Ambush

Luís Borges, a devoted worker for the Spiritist Cause in São Paulo , Brazil , was quietly crossing St. John’s Avenue , in that city, when he was hit by a pistol bullet, creating a big commotion. Passers-by and policemen, whistles and exclamations were all there. A poor young man, a stranger with a gun, was arrested and brought to the victim’s presence. Borges was frightened, but serene. The bullet had only hit the book he carried against his chest. That book was the “Gospel According to Spiritism”, which he was taking to a meeting on behalf of someone ill.

 -    I’m sorry about it. The shot was not intentional. – begged the pale young man.

Yet the policemen were holding him down angrily. But Luís Borges, trying to bring peace to the situation, opened the scorched book and said:

 -    Let us see what the Gospel has to say about this!

To everybody’s amazement, he read, in the open page, the beautiful message contained in Chapter 10, “Blessed are the  Merciful”:

 -   Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times? “  Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

When Borges finished the brief reading, the arrested young man knelt on the street and started sobbing. Then he explained that he was there waiting in ambush to murder his own brother, who had harmed him in a process of inheritance. He now promised to give up his plan forever.

(By the Spirit Hilário Silva, From “The Spirit of Truth”, Several Spiritual Authors/ FC Xavier & W Vieira. From the original Portuguese)

Message of the Month

The Alliance between Science and Religion

Science and religion are the two levers of human intelligence, one revealing the laws of the material world, the other revealing those of the moral world. But seeing that these laws have the same principle, which is God, they cannot contradict themselves. 

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