and 22, and my Father taught me more about His Church through the symbolisms in these chapters. The biggest point He brought across to me was that His Kingdom on earth is here and now. That was very hard for me to accept for two reasons. The first is the state of the world. The Kingdom of God isn’t very visible on the nightly news. The second reason is that I’ve always associated the New Jerusalem with the Second Coming. It isn’t, though. It’s the product of the First Coming; it is God dwelling among men. Verse 6 of chapter 21, “These words are already fulfilled!” made this quite clear to me. My Father showed me why it is difficult to see His Kingdom among us, too. Each person chooses to be a part of His Kingdom, or to be a part of the world. Those that chose the world will never see the Kingdom in their midst. They can’t see what they don’t believe in. Those who claim citizenship in the Kingdom in name only are actually part of the world. It is only those who actually have entered the Kingdom that can see and understand its presence, and its reality now. (1)

My Father clarified some concerns of mine as to who could chose to live in His Kingdom. The answer was anyone. All that mattered was a thirst for the living water - truth (21: 6). It is what goes on in an individual’s heart that determines citizenship, not what rituals he performs, nor where he performs them.

However, and this was important, there are higher ways and lower ways of entrance into the Kingdom. Those on the higher paths should not judge those who are sincerely following a lower path. But, should they leave a higher path to embrace a lower one, they are throwing away a very precious gift and that will be taken into account.

My Father used the imagery of the twelve gates inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (21: 12-13) to explore this further. The twelve tribes were Jacob’s twelve sons. These sons had four different mothers. Two were wives with full legal status; two were concubines. According to the customs of the times, Jacob could have treated the sons of his legal wives differently than the sons of the concubines. Rather, he chose to see them all as his sons, not the sons of mothers with various social standings. He treated them equally. Similarly, because of Jesus’ humanity, our Father sees any person who seeks Him as His son or daughter, no matter the status of the “mother” (path to Him). (2)

I want to return to these chapters tomorrow. I still have some confusion about what my Father was teaching me about the Internal Church and the External Church. Perhaps He will continue on that subject tomorrow.

(1) Spiritual director: Quite a gift of insight.

(2) Spiritual director: Julian of Norwich was also shown this!