St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata

Sobornost is a Russian word, pronounced so-bor-nost. Literally it means unity, but to the Russian, it carries a much deeper concept. "It means unity that has been effected through the word of the Gospel."

Sobrania means a gathering, similar to the meaning of the word "liturgy." It is "a gathering of people to perform some kind of communal work. A Russian might say, ‘It was a wonderful sobrania.’"

The following pages are excerpts, quoted from the book Sobornost, Experiencing Unity of Mind, Heart, and Soul by Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Madonna House Publications, ISBN 0-921440-25-1. You are encouraged to purchase and read this book. A copy may be obtained by calling Madonna House Publications, 1-888-703-7110. For more information on Catherin Doherty, Madonna House, and publications by Catherine and others, see the website at http://www.madonnahouse.org/.

"When the people of God become truly ‘bound’ - as all Christians should be—by the will of the Father, into a community, they take on the obedience of the Son. And they rely for total unity of mind and heart on the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, whom the Father sent to remind us of all that the Son has taught.

Sobornost is born in the heart of people who love God and follow him totally and completely, and who love their neighbor. Where this is so, and because this is so, each member of such a family, community, nation or whatever the group, will, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, think alike. This strange phenomenon of ‘thinking alike’ comes from the depth of prayer.

When people behold such a group, it seems that they are looking at an icon of Christ. Each face is a part of the composition of that icon, and the unity is soul-shaking. . . . In the West, which grew more and more individualistic since the so-called Renaissance, unity among people has become rarer and rarer. Just to desire such a unity, however, is already a gift. . . .

[U]nless we live the Gospel—not only preach it, but live it—there can be no unity among us, no sobornost, no gathering of like minds. But few can agree on the Gospel. In order to live the Gospel, one has to move through the life of Jesus Christ. That means abandonment, being rejected, being crucified.

There is no sobornost without crucifixion; it is through pain that one acquires a deep knowledge not found in books or by education. This deep knowledge, given by God and by God alone, builds the foundation of unity. And it is in those depths that one finds the foundation of sobornost, of unity. . . . Sobornost is the manifestation of that unity which Christ asked us to live and reflect, when he prayed to the Father that ‘we might all be one . . . As you are in me and I am in you.’ (John 27:12)" . . .

Sobornost calls for a oneness in the Body of Christ. It is a unity totally at one with him, and hence with the Father and Holy Spirit, as Christ must have been during his life on earth.

We must remember that because we are Christians we are never alone before God. We are always united with other human beings. We are an integral part of one another. What binds us together is love, and only love. For love is a Person. Love is God. . . .

Sobornost is love in action. If you really love, you serve each other. . . . The secret of becoming a community is total involvement in the other. It is a total emptying of oneself so that each of us can say, ‘I live, now, not I, but Christ lives in me.’ (Gal. 2:20) Then the Christian community will come into existence. Then, like the Holy Spirit who formed it, it will be a fire burning in our midst. And from this fire, sparks will kindle the whole earth! . . .

[I]n a team everybody has his say, while in a sobornost everybody has his say – but with a deep spiritual connotation. It’s not a majority, it’s the unanimity that counts. . . . [S]obornost and democracy are far from being the same thing. . . . one of the first signs of sobornost is spontaneity. A whole group spontaneously has the same goal or idea. . . . they think alike; and this strange phenomenon of ‘thinking alike’ comes from the depths of prayer. . . .

Sobornost begins within the heart of people whose prayer life is spent before the Trinity and becomes, as times goes on, a reflection of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If such people become bound by the will of the Father into a community, they assume the obedience of the Son and rely on the Holy Spirit for total unity of mind, heart, and soul.

Sobornost is not ‘the will of the community,’ but God’s will for this community. Those are two different things. . . .

Sobornost is achieved by intense and constant prayer. And when we begin with the mystery of love, then sobornost functions almost automatically. . . . Sobornost deals with grave or big decisions in the sense of things that can make or break an apostolate or a family. Sobornost deals with things of the spirit, of God. . . . the members of a community should communicate and share with each other spontaneously and constantly.

