Such a busy prayer period! My Father was throwing ideas at me at a fast pace. We began with Luke 18:18-30. Here He worked with me about putting material things into proper perspective. Of themselves, things are neither good nor evil, but we can have either a good or evil response to them. (1) We can see them as God’s gifts and put them to the use God intended. Or, we can make them our gods and become slaves to what we have. Later, when we moved to Luke 6:17-26, my Father summed it up nicely for me. To one who follows Him, material things are merely a means to an end; to one who follows Satan, they are an end unto themselves.

Matthew 13:24-30 and 35-43 was very exiting to me. Through these passages, my Father went more deeply into what He has been teaching me about the Interior Church and the Exterior Church. As He explained in the passage, evil (the weeds) is allowed to continue on until the harvest (end of our world) because to uproot the evil would mean uprooting the wheat (good). The wheat field (Exterior Church) must continue on until it is ripe and ready for the harvest. The ripeness is the unity of all the paths of the Exterior Church -- all the wheat gathered into one barn.

He also taught me about the Purgatorial state through this passage. The wheat field, as a whole, must be left to ripen. However, He cares about us individually as well as collectively. Some individual ears of wheat, if left in the field, would perish because of the weeds. To prevent this, these ears need to be removed from the field, and be transplanted into a greenhouse where they can receive special care to ripen properly. (2) This greenhouse is Purgatory. The “suffering” there consists of the certainty of their eventual union with God, but not having achieved it yet. So near, yet so far!

Matthew 6:17-34 taught me that worrying is a minor form of despair. Our human need for security is one of the weaknesses Satan has a field day with. If we hold fast to our Father, He will see that we have everything we need. In I Peter 3:1-3, 7, we have very practical advice on how to hold fast to Him.

(1) Spiritual director: Yes.

(2) My note to the spiritual director: See 4/21 before you comment on this! (3)

(3) Spiritual director: OK!