ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI ~ WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL JOYOUS?
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“What makes you feel joyous?” It’s such a simple question, and yet it’s a question that’s being ignored by so many. … But when I encourage you to be the instrument and your instrument of love, that is what I am talking about when I am asking you to find your joy, to be your joy. Because when you’re really there, when you’ve gone into the silence, out the other side, circled around, gone back in, stayed there and bi-located outside – that’s when you’re making the change in this, what you feel is this density but it’s not.
Heavenly Blessings ~ 27 September, 2016
Linda Dillon: Channel for the Council of Love
Suzanne Maresca: Host, InLight Universal
[Meditation from 13:10 to 20:02]
St. Francis: Greetings, I am Francis.
Suzi: Welcome.
St. Francis: And you may call me Frank! [Laughter] Welcome, my beloved friends. And I bow and I thank you for the honour of being with you, of sitting and talking, of walking, and of simply sharing our hearts, our space and our beings together.
My beloved friends, my allies in change, sweet angels in form, I say to you “call me Frank” because I want to be frank with you. But I also want you to feel and think and know that I understand your times, and I understand and empathise at points with the situations that so many of you find yourself in.
And although 900 years have passed – think about it, almost 1,000 years – the basic situations of the human experience really haven’t changed that much. For what is the human experience anyway? It is still the interaction between people, whether it is the interaction you have with yourself or with your best friend or your beloved, your mother, your father, your child, your sister, your community or the broader community – it really hasn’t changed that significantly.
You know, when I was a young man, war – yes, it was not as devastating as it is right now – but let me say that war, the waging of battle, was a very popular sport. And usually it was waged, oh, sometimes for personal glory, but usually it had to do with the acquisition of wealth, of greater power – well, power as defined in that realm, in that day, which isn’t significantly different from what you’re experiencing.
And, of course, that attitude was very prevalent in my family and in the society, in the groups that I occupied. And I have to say, it was very seductive! It was very libertarian, it was very decadent, and it didn’t really give you any sense of deep satisfaction.
Even as a young boy, I’d look around – and certainly as a young man – I’d look around and I’d think “Is this it? Is that all there is? Is this just about more power and more money, more jewels, more wealth?” because I learned even then to go pretty quiet. I wouldn’t have called it meditation, but I went quiet and I started to ask myself “Well, what do you want? Giovanni, what do you want? What is it you’re looking for?”
And the more I asked myself that question, the more I delved, not into the sacred mysteries, not into the religious teachings – oh, they were there in the background – but the more I asked myself “What do you want? What are you looking for?” I realised that what I was really looking for was peace, was love, was this sense that life itself made sense.
Now, I am not saying that my parents didn’t love me; they did, in their own way. But with that love, it was harnessed and trapped and all kinds of expectations of how I would evolve or what I would do with my life. And increasingly what happened was that none of it made any sense to me; none of it lined up with what I wanted.
I didn’t turn away from society; a lot of people think I did. What I turned away from were these elements that made absolutely no sense to me, that made my heart feel heavy and sluggish and that boggled my mind, and that I couldn’t see putting any really effort – any life force of what you would think of it as – into what was expected of me. And I knew; I knew within my shallow being that what was being expected of me wasn’t going to make me happy.
When I left home to find myself – and yes, to find Jesus, to find my Mother/Father – I was really looking for myself. And I thought to myself “If I can just remove myself far enough from all this extemporaneous noise, then I’ll be able to really hear my spirit and the universe.”
“If I remove myself far enough that I can hear the sounds of the universe, that I can even hear the sounds of nature”– yes, of the birds; I know I’m famous for that. But that wasn’t my [laughs] goal: “I’m going to leave my life behind and find out what the birds sound like”… that would have been ridiculous! But I did want to connect with this planet and all of it, not excluding human beings, but I had to remove myself for a period of time from the human beings so that I could hear myself.
And so often in your society, it’s exactly the same way, and I am not by a long shot being critical. But that external noise – there’s so much of it that you don’t know, and it’s hard not to judge but to discern what you want, who you are, what your path is, how you want to proceed; not how you have to, not how it’s dictated by religious or civil laws of any century, but what are the dictums of your heart.
