Perfection Series VIII Part XII Know your religion....

 A few bullet points from Raissa, from 1919:

• True prophecies need no dates or times, as God is outside of time and He sees all. Therefore, we should not get caught up in specifics, but in the message which God wants to convey-repentance.
• Raissa notes, in 1919, that the world has gone mad with consumerism, relativism, and determinism-her excellent discernment uses these very words. 
• She notes that civilization since the Renaissance, has moved away from seeing the city as the City of God, and therefore, men move farther away from God, towards money and comfort.
• The only thing which can save civilization and renew the Church, is "intelligence enlightened by faith". I feel totally justified in my own efforts on this blog to help Catholics think, and think like Catholics. To ignore the intellect is to doom us all to decay and more "madness", as Raissa notes.
• One must admit it will be the few who will pray and enter into a relationship with God, thereby renewing others. Such was the role of the saints, and such is our role, the role of the remnant.
• Raissa states that curiosity is NOT seeking the truth among students, and may I add, many Catholics who are adults. She writes, "The person who loves truth, seek to know the first causes, an ultimate knowledge beyond which one cannot go. ....I have always had the keenest desire to know the ultimate truths, not being able to base my life on uncertainties, not being willing to base it on feelings uncontrolled by reason."
• I could be writing that last paragraph ....and to all who follow emotion and experience rather than knowledge.
• Holiness increases true knowledge.
• Wisdom, proper to truth, leads to detachment.

She adds that man must go to meet God "by searching for truth" , which is why the Dark Night, I add, is so important, because only in that time of purification do we see ourselves as we really are.

Another thought from this section--she quotes Pascal; "Truth is so obscured in these days and falsehood so entrenched that unless one loves the truth once cannot recognize it."

I think of Pilate-asking "What is truth?" when Truth was standing right in from of him.

He could not see it as he did not love the truth.

Raissa writes this cry from the heart--"Know your religion, Catholics, know your greatness."

I have tried to teach all of you on this blog...to know your religion, know the truth, know your greatness. There is a deep pain in me when I realize that I have not been able to share truth with those I love the most. Such a sadness is part of the detachment God demands from me-to not be able to love those I love in truth, to be denied the opportunity to show these loved ones their own greatness.

to be continued...