Someone then asked if sobornost and authority include each other. . . . What would be important would be that authority would love as the Father loves and would give itself as the Father has given the Son for our salvation. So the authority in sobornost would be both the ‘suffering servant’ of Yahweh God (Isaiah 52:14) and the ‘person of the towel and the water’ [emphasis added] (John 13:4): Jesus Christ. In a word, authority would be the servant of all, willingly crucified for the needs of all. For authority would be in love with God and people. . . .

So in matters of sobornost we don’t adopt parliamentary procedure, for it is not a question of causing the opinion of the majority to triumph, but of adopting the truth of God’s will in the matter at hand. We do this by the tremendous grace that binds us in love to one another. We stand witness to the truth, which is often hidden in our hearts and which comes forth when we prepare ourselves, in prayer and fasting, to arrive at sobornost.

In sobornost nobody can separate us. . . . Sobornost is total kenosis (self-emptying) and surrender to God, and through God to other persons. . . .

In Madonna House we now elect by sobornost our three Directors-General . . . If upon the first voting there are several names for one office, the electors again go into prayer and fasting. This procedure continues until unanimity has been reached and sobornost implemented. . . .

Sobornost is something that one’s heart catches from another heart. It is a mystery of union between, not only person and person, peoples and peoples, but between God and people. It is a sort of fire, for God has sent his Fire, the Holy Spirit as an Advocate. He has done this so that – in total faith, trust, and love – we might turn to one another and blend with each other in the heart of Christ. We do this, not by holding hands, but by holding hearts.

This has to begin with God. I must melt into God. So I ask him to absorb me totally, completely, so that I may look upon life with his eyes. . . . If I am one with God, then in that fashion I will turn outward toward the rest of the people, and they will turn toward me. Then we will all be one in mind, heart, soul and body. We will be one in emotions and in everything else because we are one whole being immersed in God, desiring his will and doing it. . . .

The thought of an atomic bomb upsets us. But if the bomb were in the hands of St. Francis of Assisi, everyone in the world would relax. Why? Because he would never allow it to explode. Why wouldn’t he? Because he loves! . . . Sobornost is you and I being melted into God and having the same mind because our minds are totally plunged into him, melted into him. . . .

Yes, I think of sobornost as bending. Bending to kiss the face of Christ – which reflects my face and, at the same time, the face of God the Father. What does this bending mean? It means surrender. It means that I acknowledge who I am, and who God is. . . . And our bending turns to prostration. . . . God is God, and I am me, a human person. He is Creator, and I am a creature. . . . I can rise, for now I can really become a child. I can do so because I have understood who God is and who I am. . . . Now I can rise, I can dance and play with God. Now I can be a child. . . .

Now our hearts are open. Why? Because the light of love has penetrated us. Now I can take your heart, and you can take mine. And we can exchange hearts, as did some saints who had God exchange their hearts for his own heart. We can do likewise. We can exchange hearts. And when we do this, we are one. . . .

This is how I see the real foundation of sobornost: my reflection in God’s face; my surrender (bending) to him and his will, which leads to an exchange of hearts with him and with my brothers and sisters in him; my arising from this bending, with the song of sobornost in my heart; and at last becoming a child. ‘I assure you that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matt.18:3)

. . . God hungers for man’s love just as man hungers for God’s love. St. Augustine said, ‘Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.’ The incredible thing, the real mind-blowing thing, is that God reciprocates. He wants to rest in us. . . .

Sobornost cannot function without prayer. For prayer does violence to the secularism of our souls and hearts. . . . In prayer, we quietly invite him to come. And then we listen for that coming. . . . In the West, sobornost often expresses itself through The Prayer of the Presence of God. This is a standing still before God who dwells in our soul’s depths; it is a realization of that Presence, inside and outside of ourselves. It is a powerful prayer, one that doesn’t require that we be in any special place. The whole world is its chapel. . . . it is the supreme act of loving God and being aware of him. It is a prayer without words. . . .

