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

[Stone]

30. BELIEVING IN LOVE
DECEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH

PRESENCE OF GOD - O most sweet Infant Jesus, permit me to enter into the abyss of Your infinite love, so that I may believe in it with all my strength.


MEDITATION

1. When creating us, God loved us so much that He made us to His own image and likeness; when redeeming us, He loved us so much that He made Himself to our image! Christmas is pre-eminently the feast of love—the love which was revealed, not in the sufferings of the Cross, but in the lovableness of a little Child, our God, stretching out His arms to make us understand that He loves us. If the consideration of God’s infinite justice can rouse us to greater fidelity in His service, how much more does the consideration of His infinite love incite us! St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus used to say, “ Fear makes me shrink, while under love’s sweet rule I not only advance, I fly” (T.C.J. St, 8). Jesus, the divine Infant, is here in the midst of us, to replace the old law of fear with the new law of love. 

To run in the path of God’s commandments, we must be thoroughly convinced of God’s infinite love for us, and precisely in order to reach this conviction, we immerse ourselves in contemplation of the mystery of the Nativity. In fact, when we see Jesus, the eternal Word, become a child for us, and from the very first moment of His earthly life, gladly taking on all our miseries, even to the point of having nothing but a manger for a cradle, with a little hay for bedding, and poor swaddling clothes for covering... Oh, we can no longer doubt His love. God loves us! Jesus loves us! Yes, let us repeat it again and again, “We have known and have believed the charity which God hath to us” (1 Jn 4,16). Lord, I believe in Your love for me! Lord, increase my faith!


2. God is Love! An immense treasure is contained in these words, and it is the treasure which God discloses to souls who devoutly contemplate the Incarnate Word. Until we comprehend that God is infinite love and infinite benevolence, who gives Himself and extends Himself to all men in order to communicate to them His goodness and His happiness, our spiritual life has still just begun; it has not yet developed or deepened. Only when the soul, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, has penetrated the mystery of divine charity, only then does its spiritual life attain to full maturity.

We cannot better understand the infinite love of our God, than by drawing near to the humble manger where He lies, made flesh for us. “The virtues and attributes of God are known in God, through the mysteries of God made man,” says St. John of the Cross (cf. SC, 37,2); and among these attributes the first is charity, which constitutes the very essence of God. From the silent, loving contemplation of the Infant Jesus, there is easily aroused in us a more profound and penetrating sense of His infinite love: we no longer merely believe, but in a certain way, we know by experience God’s love for us. Then our will fully accepts what faith teaches; it accepts it with love, with all its strength, and our soul believes unreservedly in God’s infinite love. God is Love; this truth, fundamental for all Christian life, has penetrated to the depths of the soul; it feels it, it lives it, because it has, so to say, almost touched it in its Incarnate God. One who so believes in infinite love will know how to give itself to Him without measure: to give itself totally.


COLLOQUY


Lord, I believe in Your love for me! How could I still doubt it? “You have come down from the great height of Your divinity to the mire of our humanity, because the lowness of my intellect could neither understand nor behold such height. In order that my littleness might see Your greatness, You became a little child, concealing the greatness of Your Deity in the littleness of our humanity. And so You manifest Yourself to us in the Word, Your only-begotten Son; thus have I known You, O abyss of charity! O blush with shame, blind creature, so exalted and honored by your God, not to know that God, in His inestimable charity, came down from the height of His infinite Deity to the lowliness of your humanity! O inestimable love! What do you say, O my soul? I say to You, eternal Father, I beseech You, most benign God, that You give us and all Your servants a share in the fire of Your charity” (St. Catherine of Siena). O God, how great is my need to know Your infinite love! To know in order to believe, to believe in order to love, to love in order to give myself entirely to You, with no reservation, just as You have given Yourself entirely to me. 

