Church of Jesus Christ of the Universe

By Stefania Caterina and Tomislav Vlašić

28 April 2015

Dearest brothers and sisters, I hope we have not upset you when we showed you the action of the devil – you need to know him in life.[1] Unfortunately, today’s people, even Christians do not know this reality or are confused in these things. We had to insert it into the reflections about how to overcome death. As I said, if we do not overcome death, we do not overcome the devil; If we do not overcome the influence of the spirit of evil, we cannot overcome death. They are connected with each other.

We want to continue to speak about our topic “Overcoming death“, which is developed in the book “Beyond the Great Barrier”, in the chapter “The First Death” on page 268.[2] I would like to advise you to prepare for every reflection by consecrating yourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and to the burning heart of St. Joseph so that your thoughts and perceptions may raise up to Christ. Invoke the holy Angels of God so that they may help you become open to Him and protect you, according to His will, against false visions, false perceptions and the spiritual confusion of today’s world. I bless you; may you feel that we bless and accompany you in all your reflections and in your daily lives. Let us listen to the passage we have chosen for today, and then conclude with a reflection.

The First Death

“There is a first death that man must overcome in order to enter into salvation. It is death to himself, a renunciation of his own selfishness. It is selling what he possesses in order to follow Jesus Christ.

In the Gospel, there is talk of the young wealthy man who left, feeling very sad, because he possessed much wealth, which he could not detach himself from.[3] The invitation to detach ourselves from wealth not only refers to material goods, but also to spiritual ones. In man, there is a sense of self-satisfaction in the things of the spirit. Man attaches himself to his spirituality, to his way of praying, of understanding holiness. These are the “goods” that man holds on to for himself. Many are those who believe to be righteous before God, who think of themselves as saints and doctors of the law. This is also a form of attachment to goods. The Lord asks you to strip yourselves of your spiritual wealth in which you trust very much.

For man, it is fundamentally important to accept death first. Only in this manner will he not experience the second death when he presents himself before God’s judgement. On the other hand, those who refuse to die to themselves will inevitably have to experience the second death, because the selfish cannot enter into the peace of God and into fullness. Those who believe that they can enter God’s Kingdom, taking all of their assets with them, are mistaken. The poor will enter God’s Kingdom, that is, those who have stripped themselves of everything they are attached to.”

Attachment is the cause of all fear in man. It is necessary to strip yourselves of your ego in order to eliminate fear and enter into purity. Fear does not even allow man to experience purity. It is necessary to leave everything. This is a fundamental step in your journey. When you feel a certain sense of attachment within yourselves, free yourselves of it, offering everything to God and offering yourselves to God. This will enable you to overcome death. If you accept to die to yourselves, you have already overcome death.”

(St. Raphael the Archangel, 25 February 2001)

 

The first sentences of this message are fundamental for our reflection: “There is a first death that man must overcome in order to enter into salvation. It is death to himself, a renunciation of his own selfishness. It is selling what one possesses in order to follow Jesus Christ.” What is the essence of this sentence? Human beings have taken possession of their life; they have become mortal, corruptible and corrupt. By taking possession of their own life, they have become selfish, they have become false people, and they have given themselves a wrong identity. If they do not die to themselves in this life, they cannot become new people. God does not take our life for His pleasure, nor does He ask us for useless sacrifices, but He wants to create us anew so that we may be happy and fulfilled people. If we do not go through the first death, death remains in us, we will not reach resurrection, and thus we will not overcome death. It is very important to understand that no sacrifice, no trial that God allows, is meant to harm us. If we do not understand this process, we remain in the ill thinking that God does things to make us suffer and that He does not govern our life; on the contrary, God governs our life perfectly in Jesus Christ if we die to ourselves and live for the life that is in God. That is life as it is conceived at the time of our conception and given to us; it is life that will blossom in fullness.

There is another passage in which God asks us to sell what we own in order to follow Jesus Christ. What does selling mean here? Our selfishness grows, draws to us and enslaves the people around us. Take the example of a husband who wants to possess his wife or vice versa; they become each other’s slaves. Think of possessive parents. Today we notice that couples often want to have children only to satisfy themselves, or, they force their children to become the way want them to be, and thus destroy them; such people are the masters of their children, not their parents. This is what happens to all the things we want to possess, even our life. Jesus says: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Mt 16,25). This also applies to the gifts God freely bestows; if we want to possess them for ourselves, they become condemnation for us. We have said that these are the times when God takes away the graces He has given for free, and He no longer allows the representatives of the Church to corrupt the people; not even the governors will be able to corrupt the people.

Therefore, if you want to continue the path of the recapitulation of all things in Christ, if you want to continue the path that leads you directly to the new creation, it is indispensable that you die to yourselves. I repeat: this is not something sick or negative. Dying to selfishness opens us to God who saves us, so that God may act freely in us to lead us to the new creation, to full redemption. Therefore, as St. John says, already here on Earth, God loved us so much to make us His children, and now we truly are His children. All Christians can truly experience this within themselves. The experience of being children of God, of having the identity of children of God, is so strong that evil will not touch us; evil will not attack us. Children are like a healthy plant that grows and bears fruit.

Thus, it is very important that we meditate, reflect, pray and look into ourselves as in a mirror. We must let all that generates death in us die because it comes from our selfishness; Satan, who acts from outside, inflates our selfishness. Invoke the Most Holy Mother, invoke St. Joseph, invoke the holy angels who follow God’s will and help you in your life. Please, do not focus on visions; even the visions that God allows as signs must disappear and must lead us to the intellectual vision, the immediate vision of the spirit. Our soul, our spirit, our whole being will begin to contemplate the truth of God, and we will enter the light. There will no longer be any mysteries and we will enter the reality of God as it is.

Today I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ so that you may receive the light of God and free yourselves of the fear of looking deeply into yourselves, allowing Jesus to remove from you all confused thoughts, all fears, all false perceptions, all false impulses. May He cut away from you, as Saint John says, all that does not bear fruit. I bless you so that you may continue on this path, avoiding the confusion of the world, even of the spiritual world; today the spiritual world that surrounds us is very confused. I bless you so that you may enter into the immaculateness of perception, will and action, because this is what God wants. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

[1] This refers to the reflections of 21 and 24 April 2015

[2] See S. Caterina, “Beyond the Great Barrier”, Luci dell’Esodo, 2008, p. 268, https://www.lucidellesodo.it/en/

[3] See Mk 10,17-27