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BLESSED ARE THE AFFLICTED, - Joana dArc, 06 09 2016.

Theme: Blessed are the afflicted.


Source: the gospel according to Spiritism, V: 1 to 3.

BLESSED ARE THE AFFLICTED


The justice of afflictions. - Causes of present-day afflictions. - Past causes of afflictions. - Forgetfulness of the
past.- Motives for resignation. - Suicide and madness. - INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SPIRITS: To suffer well or
badly. - Evil and its remedy. - Happiness is not of this world. - Losing loved ones. Premature deaths. - If he had
been a good man he would have died. - Voluntary torments. True misfortune. - Melancholy. - Voluntary trials. The
true hair shirt. - Should we end our neighbour's probation? -Would it be licit to hasten the death of someone
incurably sick who is suffering? - Sacrificing one's own life. - Making one's own suffering useful to others.
***
1. - Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is
the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew, 5: 5, 6 & 10).
***
2. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is
the Kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye
shall laugh (Luke, 6: 20 & 21).
But woe unto you that are rich! For ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! For ye
shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh! For ye shall mourn and weep (Luke, 6: 24 & 25).
***
THE JUSTICE OF AFFLICTIONS
3. The compensation promised by Jesus to the afflicted of this Earth can only be effected in a future life.
Without the certainty of this future these maxims would be a contradiction; still more, they would be a decoy. Even
with this certainty it is difficult to understand the convenience of suffering in order to be happy. It is said that it is to
acquire greater merit. But then we ask: Why do some suffer more than others? Why are some born in misery and
others in opulence without having done anything to justify this situation? Why is it that some never manage to
achieve anything, while for others everything seems to smile? Yet what is even less understandable is why benefits
and misfortunes are divided so unequally between vice and virtue. Why do we find virtuous people suffering side by
side with the wicked who prosper? Faith in the future can console and instill patience, but it does not explain these
irregularities which appear to contradict God's justice. However, once God's existence has been admitted one
cannot conceive Him as being less than infinitely perfect. He is naturally all powerful, all just and all kindness,
without which He would not be God. If He is supremely good and just then He cannot act capriciously, nor yet with
partiality. The vicissitudes of life derive from a cause, and as God is just so then that cause must
also be just. This is what each one of us must convince ourselves of. Through the teachings of Jesus, God started
Man on the path to find that cause, and now that Man is sufficiently mature as to be able to understand, He has
revealed the cause by means of Spiritism. That is to say, through the words of the Spirits.

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CONSIDERATIONS:
Every effect has a cause and if the cause is not of the present let us seek out in the past, if we understand
the life of our soul or our spirit in spiritual study according to Spiritism we do learn that God creates us ' simple and
ignorant ' .1 with instinct to evolve and to have progress' 2 and with 'free will and freedom' 3 as well as being
immortal spirit.
Consequently we are the authors of ourselves towards in the sense of the progress we may acquire, if in a
life we have little or no progress we will continue in another and another until we reach the level of intelligence and
moral 4 'required for a good balance of life.
The laws of God help us, but the misuse of laws brings us debts that the law of 'causes and effects' 5 collects
from us, on the other hand in the law of reincarnation' 6 the spirit continues accumulating experiences that makes
him to modify and rectify oneself, and if one abused in one life at any given point, be it in offense to others, wealth
or offence to the body, in sequence the law of 'causes and effects' causes the person to the reparation and