‘Where is the model?’ If only we could see someone practice it, this strange word that comes to us from a strange country, Russia, and is called ‘sobornost’! . . . ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your word.’ Here is the perfection of sobornost. . . . ‘Fiat! Let it be done.’ . . .

Adam and Eve had walked with God in the cool of the evening and talked to him in the garden, in wonderful sobornost. But Mary was the new Eve, who held God in her arms; and her will and his will were one! Yes, she had become sobornost itself, for to be plunged into the divine will of God is the very essence of sobornost. . . . Mary has shown us how to live sobornost deeply, both in profound sorrow and in profound joy.’ . . .

[F]irst and foremost, the Trinity appears to me like fire, flame and eternal motion. This motion translates itself into my heart as ‘creation’ – and creation is an eternal movement. People who create move!

The Trinity is creative. Fire and flame, and a movement which is at the same time inward and outward! . . .Somehow or other, I enter a fantastic realm of faith. . . . and I behold Unity! . . .

In the midst of this unity abides Mary. She isn’t part of the Trinity, of course, but she is surrounded by it in a most intimate way. Her fiat still resounds both in Heaven and on earth, an example to all the faithful. . . .

Remember that all sobornost – which is love! – comes from the heart of the Most Holy Trinity, that first and eternal community of love. . . .

‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. That old order has passed away. Now all is new! All that has been done by God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

I mean that Christ was reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s transgressions against him, and that he has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us. That makes us ambassadors for Christ. God is, as it were, appealing through us. We implore you in Christ’s name to be reconciled to God. . . .’ (2 Cor. 5:17-20) . . .

This is sobornost: to help men to reconcile themselves with one another. This is the work of God in us. . . . In the process of doing what St. Paul says we should do, we will be rebuked, maligned, misunderstood, and rejected. . . . All hell breaks loose in our souls, and even in our minds. . . . We turn our backs to the risk and the joy of this ministry. And we hide. But it doesn’t really matter where we hide, or how; for God always opens new avenues. Even in our ‘hiding’ God makes new paths for us.

There is the poustinia (Russian word meaning ‘desert;’ a place of solitude, silence, prayer and fasting). . . . It can be such a nice place to hide. . . . Strangely enough, the poustinia – whether used as a hiding place or as a true place of prayer and confrontation – is reached by a sort of ‘pilgrimage.’

It may be the eager pilgrimage of youth, or the slower journey of middle age and of old age. For when the Lord calls, he doesn’t care about physical age; he cares about childlikeness. . . . Yes, they arise and they go on this inner pilgrimage that leads eventually to poustinia. They don’t take too much luggage on this journey, and what they do take is soon taken away! For this pilgrimage is about dispossession, the surrender of human attachments.

This pilgrimage is really the foundation of sobornost. It is a ‘letting go’ of everything: of all preconceived notions, all fears, all hesitations. It eventually leads to poustinia; and from there (one hopes) to a deep union with God, with the Trinity, where the heart will be open to sobornost. . . .

If we don’t want to take a risk for Christ, there is no place to go except to an arid desert of sand: the desert of self-will, where Satan will manipulate us as if we were a puppet. . . . When you love, you always take a risk. Love is risk, and the pain and joy of it are incredible. When that risk is connected with God, it becomes really incredible to our poor, human minds. That is because it requires faith, the faith that has been given to us in Baptism, which is God’s greatest gift. . . .to follow Christ is a tremendous risk. To follow him, to strive for this surrender to him, this reconciliation with our brothers and sisters in him, is to tear out by the roots the shrubs of one’s own will, and put them into a fire that really consumes.

We have to enter into the mystery of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s Love burning over us in tongues of fire. It is in this fire, and through this fire alone, that we can become ‘one’ in mind, heart and soul. This following of Christ will plant in us the seeds of God’s will. And, as they grow, they will mold our lives.

