14. Christianity, Churches and Worship

The Third Testament 
III. The Era of the Christian Church
Chapter 14 - Christianity, Churches and Worship
The Development of Christianity

1 After my parting in the "Second Age" my apostles continued my work, and those who followed my apostles continued their work. They were the new workers, the farmers of that farmland prepared by the Lord, made fruitful by his blood, his tears, and his word, prepared by the work of the twelve first and also by those who followed them. But in the course of time and from generation to generation, people mystified or distorted my work and teaching more and more.

2 Who said to man that he may make an image of me? Who told him that he should portray Me hanging on the cross? Who told him that he could make the image of Mary, the figure of the angels or the face of the Father? Oh you of little faith, you who had to make the spiritual materially visible to feel my presence!

3 The image of the Father was Jesus, the image of the Master, his disciples. I said in the "Second Time": "He who knows the Son knows the Father". This was to say that Christ, who spoke in Jesus, is the Father Himself. The Father alone could create his own image.

4 After my death as a man, I revealed myself to my apostles as a living person, so that they might recognize that I am life and eternity, and that I - whether in the body or outside of it - am present among you. Not all men understood this, and therefore they fell into idolatry and fanaticism. (113, 13 - 17)

5 I told the woman from Samaria, "Whoever drinks of this water that I give will never thirst again. And today I tell you: If mankind had drunk of that living water, there would not have been so much misery in them.

6 People did not follow my teaching unswervingly and preferred to use my name to found churches according to their interpretation and convenience. I rejected traditions and taught them the teaching of love, but today you come to me, to offer Me meaningless rites and ceremonies that are of no use to your Spirit. If there is no spirituality in your works, there can be no truth in them, and what does not carry truth in itself does not reach your Father.

7 When that Samaritan woman felt that the light of My Eyes penetrated to the bottom of her heart, she said to Me: "Lord, you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where our God must be worshiped". Then I told her, "Woman, verily I say to you, the time will come when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, as you do at present. The time is drawing near when you will worship the Father "in Spirit and in truth"; for God is Spirit."

8 This is my teaching of all times. Behold, the truth was before your eyes, and you would not see it. How will you live it if you do not know it? (151, 2 - 5)

Cults

9 If you love, you will have no need of any meaningful rites or rituals, because you will have the light that will illuminate your inner temple, where the waves of all storms will break that could whip you, and that will dissolve the dark mists of humanity.

10 No longer profane the divine, for verily, I tell you, great is the ingratitude with which you show yourselves before God when you perform these outward rites, which you have inherited from your ancestors and in which you have become fanatical (21, 13 - 14)

11 Look at misguided humanity - misguided because the great churches, which are Christian

I attach more importance to the ritual and external than to my teaching itself. That word of life, which I sealed with works of love and with the blood on the cross, no longer lives in the heart of men, it is locked up and mute in the old and dusty books.  And so there is a "Christian" humanity that neither understands nor knows how to follow Christ.

12 That is why I have only a few disciples in this time - those who love their suffering brothers, who soothe the pain - those who live in virtue and preach it by their example: these are the disciples of Christ.

13 He that knows my teaching, and hideth it, or maketh it known only with his lips, and not with his heart, is not my disciple.

14 I have not come in this time to visit temples of stone, and to make myself known in them. I seek your Spirit, your heart, not material splendor. (72, 47 - 50)

15 As long as the religious communities continue to be immersed in deep sleep and do not leave their accustomed paths, there will be no spiritual awakening, nor knowledge of spiritual ideals; and therefore there will be no peace among men, nor room for active charity. The light that resolves the serious human conflicts will not be able to shine (100, 38).

The Spirituality

16 Since you do not know what true peace is, you are content to long for it, and try by all possible means and in all possible ways to find a little rest, to obtain comforts and satisfactions, but never that which is truly peace of Spirit. I tell you that only the obedience of the child to the will of the Lord wins him.

17 There is a lack in the world of good expounders of my word, good interpreters of my teachings. Therefore, humanity, even as far as it calls itself Christian, lives in a spiritual backward way, because there is no one there who can shake it with my true teaching, there is no one who can change hearts with love with which I taught the people.

18 Day by day - in congregation halls, churches, and cathedrals - my name is pronounced and my words are repeated, but no one is inwardly moved, no one trembles by its light, and this because men have misunderstood the meaning of it. Most people believe that the power of the Word of Christ is based on repeating it again and again mechanically, without realizing that it is not necessary to recite it, but to study it, to think about, practice and live it.

19 If men would seek the meaning in the word of Christ, it would be for them always new, fresh, alive, and true to life. But they know it only superficially, and so they cannot, nor will they ever be able to, feed on it in this way.

