APPENDIX
Fr. Alberione's notebook of manuscript contained some chapters that were not included later in the printed booklet. For love of completeness, we are printing them here in the order they were arranged in the manuscript.
The greater part - 11 chapters - belongs to The Theology of the Father (way of purification), and they were located between the chapter Judgment and the chapter Confession (DFst 34). A chapter entitled Life given by the Holy Spirit, concerned The Theology of the Spirit (way of union), and it preceded the chapter The Militant Church (DFst 68).
A title, printed within square parentheses, has also been given to the chapters that did not have any title in the manuscript.
The three points with which every chapter is divided are marked in the manuscript with Roman numerals. For uniformity with the rest of the book, we changed them to Arabic numerals.
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[DFms 29] End of the world
1. In the end there shall be a renewal: erunt coeli novi et terra nova;1 omnis creatura ingemiscit usque adhuc expectans.2 A heaven that shall be a perfect kingdom, a rearranged earth. A body that shall have the gifts of the glorious body: splendor, fineness, agility, impassibility.
2. Revelation and exaltation of the Divine Providence and Justice; of the Wisdom and Mercy of Jesus Christ; of the holiness and greatness of the Apostles, of the martyrs, of the Good. Humiliation and punishments of the rebels, of the proud, of the disobedient, of the hypocrites, of the obstinates, etc.
3. Let us take: as rule of conduct to individually guide us in bodily sufferings, in the abuse of the sad, etc; rule of conduct in judging historical events, in social, civil, international relations; norm for judging of the mission of the Church. There shall be the epilogue of Creation, Redemption, Sanctification of the world.
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[DFms 30] [Sin is three times evil]
Sin is three times evil.
With respect to God:
Reckless rebellion against the Supreme Lord.
Dark ingratitude against the Supreme Goodness.
Foolish challenge against his Justice.
Cruelty like an attempt at the Divine Life and renewal of the Passion of Jesus Christ.
With respect to us:
For the past, it takes away merits and good habits.
For the present: deserves hell, closes heaven, detaches from grace.
For the future: fills with remorse, takes away the possibility of making merits, draws death and punishments.
With respect to neighbor:
Always impedes graces, often scandalizes.3
For the one called to the apostolate, it hurts many souls.
It is reflected in the whole of eternity.
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[DFms 31] [Eternity]
1. Eternity is: interminabilis vitæ tota simul et perfecta possessio.4 No human calculation can ever tell us what it may be. Vitam æternam, ignem æternum.5
2. For the deceased: to those blessed, the maximum tranquility on their lot, and for all eternity, joys that are concentrated in every instant; for the damned the greatest desperation and, more, the whole eternity weighs with all the torments up to the present: tota simul;6 example of the ball of lead on smooth table.
3. It must produce in our souls: great solicitude, nulla nimia securitas ubi periclitatur æternitas;7 we manufacture our eternity ibit homo in domum æternitatis suæ;8 life is the preparation for eternity and the foretaste of him who, also at the expense of great sorrows, is saved; foolish is he who, laughing, gets damned.
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[DFms 32] Resolutions
1. To the meditation on the end of the world follow the first resolutions. Convenient time is spent on them due to their difficulty and special importance.
a) The first is the abandonment of sin, conversion, confession with profound dispositions.
b) The second concerns the choice of state in life (if not yet made) according to the views of God and our eternal advantages.
c) The third is the special determination to accomplish well the will of God and to provide for eternity in the chosen, embraced special state in life.
2. Needed here a) to experience the will of God, b) to consider things under the light of eternity.
It is necessary that the external voice of wealth, honor, pleasures should be silenced; in such a way that the heart becomes indifferent to everything that is of the world, of this life, of selfishness.
3. Given these three dispositions, three are the means:
a) humble, constant, trusting prayer;
b) to think before the tabernacle and before the open sepulcher;
c) to seek good advice, from a learned, pious and prudent person.
The fruit shall be as holy as these resolutions: that is, properly chosen, profoundly felt, accompanied by divine mercy.
