Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Everyday of the Year

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322. THE DIVINE INVITATION
NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PRESENCE OF GOD - O my God, give me the sovereign grace to respond to all Your invitations with generosity.


MEDITATION

1. Today’s Gospel (Mt 22,1-14) outlines the sad story—so true even today—of human ingratitude which rejects God’s mercy, and is indifferent to His gifts and invitations.

“The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son, and he sent his servants to call them that were invited to the marriage; and they would not come.” The king is God the Father, the son is the eternal Word who, becoming incarnate, espoused human nature in order to redeem and sanctify it. God invites all men to the great banquet of the divine nuptials at which they will find their salvation; but submerged in the materialism of earthly things, they reject the invitation and the messengers. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee” (ibid. 23,37), will one day be the lament of the Son of God as He denounces before the world, not only the obstinate resistance of the chosen people, but also that of all souls who have stubbornly and ungratefully rejected His love and His grace.

The prophets, St. John the Baptist, and the apostles are the “servants,” the messengers sent by God to call men to the banquet of the Redemption, but they were all taken and killed. They “laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death,” the Gospel says. Today’s parable ends there, but unfortunately, human ingratitude has gone much further: not only the servants and messengers were killed, but even God’s very Son. Yet God’s mercy is so great that it cannot be vanquished; He still invites all men to His feast, and even offers this divine Son whom they have killed, to be their Food. The banquet is prepared; Jesus, the divine Lamb has been immolated for the redemption of mankind and, if many fail to accept the invitation, others will be invited. “The marriage indeed is ready, but they that were invited were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage.” We too have been invited. How have we responded to the invitation? Have we not also shown more interest and concern for earthly matters than for the things of God? Have we not been like the men in the parable who “neglected, and went their way, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise?”


2. Today’s parable delineates primarily the invitation to the Christian life, the invitation which, being rejected by the Jewish people, is offered to all nations. But we can also see in it a special invitation to follow a particular vocation: a call to the priesthood, to consecration to God either in the cloister or in the world, to the apostolate, or to a certain mission. In order to respond to this invitation, our assent must be more than nominal. It must involve the sincere and profound commitment of our whole soul. The parable tells us of one man who did not refuse the invitation, but who accepted it in an unworthy manner, appearing at the marriage feast without the wedding garment. This is a figure of those who respond to Our Lord’s invitation in a material way only, without embracing it heart and soul, and without striving, by their works, to live in a manner worthy of their vocation. Such souls seriously endanger their salvation, for God will not be mocked. He cannot be deceived by appearances; no uniform or external decorations can conceal from Him the true state of a soul.

More clearly than the king in the parable, He takes note of those who are not clothed in a nuptial garment, that is, in the robe of grace and virtue befitting their vocation. Sooner or later the day will come when He will pronounce for each one of them the terrible words: “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into exterior darkness.” Without going to these extremes, however, we can still remain far from complete correspondence to the divine call. It is well to remember that the problem of corresponding to a vocation is not one that can be resolved once and for all on the day that we embrace a particular state of life; it is a question that arises every day, because each day our vocation calls for a new response, a fresh adherence adapted to the circumstances and grace of the moment.

A vocation attains its full realization only by our continual fidelity to God’s invitations. These invitations follow one another without interruption and reveal to the attentive soul ever new horizons, presenting new duties, new opportunities for generosity, and new aspects of perfection and immolation. The parable ends with this grave sentence: “Many are called but few are chosen.” Why are only a few chosen? Because there are few who know how to correspond day by day with the grace of their vocation; because there are few who know how to accept all the consequences and demands of the divine call, and who always answer yes to the solicitations of grace.


COLLOQUY

“O Lord, this is what You say to my soul: ‘Why are you so far away from Me, detained by useless pursuits? Why do you not hasten to prepare a beautiful wedding garment? I suffered death to take you for My spouse. I became man for you, to preserve your life from corruption, I preferred your salvation before all My works. I prepared a nuptial couch for you in heaven, and I commanded the angels to serve you. Would you despise Me, your heavenly Spouse? And whom would you prefer to Me, who in My mercy saved the whole human race? What father could give you life as I have? What father or what spouse can love you as much as I?’

“O my God, what shall I answer You?

“Pardon me, save me, O patient, long-suffering Lord! Save me, O Christ, Son of God, who alone are without sin! Grant that my heart may have no desire but to respond to Your invitations, and that with the help of Your grace, I may always do Your will, and be prompt and willing to carry out Your orders, so that, with the talents I have received from You, I may be able to trade and acquire the good things of Your kingdom. Grant that I may praise You trustfully and tell You joyfully when I see You: ‘I am blessed because You have come to clothe me with the worthy nuptial garment which Your grace has purchased for me.’