20 Poor mankind - wandering about in the dark, although the light is so near to them, anxiously lamenting, although peace is within reach! But men cannot see that Divine Light, because there have been those who have blindfolded them without pity. I, who truly love you, come to your aid by freeing you from darkness and proving to you that all that I told you at that time was meant for all times and that you must not regard that Divine Word as an old teaching of a past epoch. For love, which was the essence of all my teaching, is eternal, and in it lies the secret of your salvation in this time of aberrations, immeasurable suffering, and unbridled passions. (307, 4 - 8)

21 I rebuke those who preach a blind faith, a faith without knowledge, a faith acquired by fears and superstitions.

22 Listen not to the words of those who attribute to God all the evils that torment mankind, all plagues, famines, and epidemics, calling them punishments or wrath of God. These are the false prophets.

23 Turn away from them, because they do not know me and yet want to teach men what God is like.

24 This is the fruit of the bad interpretation given to the writings of past times, whose divine language has not yet been discovered in the core of human language, by which revelations and prophecies were written down. Many speak of the end of the world, the Last Judgement, death and hell without the slightest knowledge of the truth. (290, 16 - 19)

25 You are already living in the "third time", and mankind is still spiritually closed to the "third time".

left behind. Her pastors, her theologians and spiritual shepherds reveal very little to her and sometimes nothing at all about eternal life. I reveal to them, too, the secrets of the book of my wisdom, and so I ask you: Why do they keep silent? Why are they afraid of waking up the sleepy spirit of man? (245, 5)

26 My teaching instructs you in a perfect, spiritual and pure worship of the Father, for the Spirit of mankind has reached - without realizing it - the threshold of the temple of the Lord, where he will enter to feel My presence, to hear My voice above his conscience and to see Me in the light falling upon his mind.

27 The emptiness that people feel at this time within their various religious communities is due to the Spirit's hunger and thirst for spiritualization. The rites and traditions are no longer enough for her, she longs to know my truth. (138, 43 - 44)

Communion and Mass

28 Never have I come to men shrouded in mystery. If I have spoken to you in a figurative sense to reveal the divine to you or to reveal the eternal in any material form, so it happened that you might understand me. But if men persist in worshipping forms, objects, or symbols instead of seeking the meaning of those teachings, it is only natural that they should suffer a standstill for centuries and see secrets in everything.

29 Since the times of Israel's sojourn in Egypt, when my blood was embodied by that of a lamb, there have been people who live only by traditions and rites, without realizing that that sacrifice was an image of the blood that Christ was to shed to give you the spiritual life. Others, who think they feed on my body, eat material bread, without wanting to understand that - when I gave bread to my disciples at the Lord's Supper - it was done to make them understand that he who takes the meaning of my word as food, feeds on me.

30 How few are those who are able in truth to comprehend my Divine Teachings, and these few are those who interpret them with the Spirit! Remember, however, that I have not given you Divine Revelation all at once, but that I am explaining it to you little by little in each of my teachings. (36, 7 - 9)

31 Delight is in the hearts of these multitudes of listeners, because they know that before their Spirit there is the heavenly banquet at which the Master awaits them to give them the bread and wine of true life to eat and drink.

32 The table around which Jesus and his apostles gathered at that time was a symbol of the kingdom of heaven. There the Father was surrounded by his children, there were the foods that represented life and love; the Divine Voice resounded, and its essence was universal harmony, and the peace that reigned there was the peace that exists in the Kingdom of God.

33 You have tried to purify yourselves in these morning hours, thinking that the Master would bring you a new testament in his words, and so it is: Today I permit that you remember the bread and the wine with which I represented my body and my blood But likewise I tell you that in this new time you will find that food only in the divine sense of my word. If you seek my body and my blood, you must seek them in the divine of creation, for I am only Spirit. Eat of that bread and drink of that wine, but also fill my cup, I want to drink with you: I have a thirst for your Love.

34 Carry this message to your brothers and learn that the blood, since it is life, is only a symbol of eternal life, which is true love - Through you (the first listeners in Mexico) I begin to enlighten humanity with my new revelations (48, 22-25).

35 I bring you peace and a new teaching If my sacrifice of the "Second Age" abolished the sacrifice of innocent animals that you sacrificed on the altar of Jehovah, today the nourishment of my Divine Word has caused that you no longer symbolize my body and blood through the bread and wine of this world.

36 Every Spirit who wants to live must be nourished by the Divine Spirit. He who hears my word and feels it in his heart has nourished himself in truth. He has not only eaten my body and drunk my blood, but has taken of my Spirit to nourish himself.

