Nada te turbe (Letrilla que llevaba por May nothing disturb registro en su breviario) you! Nada te turbe; (St. Teresa of Avila had nada te espante; these verses written in her breviary**) todo se pasa; Dios no se muda, May nothing disturb la paciencia you. todo lo alcanza. May nothing Quien a Dios tiene, astonish you. nada le falta. Everything passes. Solo Dios basta. God does not go away. Patience Carmelo Teresiano can attain anything. Nada te turbe Oraciones Diversas He who has God within, does not lack anything. God is everything!* (Translation by Jorge W. Suazo) (*This last verse may be interpreted as "God is enough.") GOD ALONE! SOLO DIOS BASTA! Messages Received by Ronda Chervin May, 2008-August, 2008 1 May 12, 2008 Nine days before Pentecost I prayed a novena to the Holy Spirit each day. In the middle of the night after the Pentecost Liturgy I woke up suddenly at 1:30 AM. It seemed as if the Holy Spirit was speaking to me in my heart, In the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church of which I am a member, there is no obligation to believe in the validity of any visions or words, audible or “in the heart.” Such phenomena come under the title “Private Revelation.” Approval of such by Vatican authorities means only that they contain no doctrinal errors or viewpoints dangerous to the faith, not that they are considered to be certainly from God. In any case, private revelation never has the status of Biblical Revelation. For example, Catholics are not required to believe the messages given even in approved apparitions such as those at Lourdes or Fatima. A distinction is also made between messages allegedly given to an individual for their own use and general messages designed to reach the public. Recipients of messages supposedly from God or others not on earth are always subject to the judgment of a spiritual director. Clearly, however, a message such as “God loves you dearly,” is less questionable than one such as “leave our family and go to Jerusalem tomorrow!” And both of these also differ greatly from ones such as “Tell, the world, the second coming will be in the year 2000!” Another important note: there are at least two types of visions given to humans: 1) apparitions – these are experienced as outside of the viewer, just as we see natural objects and the people around us. 2) interior visions – these we see within the mind but they are strong, strong images, not like floating, fleeting images from memory or imagination. My conversion to the Catholic faith more than fifty years ago, from an atheistic but Jewish cultural background, included miraculous visions. At different points in my life I have been graced with what seemed like many interior words in the heart inspiring and consoling me. For more information about these experiences go to www.rondachervin.com and click on books, then on e-books and go to my conversions story and the various books of journals. Recently I have been helping transcribe visions and locutions both personal and seemingly given to reach others as received by a Lutheran woman. These are on a web-site: www.thespiritualtransition.com. Then, in May of 2008 I started, myself, to receive alleged messages. For ease in transcription I will not repeat for each description or message the word alleged, but the reader should know that this is the way I view them. I will never claim that these messages are infallibly given or to be received as such by anyone. 2 THE 85 OR SO MESSAGES I RECEIVED FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT CAN BE FOUND ALONE, NOT ENMESHED IN MY JOURNAL, ON MY WEB SITE – THE LINK IS ON THE ENTRY PAGE OF www.rondachervin.com in bright blue. May 12, 2008 Holy Spirit: We want to give you a separate set of messages. (I was a little frightened of being misled, for example, because I had a confusing day and was anxious because I don’t have as much work as usual to do. Could I have been looking for something new to happen and so made it easier for the devil to deceive me? So I prayed the St. Michael prayer and the Angelus for protection and then in tongues. Then I lit a candle and prepared paper and pen.) NOTE WHEN ALLEGEDLY THE HOLY SPIRIT SAYS “US” OR “WE” IT MEANS THE TRINITY. Holy Spirit: We have opened this space in your time; do not fear. (I see in an interior vision a grey space like a screen. I feel warm peace. Then I see an image of the globe: the earth. The words “Nada te turbe…” given on the cover came to me in Spanish in the song, as if sung by St. Teresa of Avila to me.) Holy Spirit: Let go. Don’t do anything you don’t have to do. Live in silence and just respond to others when they come to you. (The title of this set of messages came to me from the song as God Alone! Solo Dios Basta! I felt as if quiet was blanketing me. Holy Spirit: Don’t force anything. Remain in quiet. Jesus: My peace I give unto you. Holy Spirit: End the journal One Foot in Eternity now and let this be the new journal. Every conversation with others begin with praying