The Lord is Near

You saw the Gospel’s beauty: Simeon was assured that he would not die before the return of the Messiah. In that time, among the people of God it wasn’t expected the Messiah’s return; the Romans and the Priests lived a certain “policy”, something like what we live today. Many Christians and Catholics, today, also wait for the Lord to come; the people are as if sedated. But, thanks to God, the Holy Spirit has been putting in us, – as putted in Simeon -, the certain that the Messiah is near, that He will come.

The Priests, the Levites, were already mad with Simeon because he spoke a lot about the Lord’s return. Let the people be mad, but we will announce the return of Jesus! And after 40 years from the Holy Spirit’s descend, I continue to announce the second coming of the Lord, because since 1975, the Holy Spirit already convinced me of this and pushed me to talk about the Lord’s return. And if in 1975 it was near, imagine now. We know that some day, to God, its like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one.

The Lord wants us to say that His arrival is near, so everyone can prepare. Are you ready for the Lord’s arrival? The ones from your home, the people, which you work with, believe, wait and are prepared for Lord’s coming? The Lord will come in an unknown time, that why we mut live like Simeon; waiting the Lord’s coming, day after day preparing ourseves.

The Lord’s coming is glorious, He takes his own to heaven, the ones who live for Him, the ones who believe, the ones who are called radicals, or mad by the world. The Lord will return and He does not want to get us unprepared, He wants to find us ready.

The Cancao Nova acknowledges that the Lord is coming. It exists to announce and to prepare the people for this fact. As I said yesterday: the debt that I want to pay forever is to always love and evangelize. And I invite you to make this same debt with the Lord: the one to love and evangelize.

The salvation is Jesus, as Satin Peter states: “In no one else there is salvation, just in Jesus Christ”. God Father wants Christ to present us the truth: Jesus is the way and there is no other way that brings us to God or to heaven.

Spend your life because of heaven. The is a passage in the Bible called the “Good Samaritan”, in it it’s written that the good Samaritan found a sick in the road, took care of him and took him to the inn and there he continued taking care of the ill. But there was a time, which he had to leave. Then, he (good Samaritan) gave 2 denarius so they could take care of the sick, saying that if something was missing would give him when coming back. Saint Agostinho says that this “Good Samaritan” is Jesus and that the”owner of the inn” are we, and that whatever we “spend” with the others, He, the Lord, will pay when coming back. He will pay you more, therefore, spend your life, spend it totally!

The real liberty is in Jesus! He is the salvation and its every nation’s right to know Him. Because He is the light of the nations, and that all nations have the right to recognize Our Lord Jesus Christ. And weren’t the men which brought this truth, but Jesus himself who brought it from heaven. He is the truth.

In this world of death, which the mentality and culture are of death, Christ is the way, the life and the truth. Want to walk trough this way. Jesus is the only one that Saves, because of that, He wanted to bring many to this way. Everybody has the right to know Jesus and be saved by Him. He is the light of nations.

In today’s first reading there is the indication of how we can live this word: it says that those who hate their brother are in darkness, but those who love their brother are in the light.

The psychology proves that there are people that love and hate simultaneously. And when people get out of the love and go to the sorrow, they go to the way of hate. Therefore, they are not in the “warm”, but in the “cold”. The more we love, more we will grow, we go to the ‘positive”; but when we hate, we go down and go to the “negative”. Because of that, let us love! Its not enough just to not talk bad about someone; you need to talk good! You need to think well! Then, thinking, willing and talking good of the other, you have a heroic life, which is the life of love. It’s hard, because the enemy in us is the rancor, the hate, the fury; but it is possible with God’s grace.

The lord wants us to constantly fight to pray; this is something for saints, to people who want to be saint, this is the ways of the Christian, it’s the way of sanctification, the way of the good This is the recipe for us to prepare for the Lord’s coming.

You can think that the Priest is radicalizing, but I’m not. Because of that, have the goal to love, get in God’s grace and in His effort and you will get far: until the sanctity. And in heaven only saints get in.

And in beginning the year of 2008, stop, look forward and decide yourself to live and to love. The Lord wants your decision, because of that He fills you with grace. So don’t set up small goals in your life, set big ones. Don’t let the darkness make your view blurry; for that we need the Holy Spirit.

You are called to be a prophet, because prophet is the one who God speaks trough. God want us to live announcing the return of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember this: ‘before coming as fair judge, I will come as God of Mercy” – this is why we are in the time of mercy.
Let us not waste time!