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[DFms 33] [Sin is destruction]
1. Sin is destruction. Among the angels, only one sin, only by thought, has ruined a large part among the Angels. It did not have forgiveness; will not have it. To God their greatness did not matter! These are signs of the enormity of the offense against God.
2. It has destroyed our foreparents. God made promises to Adam and to his children: and he gave them gifts: integrity, grace, immortality, happiness.
The sin was pride, it was deceit, it caused destruction to them, and to all their children: spiritual, intellectual, moral, public, private, infinite destruction.
3. Sin is destruction in us. The only, voluntary, spiritual destruction.
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[DFms 34] [Three elements to sin]
It takes three elements to sin: intelligence, will, matter. In order that sin may be grave, the awareness of the mind and the consent of the will must be full; furthermore, the matter must be serious. Otherwise, sin is venial.
One must equally be far from scrupulosity which is a false conviction and from laxity, which is recklessness, in judging sin.
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[DFms 35] [What is sin in particular]
1. In particular, sin is: a voluntary transgression of God's law. Voluntary and that is: it proceeds from the intelligence and will. Transgression... includes rebellion against God, Creator and Lord and as such it is supreme pride; a rebellion against God the most loving Redeemer and as such a supreme ingratitude; against God Judge and hence a supreme foolishness.
2. Sin is the real disaster because, from the past, it takes away merits, good habits, education; for the present, because it takes away grace, closes heaven, opens hell; for the future, as it attracts other disgraces, crosses, remorse, death; all created things become enemy, disposes for falling again, makes one live at the edge of hell.
3. Sin must be shunned with hatred: the greatest hatred! Better death; universal, especially however that for which we are disposed; supernatural in motives and in principle; effective, that is, it makes us use means, flight from dangers and assiduous prayer.
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[DFms 36] Mercy
1. With Adam's fall, God reveals, at a distance, the Repairer; for the fallen sinner, there is confession, mercy.
To bring mercy to man is the reason of the incarnation: it is foreshadowed in the sought-after drama of the lost sheep, the prodigal son.
2. Why did he leave the father's house? He was junior! Desire for freedom.
How was he engulfed by evil? - Far from the father- by living luxuriose9 - he dissipated everything.
How does he return to the father? Abandoned by his friends, reduced to the extremes, he meditates, he puts his trust on his father.
How is he welcome? He was expected (prevenuto),10 he receives as much as he had before, and even more.
3. In whatever state is the soul, let there be hope! He who was a sinner, with the overabundance of grace, can go much higher through penance.
Serious is the responsibility of him who does not take advantage of mercy.
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[DFms 37] [Hell]
1. Hell is eternal destruction, the consummation of the destruction due to sin. Destruction of the divine plan of Creation, Redemption, Sanctification. Destruction or failure in life, of all the means of our salvation Melius si natus non fuisset.11 Nos insensati... ergo erravimus.12
2. In fact, hell is the privation of the vision of God, every evil deed, every torment. God is known only that much for one to suffer; thus the benefits, the graces, the happiness that he gives to the chosen ones, the mistake committed by disobeying; the will has only evil, nothing good; the heart, imagination, the senses, all, every torment: Locus tormentorum.13
Hell is proportionate to the seriousness, the obstinacy and the number of sins.
3. What should the thought of hell produce in us: a) supreme horror, the greatest, of sin; b) horror of the dangers of sin, with attachment to prayer and abnegation of the senses; c) zeal in stopping souls who are journeying towards hell: especially through writings.
[DFms 38] [blank page]
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[DFms 39] [The examination of conscience]
1. The examination of conscience is an inquiry on the state of the soul: attitudes, graces, dangers, duties, sins, struggle, merits, victories. It is the clock of the soul. It gives us the state of health or of sickness, more than and together with individual faults.
2. It is necessary so that: there can be indispositions that excuse one from all the practices of piety, but not from the examination of conscience. So much for avoiding sin and dangers, as much as for progressing and studying the means for succeeding.
3. The examination of conscience is general and particular. The general is done every evening, every confession, with every monthly retreat, during the course of Spiritual Exercises. The particular is done in the morning as preventive, through the day and in the evening, once, well. We should make it a habit so that reflection on ourselves and on our actions, thoughts, sentiments is rooted in us. It must be preceded by prayer, followed by sorrow, resolution, penance, in the manner of a confession between the soul and the Lord.