37 Who - after he has tasted this heavenly food - will seek Me again in forms and shapes made by man?

38 From time to time I come and abolish traditions, rites and customs, leaving in your spirit only the Law and the spiritual core of my teachings. (68,27)

The Baptism

39 People, in his day John, who is also called the Baptist, baptized with water those who believed in his prophecy This act was a symbol for the purification from the original sin. He told the multitudes who came to the Jordan to hear the words of the forerunner: "Behold, I baptize you with water, but he who will baptize you with the fire of the HolySpirit is already on his way.

40 All Spirits were born of this Divine Fire; they went forth pure and pure. But if they have stained themselves in their way with sin, which disobedience the fire of my Spirit pours out upon them anew to blot out their sin, erase their stains and return them to their original purity.

41 If you, instead of understanding this spiritual baptism as a purification, which man obtains through an act of sincere repentance towards his Creator, turn it into a rite and be content with the symbolic content of an act - verily, I tell you, your Spirit will obtain nothing

42 Whoever acts in this way still lives in the times of the Baptist, and it is as if he did not believe in his prophecies and words, which spoke of spiritual baptism, of divine fire, by which God purifies his children and makes them immortal in the light.

43 John called men to him as adults to pour that water on them as a symbol of purification. They came to him when they were already aware of their actions and could already have the firm will to go by the way of the good, the righteousness and justice. See how humanity has preferred to perform the symbolic act of purification through water, rather than true renewal through repentance and the firm resolution to reform, which are born of love for God. The ritual action does not mean effort; but to purify the heart and struggle to remain pure is effort, renunciation, and even sacrifice for man. This is why men have preferred to cover their sins externally, by the observance of ceremonies, certain actions and rites, which do not improve their moral or spiritual condition in the least, if their conscience does not have a say in them.

44 Disciples, this is the reason why I do not want ritual acts to take place among you, so that by performing them you do not forget that which actually affects the Spirit (99,56 - 61)

45 It is I who send the spirit beings to incarnation in accordance with the law of evolution, and verily, I tell you, the influences of this world will not change my Divine Plans For beyond all ambitious striving for power, my will will be done.

46 Every human being brings a mission to earth, his destiny is laid down by the Father, and his Spirit is anointed by my Father's love. In vain men hold ceremonies and bless the little ones. Verily, I say to you, in no material age of life will water cleanse the Spirit from his transgressions against my law. And if I send a Spirit pure from every sin, from what defilement do the clergy of the denominations purify him with baptism?

47 It is time that you understood that the origin of man is not sin, but that his birth is the result of the fulfillment of a natural law, a law which not only man fulfills, but all creatures that make up nature. Notice that I have said "man" and not "his Spirit. Man has my authority to create beings similar to him; but the spirit beings come forth only from me.

48 Growth and multiplication is universal law. The stars came forth from other, greater stars, as the seed multiplied, and never have I said that they have sinned by this fact or hurt the Creator. Then why should you be considered sinners in fulfillment of this Divine Commandment? Understand that the fulfillment of the law can never defile man.

49 What defiles man and removes the Spirit from the path of development are the lower passions: licentiousness, vice, fornication, for all these are against the law.

50. Study and search until ye find the truth. Then you will no longer call the commandments of the Creator of life sin, and you will sanctify the existence of your children by the example of your good works. (37, 18 -23)

Remembrance of the Dead

51 The people hold on to their traditions and customs. It is understandable that they have an indelible memory of the people whose bodies they have lowered into the grave, and they are attracted by the place where they buried their remains. But if they were to delve into the real meaning of material life, they would realize that that body, when it is dissolved atom by atom it returns to those nature kingdoms, from which it was formed, and life develops further.

52  But man has at all times created a chain of fanatical cults for the body as a result of the lack of study of the spiritual. He tries to make material life imperishable and forgets the Spirit, who is that which truly possesses eternal life. How far are they still from understanding the spiritual life!

53 Now you understand that it is unnecessary to bring gifts to those places where a tombstone that expresses "death" should express "dissolution and life"; for there nature is in full bloom, there is earth, which is the fertile and inexhaustible womb of creatures and forms of life.

54 When these teachings are understood, mankind will know how to give the material its place and the divine its own. Then the idolatrous cult for the antecedents will disappear.

55 Man shall know and love his Creator from Spirit to Spirit.

56 The altars are funeral florins and the tombs are a proof of ignorance and idolatry. I forgive all your transgressions, but I must really shake you awake. My teaching will be understood and the time will come when men will replace material gifts with high thoughts. (245, 16 - 21)

Material symbols, crosses and relics.

