Tuesday, March 04, 2003 5:59 PM

A short report from Vassula

“Yahweh, You Yourself are my lamp,

my God lights up my darkness?” Ps 18:28

Dear friends,

In my earlier days of conversion I was called daily by our Lord to receive instruction. His converse was religion and virtue. Later on I was led by strings of love to address many people in different nations and pass on our Lord’s Words and the teachings of Wisdom.

Scriptures say: “Work for the Lord with untiring effort and with great earnestness of spirit. If you have hope, this will make you cheerful. Do not give up if trials come; and keep on praying.” Rm 12:11-12 It is difficult to understand God’s methods, but when one trusts the Lord blindly, everything that seems impossible to us, becomes possible with God for He alone is Wisdom.

Everyone must have noticed by now God’s powerful arm. We have watched Him routing the proud of heart but rescuing the helpless; pulling down the pompous and the arrogant from their seats while raising the simple of heart. Thus he shows His tender mercy to all of us, leading us to serve Him in holiness and virtue to guide our feet into the way of peace and reconciliation. Scriptures say: God opposes the proud but he gives generously to the humble.” Pr 3:34 Therefore, the nearer you come to God the nearer He will come to you.

For all the good that He has done to us, I thank my God. By entrusting me with His divine message, the True Life in God message, I consider it as a duty that has been laid on me to protect it but make it known as well. I have been given a command from God, to spread this message, and when some clergy asks me why am I going around spreading these messages instead of being home to attend the house duties of a wife, I simply say that, were I not to do what God has asked me I will surely be punished. “If I had chosen this work myself, I might have been paid for it, but as I have not, it is a responsibility which has been put into my hands.” 1Co 9:17. Whom am I trying to please? Man, or God?

I thank God for putting you all in His heart and making you labourers as well in this work of mercy too. One day you will see that all the work you have put in, the results will be worthy. I keep praying to our Lord that the readiness He has planted in you would always remain alive.

After going around the world proclaiming God’s mercy for years and drawing through the messages people to recognize the friendship of our Father in heaven, reminding them that the key that leads one to the knowledge of God is through repentance and intimacy, and after calling the churches to repent for their sin of division and reconcile with one another and be one in the heart, I have now, in these last months been shown by the Lord His next new step. The Spirit of the Lord is leading me recently to go among non-Christians and be a witness of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation. Remember, Christ is the peace between mankind. It is through Him that peace will come. Has He not made the Gentile and the Jew into one, breaking down the barrier that used to keep them apart, actually destroying in his own person the hostility caused by the rules and decrees of the Law? Has He not reconciled the creature and the Creator? Through Christ everyone has in the one Spirit his own way to come to the Father.

So far the Spirit of the Lord led me to be in four inter-religious meetings. It seems that the starting point always begins from Bangladesh. The first Word of God that came to me was in Bangladesh. The first inter-religious discourse I made was again in Bangladesh a year ago. Nothing was really planned, but everything that happened was like Someone else was programming it leading it to become inter-religious. Then before the end of last year, the Philippine True Life in God group organized an inter-religious meeting in a private home. The Archbishop of Taiwan as well called different religious leaders to gather in his house, and asked me to address them as well. As I was not aware of this program, I was totally taken unaware. I had not been prepared nor did I have in my hands a proper speech. For one moment, I was wondering what the Lord is doing to me. I was wondering why isn’t He taking things in moderation with me. Yet the Lord was there and He came to my help and gave me words that resemble the speech I prepared for the peace award inter-religious meeting in Dhaka.

The fourth inter-religious meeting was an invitation by the Venerable Suddhananda Mahathero President of the Bangladesh Bouddha Kristi Prachar Sangha to receive from them the “Atisha Dipankar & Visuddhananda peace award.” The gold medal for propagating peace in the world as they said really belongs to Jesus, not to me. This event was done on the occasion of the 94th birthday of the late President and founder of the Buddhist Monastery. This great event in Dhaka was inaugurated by Reverand Michael Rozario, Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Bangladesh. Among the special guests that evening was also the Secretary of the Apostolic Nuncio in Dhaka, Professor Nazrul Islam of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Dhaka, representatives of the four major religions, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, among the over a thousand crowd.

Enrolling me in such inter-religious dialogues was the last thing I expected from our Lord, but the Lord never ceases to surprise me. God does not waste time. He commands. He executes. But He does this with great love. Lately our Lord said these words:

“I do not speak with rigid formulations, this is not the way I make saints and martyrs;

My sweet converse to you is virtue and religion;

I address My Odes with no sword by My side;

My divine mysteries are loveable and revealed to you with oil of gladness,

even though I have seen your wretchedness and known the miseries of your soul,

I have not turned My Face from you, but rather, with My Love I remember you?”

From these words one understands how God delights in revealing to us His ways of goodness to re-educate our mind and remind us that nothing can outweigh the supreme love in which He expresses Himself to us. So why can’t He be heard as well to the non-Christians? Let us praise the Lord for giving us a place in Him.

Vassula