As we grow in prayer and surrender, always trying for a deeper sobornost with our brethren, we will, at a certain point in life, reach the freedom of God. We will have gone through sorrow, pain, and difficulties, and yet have remained faithful. Then by the grace of God, we will be filled to the very depths of our being with peace and with freedom.

This freedom brings us ‘vision’ and we begin to know without knowing (because it is a mystery of God) that we are ‘one.’ We begin to feel a fantastic unity between us and the whole world. We have loved others in this ‘new creation’ that Christ has made of us, and out of our love has come this freedom.

It is beyond words, beyond our imagination. We have reached sobornost. We are one in the Spirit, one in the Trinity; and so we move with one ‘breath’ as it were. . . .

In the last chapter, I explained the pilgrimage that leads to poustinia. It’s a strange pilgrimage. . . . It’s an inner pilgrimage of dispossession, to slowly learn to become ‘naked,’ even as Christ was naked on the cross. When you have nothing left to ‘cover’ yourself with, it is then that you begin to see and understand. It is then that you are ready to preach the Gospel. You can share with others what is being given to you so abundantly.

What is being given to you? A very simple thing. For you have been cleansed. The healing, living hand of Jesus Christ has touched ‘all’ of you. . . . Now you have a clean heart, the heart of a child. You lift it up to God and, like Our Lady, you say, ‘Let it be done to me according to your word.’ And you learn to surrender like Our Lord did. Oh, for a moment, perhaps, you might have said even as he did, ‘Let this chalice pass by me.’ But then you immediately continued, as Christ did: ‘Not my will be done, but yours!’

So you are not the same person that you were. You are now a person whose will is blended with God’s will. In fact, his will and yours are one! You desire only what he desires. Your will does not clash with his will; not any more. That’s all gone. You are united to him! Now sobornost grows in your heart, and you are able to pass it on to others. . . .

This pilgrimage has made your heart empty, simple, a place where you can rest in peace, where nothing distracts you, nothing! . . . Here, in this inner poustinia – notwith-standing the fact that friends and strangers, and even God, may visit it – you have to undergo the flowering of your Baptism, whether you have been baptized as a child or as an adult.

Slowly and quite clearly, the Spirit will teach you. Christ baptized in water and the spirit, so you can expect that the Spirit will teach you. He will teach you the infinite riches of the Church of the Lord, that Church which was born out of his side, the Church of which he became the head, the Church which is his Mystical Body, the Church which is the salvation of nations. In this poustinia you will know what the Church is, and you will know what God asks of you – for himself, for the people of God, and for the world.

He asks you to be his ambassador. But to be an ambassador of Christ is not a temporary job; it is lifelong. And it is a mission that belongs to every baptized Christian; it is not for a selected few. It is not without risk. It means that, at the risk of your very life, you have to preach the Gospel without compromise.

You go into the depths of the inner poustinia, within your own heart. It is there that, with trembling, you learn to face yourself. It is there that sobornost is strengthened. The pilgrimage has made the ‘bricks’ and now the poustinia makes the ‘cement’ that holds the bricks.

You will learn the cost of love, the love to which Christ calls all his followers. You will have to face all the risks of that love. He said, ‘Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.’ You must realize that this risk may even lead you to physical death.

But perhaps the greatest risk will be sobornost! For now you have made the pilgrimage, and have come to the poustinia of your heart. Now you are trying to blend your will with God’s will. You will begin to know the pain of constant crucifixion, and the joy of constant resurrection. The poustinia will make you ‘free’ to the deepest inner part of your soul. . . . This, then is the role of your inward pilgrimage, your inner poustinia: to unite you with God and to teach you to be united with all of your brethren. Yes, this is unity. This is sobornost."

. . . To be ‘baptized’ into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (see Rom. 6:3) is to be given the key to God’s heart. This is not easy to explain. We must be aware of the constant climbing of ‘the mountain of the Lord’ that is before us. We have to enter the realm of faith and see its dimensions. . . . For to be baptized in Christ and to rise up in Christ means to become a contemplative. . . . it is a gift that is part and parcel of our being baptized! It is not something unusual, or for the few. . . .