And if you aren’t entering into the silence and the silence of the planet, of the universe and of yourself, then chances are you can’t hear.
Now eventually, of course, you reach a place where you do hear and that noise can be a background. But even in those times, once you’ve advanced to that point, there still is this necessity – yes, my friends, necessity – to re-enter and re-enter and re-enter into the silence, the silence of your soul, the silence of the void, because the silence is filled with so much information, energy, knowing and love, peace, that you will never want to leave it.
Now I know for most of you, this is not a life where you are going to a cloistered situation – or even what we have thought of as friars, monks or nuns, the Poor Clares – where you separate yourself from society. This is not that lifetime because you are the implementation team – I love that term! – for the Mother.
But in order to be those implementers, in order to be those instruments truly of love, it is important that you’re carrying that silence within you, that depth of knowing who you are – and in the knowing of who you are, of being the love, not only exchanging the love but being the love, in the very meaning of the word.
So when I have said, “Lord, make me an instrument,” I have meant it in that way: that my being, whether I was engaged with no one or millions of people, that my energy, my being, who I am, makes me that instrument. And sometimes, my friends, you are that instrument without saying a word because you are bringing the silence; and sometimes you are speaking, it is true.
There are times when it is necessary to speak up. There are times when you must say, “Stop the torture.” There are times when you must speak the words of hope or bring the energy of light or joy.
You know, we observe from this side – of course! – what is going on in this transformation of the human race. One of the things that strike me is that there isn’t enough joy. There’s a great deal of talk of joy; there’s a great deal of seeking joy; you have moments where you feel gleeful or happy. But this deep carrying, knowing, living in joy is all too often absent, and it is most certainly absent across the board.
Now again, I do not say this as criticism, quite the contrary. The reason I bring it up is that joy is your birthright. I mean, think about what I’m saying. When I finally got the courage – and let me tell you, it took courage; yes, it was necessary, but it still required a modicum of courage – to leave home and to strike out on my own, not taking money, not taking supplies, but just trusting that I would be taken care of.
I did not step out in joy; it was a progression. And that is where my quote that I led the channel to started: “First let me do what is necessary.” Well, it’s necessary, of course, to feed and clothe and house yourself, but it’s also necessary to seek the joy that lies within you. Because until you find that joy inside of you, you’re going to feel like you’re on a fool’s errand – you’re looking and looking and looking and you’re not finding it.
So you find it when you take care of what’s necessary. But keep in mind what’s really necessary is feeling that you’re getting in your body, in your life, in your journey, what you’re really are wanting. And that isn’t a good day here and there – that’s joy 24/7!
Now joy is a funny thing, because what happens… so often you feel the joy and it’s contagious, yes, but also it can be a very fragile thing. So you may feel, “Now today I’m in the joy; I’m feeling it,” but then you have to engage with somebody who’s in the doldrums or down in the dumps, and there goes your joy. Well, that’s not joy!
But what happens with joy, when your community, when your family, when you and your beloved start to feel it together, when you’ve walked that path together and then you start reflecting it to one another, then it starts bouncing all over the place. Before you know it, you’re levitated to the ceiling. Now, that’s joy! – doing what’s possible.
Most human beings – and I include myself in that – don’t really know, haven’t tested the limits of what’s possible. And that’s why I say, “Before you know it, you’re going to be doing the impossible.” Because when you take that human definition of what’s possible and keep stretching it, you’re realising that most things are possible.
Yes, you’re going to have your days when you don’t feel that you can engage the entire planet or the populous. But you stretch yourself, not because there is some rule or not because it’s expected of you; just because you feel like it, because it’s so much fun to figure out or to explore what’s possible.
Dearest Suzanne, you’ve talked about wanting to see, in fact, in tangible results the outcome of what you think is possible. Because when you’re operating on an energetic level – which is where we are and where most of you are – what you’re doing is often what has been termed ‘impossible’ by many that are still occupying, or thinking they’re occupying, the old third.
But you’re stretching that and you’re pushing that envelope – and it has to be pushed otherwise you don’t get Nova Earth; otherwise you say, “Well, that’s not possible. We can’t change the planet.” Well, of course you can! It’s entirely possible because you’re doing what’s necessary. And you’re doing what’s necessary, not because it’s some desire of the Mother – although who wouldn’t line up with that? – but you’re doing it because it’s necessary for you. It’s part and parcel of who you are.