equilibrium, If the offense is great the effects will also be, then Jesus having explained in the 'Beatitudes' that the
suffering of life is temporary, because those who suffer today will come in the future of the soul to suffer no more,
because in the 'law of progress' the spirit always tries to improve oneself, just because nobody likes to suffer, also
because God never abandons us and always gives a little push, since Jesus also taught that ' the sick are the ones
who need a doctor', 7 I mean by that, that suffering is not forever, in this case the doctor is the law of 'causes and
effects', Jesus also said that the prison is up to the payment of the last farthing, 8 accordingly we're trapped in
ignorance until we learn knowledge, we're trapped in immorality until we learn to moralize ourselves, we're stuck on
inferiorities until we strive to conquer our inferiorities and we're stuck in this world until we deserve a better one,
and so on, into the greater law which is 'Perfection' and the ascension to God..
In the Beatitudes of the Lord, it breaks and invalidates the messengers of terror and fear of the eternal
suffering that hampers the growth of the evolution of a person, because it interiorizes the person in a condition of
constant inferiority and even because preachers of fear do not know or does not suit them to teach the Gospel of
love. That were certainly the desires of Jesus to proclaim the 'Kingdom of God', which is love and spirituality,
encouraging and exemplifying to us, to love each other, to cure the sick, to visit the sick, teach or proclaim this
Gospel, this love of God 9 to us all, even because only love gets the better of all, only love is eternal, and as we are
immortal, that already has been revealed, we must live according to love.
Rivalries, hatred, envy, avarice, be belligerent, for superb, proud etc. are defects of the soul which the 'law of
causes and effects seeks out to cure in the people, and souls go on to purify themselves slowly in the
understanding of the laws of God and their neighbor, in the tolerance, the rights of each other, we are all children of
God, 10 the Gospel of the Lord is not just for the privileged but for all, because Jesus said: 'go to the whole world'.
11 ' is for everyone, that is to say: for all the humanity.
The knowledge of the ' Beatitudes ' gives us faith in God and in the future, and there's plenty more in the
Gospel, because it teaches us that 'God is our Father' 12 that God loves us, that we should have faith in God
because if today one suffers it is not forever, but until we rescue or repair our faults, 'to make peace with our next
while we're on the way' 13, to forgive and be forgiven, to love and seek to be a better person, this exercise of
improvement is constantly required from us, because it is the formation of our character, our spiritual growth, our
identity and in practice to gain and increase gifts, virtues that accompany us and present us, as our personality and
shows who we are, our achievements are ours, nobody takes from us they are fruits of the soul, so Jesus has told
us: 'to keep our treasure where the moth does not corrode' 14 thence wherever we are, our treasure be with us,
according as Jesus said: 'to one each according to his works' 15 'their works follow them'. 16
When we are reborn of water, 17 this is the material body, we bring with us the spiritual achievements
acquired in other 'reincarnations' 18, nothing is lost unless the body when disincarnating, we say disincarnating
because the spirit never dies.
.The family ties derive from shared living, being together they contribute each other on minimization and
alleviation of suffering through all the ups and downs of life who knows, by affinities and sympathies and love for
each other. Sometimes does happen some deviations in temporary parting separation due to some to advance in
progress faster than others, but they're always in contact, be it visiting be it in thought and as they be friendly to
each other they do help each other; this happens also in groups on evolutionary walk and when a degree of
evolutionary Ascension draws near, the Group waits for the slowing ones and come to help them to speed up the
progress of the backward ones in the fraternal tie, and it is within the law of God 'to love God and the neighbor' 19.
That it happens, being love Law and will of God, and God is the essential source of which we all are fed, because
'in him we live, and we have our being.' 20
Therefore with the support of God. Yes, because the Gospel of love continues in the afterlife and it is
perpetual, the religion of the Spirits is love, and in love all law is contained either in physical or spiritual world.
***

1- The spirits book. Q.. 115 -121


4- The gospel according to Spiritism, XV.
7- Mathew., 9: 12.
10- Mathew., 5: 45
13- Mathew., 5: 2516- Apocalypse, 20: 12-13 + 14:13
19- John 15: 12 + Luke 10: 37.

2- Genesis, I: 55
3- The spirits book, Q. 843.
5- The gospel accor., to Spiritism, 5: 4-10 6- Spirits book, Q. 166-196 + Ge, 11: 33-37.
8-. Luke, 12: 59 + Mathew. 5:26
9- I John, 4:8
11- Mat., 10: 7 + 10: 27
12- John, 16: 28 + 20: 17.
14- Mat., 6:1926
15- Mathew., 16: 27.
17- John, III
18- Spirits book, Q. 166-196 + Ge, 11: 33-37.
20- Acts, 17: 28.

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let us learn a little about the ills that concerns us in genesis of Allan Kardec, chapter III source

of goodness and wickedness:


1. God being the origin of all things, and his nature being all wisdom, justice and goodness, all which
proceeds from him, must be imbued with these attributes; for that which is infinitely wise, just, and good, can

