“AS WE FORGIVE…”

Home Letters “AS WE FORGIVE…”
Perdão - Madre Clélia

Dearest daughters in Jesus Christ,  

Remember, my daughters, that mutual tolerance is part of the precept of charity. These two things are so bound to each other that without mutual suffering, charity would not be possible, and it would be necessary to cancel this precept from the Gospel because every person on earth has his or her own defects and imperfections. There are no angels except in heaven. If you don’t bear with the defects and imperfections of others, you break that bond and charity is destroyed.   Everyone has his or her own particular nature. Inclinations and temperaments are not all the same; judgments and ways of feeling contradict each other; wills clash with one another; tastes vary. No, among so many contrary elements, the fusion of hearts to form one heart, only one soul, as charity demands, is not possible so long as people don’t bear with one another in their weaknesses and don’t suffer in a spirit of charity and patience all that offends them, all that displeases them, all that does not meet with their tastes nor their disposition.   Without this mutual tolerance the union of hearts would be likewise impossible, no different than the fusion of water with fire, of light with darkness. There would necessarily be among them divisions, arguments, discord.  

Therefore, bear with one another with great humility. This excludes sensitivities and pretensions. This will teach you how to treat your neighbor. Do it with sweetness and patience and so you will exclude murmurs and grumbling, criticisms, sarcasm, stinging barbs, antipathies and impatience with displeasures received. Do this with great charity and this will teach you to treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated yourselves… God will not be indulgent toward our defects except in the measure that we are indulgent toward the defects of our brothers and sisters. If we do not support our neighbor, God will not support us; if we do not sympathize with others, God will not sympathize with us.   We ourselves, daughters, do recognize the demand of this law, and so we say: Forgive us, O Lord, our offenses as we forgive those who have offended us. We, therefore, must be indulgent toward our own faults in the measure that we are indulgent toward the faults of others. Justice itself obliges us to mutual tolerance.   Who does not feel the need for herself of this law of tolerance, of this law, which is protective of human weakness? Now if we want it to be observed in our regard, isn’t it a real injustice not to want to observe it regarding our neighbor?   We complain about the imperfections of others, but we don’t want others to complain about ours? [We complain] about their character and of their moods, but don’t we also have some critical moments? [We complain] about their impulsiveness, or of their discourtesy, but don’t we also fall into the impulse of a language that is too pointed and rude? It is not good, daughters, in fact, it is very bad, for us to want perfection in others to the point of not supporting in them any spot, any imperfection. Seriously probe your own conscience a little bit, daughters, and see how you support the defects of your neighbors.

I remain in Jesus, Your anguished Mother