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True Citizenship Starts in Heaven

Most times, peoples and their countries have skillfully succeeded in subsisting despite the lack of education, the lack of charity, famine, pestilence, or wars. And that is a result of the Immortal Spirit that inhabits all citizens, whether they are...

Loving Is a Prayer

Prayer is not the refuge of cowards or of the idle. It uplifts us, while work fulfills us. The Pope prays, the Dalai Lama meditates, Chico Xavier (1910-2002) prayed, rabbis chant their supplications, protestants...

The Serious Consequences of the Various Types of Suicide

No one is free from falling victim to lower spiritual influences, which, even when they do not reveal themselves in a gesture as extreme as killing oneself, result in consequences that seem like a veritable suicide in life.   How many companies, for...

Spirituality

Peace, Prayer, and Vigilance

Source: A Goodwill Reflection taken from the book “Jesus e a Cidadania do Espírito” [Jesus and the Citizenship of the Spirit] (2019).
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Martin Luther King Jr.

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), the distinguished social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States, delivered a speech on April 10, 1957, in Saint Louis, Missouri, in which he accurately declared: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

This intrepid leader of the cause of the philosophy of nonviolence was right, because Peace is one of God’s most powerful talents and is synonymous with Love and Justice based on Truth. Everything must converge on Peace and expand from it. It has nothing to do with cowardice, but with common sense and efficient fraternal action. “Watch and pray” (The Gospel according to Mark 14:38) is a valuable teaching from the Ecumenical Jesus, the Divine Statesman, for achieving Peace with strong determination and great patience.

God’s Christ warned: “Be on guard! Watch and pray! You do not know when  the time of the Final Judgment will come.” (The Gospel according to Mark 13:33)

Tela: Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne (1631-1681)

     

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Alziro Zarur  

Alziro Zarur (1914-1979) also understood watching as working. So he used to say: “Pray and watch; that is, pray and work.” St. Benedict (480-547) made “Ora et labora” [“Pray and work”] the fundamental principle of his Order.

Divulgação

The young German Jewish writer Anne Frank (1929-1945) recorded her peaceful ideals in her diary, even though she was suffering the anguish caused by World War II (1939-1945). This is her courageous testimony and a warning to those who still delight in pessimism, which only increases the social and physical ills of people: “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

José de Paiva Netto (1941-2025), a writer, journalist, radio broadcaster, educator, composer, poet, the President Emeritus and Consolidator of the Legion of Good Will, and Spiritual Leader of the Religion of God, of the Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. He was an effective member of the Brazilian Press Association (ABI) and the Brazilian International Press Association (ABI-Inter), a member of the National Federation of Journalists (FENAJ), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Union of Professional Journalists of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the Union of Writers of Rio de Janeiro, the Radio Broadcasters Union of Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Union of Composers (UBC), and the Academy of Letters of Central Brazil. He became an internationally recognized author in the defense of human rights and in his concepts of Ecumenical Citizenship and Ecumenical Spirituality, which, in his own words, represent “the cradle of the most generous values that are born of the Soul, the dwelling of emotions and of reasoning enlightened by intuition; the atmosphere that embraces everything that transcends the ordinary field of matter and comes from elevated human sensitivity, such as Truth, Justice, Mercy, Ethics, Honesty, Generosity, and Fraternal Love. In short, the mathematical constant that harmonizes the equation of spiritual, moral, mental, and human existence. Now, without the understanding that we exist on two planes―not only on the physical plane―it will be difficult to build a Society that is truly Ecumenical, Altruistic, and Solidary, since we would still be ignoring that the knowledge of Superior Spirituality elevates the character of creatures and, consequently, leads to the construction of the Planetary Citizenship.”