57 In the "first time" you knew the symbols: the tabernacle or sanctuary that guarded the ark of the covenant, where the tablets of the law were kept. When those symbols had fulfilled their task, My Will removed them from the earth, and took them from the eyes of men, so that the world would not fall into idolatry; but the meaning or essence of those instructive symbols I kept written in the Spirit of My servants.

58 In the "Second Age", after the sacrifice of Christ had been accomplished, I made the highest symbol of Christianity disappear, the Cross, together with the crown of thorns, the chalice and all that could have become the object of rapturous veneration on the part of mankind. (138, 36)

59 Mankind saw Jesus suffer, and his teaching and his testimony are believed of you. Why continue crucifying Him in your sculptures? Aren't the centuries you have spent exhibiting Him as a victim of your wickedness enough for you?

60 Instead of remembering me in the tortures and death throes of Jesus, why don't you remember my resurrection full of light and glory?

61. There are some who, on seeing your images of Me in the likeness of Jesus on the cross, have sometimes believed that it was a weak, cowardly or fearful man, without thinking that I am Spirit and have suffered as an example for all mankind what you call sacrifice and what I call duty of love

62 when you think about the fact that I was one with the Father, remember that there were no weapons, nor powers, nor tortures that could have bent me; but when I suffered, bled and died as a man, it was to give you my sublime example of humility

63 People have not understood the greatness of that lesson, and everywhere they erected the image of the Crucified One, which is a disgrace to this humanity, which - without love and respect for Him whom it claims to love - crucifies Him again and again and wounds Him daily, hurting the hearts of their fellow men for whom the Master gave His life. (21, l5 - 19)

64 I would not condemn you if you let the last cross disappear from earth itself, with which you symbolize your Christian faith, and as compensation would replace that symbol by true love among yourselves; for then your faith and your outward worship of God would become a worship and a faith of the Spirit, which corresponds to what I expect from you.

65 If your worship and your symbols at least had the power to prevent your wars, not to let you sink into vice, to keep you in peace But see how you go over everything that is holy according to your words; see how you trample underfoot what you thought to be divine.

66 I tell you again, it would be better for you if you had not a single church, altar, symbol or image on the whole earth, but to pray with the Spirit and to love your Father, to understand and to believe in Him without the need after substitutes, and that you would love each other as I have taught you in my teaching. Then you would be saved, would walk on the way marked by my traces of blood - traces with which I came to seal the truth of my teachings. (280, 69 - 70)

Veneration of saints

67 I give you these teachings because you have declared the spiritual beings of many righteous men to be saints, whom you ask and worship as if they were gods. How much ignorance, mankind! How can men judge the holiness and perfection of a spirit being, but because of their human works?

68 I am the first to tell you that you should take as your example the good examples which your brethren have set by their works, by their life, by their virtue and I also tell you that when you think of them, you may hope for their spiritual support and influence. But why do you build altars for them, which only serve to offend the humility of those spirit beings? Why do you create cults around their memory as if they were the Deity and put them in the place of the Father, whom you forget above the worship of your own brethren? How painful for them has been the glory that you have bestowed upon them here!

69 What do men know of my judgment upon those whom they call saints? What do they know about the spiritual life of those entities, or about the place which everyone has won with the Lord?

70. No one thinks that with these revelations I want to erase from your hearts the merits which my servants have rendered among men; on the contrary, I want you to know that the grace they have found with Me is great, and that I grant you many things through their prayers; but it is necessary that you eliminate your ignorance from which religious fanaticism, idolatry and superstition spring.

71  When you feel that the Spirit of those entities is ruling over your life-world, trust them who are part of the Spirit world so that you and they, united in the way of the Lord, may accomplish the work of spiritual brotherhood - that work which I expect as a result of all my teachings. (115, 52 - 56)

Church Festivals

72 On this day when crowds of people are hurrying with great clamour to their churches to celebrate the moment when heaven opened to receive Me, I tell you that all this is only a tradition to impress the hearts of men They are only rituals that materialize today my Divine Passion.

73 You should not follow this tendency by setting up altars and symbols. Do not make epresentations of holy events, and do not use special garments to attract attention, for all this is idolatrous cult.

74 Call Me with the heart, recall my teaching and follow my examples Offer Me the tribute of your improvement, and you will feel the gates of heaven open to receive you.

75 Avoid the false and profane representations made of Me and My Passion, for no one can embody Me Live my example and my teaching. Whoever does, therefore, will have embodied his master on earth. (131, 11 - 13, 16)

76  Humanity: In these days in which you commemorate the birth of Jesus, let peace enter into your hearts and appear to you as a united and happy family.