O my God, how much I want to repay You for this inestimable gift! Alas! You who are all, have given me all, whereas I, who am nothing, can give You only this nothing! Yet how slow, indolent, and miserly I am in giving You this nothing, how much I try to spare myself, to give myself with measure, with prudence.... Oh, Your love knew no measure; it did not calculate the infinite distance between the Creator and the creature, but surpassed, exceeded, and engulfed this distance by uniting indissolubly human nature with the divine Person of the Word. How true it is that love knows no obstacles, overcomes everything, and adapts itself to everything in order to attain its end! O loving Infant Jesus, my God, my Savior, give me the grace of an ever-increasing understanding of the greatness and depth of Your love; make me penetrate this boundless abyss, whose bottom no creature can ever touch! The more I enter into it, the more I feel new strength born in me, a new impulse which urges me irresistibly to give myself wholly to you. You know how necessary it is for this strength to grow and become established in me, so as to make me truly generous, ready for every sacrifice, every gift of myself. O Lord, grant that I may understand Your infinite charity! Give me a firm faith in it, and never let me refuse anything to Your love: this is the gift I beg of You on the day of Your Nativity! 

31. RETURNING LOVE FOR LOVE
DECEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH

PRESENCE OF GOD - I recollect myself before the humble manger: I contemplate the divine Infant, begging Him to teach me how to give Him love for love.


MEDITATION

1. To assume human nature and hence unite Himself to it, the eternal Word concealed His divinity, majesty, power, and infinite wisdom: behold the divine Infant who can neither speak nor move by Himself, who in all things depends entirely upon His Mother, His creature, to whom He looks for everything. Let us try to understand this mystery in order to apply it to our poor lives. True love overcomes every obstacle, accepts every situation, and makes any sacrifice in order to unite itself with Him whom it loves. If we wish to be united to God, we must do exactly what the Word did to become united to human nature; He followed a path of prodigious self-abasement, of infinite humility! Here there opens before us the path of the “nothing,” of total abnegation. “All, nothing; all, nothing!” This was the lullaby sung by St. John of the Cross to his God made man. “In order to possess everything, desire to possess nothing ” (AS J, 13,11). Compared to the infinite humiliations of the eternal Word made flesh, this path should not seem to us too austere and exacting. To repay His infinite love, to prove our love for Him, let us resolve to strip ourselves generously of everything that could hinder our union with Him; above all, let us divest ourselves of self-love, pride, vanity, all our righteous pretensions. What a striking contrast between these vain pretenses of our “ ego” and the touching humility of the Incarnate Word! Sic nos amantem, quis non redamaret? Who would not love Him who loves us so much? (Adeste Fidelis). 


2. Out of love for us, Jesus not only stripped Himself of all His greatness and majesty, but from the very first moment of His earthly life, He embraced every possible privation. Let us also strip ourselves voluntarily for love of Him. Let us strip ourselves of our love of riches, of our attachment to our material well-being, our comforts, and everything that is superfluous. We are already under obligation to do this by our vow or promise of poverty, but even without this obligation, how can we calmly lead a life of ease when our God has voluntarily embraced so much poverty and hardship? Let us consider how the Holy Child Jesus lived: rough straw, insufficient coverings, a stable for His house, a manger for His cradle.... Looking at the manger, one feels that the way of “nothing” does not ask too much : “ Strive to seek not the best of temporal things, but the worst. Strive thus to desire to enter into complete detachment and emptiness and poverty, with respect to everything that is in this world, for Christ’s sake” (J.C. AS I, 13,6). If we want to repay Jesus’ infinite love, let us strip ourselves generously of everything for Him, not only material goods, but also every attachment to creatures, for, as St. John of the Cross teaches, “To love is to labor, to detach and strip oneself for God’s sake, of all that is not God” (J.C. AS II, 5,7). The way of “nothing” takes us quickly to Bethlehem, where God has united Himself to our human nature in the most intimate, personal way, there where He awaits us to unite our souls to Himself. 