[DFms 40] [blank page]
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[DFms 41] Confession
1. Confession is general reparation. It has two aspects: the past that it erases in our evil part, that is, sin; the future for which it is the remedy par excellence and prevention of sin.
2. Confession: opens heaven, closes hell, restores lost merits by sin, the restoration (ritorna)14 of peace of heart, gives grace, exercises man in humility, makes him prudent, gives him the sacramental grace and the better guarantee against the final judgment.
3. It must be done: with due frequency, with sorrow since it is conversion, with sincerity, with constancy. Ordinarily, in confession also one finds the better guide, so much for the beginning of spiritual life as much for its development.
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[DFms 42] [The spiritual director]
If one truly loves to make good use of the time of formation, one needs the Spiritual Director:
a) To him one must totally reveal: the past life, defects, virtues, inclinations, preferences, aptitudes, piety, attractions, gifts of the Lord, level of education, obstacles, health, circumstances of life, etc., etc.
b) Place in his hands the will with constancy, repetition of acts, removing the difficulties that block formation; and with prayer, trying to do promptly, easily, pleasantly (diletto)15 what the Director shall indicate.
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[DFms 88]
Life given by the Holy Spirit16 | Lives | a) What is life: natural
| vegetable
animal
rational
Angelic
Divine |
| The human-divine life of Jesus Christ. |
| Christian life | b) this is created by the Holy Spirit:
in Jesus Christ: «Spiritus Sanctus superveniet... ductus a Spiritu...
descendit Spiritus...»17
in us:in Baptism, second life: «renatus ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto...»18
in confirmation
in the Eucharist, etc.
|
| Creation and development | c) Respect this human-divine life.
Develop it.
Pray. |
88
1 “There shall be new heavens and new earth.” The sentence is not literal but according to meaning. Cf. Is 66:22 and Rev 21:1.
2 Abbreviated quotation, taken from Rom 8:22: “Omnis creatura ingemiscit et parturit usque adhuc... expectans... - We know that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption... that all creation is groaning in labor pains even now.”
3 There is an obsolete word in the original.
4 The definition comes from the philosopher Boetius (De Consolatione, Prosa 6; PL 63, 858A) and was assumed by St. Thomas, Summa Theologiæ, 1ª, q. 10, a. 1: “Eternity is the total, perfect, simultaneous possession of an interminable life.”
5 See Mt 25:46: “Ibunt... justi... in vitam æternam - The righteous shall go off to eternal life” and Mt 25:41: “Discedite a me maledicti, in ignem æternum - Depart from me you accursed, into the eternal fire.”
6 “Everything at the same instant.”
7 “No security is too much where eternity is endangered.” Adage used in asceticism.
8 Eccl 12:5: “Man goes to his lasting home.”
9 “Living dissolutely.”
10 “Prevenuto”: that is “preceduto”, “anticipato” = “preceded”, “expected”.
11 Cf. Mt 26:24 and parallel quotes: “Melius erat”, etc.: “It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”
12 Wis 5:4 and 6: “Fools that we were... we then strayed from the way of truth.”
13 “Place of torments.” Cf. Lk 16:28.
14 “Ritorna”: that is “fa ritornare” (makes to return), “restituisce” (restores).
15 For this expression that translates the formula “prompte, faciliter, delectabiliter”, see note 10 of DFst 81.
16 Chapter concerning the Way of Union (DFms 88). Cf. page of DFms, Attachment no. 7, p. 280.
17 Let us complete the sentences: “Spiritus Sanctus superveniet in te - The Holy Spirit will come upon you” (Lk 1:35). “Tunc Iesus ductus est in desertum a Spiritu - Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert” (Mt 4:1). “Descendit Spiritus Sanctus corporali specie sicut columba in ipsum - And the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove” (Lk 3:22).
18 “Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto... - No one can enter the kingdom of God wihtout being born of water and Spirit” (Jn 3:5).