So it’s necessary for your emotional, mental, spiritual survival. Otherwise, you feel like you’re just existing. You might as well move back home and earn a million dollars!
Dearest friends, dearest Suzanne, where do you wish to start?
Suzi: Well, I’ll start with thanking you for joining us. It’s always a pleasure. I love my job here! So you are really encouraging us into our deep, personal journey in order to fully embrace the unified, collective experience, to feel comfortable in our own skin first, because we can’t truly offer to another what we don’t freely embrace feeling about ourselves. It’s the same thing in that way; it’s the same thing in every way.
St. Francis: That’s correct. You know, Archangel Michael or Jesus or the Mother – they all keep saying, “Dream big!” Well, I’m expanding that; I’m saying, “Live big! Live big every single day!” Because otherwise, what you’re doing… first of all, you’re living somebody else’s life, and secondly, you’re cheating yourself. You’re absolutely cheating yourself.
Suzi: Yes, I totally see that. Can I just ask you… this is kind of a silly question, but what does it look like from your side in terms of the light emanating from the human collective, because I can just only imagine it’s getting very exquisitely beautiful?
St. Francis: It’s growing. What you’re thinking… and this is a great question; it isn’t a silly question at all. Think of it this way too: it’s not a constant. So the channel mentioned looking at the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, and when you look at the Northern Lights, you see that there is a shimmering quality to them and they flare and they dance and they change.
Or even if you make it really simple, and you think of the end of the day or the beginning of the day – my favourite time was sunset. There was something about – still is – about that golden time of day when the quality of light changes from the brightness of the day into this golden glow, and then you see the sky start to change and there’s more definition with the shift. This is what the human collective light looks like.
So it isn’t just constant, because depending on the energy each of you is holding – now think about this – each of you, and I don’t mean by the way whether you’re having a good day or a bad day or a day where you feel up to really being sparkling or not; I mean the light you are holding consistently. So, there are times when the human collective… when we look at you and we think, “This is so bright and so brilliant, we’re good to go!”
And then there are times when the hatred flares up… and you can think of that as some kind of black cloud blocking the light… or when you get discouraged and you think “this is a bunch of crap,” and it dims the light. So it ebbs and flows. But I have to tell you that in terms of a quantifier, in terms of a quotient of light that’s coming from the human collective – it’s growing.
Now it’s important, and I say this [laughs] with all respect to all of my American brothers and sisters: you are going through a dark time, but do not feel… First of all, I plead with you and I support you – do not become discouraged, for all is in order and in unfoldment. But I also want to reassure you that the quotient of light that is held for the planet is not determined solely by my American brothers and sisters.
Suzi: Clearly not, thank God.
St. Francis: Yes, but too often, because of media presence/coverage, there is this belief system that again is in the old realm – and I remember this when I was at home in the palace – that you thought that what the messengers or the generals or the consiglieres were telling you was the absolute truth of what was going on out there, and of course that was not so. And that was why I had to go out and find the silence.
Now, I know most of you aren’t in the position to say, “Okay, I’m packing up now and I’m going to the wilds of the country to hear the silence.” But the silence is inside of you. But it’s important – turn off the TV, turn off your neighbours, turn off the radio, turn off the insanity that’s surrounding you and come into the silence of your heart, because that’s where the truth lies. And when you’re there, and when you’re there as a collective, oh, the light is astounding!
Suzi: I’m just wondering how to view those that we see are in that space of fear and anger and hatred. It’s not the natural way of being and it makes me sad when we talk about things that have happened in history, and you say that things haven’t changed so much and that war was a popular sport. My heart asks the question “Why? Why do humans even lean towards those things?” I don’t really understand.
St. Francis: Oh, you know – and I don’t pretend I’m a historian – but the energy of, let’s say, ‘the Fall’, the energy of what became in so many ways the defining qualities… or the accepted qualities, let me put it that way… of humanity became acquisition, control, abuse of power. Note I’m not saying ‘power’ because the only power that is true is the power that comes within you by being in alignment with Source and God.