“I shall light the lamp, O Christ, given to me by Your grace and bounty. I shall meet You joyfully, blessing, praising, and glorifying You, O my immortal Spouse” (St. Ephrem).

323. THE APOSTOLIC IDEAL

PRESENCE OF GOD - Enkindle in me, O Lord, the fire of the apostolate and feed it with Your love.


MEDITATION

1. Just as a seed cannot produce a stalk which will bear a new ear unless it first buries its roots deep in the ground, so we cannot bear fruit for the apostolate if we do not first put forth the roots of a deep interior life, enabling us to draw from God Himself the sap which will make us fruitful. The interior life is the vital principle, the force, and the flame of the apostolate; but on the other hand, the apostolate brings its contribution to the interior life, helping to make it more generous and more intense. When a soul is fired with zeal for the apostolic life, its very desire to win other souls for God impels it to devote itself with greater generosity to prayer, mortification, and the practice of the virtues, with the intention of making itself more capable of a fruitful apostolate.

Thus, while the interior life is the soul of the apostolate, the apostolate in its turn is a very powerful mainspring urging the soul on to union with God, to perfection, to sanctity. The apostolic ideal is of its very nature a generator of spiritual energy and a spur to a generous, holy life. St. Teresa of Jesus, moved by an ardent desire to counteract the great havoc wrought by the Protestant heresy in her times, stamped the reform she initiated with a seal of particular austerity and organized the life of her daughters in such a way as to engage them in a continual exercise of prayer, sacrifice, and self-giving for the salvation of souls (cf. Way, 1). The rule of life of the Teresian Carmel, a contemplative life of profound intensity, was thus born of a great apostolic ideal.

The same ideal has recently given rise to a new state of perfection in the Church, the Secular Institutes, in which souls desiring to consecrate themselves to God for the salvation of souls, pledge themselves to a life of evangelical perfection in the world. “ The specific end [of the apostolate] seems of necessity to demand and even to create the generic end [of perfection] ” (Pius XII: Primo Feliciter). When the apostolic ideal is alive and well understood, it does not plunge souls headlong into activity; it rather guides them to a deeper interior life, to the total gift of self, to sanctity, for we ourselves must be holy before we can make others holy. “ And for them do I sanctify Myself” (Jn 17,19).


2. An interior life in which the apostolic ideal does not shine, can never be full and vigorous. This is because of the nature of grace and charity, which, of themselves, are expansive and apostolic. Although grace remains in an intimate, incommunicable manner in the soul on whom it is bestowed, it should, nevertheless, be beneficial to the whole Christian community. The dogma of the Communion of Saints tells us precisely that the grace and holiness of one of Christ’s members necessarily redounds to the advantage of all the other members. Likewise, charity, the inseparable companion of grace, is by nature expansive, and when it embraces God, it embraces all creatures in God. It gives the soul a twofold impetus: toward God and toward its neighbor; if either one is repressed, charity is stifled in its very essence. This virtue develops and reaches maturity only when its two aspects, love of God and love of neighbor, are fully efficient. If we exclude or diminish fraternal charity, the highest expression of which is the apostolate, our love for God will inevitably be
diminished also.

Therefore, a cold spiritual life, indifferent to the good of souls, is necessarily dwarfed; it is nothing more than a mean, petty and selfish form of piety; it has lost its vital heat, the warmth of charity, and does not even deserve the name of life. On the contrary, where the fire of the apostolate burns brightly, one’s interior life becomes more vigorous than ever and makes one capable of great generosity. Is it not true perhaps that sometimes our desire for perfection is not strong enough to make us courageous in accepting certain sacrifices or renunciations which are costly to nature? But when we think that the salvation of other souls may depend on our generosity, our fidelity to grace, or our immolation, then we can refuse nothing to Our Lord, and we find the strength to accept even what is most bitter and painful. In this way the apostolic ideal becomes a powerful lever for our own personal sanctification, and enriched by a more fervent interior life, can bring to this ideal new energy and fecundity.


COLLOQUY

“© Lord, there come to me desires to serve You with impulses so strong that I cannot describe them, and with a distress caused by the realization of my own unprofitableness.... I think I should like to cry aloud and tell all souls how important it is for them not to be contented with just a little in Your service, and how many blessings there are which You will give us if we prepare to receive them.