These sacramental waters transform us. We do not emerge from Baptism the way we entered it. . . . The waters of Baptism cleanse, purify, heal beyond the understanding of the human mind. At the moment of immersion (or when the water touches us in one way or another) we become new persons. Totally new! . . .

There is no denying that every Christian must make this pilgrimage of love to God the Father. To do this, you have to love your neighbor. It’s a long pilgrimage, because you have to love yourself first, before you can love anybody else. You have to walk that long road inwardly, take that inner journey, that pilgrimage which alone will make you touch Christ who dwells within you. . . . The journey inward, the inner pilgrimage, involves really ‘living out’ the graces of your Baptism.

This journey has to pass through a strange place which I call a poustinia. If your feet are firmly planted on the path of this pilgrimage (which is Jesus Christ who said, ‘I am the way") then you will have to pass through this ‘house’, this symbolic poustinia not made of hands – the one you are going to build in your own heart.

There, the path of Jesus Christ passes through your heart, and stops for a while. There you will find a spot where you can pray, where God can speak to your heart. This is so necessary because sobornost is a style of life, it is a heart-style. And it is achieved only by intense and constant prayer. . . . All of us must do so [go through the poustinias of our hearts], because we have to face ourselves and discard everything that is not of God. As this is done, the doors of the heart open up to everyone, for those who walk the path of Jesus Christ always have time for others. . . . Some day, your symbolic house will vanish. There will be no poustinia room or cabin in your heart. . . . Nothing will remain but love!

Quite suddenly you will realize that you are being called to another pilgrimage. A voice will come to you and say, ‘Come higher, friend!’ . . .

Remember you are ‘naked’ as Christ was naked! You have made the pilgrimage. You have gone through the poustinia. As you walk up, up, up the mountain, you wonder where you are being led. You realize that it’s still the way of Jesus Christ; you are still walking in his footsteps. But now it’s uphill. . . .

There will be moments when you will fall upon the path of the Lord, exhausted, torn apart. Remember, to be baptized is to follow Christ, to die and rise with him. Don’t forget the dying! Those who follow Christ must always pass through Golgotha and the Cross. As soon as they do, they enter the light of the Resurrection. . . .

As you move higher, you see farther, because the atmosphere is so clear. You see the disunity of families, of children and parents, of [Franciscan] brothers and sisters, [of Franciscan communities,] of fellow Christians. You fall on the path of the Lord as one who is dead, and you stay there awhile, without knowing why. Time ceases to exist. . . . Now the Spirit of the Lord will lift you up. He will revive your faith, your love, your hope.

You will know that you were baptized for this: to bring peace, harmony, love, faith, and hope to people, to those the Lord will allow you to meet throughout your life.

Your feet are wedded to this pathway and your heart to the one who said, "I am the way." You deeply realize what it means to walk through a poustinia, still ‘naked.’ But now you begin to acquire, through the Holy Spirit, the gifts of wisdom, knowledge and understanding. You discover that the beginning of sobornost is you being absorbed by God!

. . . From now on, you will hear the inner voice that calls you onto the mountain again and again . . . "Friend, come up higher."

. . . It is now your time to bring sobornost to your brethren. . . . Now, with great love and compassion, you will direct your whole life, your apostleship, your ambassadorship, to promoting brotherhood. . . .This is the task of sobornost. For this you go on ‘laying down your life’ as Christ asked you to do. For this you continue to undergo martyrdom, even as Our Lady underwent it. . . . You are constantly crying to God for faith. And it will continue that way until you die! . . .

We have come from the heart of God. We are one with him who has said, ‘I have come to serve.’ The one who washed the feet of his apostles, which in those days signified service. (John 13:3-17) . . .