77 I know that not all hearts feel a sincere joy when they remember my coming to the world at that time. Very few are those who take time for reflection and gathering and allow the joy to be an inward one and the feast of remembrance to take place in the Spirit.

78 Today, as in all times, people have made of the days of remembrance profane and meaningless feasts to seek pleasures for the senses, far from what the pleasures of the Spirit should be.

79 If men would use this day to dedicate it to the Spirit by reflecting on Divine Love, whose incontrovertible proof was the fact that I became man to live with you - verily, I tell you, your faith would shine in the highest of your being, and it would be the star that would show you the way, that leads to me. Your Spirit would be so imbued with goodness that you would shower the needy on your way of life with good deeds, comfort and tenderness. You would be more than brothers and sisters would forgive your insulters from the heart. You would feel filled with tenderness at the sight of the outcast, those children without parents, without shelter and without love. You would think of the peoples without peace, where war has destroyed all that is good, noble and holy in human life. Then your prayer would come up to me purely and tell me: "Lord, what right do we have to peace as long as there are so many brothers and sisters of ours who suffer terribly?

80 My answer to that would be this: Since you felt the pain of your fellow men and you prayed and had compassion, gather in your home, sit at the table and rejoice in that blessed hour, because I will be present there. Have no misgivings, to be joyful, though you know that there are many who are suffering at that moment; for truly, I tell you, if your joy is sincere, it will give a breath of peace and

will emanate hope that will touch those in need like a labour of love.

81 No one thinks that I want to blot out from your hearts the purest feast that you celebrate during the year when you commemorate the birth of Jesus. I only want to teach you to give the world  what is due to it and to the Spirit what is due to him; for if you celebrate so many feasts to celebrate human events - why not leave this feast to the Spirit, so that, having become a child, he may come to offer Me his gift of love, to obtain the simplicity of shepherds to worship Me and the humility of the wise  to bend his neck and offer his knowledge before the Lord of true wisdom?

82 I don't want to dampen the joy that surrounds people's lives these days. It is not just the power of a tradition - it is because my mercy touches you, my light illuminates you, my love envelops you like a cloak. Then you feel the heart full of hope, joy and tenderness, filled with the need to give, experience and love. Only you do not always leave those feelings and inspirations in their true generosity for you waste that joy in the pleasures of the world without allowing the Spirit, for whose sake the Redeemer was born, to express that moment lives through, enters into that light, is purified and is saved. For that Divine Love which became man is eternally present in the life journey of every man, so that he may find life in it. (299,43 - 48)

The presence of God despite false cult forms

83 Since man is materialized, he must seek me through the manifest cult, and since the eyes of his Spirit are not open, he must create my image to see me. Since he has not made himself sensitive spiritually, he always demands material miracles and proofs to believe in my existence, and places conditions on me to serve me, to follow me, to love me, and to give something back to me for what I give him. Thus I see all churches, all religious communities, all sects, which men have created all over the earth. They are permeated by materialism, by fanaticism and idolatry, by secrecy, Fraud and desecration.

84 What do I assume? Only the intention. What comes to me from all this?: The spiritual or physical need of my children, their little love, their desire for light. This is what reaches Me, and I am with all. I do not look at churches, nor at forms, nor at rites. I come to all my children equally. I receive their Spirit in prayer. I draw him to my breast to embrace him so that he may feel my warmth and this warmth is an incentive and stimulus on his way of visitations and trials. But because I accept the good intention of mankind, I do not have to allow it to remain eternally in darkness, wrapped up in its idolatry and fanaticism.

85 I want man to awaken, that the Spirit may rise to Me and in his exaltation may see the true glory of his Father and forget the false splendor of liturgies and rites I want that when he reaches his true ascent, he renews himself, that he separates himself from and liberates the human needs, and overcomes the sensuality, the passions, the vices, and finds himself; so that he never says to the Father that he is an earthworm; that he may know that the Father created him in his image and likeness. (360, 14 - 16)

86 There are many religious communities on earth, and the majority of them are based on faith in Christ. Yet they do not love one another, nor do they recognize one another as disciples of the Divine Master.

87 Do you not think that if they had all understood my teaching, they would have applied it by leading the denominations to reconciliation and peace? But this was not so. They all kept their distance from each other, thus spiritually separating and dividing people who then considered themselves enemies or strangers. Each seeks means and arguments to prove to the others that he is the owner of the truth, and that the others are wrong. But no one has the strength and courage to fight for the union of all, nor someone has the good will to discover that there is some truth in every belief and worship of God. (326, 19 -20)