aloud (I interpreted this to mean when possible and not offensive) with a healing theme of love. Sing “nada te turbe” to yourself. Pray for everyone whose image comes to your mind. (I went to sleep praying in quiet. Then I awoke at 6 AM with this messages coming to me) Holy Spirit: I want you to write to the divorced (as follows) You have knots of bitterness and anger. The love you had when you wanted to marry was not a mistake. We gave you insight into the unique preciousness of 3 another human being to bring you close so that you would fight that the true self of the other would win the battle against the darkness in that person. When you felt the darkness in your spouse winning, you wanted to flee and you wanted to rush toward the light in some other person and you could repeat that pattern over and over again. Only in deep forgiveness will light and love triumph over the darkness of bitterness and anger in you. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the darkness in you that needs forgiveness. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can not overcome it.” (John 1: 5) (At 9 AM I prayed asking Jesus, Mary, and Joseph why a separate series of messages? And they seemed to say simply that it was to reach different people and to work through my voice and in my differences.) 10:45 Adoration. I got prayer of quiet and said “sweet, sweet Jesus, O! many times. I feel very cherished and chosen. Rereading the previous journal: One Foot in Eternity I see You were leading up to this: God Alone: Solo Dio Basta. Holy Spirit: Sit and let the peace saturate you. Don’t do anything else unless the peace lifts, for this peace is healing you. 10 PM I saw the Master of the Transition Booklet. It looks beautiful. I am very tired from writers and RCIA. I wanted a more quiet day. Mary: We are happy with your service. Now, no expectations. Be still and let us all come to you as the Spirit wills. No need to schedule us! Holy Spirit: To prepare for eternity we want you to appreciate the beauty of creation and life even more, but also to relax your grip on it. Let yourself be wafted a little bit above everything, as if you were levitating. (At the RCIA meeting it was clear Fr. Ken wants me to be a teacher in the future. Of course I want to teach the truth with love. When I spoke to him the next day he said that I would certainly be able to teach as I wish. We agreed I am good when I teach vs. argue in groups.) May 13, 2008 6 AM, I awoke thinking about the problem of trying to teach that sex outside of marriage is wrong and then I heard: This is Paul. I thought of different friends named Paul, but then got a sense it meant St. Paul. The Scripture came “Straight is the gate and narrow the way….” 4 St. Paul: Sin seems like liberation but turns to dust. You experienced this. In these times on the globe there is a clearer understanding of this because of the publicly viewed excesses and catastrophic penalties in the flesh. The hope of joy in procreative marital sex has been veiled because of divorce where the children can become pawns. So, the young people don’t feel the secure nest. There is need for strong open witness about the brambles on the strayed path and the goodness of the straight path. This is being done in some contemporary Christian teaching on chastity where the witnesses are open about their experience. You need freedom in the Spirit to be honest, not for the sake of fear, but for the sake of liberation from a society as crazed on this as the pagan societies I preached to. To be chaste people have to cleave to Jesus as I did with passionate constant prayer. During Adoration today I had prayer of quiet and mild rapture. May 14 5:30 AM Holy Spirit: We need the moral law because humans are so greedy to try for heaven on earth in following their illusions that worldly goods will make them happy, such as stolen possessions or the pride of fame. Just the same, it is not as if once someone sins we give up on them and totally reject them. No. We let them live in the consequences (karma?) of their wrong choices. The “righteous” want to see a clearer punishment, such as the immediate destruction of the body of the sinner. This is because the “righteous” are tempted and jealous of the seeming good the sinner got by breaking the code. The “righteous” then feel frightened that the other sinners “got away with it.” In this way, concupiscence and pride make a vicious circle. Both the concupiscent and the proud are motivated by fear: fear of not having enough leads to covetousness. The fear of being a wretched coveter instead of a proud Stoic leads to sins of anger and desire for vengeance, and trying to be victorious through denunciation. Do you see how Jesus tried to unmask these double evils by condemning greed and lust but also condemning self-righteousness? What is the way out of the circle? “Perfect love casts out fear.” By offering you the perfect love of the Trinity and, through the centuries, the comfort of the love of