Do you realize that what’s inside of you attracts things — light or dark — that are outside of your mind, spirit, and body?
Call it “within and without”: when we have darkness, darkness is more likely to attach to us. When we are glowing with God’s Love, love comes our way.
That’s a two-way street.
The other way is a dead end.
Like attracts like.
If there is anger in you, you are more likely to attract the spirit or spirits around someone who has anger likewise. If jealous, a jealous person may impart a spirit to you. If you’re proud, others with pride may provide you with things that cling to the defect in your spirit — hook into the weakness.
Once hooked in, they grow like weeds.
So it is we are given another reason to purge ourselves through Confession, and stay purged. When spirits attach to us, they can cause a lot of problems.
During Confession we recite the Act of Contrition. The word “contrition” comes from “contrite,” which means humble. It is derived from a Latin word contritus that means crushed. Often, we must be “crushed” in order to be humble — go through a press as grapes go through a press to make good wine.
Yet, we know Jesus can make that wine instantly.
When we contract spirit energies from another, due to our imperfection, if nothing else, they rob our joy, equanimity, and peace. They also blind us.
Leave no opening.
You can seal this and seal that; you can cast this or that spirit out of you; but if one remains, there remains an entrance. You may have locked the door, but there’s a hole in it.
What is in you is also relevant to what you give others.
You can’t give what you don’t have, and so if you lack love, you have trouble giving love; if you are not healed, you cannot heal others. If you are not at peace, you can’t exude tranquility.
The light that surrounds you is from the light inside of you, in the same way that it radiates from the filaments deep inside of a bulb.
Said a woman from Syosset, Long Island, Barbara Marie, whom we interviewed years ago, and who had a near-death review of her life, “I was shown how when I got up in the morning and smiled and presented breakfast, hugging the children, how it went from my house and I was shown a drop of light that started in this one spot on the globe and went in this band of light around the globe. That was the way it was supposed to be.”
When she spoke to others with a tone of pique or condescension, the opposite occurred.
And so, take stock constantly on what is (or is not) inside of you — the lumber in your eyes — and work at making sure you’re “stocked up” with good things. Only in this way can you have a positive effect on loved ones and God’s entire world.
[resources: What You Take To Heaven]
[see also: Barbara’s story]