Q&A WITH MYSTIC ALICJA LENCZEWSKA, PART 6
We live in a world full of stimuli that feed negative thoughts. Social media, music, movies, and advertising inundate us with images and messages that can contaminate our minds. Most of us pay no attention to them at all. Sadly, those who have deliberately embraced evil even take delight in them. Only a handful of Christians who truly care about their salvation try to resist them, but unfortunately, they usually do so without much success.
Bad thoughts can take various forms: thoughts of pride, thoughts of despair, thoughts of hatred, impure thoughts; and finally, blasphemous thoughts—the most difficult to combat because they originate from our adversary.
Fighting intrusive thoughts is often like tilting at windmills. The harder we try to defeat them by our own efforts, the stronger they seem to become. Relying on our own strength inevitably leads to failure. But when we humbly acknowledge our weakness and offer it to Jesus, then we make room for God’s grace to work.
Let us now explore what God advised Alicja in this regard.
THE POWER OF GOOD AND EVIL THOUGHTS
(Friday, August 8, 1986)
† Be careful with your thoughts. Your growth and your following of Me depend on them.
Good or evil begins with a thought. Thought has creative power, and although you may not realize it, your thoughts are constantly creating either good or evil.
They create good when they contribute something constructive to your actions toward yourself or others in the realm of spiritual growth.
They create evil when they are empty and purposeless, when they consume time that could be used creatively. In that case, they lead to general laziness and spiritual stagnation.
A greater evil is dwelling mentally on and taking delight in things, people, or your own ambitions.
Such thoughts hinder your response to My call. They lead you onto another path, a side road. They draw you farther and farther away from Me. This is worse than mere stagnation.
The worst thoughts are those that contain doubt and rebellion—rebellion against situations, tasks, and people. Such rebellion is rebellion against Me, for I work through situations, events, and people.
Rebellion gives rise to conflict, and conflict is the most fertile form of evil—it awakens evil in others. It is a turning in the opposite direction.
The beginning of doubt and rebellion is judgment.
Your human judgments are flawed because they are based on your own measure. No human being is a standard, nor can anyone regard himself as the measure of anything or anyone.
I am the Standard of all truth and holiness. My judgment alone is true. The only positive way of judging is to use Me as the standard. This, too, was one reason for My human life among you.
More important, however, if you wish to teach others, is to teach by the example of your own attitude, conduct, wisdom, gentleness, and the other virtues whose pattern I gave you, rather than by words. Instruction through words always carries the risk of not being confirmed by actions. And the lack of such confirmation—especially when actions contradict words—gives rise to doubt and rebellion in others.
And that is the worst thing of all.
† You should ask forgiveness for thoughts that are the beginning of wrongful actions. Let your thoughts remain with Me; let them be filled with prayer—then there will be no room in them for evil.
If your thoughts are filled with good, evil will not arise within them. It is better to fill them with good than later to waste energy uprooting evil after it has grown and taken root.
Remain close to Me, and together we will build good thoughts within you. If you offer them to Me, I will see to it that goodness grows and flourishes in them.
THE DEVIL TRIES TO PLANT EVIL THOUGHTS IN OUR MINDS
(Friday, December 24, 1993)
† My child, quiet your heart and look at Me. Restrain and drive away all the thoughts that assault your mind and destroy the peace of your heart.
Do not be afraid of them, and do not dwell on them. They are not your thoughts.
They are the arrows of the evil spirit, who seeks to inject his poison into your soul through your mind and through your heart.
You already know this, for I have taught you to recognize the breath of evil that seeks to surround and ensnare you. You know that a great war has been waged against your soul, and that further attacks will come against your mind, your memory, your imagination, and your emotions.
Do not be afraid of this. Be watchful, and do not allow any evil thought to remain within you or to find an echo in your heart.
My Name is a powerful weapon. It brings calm. With it return peace, gentleness, love, and joy.
Live in the present moment.
SUPERNATURAL GIFT OF SILENCE
(Thursday, February 2, 1995)
† My child, if your mind is filled with a flurry of thoughts and your heart with a storm of emotions, then struggle against them through active prayer expressed in words and through fervent praise and thanksgiving, especially for hardship and suffering. Ask for strength and perseverance, for the ability to accept everything and to offer it with purity of heart.
If, however, you sense that the grace of silence is coming upon your soul, that My loving gaze rests upon you, then be silent. Quiet your mind and the emotions of your heart and remain absorbed in Me. Immerse yourself in My gaze, so that it may embrace you completely and penetrate you through and through.
Remain in the silence of wonder, so as not to lose anything of the holiness of this moment, of the grace that has been given to you. This is the greatest grace and the most exalted state of your soul immersed in Me, a state that is to illumine the time that follows […]
Now is prayer—the sacred time of immersion and absorption in Me, of delighting in Me with trusting, joyful peace.
This is the true state of your soul, the state for which it was created and in which its existence—your existence—is fulfilled: the seed of what is to come when I draw you out of the bondage of earthly life in the flesh.
What could be more important or more beautiful than such a holy moment of silence in Me—a silence that is a hymn, a fragrance, a warmth, a harmony of colors, and the radiance of Love?
Like dawn over the Sea of Galilee, when, through the morning mist and blue sky, rays of light streamed from My hands—peace and love poured out upon My children—as I allowed you to behold it.
From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile. (Mk. 7:21-23)
During this month of October, dedicated to Our Lady and the Holy Rosary, let us turn to her for help. May she who crushes the head of the ancient serpent guide us in the battle for a pure mind.
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a CE original series on a twentieth-century Polish mystic, entitled Q&A with Mystic Alicja Lenczewska. Follow along here, and catch up on previous articles on Alicja’s writings here.
Author’s Note: Excerpts taken from Alicja Lenczewska, A Word of Instruction (Słowo Pouczenia), Testymony, (Świadectwo) published by Wydawnictwo Agape (Poznań, 2016).
Image via Wikimedia Commons