So when you make yourself that instrument of God/of Source/of One, however you can think of that, then that’s real power. But it became so muddled that people actually thought – and, of course, it was a mental-emotional process that people began to define themselves by whether they had control over others, rather than control or alignment with their sacred self.
And that sense of control or alignment with the sacred self not only got buried but got lost, because the input from the society and from many families, from institutions, from the collective was “you better get on board or you’re going to be left behind.”
I mean, let me tell you, initially my parents and my larger family and my friends thought I was crazy: “How could you possibly give all this up? Are you crazy? How could you not want this wealth and control, this power that basically is being offered to you on a silver platter?”
Now, what happens when one person says, “Well, that doesn’t work for me,” is that it threatens those who are following that pathway. And so, what happens is their defensive reaction is to be angry, aggressive and insulting because they don’t want to have to look at themselves and their own pattern, so “I will harm you, I will hurt you, I will denigrate you, I will squash you rather than go within and really figure out what I want.”
And those same people that said, “I know what I want. I want power, I want control, I want money, and get out of my way.” What every human being… let me even be less politically correct… every being… The great thing, Suzanne, about being on this side is you get to see all the planetary systems, all the civilisations. So when I say to you: “There isn’t one being that doesn’t innately, from Creator/Source, desire love,” that’s a powerful statement.
Suzi: It is.
St. Francis: So the level of denial upon your planet is ancient. And then it becomes further bastardised because how this manipulation worked – and I saw it in my own family – is that “I am doing this because I love you. I am encouraging you to follow this pathway of war and power and money,” for which there’s nothing wrong with any of those things when used correctly, “but I am encouraging that because I love you. So I want to control how you think, act, behave, etc. because I love you. And if you love me [laughs], you will do what I am asking you to do.” That’s how it went awry.
And I am not here to lay blame because that is a useless exercise. So I can’t still, 1100 years into the programme, be singing, “It was my parents’ fault.” [Laughter] That would be beyond absurd, would it not! At some point you take responsibility and you simply say, “Well, you know, I tried on that suit of clothes and it didn’t feel really comfortable. I think I’m going to try on something else.” And it doesn’t necessarily [laughs] have to be sackcloth and ashes!
“What makes you feel joyous?” It’s such a simple question, and yet it’s a question that’s being ignored by so many.
Suzi: Well, when you first started, not the show but this particular discussion, I kept wondering how we heal these deep collective wounds. But I answered my own question: it’s be love – be love. My love is my protection; I mean no one any harm, and that’s what I am and that’s what I choose to be in the world. I think that’s the greatest and best thing that I can do to move this all along.
St. Francis: That is correct. So I didn’t come… I was never really good at preaching [laughs]; that was not what I wanted to do and it’s not what I want to do today.
But when I encourage you to be the instrument and your instrument of love, that is what I am talking about when I am asking you to find your joy, to be your joy. Because when you’re really there, when you’ve gone into the silence, out the other side, circled around, gone back in, stayed there and bi-located outside – that’s when you’re making the change in this, what you feel is this density but it’s not.
You’re getting there. And I tell you, all of you, you’re doing a great job! So remember – do what’s necessary, then do what’s possible. You say, “Oh, I can’t possibly do this because I don’t have money.” Well, what’s possible today? What’s possible right now? And do it!
Suzi: And do it! So I have to be okay with my housework not getting done because what’s necessary is taking up pretty much my energies, and on a cellular level I’m quite busy. [Laughs]
St. Francis: You’re doing what’s necessary. And I can tell you, the housework can wait. But what can’t wait is humanity.
Suzi: Exactly.
St. Francis: So keep going, my friends.
Suzi: Thank you so much for joining us.
St. Francis: Always it is my honour. You know, when you’re tired, when you feel worn out, when you feel that “I don’t know where to go,” I invite you – come and sit with me. It doesn’t need to be in the monastery or a chapel; it can be in the hillsides or the fields; heck, it can be on a cloud!
But come and sit with me. Let me restore you and remind you: you are the love; you are the joy. And that’s all that counts.
Suzi: Can we invite our dear, departed pets?
St. Francis: Oh yes, oh yes – they are all here waiting!
Suzi: Thank you so much.
St. Francis: Thank you, my friend. Thank all of you. And go with my love. Farewell.
Suzi: Farewell.