your 5 spiritual mother, Mary, and the model of so many saints and Holy Communion (co communion with us) we try to reach in to you to open the knots of fear. As our love finds a place in you, we build a well in the depth of you in which to gradually pour in grace which over time overflows so you can love your neighbor as yourself. You see? When your well of love is fuller you can love yourself and reach out to your neighbor with loving concern as you see them grabbing out of fear and judging out of fear. This takes a long time to workout. The process is called “life.” It is our “job” and our joy to see how to overcome the obstacles in you that come from original sin, childhood wounds, social formation, and your “fright-ful” choices. “But, be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.”’ I showed Fr. Ken the first pages of this new journal. He thought the messages were fine in content. He thought I did not need to try to figure out origin, just the truth of them. May 15, 2008 I realized that I like Flynn House because since my husband was a kinda tough guy, I miss this being mostly with women. Tough guys make me feel protected. Fr. Ken is strong and a protection for me emotionally and spiritually but he is not a tough guy to make me feel physically protected. May 15, 2008 Holy Spirit 6:30 AM The Family Out of individualism, you think too much as if each individual has to have every virtue to be complete, whole and perfect. Your critical eye focuses on each one in a family and you think about each ones defects and your mind works on how you would like each one to be. The same with your family in the Church. You have not really understood the mystical body image we gave you in Scripture. (Jesus is the head, you are the body and the idea that a hand is not a leg.) It would be better if you look at each one and be grateful for every virtue, talent and good personal way and see how it contributes to the family and others places this person is: school, work, Church. They need the help of the Spirit to perfect those qualities to bring them under the umbrella of love. 6 In their areas of defect, when some capacity is needed by the Spirit, they need to call for help on those who are better in this area and to seek Divine help. But they don’t need to berate themselves constantly for not being everything. That comes from a proud, competitive, envious, spirit. This teaching is part of the goal we have for greater appreciation for your own gifts and the gifts of others. It will take away tense striving and make “the burden light.” You will be without so much tension to be perfect in a worldly way. The fierce desire to control others and yourself must give way to giving yourself and others to us in prayer and becoming encouragers and affirmers of the good. May 15 AM – funny joke on an e-mail forward: Live in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning Satan says “Oh, no, she’s awake.” 8 PM After Compline I was getting ready to read a book, but I felt drawn into rapture instead and turned out the light to lie in bed and let Jesus take me. I slept a bit after about an hour of rapture. 10:30 PM I awoke and saw in my mind’s eye Jesus in white smiling. His arm was around me and we walked in a hilly pleasant green terrain. Jesus to me and others on the path: We are in heaven. I am heaven. I can put you in heaven at any time. I saw a flashing scene of the Passion. Jesus: Suppose I give you the choice. Which would you choose, heaven or the Cross? Ronda: That’s not fair to ask us. A part of me wants heaven and a part the cross on earth. The question divides me. Jesus: It could be that the vision I gave you of heaven adds to the pain in you; like St. Paul’s? Ronda: Thy will be done. I see Jesus in the green hills. Jesus: Don’t be afraid. Regina is right. Many of you are afraid of joy. Notice you don’t have to do anything here, just be still and look. I feel calm. He takes my hand and leads me into a forest. I sense the presence of the redeemed beings of my mother, my father and Dorothy (the woman he married 7 after he left us when my sister and I were 8 years old) peacefully together. They say to me, thank you for praying for us. Jesus: Can you feel joy that I could do this? (He walks behind them and has his arms around them from behind where they are standing, radiant.) All is well. Ronda: I feel obliterated because I can not even wish such peace. I so much cleave to division as more manageable! (Later, typing up my night’s notes I realized that even though I pray for my mother, father and Dorothy on their journeys ‘on the other side,’ there is a part of me that doesn’t want to ever see them again because I have not totally forgiven the hurts and because I use their sins and faults so often for illustrations of points in talks I imagine that they hate me for it. I am going to pause in my writing now and pray for healing in this area.) Jesus: That is my message tonight: envision total joy in union without separation. Can you