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If you want your dream to be, build it slow and surely. Small beginning, greater and heartfelt work grows purely.

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Welcome. This is David Russell and your faith anew daily reflections guiding you to live in the divine will. Today's reflection is from the Book of Heaven by the servant of God, Louisa Picaretta, august tenth, eighteen ninety nine, volume two. Let us begin in the will and name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord Jesus, bring us quietly into your presence. Remove from us whatever is false, divided or restless. Give us hearts that desire only what is good, minds that recognize what is true, and the freedom to stand before you without pretense. May your grace make us sincere in thought, word and action, and may your will become the simplicity by which we live. Amen. A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter five, verse eight. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches in paragraph twenty four sixty eight. Truth as uprightness in human action and speech is called truthfulness, sincerity, or candor. Truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and in guarding against duplicity, dissimulation, and hypocrisy. There is a special freedom waiting for the soul that allows God to make the heart completely true. Louisa writes This morning as my sweet Jesus came, he transported me outside of myself, and then he disappeared. As he left me alone, I saw as though two candelabra of fire descending from heaven, which then, dividing into many pieces, formed many lightnings and much hail that came down upon earth, causing very great torment over plants and men. The horror and the vehemence of the thunderstorm was such that one could not even pray, and people could not manage to withdraw into their homes. Who can say how frightened I was left? So I began to pray in order to placate the Lord, and as he came back I saw that he was carrying an iron rod in his hand, which had a ball of fire at the top. He told me My justice has been withheld for a long time, and with reason it wants to take revenge on the creatures, who have dared to destroy every justice within them. Ah yes, I find no justice in man. He has counterfeited himself completely in his words, in his works and steps. Everything is deception, everything is fraud, everything is injustice, which have penetrated into his heart in such a way that inside and out he is but a bilge of vices. Poor man, how you have reduced yourself? While saying this, he was swinging the rod he had in his hand in the act of wounding man. I said to him Lord, what are you doing? And he do not fear. Do you see this ball of fire? It will cause fire, but it will only strike the evil. The good will receive no harm. And I added, Ah Lord, who is good? We are all evil. I beg you not to look at us, but at your infinite mercy. In this way you will be placated for all. After this he added, The daughter of justice is truth. Just as I am the eternal truth, and I do not deceive, nor can I deceive, in the same way, the soul who possesses justice makes truth shine in all of her actions. Therefore, since she knows by experience the true light of truth, if someone wants to deceive her, since that light which she feels within herself is missing, she immediately recognizes the deceit. And so it happens that with this light of truth she deceives neither herself nor her neighbor, nor can she be deceived. The fruit produced by this justice and by this truth is simplicity, which is another quality of my being, being simple, so much so that I penetrate everywhere. There is nothing that can prevent me from penetrating inside of it. I penetrate into heaven and into the abysses, into good and into evil. But my being, which is most simple, by penetrating even into evil, does not get dirty. Even more, it does not receive the slightest shadow. In the same way, through justice and truth, gathering this beautiful fruit of simplicity within herself, the soul penetrates into heaven. She enters into hearts to lead them to me. She penetrates into everything that is good. And if she finds herself with sinners and sees the evil that they do, she does not get dirty, because being simple, she immediately brushes it off without receiving any harm. Simplicity is so beautiful that my heart is wounded at one gaze alone of a simple soul. She is the admiration of angels and men. One of the quiet burdens we carry through life is the effort of managing appearances. We want to be understood correctly. We want others to recognize our intentions. We want our mistakes explained, our motives defended, and our goodness noticed. And without realizing it, the heart can become complicated. Jesus offers another way. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Purity of heart is more than freedom from serious sin. It's the grace of becoming undivided before God. What I say, what I intend, what I desire, and what I do begin to belong to the same truth. That kind of heart becomes peaceful because it has less to protect. When I live before God rather than before the opinions of others, I no longer have to create an image of myself. I can admit when I'm wrong. I can do good without being noticed. I can let another person misunderstand me when no explanation is necessary. I can bring my weakness honestly to Jesus instead of trying to appear spiritually stronger than I am. This is not weakness. It's freedom. The divine will draws us toward this interior simplicity, because God's will never asks us to become someone artificial. It asks us to become completely His. And when the heart belongs to Him, truth becomes less frightening. We can say yes when we mean yes. A simple soul does not need to be impressive. It only needs to be faithful. Perhaps there's something today that you have been trying to manage someone's opinion, an outcome, an explanation, or even the way you imagine God sees you. Place it before Jesus. You don't have to convince him of anything. He already knows you completely. The great invitation of the spiritual life is not to become better at appearing holy, it's to become more completely his. And there is profound peace in simply standing before Christ and saying, Jesus, let everything in me be true. Let us pray. Jesus, you are truth itself, and nothing in me is hidden from you. Purify my heart from every falsehood, pretense, and divided intention. Free me from the need to manage how others see me. Teach me to live peacefully beneath your gaze. Give me honesty without harshness, humility without fear, and simplicity without naivete. May my thoughts, words, choices, and desires become one sincere offering to you. Jesus, draw me into your divine will where I no longer need to protect an image of myself, but can simply belong to you. Make my heart clean, my intentions pure, and my life transparent before the Father. And in every circumstance today, give me the grace simply to choose what is true, loving, and pleasing to you. Amen. Thank you for joining your faith anew today. Until tomorrow, stay in his will, and your faith will be made anew.