“O my God, I experience very deep distress because of the great number of souls who are bringing damnation upon themselves, especially of those who were members of the Church through Baptism, and I greatly desire to labor for their salvation, so much so that I really believe that, to deliver a single one of them from such dreadful torments, I would willingly die many deaths.... Who could bear to look upon souls condemned for eternity to endless suffering? Even earthly suffering which, after all, has a limit and will end with death, moves us to deep compassion. And that other suffering has no limit: I do not know how we can look on so calmly and see the devil carrying off as many souls as he does daily.

“Thou knowest, my God, how grieved I am to see how very many are lost. Save at least one, Lord, at least one who can give light to many others, and this not for my sake, Lord, for I do not merit it, but for the merits of Thy Son. Look upon His wounds, Lord, and as He forgave them who inflicted them upon Him, so do Thou pardon us.

“My God, I want nothing but Your will; submission to it has such power over me that my soul desires neither death nor life. But then, if such be Your will, I desire to live, in order to serve You better. If, through my intercession, I could do anything to make a single soul love and praise You more, and that only for a short time, it would seem to me of greater moment than my being in glory” (T.J. SR, 1- Life, 32 — Exc, 11 — SR, 6).

324. VARIOUS FORMS OF THE APOSTOLATE

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, teach me to pray, suffer, and work with You for the salvation of souls.


MEDITATION

1. When we speak of the apostolate, we think almost exclusively of external activity; this is certainly necessary, but it is not the only kind of apostolate. We must always bear in mind that Jesus saved us not only by the activity of the last three years of His life, which were dedicated to the evangelization of the multitudes and the formation of the first nucleus of the Church, but also by prayer, suffering, vigils—by His whole life. Jesus was always an apostle, always the one sent by the Father for our salvation. His apostolate began at Bethlehem in the dreariness of a cave; as a tiny Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, He was already suffering for us; it continued during the thirty years spent at Nazareth in prayer, in retirement, in the hidden life; it took an external form in His direct contact with souls during His public life, and reached its culmination in His agony in the Garden of Olives and His death on the Cross. Jesus was an apostle in the stable of Bethlehem, in the shop of St. Joseph, in His anguish in Gethsemane and on Calvary no less than when He was going through Palestine, teaching the multitudes or disputing with the doctors of the law.

Our apostolate consists in associating ourselves with what Jesus has done for the redemption of mankind; therefore, it is not limited to external activity, but it also consists, and essentially so, in prayer and sacrifice. ‘Thus one clearly sees that there are two fundamental forms of apostolate: the interior apostolate of prayer and immolation, which is a prolongation of the hidden life and of the Passion of Jesus; and the exterior apostolate of word and of work, which is a prolongation of His public life. Both are a participation in the redemptive work of Jesus, but there is a great difference between them. The interior apostolate is the indispensable foundation of the exterior apostolate; no one, in fact, can hope to save souls by exterior works which are not sustained by prayer and sacrifice. On the other hand, there are cases where external works can be dispensed with, without, on that account, lessening the interior apostolate of prayer and sacrifice, which can still be very intense and fruitful. Every Christian is an apostle, not only in virtue of the activity
in which he engages,, but principally because of his participation in the prayer and sacrifice by which Jesus has redeemed the world.


2. The interior apostolate can subsist by itself; in fact, there are states of life that justify the absence of an exterior apostolate. One of these is the purely contemplative life, which has always flourished in the Church. Like a mother, she jealously defends it against the attacks of those who condemn it as an escape from the field of action. Those who follow God’s call and retire from active works to give themselves to this kind of life are not deserters; if they leave the ranks of the external apostolate, they do ‘this only in order to give themselves to a more intensive apostolate, that of prayer and continual immolation.

“Those in the Church who perform the function of prayer and continual penance, contribute to the growth of the Church and the salvation of the human race to a greater degree than those who cultivate the Lord’s field by their activity; for, if they did not draw down from heaven an abundance of divine grace to irrigate the field, the evangelical workers would certainly receive less fruit from their labors” (Pius XI: Umbratilem). This authorized statement of a great Pope can leave no doubt as to the immense apostolic value of the contemplative life; but, on the other hand, it is but just to remark that such value is realized only when contemplatives engage themselves with all their strength in prayer and continual immolation. In other words, it is not any kind of prayer or sacrifice that will result in such great fruitfulness, but only the prayer and sacrifice that come from an extremely pure and generous heart, a heart wholly given to God and which, day by day, renews and lives its immolation with ever greater freshness and intensity. When the contemplative
life is lived with such intensity it is, in an eminent way, an apostolic life.

