I began my prayer period with thanksgiving. My Father has amazed me with His omniscience, wisdom, and broad view of the totality of things. As I went about my household tasks this morning, He showed me how He was braiding together several strands of events and situations in my life that seem unrelated, but in fact, are part of a single plan. How could anyone put his trust in anything but Him! Only He knows the true meaning of all the strands!

I returned to Luke 15: 1 - 10, and asked my Father to help me understand what He was trying to teach me about the unity of His flock and the return of the lost sheep. He gave me the imagery of an infected finger, and the fever it caused in the body as a whole. Thus, the sin in one member of the flock has an effect on all. Through this, I understand that God loves us both singularly and collectively. The singular love springs from the collective.

My Father went deeper into the mystery of the unity of the sheep. He taught me further of the External Church. I didn’t quite grasp what He was saying to me, so He led me to John 10: 7 – 18.

Verse 16: “I have other sheep . . . There shall be one flock then, one shepherd,” was very enlightening. The other sheep are those on the other paths to the Inner Church (Kingdom of God). On the Last Day, all the paths will be united. By that I mean the underlying unity of all the paths will be understood and accepted by all. We will recognize that these paths are but strands that our Father has braided together to form a whole. Just as He created us each as individuals, so He calls us together in individual groups according the amounts and types of graces He has given us. The differences in these paths are unimportant to Him; what is vital is that which is held in common – love for Him and for the other individuals on the paths to the Kingdom. When we come as a whole to this understanding, the External Church will reach true unity. When this happens, God’s plan will be fulfilled. The External Church will be perfectly united to the Internal Church. There will be one flock, one shepherd. All God’s People will be one with Him.

This I had to understand before He could teach me about the lost sheep’s total significance. As He had shown me, the infected finger can cause a fever in the whole body (path, flock). The infection can then spread to the other paths. It has done this, thus the thousand ills of this sick world.

There is only one medicine for the world – forgiveness, God’s forgiveness of us, and our forgiveness of each other. The two forgivings are needed for the ultimate union for which the Father of all created the world.

My Father has not finished teaching me of this mystery of union. There is something I don’t understand yet. Why is there more joy at the return of the lost sheep than over those that remain faithful? Having been a lost sheep, myself, this is particularly important to me. I will return to this tomorrow, and ask my Father for the grace of this understanding.

Continued:

How good my Father is to me! He called me to prayer again, rather briefly, and granted me such graces of understanding that I can hardly think where to begin to tell you about them!

First, have no fear, ever! of a global nuclear war. Our Father will not permit it. The angels, themselves, will shield God’s beloved creation from such a wound. But He let the world be destroyed once before by waster, I asked, and didn’t I read somewhere that fire would be next? That has already happened! The old world was recreated in the cleansing fire of Pentecost, purchased by Jesus’ blood. The agent of destruction in the flood was water, a prime element of all living things. The agent of destruction at Pentecost was the fiery indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the prime element of all spiritual life. Nuclear destruction would be deadly – only death could come from it. It would be the victory of evil over good. (Destruction over creation.) To believe in the reality of global nuclear war is to believe in the ultimate supremacy of evil! The world as we know it will end in neither bang nor whimper. It will end in the sighs of bliss of those of the Kingdom when External Church unites with Internal Church, and all is one. That is His plan.

What of Armageddon, I asked? We are living it now, and have been every day since Pentecost. He gave me the imagery of light and dark fluctuating, representing sin and reparation. This, He showed me, was Armageddon in action.

But why are we wasting our resources in making weapons of evil for a war that will never be? This, He assured me, is what He will ask of those responsible.

When the threat of nuclear war hangs over us, trust our Father. He will use it as a shepherd’s crook to guide back lost lambs. Trust in His love for His creation, for which He gave His Son.