April 21, 2004

"We need to distinguish between those who are groping for the true light and those who want to be in control of their own light.

"Tremendous poverty is required to be contemplative. There was a saying about St. Francis of Assisi that he was so poor that he could hide in the light.

"Jesus is the only light. He must become everything to such an extent that we become hidden vs. becoming sages with our own lights as some academics like to be.

"We ask the Lord to help us in the obscurity of our faith. We have to ask Jesus to help us. We have many partial truths that are not the true light. We need to die to ourselves and look for the resurrection of the mind in great poverty.

"During this Easter time we need to try to die to everything we need to die to. Dying as a Christian is on-going! St. Francis de Sales used to say that our egoism will die fifteen minutes after we do!

"The poor souls in Purgatory are dying to themselves, to aspects of themselves they clung to that they need to be despoiled of to enter into heaven. When they are in heaven they will pray for us about this spiritual death and resurrection, because on earth they had good will or, at the end prayed for God's mercy. But still they didn't quite get it and now they do, so we should pray to them to help us die to whatever in us is not true light."