It is in this sense that Pope Pius XII has defined the vocation to a cloistered life as “a universal, apostolic vocation. ..a fully and totally apostolic vocation, not limited by boundaries of place, time, and circumstances, but always and everywhere, zealous for everything that in any way relates to the honor of the heavenly Spouse or the salvation of souls” (Apostolic Constitution: Sponsa Christi). Furthermore,
contemplative monasteries, by the simple example of their hidden life, their prayer and penance, are a continual reminder for all to be detached from earthly things and to seek those that are heavenly: union with God and sanctity.


COLLOQUY

“What can I do, O Jesus, to save souls? You answer me with the words You once addressed to Your disciples, pointing to the fields of ripened corn: ‘Lift up your eyes and see the countries; for they are already white for the harvest.... The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that He send forth laborers.’

“How mysterious it is! O Jesus, are You not all powerful? Do not creatures belong to You who made them? Why then do You say, ‘Pray ye the Lord of the harvest to send laborers?’ Why? O Jesus, because You have so incomprehensible a love for us that You want us to have a share with You in the salvation of souls, You want to do nothing without us. You, the Creator of the universe, wait for the prayer of a poor little soul to save other souls redeemed like it at the price of Your blood.

“My vocation is not to go harvesting in the fields of ripe corn; You do not say to me: ‘Lower your eyes, look at the fields, and go and reap them’; my mission is still loftier. You tell me: ‘Lift up your eyes and see.... See how in heaven there are places empty; it is for you to fill them. . . you are to be My Moses praying on the mountain; ask Me for laborers and I shall send them, I await only a prayer, a sigh from your heart!’

“Behold, O Lord, the mission You have entrusted to me, to contribute by prayer and sacrifice to the formation of evangelical workers who will save millions of souls whose mother I shall be” (cf. T.C.J. L, 114).

325. APOSTOLIC PRAYER

PRESENCE OF GOD - Accept, O Lord, my humble prayer that Your kingdom may come.


MEDITATION

1. When Jesus died on the Cross for us, the redemption of mankind became an accomplished fact. Thereafter, every one coming into this world is already redeemed, in the sense that the precious Blood of Jesus has already merited for him all the graces necessary for his salvation and also for his sanctification. What still remains to be done is the application of these graces to each individual soul; and it is for this that God wishes our collaboration. He wants it so much that He has made the granting of certain graces, necessary for our salvation and that of others, dependent upon our prayers. In other words, by the merits of Jesus, grace—God’s infinite mercy—is ready to be poured out abundantly into men’s souls, but it will not be poured out unless there is someone who raises supplicating hands to heaven, asking for it. If prayer-does not ascend to the throne of the Most High, grace will not be granted. This explains the absolute necessity for apostolic prayer and its great efficacy. “This kind [of devil] is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Mt 17,20), Jesus has said. There is no substitute for prayer, because prayer draws grace directly from its source, God. Our activity, our words and works can prepare the ground for grace, but if we do not pray, it will not come down to refresh souls.

In the light of these truths we can better appreciate the importance of the insistent exhortations of Jesus in respect to prayer: “We ought always to pray and not to faint.... Ask and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you” (Lk 18,1; 11,9). We can never be certain that all our prayers will be answered according to our expectation, for we do not know if what we ask is conformable to God’s will; but when it is a question of apostolic prayer which asks for grace and the salvation of souls, it is a very different matter. In fact, when we pray for the aims of the apostolate, we are fitting into the plan prearranged by God Himself from all eternity, that plan for the salvation of all men which God desires to put into action infinitely more than we do; therefore, we cannot doubt the efficacy of our prayer. Because of this effectiveness, apostolic prayer is one of the most powerful means of furthering the apostolate.