The time is now. Let the baptized be one, as one as the Trinity is one. Deepen sobornost. Look, the world is fragmented. People relate to one another as if they were enemies, even the baptized! Terror reigns in the hearts of men, and fear in the hearts of children. This cannot be!

In apostolic times, it was said, ‘See how the Christians love one another’; today it can only be said, ‘Look how these Christians hate one another.’ . . .

With the gifts of love and tenderness and the compassion of God, of Jesus Christ, we can ‘seal’ the heart of another to ours, as ours is sealed to God. And so begins a chain of hearts which are sealed to God and to one another. Now there is sobornost! That is the unity that must exist. . . .

Abiding in our midst is Sobornost incarnated, personified. It is the person of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist – that tremendous sign of unity! . . . He gathers us. He calls us. Listen! He calls us to come, and he says: ‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." (John 6:54) . . . It is here that the Son of Man – the Son of God – brings us together around a table, a sobrania, a gathering of the faithful who believe. . . .

Those of us who believe, those of us who have been ‘wedded’ through sobornost with the heart of the Trinity; whose faith has been given in Baptism, now experience its fullness. . . . Sobornost finds it roots, its essence, its very ‘reason for being’ in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is Christ who brings about oneness; and all of us together are united in his love for us, our love for him, and our love for one another. We know that the essence of the Mass is the consecration of the Bread and Wine. . . .

Behold the cleansing of the lepers! We lepers are cleansed by the Eucharist, and we become one. We who are baptized become shiny; and from our hearts the praise of God rises like a thousand songs, for we have been freed once again. Once again we have gone through the death of Christ and into his resurrection.

There is another aspect of the Holy Eucharist. Incredible as it may seem, you and I possess the strength of God, for God is in us! . . . Now the road to sobornost is ours, for we are penetrated with God. Now nothing is impossible to our prayer of faith. . . . Now we stride across mountains like gazelles, following our Beloved; and mountains become our habitat. . . . ‘Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth.’ (Song 1:2) Not only does he become one with us, but he ‘kisses’ us. We know that, although pain will come our way, this pain is really the kiss of Christ. . . . this pain he shares with us, is also for others. We, too, can make up what is ‘wanting’ in the sufferings of Christ. (Col. 1:24) . . .

We, too, are being allowed to suffer with him. Our sufferings are being lifted up like a chalice held by Our Lady and placed at the feet of the Father. . . . All our aches and pains and emotional problems, collected in that chalice, can be poured out like a benediction over the whole world. . . .

Starting with the Holy Eucharist, our communication can reestablish the unity that has been broken between God and man. . . .

Through the Eucharist, we truly begin to ‘fall in love’ with God. We start to open ourselves wide to others. We don’t close anything. What have we to hide, after all? That we are sinners? Well, for whom else did Christ come, except sinners? . . .

‘Listen! The Bridegroom comes!’ Sobornost becomes the breath of the Lover, the Beloved!

. . . But now Baptism, prayer, contemplation, pilgrimage, poustinia, and the ascent of the mountain, must become real. Now we must show the world the reality of Christ.

The only way to show the reality of Christ is to become an icon of Christ, a reflection of his face. And the reflection of his face will make us not only pray but serve. The two go together. For those who follow Christ, there is no service without prayer, and no prayer without service. They pray always, and they serve always.

So we have to enter the world – not the world that God condemned as evil, but the world he created, the beautiful world. And we have to restore it. . . .

Our service must be service in Christ. We must act as Christ would act. We must ask ourselves each time, ‘What would Christ do, if he were I?’ The Gospel will tell us. But we will have to follow him without compromise. . . .

There is so little compassion in our society. Each wants his pound of flesh and doesn’t care where he gets it.

It is so simple. Those who decide to practice the Gospel without compromise, to accept the risk of following Christ, can bring hope.

. . . For the baptized know no strangers; they know only brotherhood. Their hands are always open to hold the hands of another. They form a chain, and together they walk into the darkness, the darkness created by Satan.