produce nothing unreasonable, wicked, or wrong. The wickedness which we observe cannot then be derived from
him.
2. If wickedness was the province of a special being who is called Satan, he must be either equal to God,
and for all eternity as powerful, or he must be his inferior.In the first case, there would be two rival powers in
constant contention, each one seeking to overthrow the work of the other, and constantly thwarting each other. This
hypothesis is irreconcilable with that unity of purpose which reveals itself in the arrangement of the Universe.
In the second case this being, being inferior to God, would be subordinate to him. Not being able to exist for all
eternity like him, without being his equal, he would have had a commencement. If he has been created, God must
have been his creator. Thus God would have created a bad spirit, which is impossible if he be infinite goodness.
(See Heaven and Hell chap. X, The Demons)
3. However, evil exists, and it has a cause. Evils are of many kinds; there are firstly, physical and moral evils,
then the evils that men can evade, and those that are independent of human will. Among the latter are classed the
natural plagues. Man, whose faculties are limited, cannot compass or understand all the designs of the
Creator. He studies things at the point of view of his personality by artificial interests, and by conditions that he has
created, and which are not in the order of nature. That is why he finds oftentimes wrong and injustice in that which
he would know to be just and admirable if he could see its cause, its end and definite results. In seeking the reason
for being and utility of everything, he will surely discover that all bears the imprint of infinite wisdom, and he will bow
before the wise power even in things which he fails to comprehend.
4. Man has received a share of intelligence by which he can avert, or at least greatly palliate the effects of all
natural plagues. The more knowledge he acquires, the farther he advances in civilization, the less disastrous these
plagues will be. With a wisely provident social organization he will be able to neutralize the consequences of them,
and in time, evade them entirely. Thus for these plagues which annoy us now, but which have their use in the
general order of nature, God has given to men, in the faculties by which he has endowed his mind, the
means of paralyzing their effects in the future. It is thus that he renders healthy insalubrious countries; that he
destroys pestilential miasmas; that he fertilizes waste lands and applies himself to preserve them from inundation;
that he constructs healthier habitations, stronger to resist winds so necessary for the purification of the atmosphere;
that he is sheltered from the inclemency of the weather. It is thus that necessity has created science by the aid of
which he improves the condition of the habitable parts of the globe, and augments the general well-being.
5. The evils to which men are exposed by ignorance are a stimulant for the exercise of
their intelligence, for all their moral and physical faculties, by inducing them to seek for means to shelter
themselves from them. If man had nothing to fear, no necessity would incline him to seek for anything better: he
would become benumbed in the inactivity of his mind; he would invent nothing and discover nothing. Pain and
suffering are incentives which spur men onward, in the march of progress.
6. But the most numerous evils are those which men create by their own vices, - those which spring from
their pride, from their selfishness, from their ambition, from their cupidity, from their excess in all things. Hence the
cause of wars, calamities, dissensions, injustice, oppression of the feeble by the strong, and of the greater part of
diseases. God has established laws full of wisdom, which are only for the good of men. All that is
necessary to mans welfare is his obedience to them. His way is traced out for him by his conscience. The divine
law is engraved upon his heart. Moreover, God reminds him incessantly by his messiahs and prophets, by all
incarnates who have received the mission of enlightening him, of moralizing him, of improving his condition, and in
these latter days by the multitude of discarnates who manifest on all sides, - if man conformed himself rigorously to
the divine laws, he would evade, without doubt, the severest evils, and would live happily upon the Earth. If he
doesnt obey them, it is by virtue of his free will; and he must submit himself to the consequences. (The Gospel
According to Spiritism, Chap. 5, items 4, 5, and 6)

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CONCLUSION
This world according to the Doctrine of the Spirits is 'world of tests and Atonement', an imperfect world where
its inhabitants are suffering, but that in time it will be a 'regenerating world, so 'time' is a law of God which is very
forgetful and as well as many other laws it is little considerable, but it is a very important one: Let's see one always
says 'the time teaches', 'time heals wounds , doctors recommend to desperate patients: 'take the medicine and in
two months you will be good', 'in 30 days you can take the plaster', as the diseases the time is calculated according
to the experience of the doctor and the patient's case.
As the wounds of the soul also one applies the law of the time, because one says "over time those sorrows
will pass', 'look only time will say, 'time will heal 'time heals wounds and other expressions are used by people as
their cultural experiences.

Wanting me to say that in future that only God knows, the Earth will be of 'Regeneration' meaning that a
happy Earth without the current suffering and it is as if it were a place where all recover from wounds and shattered
health to people who were thrashed, in need of good resorts recuperative, to rest their souls after struggles and
exhaustive efforts.
Talking about the question of the law of time, one can also deduce that when a 'soul', sick in need of time to
recover might not be able to restore oneself in a lifetime, we should not be surprised that one may require more
than one reincarnation in order to be healthy, in this sense of time needed one should apply to God a grant
application of the law of reincarnation for the restoring sick soul.
Hence, suffering will not be eternal, but for as long as necessary, because the pain is the sting that
impulsions progress and progress of our soul is necessary, because Jesus said: ' be perfect ', being perfection the
target and center of our happy future.
Yes, this world is of 'Tests and Atonement', hard to be happy, one suggesting that for one to be happy only in
heaven, but heaven or hell aren't circumcised places, but a State of mind, therefore one can be happy in this world
relatively, but there is an intense graduation of multiplicity of degrees of spirits in large number of graduations that
influence ourselves,
They damage and reduce our faith our way of being happy, although there are those who help us and give
us good influences, therefore to be happy one must be in a degree of knowing to deal with all, or divinely protected,
because many influences damage us and annulets our happiness, hence the saying 'happiness is not of this world'
Unless with the time when God sees it's time to choose who is to reincarnate, and so there not being any
negative influence, the world will be a happy one, blissful, desired and deserved by many, as for the unhappy
world, God will abbreviate it, because it wouldn't be fair good mens suffering because of the bad ones, as Jesus
said that: 'there will be an abbreviation in favor of the chosen ones'. (Matthew, 24:22 + Isaiah, 65:8-9).
***
May God be with us, as formerly, today and forever.