2. If God has willed the distribution of grace in the world to depend upon the prayers of men, and if people today pray so little—many indeed, and perhaps most of them, not at all—it is extremely necessary to have in the Church souls who are totally consecrated to prayer. By their lives of continual prayer, adoration and unceasing praise to the Most High, these souls supply for the negligence and carelessness of many, and thus they re-establish in the world the balance between God’s rights and man’s duty, between action and contemplation. Praying and supplicating for all, they are in Christ’s Mystical Body the hidden but precious organs whose task is to make the sap of divine grace flow to each of its members. In the Church they are “powerhouses” of supernatural energy, energy derived from and accumulated by prayer, and diffused by it to the utmost bounds of the earth. The prayer of contemplatives is the secret and guarantee of victory for those who struggle in the world, even as the prayer of Moses was the secret and guarantee of victory for Israel. “My brothers labor in my stead,” wrote St. Thérése of the Child Jesus, “while I...stay close to the Throne, and love Thee for all those who are in the strife” (St, 13); I love, that is, I pray, suffer and sacrifice for them. The prayer which contemplatives unceasingly send up to God in the name of all Christians does not dispense the rest of the faithful from this great duty. Above all, those who dedicate themselves to the external apostolate should give sufficient place in their lives to prayer. But, unfortunately we often put more trust in our work, our diligence, our technique, than in our prayer; we have not enough faith in its efficacy, in the help which God will surely give those who invoke Him from their heart, and as a result, we consider wasted the time we give to prayer. This basic error springs from a lack of faith and humility; it is an error which explains the sterility of so many works. “Let those, then, who are great actives,” admonishes St. John of the Cross, “that think to girdle the world with their outward works and their preachings, take note here that they would bring far more profit to the Church, and be far more pleasing to God (apart from the good example they would give) if they spent even half of this time with God in prayer ” (SC, 29,3).


COLLOQUY

“O eternal Father, I offer You the Blood shed by Your Son with such deep love and ardent charity for the salvation of men.

“O Jesus, I offer You the innumerable drops of Blood which You shed so freely at Your dreadful scourging, and as You shed it for all Your members, so do I offer it to You for all the members of holy Church, whose Head You are. I offer It to You so that Your “Christs,” your priests, may once again be the light of the world, that Your virgins may not be of the number of the foolish virgins, that infidels and heretics may return to your fold and that all souls may be saved.

“O eternal Word, I want to speak to You as You did to us. In truth, I say to You that I would sacrifice a thousand lives, if I had them, to help save these souls. I do not want to depart from this life until You have enlightened some one of them. But I am not worthy to be heard. Hear not one who is so presumptuous, but answer Your own Blood. You cannot fail Yourself; hear then, O Jesus, the voice of Your Blood.

“O eternal Father, that love which moved You to create men, urges You also to infuse Your light into them. I well know that You do infuse it, but they do not accept it. What is the reason for this? My ingratitude. I know, O my God, my ingratitude, but I have not plumbed its depths. Punish me for their offenses; punish me for their sins. Oh! how wretched I am to be the cause of so much ingratitude and wickedness.

“If I could, I would take all men and lead them to the bosom of Your Holy Church, so that she could cleanse them of all their infidelities, regenerate them like a mother, and then nourish them with the sweet milk of the holy Sacraments ” (St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi).

326. APOSTOLIC IMMOLATION

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, immolated for my salvation, make me worthy to immolate myself with You for the salvation of souls.


MEDITATION

1. Apostolic prayer must be accompanied by sacrifice, as we learn from the prayer which Jesus made to His Father in the Garden of Olives and on the Cross. Love should urge those who pray to “active sacrifice which does not allow them to rest calmly in prayer as long as pain and suffering have not all but reached the limits of endurance Then, consumed by the ardor of charity and the vehemence of desire, they are no longer persons who pray but living prayers” (Pius XII, January 17, 1943). There is a close connection between prayer and sacrifice, since they both flow from one source: love, which spurs the soul on to prayer and incessant immolation for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. The contemplative life, therefore, is synonymous with an austere, penitential life; it is a continual “sacrifice of praise.” ‘The more prayer is nourished and accompanied by sacrifice, the more efficacious it becomes; indeed, it attains its maximum efficacy when sacrifice is total. Every contemplative soul should be “ an altar worthy of the presence of His Majesty” (J.C. AS J, 5,7), an altar from which prayer rises, and on which the sacrifice is immolated.

The apostolate of Jesus reached its climax and was consummated in the annihilation of death on the Cross; not until He had been scourged, pierced with nails, abandoned by God and man, could He say, “Consummatum est,” it is consummated (Jn 19,30). It will be the same with us; only when we have really sacrificed ourselves for souls, when we have willingly immolated ourselves with Jesus for their salvation, shall we be able to repeat with Him: “It is consummated.” Our participation in the apostolate of Jesus attains its fulfillment in the sacrifice of ourselves—not an imaginary, hypothetical sacrifice, but one that is real and concrete. The form and measure of this sacrifice will be made known to us by God Himself, through the circumstances of our life, the events permitted by His divine Providence, the orders of our superiors, and the duties of our state in life. When, for the salvation of souls, we are disposed to live in continual sacrifice of our own will, in continual renouncement of self; when we are disposed to let ourselves be crucified in whatever way the holy will of God ordains, in order to win other souls to His love, then we shall have reached the apex of the apostolate and hence of apostolic fruitfulness.


