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"And I would have you know that just as every
imperfection and perfection is acquired from Me, so
is it manifested by means of the neighbor. And simple
souls, who often love creatures with spiritual love,
know this well, for, if they have received My love
sincerely without any self-regarding considerations,
they satisfy the thirst of their love for their
neighbor equally sincerely.
"If a man carry away the vessel which he has
filled at the fountain and then drink of it, the
vessel becomes empty, but if he keep his vessel
standing in the fountain, while he drinks, it always
remains full. So the love of the neighbor, whether
spiritual or temporal, should be drunk in Me, without
any self-regarding considerations.
"I require that you should love Me with the same
love with which I love you. This indeed you cannot
do, because I loved you without being loved. All the
love which you have for Me you owe to Me, so that it
is not of grace that you love Me, but because you
ought to do so. While I love you of grace, and not
because I owe you My love.
"Therefore to Me, in person, you cannot repay the
love which I require of you, and I have placed you in
the midst of your fellows, that you may do to them
that which you cannot do to Me, that is to say, that
you may love your neighbor of free grace, without
expecting any return from him, and what you do to
him, I count as done to Me, which My Truth showed
forth when He said to Paul, My persecutor -- 'Saul,
Saul, why persecute you Me?' This He said, judging
that Paul persecuted Him in His faithful.
"This love must be sincere, because it is with the
same love with which you love Me, that you must love
your neighbor. Do you know how the imperfection of
spiritual love for the creature is shown? It is shown
when the lover feels pain if it appear to him that
the object of his love does not satisfy or return his
love, or when he sees the beloved one's conversation
turned aside from him, or himself deprived of
consolation, or another loved more than he.
"In these and in many other ways can it be seen
that his neighborly love is still imperfect, and
that, though his love was originally drawn from Me,
the Fountain of all love, he took the vessel out of
the water, in order to drink from it. It is because
his love for Me is still imperfect, that his
neighborly love is so weak, and because the root of
self-love has not been properly dug out. Wherefore I
often permit such a love to exist, so that the soul
may in this way come to the knowledge of her own
imperfection, and for the same reason do I withdraw
myself from the soul by sentiment, that she may be
thus led to enclose herself in the house of
self-knowledge, where is acquired every perfection.
After which I return into her with more light and
with more knowledge of My Truth, in proportion to the
degree in which she refers to grace the power of
slaying her own will.
"And she never ceases to cultivate the vine of her
soul, and to root out the thorns of evil thoughts,
replacing them with the stones of virtues, cemented
together in the Blood of Christ crucified, which she
has found on her journey across the Bridge of Christ,
My only-begotten Son. For I told you, if you
remember, that upon the Bridge, that is, upon the
doctrine of My Truth, were built up the stones, based
upon the virtue of His Blood, for it is in virtue of
this Blood that the virtues give life."
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