The baptized are not afraid, you see, because they walk in prayer, and they walk to serve. They are not afraid because they walk in the shadow of the Lord. He walks ahead of them . . . So hope walks again, because those who understand sobornost do not quarrel among themselves. They are not divisive, for division serves Satan effectively and kills hope easily. They know now that they have to hold one another’s hands. They know now that they have to think ‘alike,’ to think as their brother Jesus Christ thinks; otherwise, their strength dwindles. There is no divisiveness among those who understand what it is all about. [Emphasis added.]

They are not all alike. There is diversity in them . . . . But among that great diversity is a vast unity fashioned by following Christ without compromise, by loving God, loving themselves, loving each other, loving everybody they meet, especially their enemies. . . .

The only way to bring hope is to sharpen a lance of love and thrust it deeply into your own heart, thus making a door for everybody to go through to Christ. Sometimes the face of Christ is so obscure that your face must be a pathway between him and the other. . . . You must make them come into your wound of love! Going through the wound of love, they are resurrected in hope, for they see the face of Christ within you. . . . So the baptized, those who love God and eat his Body and Blood, must constantly strive to live deeply in this sobornost and thus show the face of God to others.

Arise – go! Sell all you possess . . . give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me – going to the poor – being poor – being one with them – one with me.

Little – be always little . . . simple – poor – childlike.

Preach the Gospel WITH YOUR LIFE – WITHOUT COMPROMISE. Listen to the Spirit – He will lead you.

Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.

Love – love – love, never counting the cost.

Go into the marketplace and stay with Me . . . pray . . . fast . . . pray always . . . fast.

Be hidden – be a light to your neighbor’s feet. Go without fears into the depths of men’s hearts . . . I shall be with you.

Pray always. I WILL BE YOUR REST.

Jesus said, ‘He who has seen me has seen my Father.’ Later he promised his disciples that he would not leave them orphans. He said, ‘I will send to you from the Father the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father . . .’ (John 15:26).

. . . We have a Father – an ‘Abba’ (‘Daddy’)! We are not alienated. We are not abandoned. We are not orphans. We are not rejected. None of these things will happen to us, simply because we have a Father. . . .

If the hands of your heart are folded on the lap of your heart, if your intellect has closed its wings, and if you are at rest, the rest that only God can give, then much of the mystery of the Trinity will be revealed to you in the various ways that the Lord desires. But all the time you will know that you have a Father, and that will change your life.

Yes, you have a Father who is in Heaven. You have a Brother, Jesus Christ, whom the Father sent to redeem us – even unto his death on the cross. . . . The Holy Spirit, promised by the Father and Son, makes his appearance among us. . . . The Promised One had come, he whom Jesus Christ called ‘the Advocate’ . . . a ‘consoler,’ one who stands ‘close by’ (para) to ‘speak’ (kalein) a word of encouragement. . . . In the East . . . the thought is simply ‘Consoler’ – and the Trinity is named the Father, the Brother, the Consoler.

Just think of that! You who are lonely, don’t be lonely! You have a Father. You have a Brother. You have a Consoler. Moreover, you have a Mother – Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. . . .

But those who believe in God, who are baptized in him, will allow the waters of the Spirit to flow freely. Those who follow God faithfully, who reflect the face of the Father as they walk the path of the Lord Jesus Christ, will allow themselves to rest in the arms of the Holy Spirit. They will accept his consolation. And they will keep it, as they journey along, by holding the hand of Our Lady.

It is time that we make a deep commitment to God, to the Trinity. . . . We are living in difficult times. Unless we become one with Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit, we will perish. . . . Indeed, this is a time of grave risk. . . . We must stop being wishy-washy about our lives. We must commit them to him who loves us with a love beyond all understanding. He is continually calling us to this commitment!

We must watch and pray, for the days of tomorrow will weep over us if we do not. This is the time, this is the hour to say ‘yes’ to God! Or it will inevitably be a ‘yes’ to somebody else.

This total commitment, this total ‘yes’ to God and his will is true sobornost. May Our Lady help us to live it all the days of our lives!"