2. Many souls are lost because there is no one to pray and make sacrifices for them. Without the tears and sufferings of a St. Monica, it is probable that the Church would never have had a St. Augustine. Blessed, then, are those souls who make apostolic immolation the reason for, and the object of, their life. ‘Oh, my sisters in Christ!” St. Teresa of Jesus wrote to her daughters, “Help me to entreat this of the Lord, who has brought you together here for that very purpose [the salvation of souls]. This is your vocation, this must be your business, these must be your desires, these your tears, these your petitions.... If your prayers and desires, your disciplines and fasts are not performed for the intentions of which I have spoken, reflect (and believe) that you are not carrying out the work or fulfilling the object for which the Lord has brought you here” (Way, 1 — 3).

Contemplatives, not having an exterior apostolate, are especially bound to concentrate all their powers in prayer and sacrifice; only by so doing will they make the great contribution which the Church expects from them and thus fulfill their vocation. They are called in a special way to generously fill up in their flesh, for the benefit of His Mystical Body, the Church, what is lacking in Christ’s Passion. This is accomplished by the penances entailed by community life and by the observance of an austere, humble life, subject to obedience in all things and deprived of all human satisfaction (cf. Apostolic Constitution: Sponsa Christi).

St. Thérése of the Child Jesus declared: “I have come to Carmel to save souls” (St. 7); and after she had consumed and offered all her energies for this end, she even offered for sinners the prayers which were offered for her during the sufferings of her last illness that she might obtain a little relief.

Contemplatives should be “specialists ” in the apostolate of sacrifice which, however, cannot and should not be wanting, in one form or another, in the life of every apostle. Christ has purchased our souls at the price of His precious Blood; and whoever wishes to collaborate with Him in the salvation of mankind, should be willing to unite to the most precious Blood of Christ some drops of his own blood. Souls cost dearly, and an apostle must pay with himself for those he wants to win. The apostolate is true and fruitful in the measure in which it is imbued with suffering, which is the fruit of immolation.


COLLOQUY


“Lord, my heart rejoices when I consider that You have deigned to associate me to the great work of Redemption, that in me You may undergo, as it were, an extension of Your Passion. You have taken me, and You will that I be as another humanity in which You can still suffer for Your Father’s glory and for the needs of Your Church.

“How glad I should be, my adored Master, if You asked me also to shed my blood for You. But what I ask of You, above all, is that martyrdom of love that consumed the saints.... Since You...have said that the greatest proof of love is to give one’s life for the one loved, I give You mine, to do with it as may please You; and if I am not a martyr unto blood, I want to be a martyr by love.

“How I rejoice when I think that from all eternity we were known by the Father, and that He wished to find Your image in us, O Crucified Christ! How necessary suffering is then, if Your work is to be accomplished in me! You desire to enrich me with Your graces, but it is I who set a limit to Your gift, and determine its measure by the generosity with which I let myself be immolated by You.

“O Lord, You called the hour of Your Passion ‘Your hour,’ the hour for which You had come, the hour You welcomed with all Your desires. When a great or even a very small sacrifice presents itself to me, I want to think quickly that this is ‘ my hour,’ the hour in which I can give a proof of my love to You, who have loved me ‘exceedingly’” (E.T. £).

327. THE APOSTOLATE OF EXAMPLE

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Lord, grant that all my actions may glorify You and may draw many souls to Your love.


MEDITATION

1. In addition to prayer and sacrifice, there is another powerful arm of the apostolate which is accessible to everyone, the apostolate of a good, holy life. All cannot be preachers, all do not have the duty to admonish or exhort others, not all can attend to apostolic works, but there is no one who cannot contribute to the spiritual good of his neighbor by giving the example of a life which is integrally Christian: holding to the principles one has professed and faithfully fulfilling one’s duties. “Everyone can help his neighbor if he does his duty,” says St. John Chrysostom, and he adds: “There would be no pagans if Christians were real Christians, if they really kept the commandments. A good life sounds clearer and louder than a trumpet.” A good life speaks for itself, it has an authority and exercises an attraction greatly superior to that of words.

