INDISPENSABLE STAGES

"Repent then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord." (Acts, 3:19)

The restless believers almost always consider that the task of redemption is processed in some conventional providence and that with little outward activity on their part, they would readily acquire the most elevated positions, close to the Divine Messengers.

The majority of the Roman Catholics fully believe in the exemption of trials through the performance of outward ceremonies; many Protestants believe that through mere enunciation of hymns, they are in tune with Heaven; and a great number of spiritists think they are intimately in tune with the superior revelations, simply because they have attended a few spiritual sessions.

All the aforesaid constitute a valuable preparation; but that is not all.

There is an inner illuminating effort without which no man may penetrate the sanctuary of the Divine Truth.

The words of Peter to the popular masses contain the synthesis of the vast program in the essential transformation that each person will have to undergo in order to achieve the happiness of the union with Christ. There are indispensable stages for this realization, without which, no one will achieve once and for all, the eternal clarity of the culmination.

Prior to all this, it is necessary for the sinner to repent, to acknowledge the extent and the volume of his own failings, and to finally convert, in order to reach the relieving peaceful instant of the presence of the Lord within him. Once he arrives there, he will be rehabilitated in the construction of the Divine Kingdom within himself.

If you truly already understand the mission of the Gospel, you will identify the stage in which you find yourself, and you will be apprized of the service that you must complete in order to move on to the following one.

Excerpted from Chapter 13 of "Our Daily Bread" - Chico Xavier (by the Spirit Emmanuel)