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IN RELATION TO THIS STUDY I SUGGEST WE CONSIDER AND APPRECIATE THE


QUESTIONS ns 1000, 1012 e 1019, OF THE Spirits book:
1000. Can we, in the present life, redeem our faults?
"Yes, by making reparation for them. But do not suppose that you can redeem them by a few trifling
privations, or by giving, after your death, what you can no longer make use of. God does not value a sterile
repentance, a mere smiting of the breast, easily done. The loss of a little finger in doing good to others effaces
more wrong doing than any amount of self-torture undergone solely with a view to one's own interest. (726.)
"Evil can only be atoned for by good; and attempts at reparation are valueless if they touch neither a man's
pride nor his worldly interests.
"How can his rehabilitation be subserved by the restitution of ill-gotten wealth after his death, when it has
become useless to him, and when he has already profited by it ?
"What benefit can he derive from the privation of a few futile enjoyments and of a few superfluities, if the
wrong he has done to others is not undone ?
"What, in truth, is the use of his humbling himself before God, if he keeps up his pride before men?" (720, 721.)
***
Paradise, Hell and Purgatory.
1012. Are there, in the universe, any circumscribed places set apart for the joys and sorrows of spirits,
according to their merits?
"We have already answered this question. The joys and sorrows of spirits are inherent in the degree of
perfection at which they have arrived. Each spirit finds in himself the principle of his happiness or unhappiness;
and, as spirits are everywhere, no enclosed or circumscribed place is set apart for either the One or the other. As
for incarnated spirits, they are more or less happy or unhappy, according as the world they inhabit is more or less
advanced."
"Heaven" and "hell," then, as men have imagined them, have no existence?
"They are only symbols; there are happy and unhappy spirits everywhere. Nevertheless, as we have also
told you, spirits of the same order are brought together by sympathy; but, when they are perfect, they can meet
together wherever they will,"

The localization of rewards and punishments in fixed places exists only in man's imagination; it proceeds
from his' tendency to materialize and to circumscribe the things of which he cannot comprehend the essential
infinitude.
***
1019. Will the reign of goodness ever be established upon the earth?
"Goodness will reign upon the earth when, among the spirits who come to dwell in it, the good shall be more
numerous than the bad; for they will then bring in the reign of love and justice, which are the source of good and of
happiness. It is through moral progress and practical conformity with the laws of God, that men will attract to the
earth good spirits, who will keep bad ones away from it; but the latter will not definitively quit the earth until its
people shall be completely purified from pride and selfishness.
"The transformation of the human race has been predicted from the most ancient times, and you are now
approaching the period when it is destined to take place. All those among you who are labouring to advance the
progress of mankind are helping to hasten this transformation, which will be effected through the incarnation, in
your earth, of spirits of higher degree, who will constitute a new population, of greater moral advancement than the
human races they will gradually have replaced. The spirits of the wicked people who are mowed down each day by
death, and of all who endeavour to arrest the onward movement, will be excluded from the earth, and compelled to
incarnate themselves elsewhere; for they would be out of place among those nobler races of human beings, whose
felicity would be impaired by their presence among them. They will be sent into never worlds, less advanced than
the earth, and will therein fulfill hard and laborious missions, which will furnish them with the means of advancing,
while contributing also to the advancement of their brethren of those younger worlds, less advanced than
themselves, Do you not see, in this exclusion of backward spirits from the transformed and regenerated earth, the
true significance of the sublime myth of the driving out of the first pair from the garden of Eden? And do you not
also see, in the advent of the human race upon the earth, under the conditions of such an exile, and bringing within;
itself the germs of its passions and the evidences of its primitive inferiority, the real meaning of that other myth, no
less sublime, of the fall of those first parents, entailing the sinfulness of their descendants? 'Original sin,'
considered from this point of view, is seen to consist in the imperfection of human nature; and each of the spirits
subsequently incarnated in the human race is therefore responsible only for his own imperfection and his own
wrong-doing, and not for those of his forefathers.
"Devote yourselves, then, with zeal and courage to the great work of regeneration, all you who are
processed of faith and good will; you will reap a hundredfold for all the seed you sow, Woe to those who close their
eyes against the light; for they will have condemned themselves to long ages of darkness and sorrow! Woe to
those who centre their enjoyment in the pleasures of the earthly life; for they will undergo privations more numerous
than their present pleasures! And woe, above all, to the selfish; for they will find none to aid them in bearing the
burden of their future misery!

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