An old book for the present times

We have very often cited extracts from The Message Rediscovered in our articles published in the journal «La Puerta». We believe the time has now come to present it to our expectant readers.

Since its inception, «La Puerta» has clearly stated its objective: to return to the authentic sources of the tradition, namely to the wise and holy Scriptures and to the works of the masters who experienced them in their hearts, in their spirits and in their hands. These masters can be recognized by the compliance with their teachings. Over all these years, then, we have strived to make known to our readers as many of these texts as possible.

 The Message Rediscovered, this modern work written between the years 1938 and 1953 – can it be included in this precise framework? Does it fit well here, within the context of the great tradition of all time?

We would like to give our readers the freedom to respond to this question, as long as they take the time to read and examine this curious book, composed of short phrases or sentences set out in two – and sometimes three – columns and grouped in forty chapters or books, which the author took nearly fifteen years to write.

What characterizes The Message Rediscovered is certainly its originality: it cannot be encompassed in any of today’s currents of spiritual thought.

After a superficial examination of the book, some have found it too Christian, while others, faithful to their Church, have judged it as alien to their faith – as not Christian enough. «What beautiful ideas!» many will say, without committing themselves, for they might want to seek reassurance about such things from the enlightened judgement of a qualified spiritual authority. So perhaps it would be better if they said nothing, and that is indeed what most of those who give it a cursory glance tend to do.

Louis Cattiaux wrote The Message Rediscovered in solitude, without any encouragement from outside, amid the hustle and bustle of the city. So who inspired this work? Its author fashioned the verses with great care, day after day, applying himself to his work like a skilled artist. He was the interpreter in this world of a melody that came from «elsewhere», and which only he could hear. He faithfully transcribed and transmitted the Message. Who shall have the intelligence to read it in good faith, putting aside their prejudices? Those people will discover little by little why the author entitled it The Message. They will understand, to their great astonishment, that this Message is addressed to them personally, to their innermost being, and without doubt the part of them they know least.

Here, pure reason and reasoning will become frustrated and humiliated, for it will seem that the verses are arranged with no logical sequence, and that the expression of the thoughts is fragmented. In fact, each phrase, given its density, is self-sufficient, and the thread that secretly links them will not appear to the superficial reader.

This book can be opened at random, and that is probably how it can best speak to us, addressing our heart directly, as to its true interpreter, leaving aside plain reason, which has provoked controversy since the time of the Ancient Fault, and still does so.

Human intelligence and reason are humble servants that must never usurp the place of inspiration and love, which are the masters of God’s house (MR 15, 38’).

That’s how it was written, so that’s how it should be read.

This Message is not new; it affirms nothing that has not already been said over and over again, and the quotations that open and close each of the forty books bear witness to this. So, in the past, the Message has often been given to men bent under the yoke of the world’s blind servitude, and has also often been forgotten and lost by them.

It is, indeed, a message of life and a message of salvation that must not remain a dead letter, but must be energized, lived and experienced, lest it be consigned to the dusty vaults of an ignorant, unbelieving and resigned humanity.

Only people who, through God’s grace, rediscover Wisdom, are in a position to give back to Mankind its sense of life and its unifying spirit. That’s why The Message Rediscovered is an old book for the present times, these present times when the destructive madness of rebellious men has almost reached the very limits of absurdity.

It is a book for those who feel let down by the empty promises of this world, by its failed ideals, by its disappointing systems, by its rebellions and meaningless violence, by its derisory affection, by its deceptions and falsifications of all kinds. It is for those who have finally understood that «the works of this world are bad» for they contain death.

Those people will have understood that man can do nothing without his Creator, He who, through love, can do anything with Man. The freedom of the true children of God is what The Message Rediscovered, step by step, teaches us to experience in this world,… to all those audacious enough to believe in it.

We propose that you go up and go in depth. We do not propose that you fall asleep in the world, even though it be on the pillow of faith. Let those who want to sleep do it, and let them spare us their worthless explanations and their worthless sermons!

Did the master not say: «No-one can come to the Father if the Father does not attract him to him»? Well! Now we say to you: «No-one can find the Lord of heaven if one does not embody him in oneself» (XXV, 57).

The most scholarly and the most intelligent take the revealed Scriptures for treatises on history and morals.

The holiest and the most in-spired take those same revealed Scriptures for treatises on asceticism and mysticism.

Where are God’s enlightened sages that also know how to recognize in them the hidden science of the unique Splendour that saves them from death? (XXXVI, 20)

Profane life is life separated from God.
Holy life is life linked to God.
Wise life is life restored in God (MR XXXII, 15).