For a soul who seeks the truth, who seeks virtue, there is no difficulty in finding books and teachers who will present it in an attractive form, but there is much difficulty in finding persons whose lives give practical testimony to it. The modern mind, thirsting for experimental knowledge, has special need of such examples, capable of offering not only beautiful theories of the spiritual life, but, above all, of being concrete incarnations, as it were, of virtue, of the ideal of sanctity and union with God. Souls are attracted far more by thoughts and ideals that are lived than by ideas alone. Was this not the course that God Himself followed in revealing Himself to men? The eternal Word became incarnate and through the concrete reality of His human life on earth, He manifested the infinite perfections of God and His tremendous love for us. Jesus, who possessed the divine perfections, could tell us: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5,48); and speaking thus, He not only showed us the supreme ideal of sanctity, but He also offered Himself as our model. An apostle must follow the same path that Jesus trod, incarnating in his life the ideal of sanctity that he wishes to propose to others. Only if he does this can we say of him, as was said of Our Lord, “coepit facere et docere” (Acts 1,1), he began (first) to do and (then) to teach. By this way alone can the apostle repeat, in deeds rather than in words, the daring sentence of St. Paul: “Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor 4,16).


2. Jesus, who taught us to pray, to fast, and to give alms in secret, so that only our heavenly Father would know of it and reward us, also taught us to act in such a way that our good works might be a silent encouragement toward good for those who see them. “So let your light shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5,16). St. Gregory explains how to reconcile these two instructions of Our Lord: “Let the action be public,” he says, “while the intention remains hidden; thus we shall give our neighbor the example of a good work and, at the same time, by our intention which is directed only toward God, we shall please Him alone in secret.” There is a great difference between one who makes a big display of his good acts, hoping to call forth praise from others, or perhaps to gain a reputation for sanctity, and one who, acting with the right intention of pleasing God alone, is by his conduct a light and guide for those around him. When we have a right intention, that of giving glory to God and drawing others to His service, we should not fear lest our good works be seen; on the contrary, we should feel it a duty to edify others by our conduct.

Every soul who lives an interior life, trying to please God alone, should also endeavor to be an apostle by his good example. His life of sincere piety, solid virtue, and union with God, should shine before men, inspiring them to pray, to be recollected, to seek after the things of heaven. This is possible in every walk of life. The professional man in the world can exercise this apostolate among his colleagues, pupils, or clients; the wife and mother, in her family circle; religious, in their own community, and priests, in their
sphere of activity. A truly interior soul is, of itself, an apostle, and as Jesus said, “a city seated on a mountain [which] cannot be hid”; it is a burning light set “ upon a candlestick that it may shine to all that are in the house” (Mt 5,14.15). The more deeply interior a soul is, the more brightly will its light shine upon other souls and bring them to God.


COLLOQUY

“O my God, there is nothing colder than a Christian who has no interest in the salvation of others! I cannot use poverty as a pretext to dispense myself from it. Peter said, ‘Silver and gold I have none’; Paul was so poor that he often suffered from hunger. I cannot allege my humble state, for neither were they of the nobility, nor were their ancestors.

“I cannot give ignorance as an excuse, Lord, because they, too, were ignorant. Even were I a fugitive slave, I could perform my task; Onesimus was such. I cannot object that I am sick, for Timothy was often ill. 

“O Lord, You teach me that I can help my neighbor if I fulfill my duty. I will do this by observing Your laws, especially the law of love by which we teach goodness to those who offend us. Good example has more influence on worldly people than miracles, and You tell me that there is nothing better than charity and love of one’s neighbor. Help me, then, O Lord, to lead a holy life and to do good works, so that those who see me may praise Your Name” (cf. St. John Chrysostom).

“O Lord, grant that I may believe with my heart, profess with my mouth, and put into practice Your words, that others, seeing my good works, will glorify You, our Father who art in heaven, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Origen).



328. APOSTOLIC WORKS


PRESENCE OF GOD - O my God, make me worthy to collaborate with You in spreading Your kingdom of Love.


