Self-Knowledge
“Trust and, with patient endurance, allow all your disorders to come to the Light. It is only in this way that you can be made pure in the furnace of God’s love.”
— Community, Love Crucified, Teaching Manual (2020), p. 74
Jesus commands us to love ourselves. This is a commandment for a reason: self-love is difficult. To grow in trust in God—nourished by love—we must allow our disorders to come into the light. Without this openness, true healing cannot happen.
Self-knowledge grows through struggle, failure, and perseverance. Sanctification is not achieved by perfection but by humility: the willingness to begin again after we fall. Each time we rise, our trust and love for God deepen. This process also makes us compassionate toward others, for we recognize in them the same struggles we face.
Scripture reminds us: “The just man falls seven times a day” (Proverbs 24:16). Our battle is with ourselves, not with others. When we focus on our own disorders, we have little time for gossip or criticism. If we do not allow the Holy Spirit to purify us in this life, then the fire of God’s love will do so after death. This is the trial by fire St. Paul describes:
“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder… Each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ… The fire will test the quality of each person’s work… If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.”
— 1 Corinthians 3:10–15
Life offers many distractions, tempting us to avoid the inner journey we must make. At death, the conscious and unconscious will meet; hence, our need for grace and healing now. We choose the path: openness to truth or resistance to it. To close ourselves to truth is to choose hell; to open ourselves is to welcome the grace of the Holy Spirit.
We all choose a path—open to truth or closed to it. To close ourselves is to suffocate under our own illusions. To open ourselves is to breathe the grace of the Holy Spirit. The journey of self-knowledge is not self-absorption; it is conversion. It is walking steadily into the Light where love refines, truth frees, and Christ becomes all in all.
Let the disorders come. Let the Light receive them. Let love do its work. — Br. MD