see that I am teaching you a new form of healing? For you this healing would be not to separate within yourself the mind (mother), the body (Dorothy) and the masculine drive (father). (I see a little girl, Ronda, moving toward the three. They all smile at me. I hug each of them and now there are four.) Jesus: Can you just be there without figuring it out? You can call it Christo-therapy if you want. Whatever has not been done on earth, will be done in purgatory. For those who love the light there is no darkness. Ronda: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Jesus: Now, rest. May 16 - 3 AM: (I woke suddenly with images of war. (I have been reading about the Vietnam War and the Iraq war). Jesus: Wars are a shock treatment we have to use to break through the dreadful complacency of worldliness. Ronda: Do you mean you cause or allow the wars? 8 Jesus: Those philosophical distinctions re good, but you feel the agonies as sent not just allowed. What is important is not your analysis, but the cracking of the shell – the breaking through the illusion that you and others can make a paradise out of combined selfishness. Ronda: That seems harsh. We have survival instincts and a sense of the common good. Jesus: In the soul open to the need for God’s love and for salvation, those instincts are transformed in solidarity with others as you see in magnified form in the saints who didn’t choose evil as a desperate means for survival. But, do not fret; obey and love. (I looked up Christo-therapy on the web. A Bernard Tyrell started a movement with this name and wrote a book with this title; probably part of the Association of Christian Therapists. I thought that perhaps there is a collaboration in the offing of Regina, Ann and myself in counseling based on the messages and Regina’s book) Jesus: Going back to your healing image of last night with your mother, Dad, and Dorothy: Can you see that in surrendering yourself to us we have used your mother’s mind, your father’s drive and organizing skills and Dorothy’s childlikeness as ingredients in that “soup” that’s call Ronda? We, your Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, want you to see this as a microcosm of the way we bring good out of pain and brokenness. Dwell in this. “Alles vergangliche ist nur ein gleichnis?” Jesus about Shame You are inclined to feel shame because you are vulnerable instead of shame because you sin. The healing is to accept your creatureliness with childlike simplicity: “O, my Father in heaven, your little child feels weak, uncertain, miserable. Lord have mercy,” and then toddle along through your day as we strengthen you.” May 16, 2008 When I typed up the healing part about seeing my mother and father and Dorothy together seemingly in heaven, I thought it might help on the guilt part to do that famous healing exercise where you write a letter to each person and write back what you think they would write back, trusting the Holy Spirit to convey the answers you need. Dear Mother, I feel guilty, not so much because of the bad feelings when you were alive because the conflicts were real and unavoidable given our differences, but more because of 9 using sins of your life as illustrations in talks. I say I do this because shocking witness talks work better than vague ideas, but I see today that I do it to get symbolic victory over the way I couldn’t persuade you in life to agree with Church teaching or to be the doting mother you were before my conversion. I want to ask you to forgive me for not trying harder to show forgiving love in spite of all these conflicts and for keeping it going after your death by means of these anecdotes. Dear Ronda, Part of my purgatory was the pain in me for my rejection of the good as well as the bad parts of you, and the way this hurt both of us. It was hard to forgive you for rejecting me for not being the Catholic you wanted me to be and for my sins before my conversion and afterwards in encouraging others to rebel. I realize your guilty side keeps you trapped so that you cannot have that heart filled only with love you so long for. Let us forgive each other now in eternity where there is no time barrier. Dear Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother. Yes. I loved you when I was a child. And I loved you throughout the rest of your time on earth even if it was tainted with a duty only attitude. Dear Ronda, I always loved you even though I hated your tight self-righteousness. I felt so rejected. (I am now picturing us embracing and then laughing at each other with the joke “well, we both sure have a way with words!”) Sighs of relief. (I will bring this to confession on Saturday – the symbolic victory part.) After I wrote this I didn’t feel a need to do a letter to Dad or Dorothy. I think that those relationships have been healed in one way or another. That same evening the Holy Spirit seemed to tell me that if I am giving these messages to others I should describe it as a charismatic teaching gift. 10