MEDITATION

1. The interior apostolate of prayer and suffering in virtue of its intrinsic efficacy and fruitfulness possesses a preeminence over all other forms of the apostolate, to such a degree that, even without any exterior activity, it is sufficient to make those who practice it eminent apostles. Nevertheless, works are also necessary in society and in the Church; God wills them, and indeed He ordinarily intervenes in the
world through the activity of His apostles. Side by side with the interior apostolate of contemplatives, the exterior activity of pastors and the faithful is needed for the diffusion of the life of grace in souls. The ministry of the priesthood is necessary for the administration of the Sacraments; missionaries are needed to convert infidels; we must have schools and teachers for the Christian formation of youth; to christianize society, we need social works and workers, professional men and women who will be apostles in their own walks of life. In the field of the apostolate, as St. Paul says, there are many duties, many offices of varied importance and value, but they all proceed from one and the same spirit, the Holy Spirit, who “divides to everyone according as He will,” and at the same time, orders them all to one end: the growth of the Mystical Body of Christ (1 Cor 12,11). Just as one member of the human body has need of the others, “and the eye cannot say to the hand, I need not thy help, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you” (ibid.12, 21), so neither can contemplatives say to those in the active life, “Your works are not necessary”; nor can the latter say to the former, “Your prayer is of no avail.” Neither can the supporters of the various kinds of apostolic activity consider one to be more important than others; but with mutual appreciation, all should work in a spirit of solidarity, helping one another, each one trying to carry out his own functions with the greatest possible perfection. From the love with which each one discharges his own duties and, at the same time, remains united to the others, will result the universal good of the Church, which the apostle should seek above and beyond any of his own personal works or interests.


2. The first place in the apostolic ministry belongs, beyond all doubt, to the Bishops who are the direct successors of the Apostles, to whom Jesus officially entrusted the charge of evangelizing the world: “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Mt 28,19.20). Next to this apostolate of the Hierarchy, reserved for the clergy, there is the apostolate of the laity, who are invited
by the Church to collaborate with the Hierarchy. The Bishops guide, govern, draw up the plans; and under their direction the faithful are called upon to lend their assistance. It is evident, therefore, that the authentic apostolate, the only one which is in accord with God’s plan for the salvation of mankind, is that which is exercised in harmony with the directives of the Church. He who wants to work in the Lord’s vineyard, independently of those whom God has chosen to direct and govern it, is not worthy to be called an apostle. Activity of this kind would not only fail to further the ends of the apostolate, but it would also be prejudicial to them.

First on the list of collaborators with the Hierarchy are the persons consecrated to God by the vows of religion, that is, religious men and women dedicated to the works of the apostolate, and the members of Secular Institutes. Next are the members of Catholic Action groups, and finally, there is a place for all Christians who, privately or as members of a group, practice some form of the apostolate. It was not by chance that Pius XII, in the Encyclical Mystici Corporis, speaking of the collaboration of the faithful in the apostolate, made special mention of fathers and mothers of families; indeed every Christian who works to bring the spirit of the Gospel into his own sphere of action—whether it be the home, the school, the office, or the hospital—is a true collaborator with the Hierarchy. Furthermore, the same Pope declared: “This apostolic work, performed according to the spirit of the Church, consecrates a layman as a kind of minister of Christ; this is what St. Augustine meant when he wrote: ‘O brethren...you, too, in your own way, ought to be ministers of Christ by leading a good life, giving alms, and preaching His name and His doctrine. In this way the father of a family also will fulfill his duty as a cleric in his own home, and to some degree the duty of a bishop, serving Christ, in order to be with Him in eternity’” (Encyclical: Summi Pontificatus). It was in this sense that St. Peter, addressing himself to the faithful, did not hesitate to say: “You are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood” (1 Pt 2,9).


COLLOQUY


“O my God, grant that I may no longer think whether I am to gain or lose, but let my one aim be to serve and please You. Knowing Your love for us, I willingly renounce all my pleasure in order to please You alone, by serving my neighbor and proclaiming to others the truths which will do good to their souls. I shall not worry about any loss I may suffer; I wish to have only my neighbor’s good in mind and nothing further. In order to give You more pleasure, my God, I want to forget myself for others, and I am ready, if need be, even to give up my life, as did many martyrs.

“This, I think, must be one of the greatest comforts on earth, to see good coming to souls through one’s own agency. Happy are they, O Lord, to whom You grant these favors!” (T.J. Con).

“My God, fortunate is he who has tasted how sweet it is to work for the salvation of souls! He is not afraid of cold or heat, hunger or thirst, offenses or insults, no, not even of death.

“O Lord, give me crosses and thorns, persecutions of all kinds, if only I can save souls, and my own among them. Da mihi animas, coetera tolle: give me souls, Lord, and take all the rest.

“Only when I know that the devil has given up plotting against souls, shall I cease trying new ways of saving them from his deceits and snares.

“O Lord, I wish to make a complete sacrifice of my life to You, to work for Your glory until I draw my last breath, bearing patiently all adversities and contradictions in my work. Help me to spend all my strength for the salvation of souls ” (St. John Bosco).