COLLOQUY 

O my sweet Jesus, grant that I, even in a small way, may be able to repay You for Your infinite love. Out of love for me, my God, You became man; from Lord, a slave; from rich, poor; from omnipotent, a little helpless Babe.... Oh! grant that for love of You, I may courageously and generously follow the path of the “nothing,” of total despoliation. For love of me You are stripped of Your majesty and grandeur. You conceal every sign of Your divinity, You make Yourself little and humble, in order to become “mine,” so that I may not only know You, but that I may possess You entirely, since You give me—not only in Bethlehem, but every day in the Holy Eucharist—all Your divinity, all Your humanity! JI, Your miserable creature, who am so loved and favored by You, shall I not know how, for love of You, to become wholly Yours and strip myself of my self-love? 

“O divine Word, become a Child for love of me, teach me to become a child for love of You. Oh! what great love and power You show me by becoming a little Babe, willing to keep silence, and to have need of everything, like other children! You were like unto us in all things—sin excepted. To show me my misery, the first sound You uttered was a cry, fulfilling the words of Wisdom: Primam vocem simile omnibus emisi plorans, like all others I came into the world crying. And what an example You give me! When You place Your tiny limbs on the manger straw and rest Your head on a stone, You teach me the lesson of Your humility and poverty. O most sweet Infant Jesus, grant that I may be like unto You in all things” (cf. St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi).

O God, infinite, eternal wealth, how You have abased Yourself for love of me! And I, who have promised You poverty, how far I still am from being really poor, from fervently practicing this poverty which You love so much! O Lord, sweet Incarnate Word, I wish to return by my love Your infinite love. I wish to prove by my actions that I really love You. What shall I do for You, O sweet Jesus? Out of love for You, I will strip myself of everything that is not You, for I desire nothing but You, and I want to become like You, who being God, became man. Make me, who am proud, become humble. You, who are the Ruler and Lord of the whole universe, became poor and needy; make me, who love my comfort, become a sincere lover of true poverty. Humility and poverty will start me on the road of the “nothing,” and then, emptied of myself and all things, I shall at last be able to love You with all my strength, and to say with perfect sincerity: “Lord, I love You more than myself and above all things. ”

32. GLORY TO GOD
DECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH

PRESENCE OF GOD - I unite myself in spirit to the angelic choir singing the glory of the Lord over the fields of Bethlehem.


MEDITATION

1. The Word was made flesh for our salvation and happiness. However, the primary end of the Incarnation is God’s glory, which is the end of all His works. He, the one absolute good, cannot will anything apart from His glory. By sending His only Son to save men, He wished to glorify His infinite goodness, to glorify Himself in our salvation, accomplished by means of this supreme act of His infinitely merciful love. The work of creation glorifies God in His wisdom and omnipotence; the work of the Incarnation glorifies Him in His charity. And as God could not manifest greater mercy and charity than by giving His Son for our salvation, so none of His works can give Him greater glory than the Incarnation of the Word. Hence, the angels sang at the birth of the Redeemer, “Glory to God in the highest!” The Church takes up this hymn and amplifies it in the Gloria which is sung in every feast-day Mass: “We praise You, we bless You, we glorify You, we give You thanks for Your great glory.” At no time more than at Christmas do we feel the need of repeating this song, more with our heart than with our lips. The soul feels more than ever incited to praise its God, so immense, so great, so beautiful, but also so good, so merciful, so full of charity. Song does not suffice: the soul would wish to be transformed into an incessant “praise of His glory. ” 


2. We have been predestinated in Christ “that we may be unto the praise of His glory” (Eph 1,11.12). As Christians, we are, of ourselves, proofs of Christ’s glory; our elevation to a supernatural state, our sanctification, and eternal happiness have for their supreme end the glory of Him who has redeemed us. Christians, and with greater reason, consecrated souls, must act in such a way that all their works and their whole lives may be a praise of glory to the Trinity and to Christ Our Lord. Today the Church presents to us the “first fruits” of these “true Christians,” those who by their works, and even by their death, have sung the glory of the Redeemer. We see them in the retinue of the divine Child, like angels on earth, who unite their hymn to that of the angels in heaven. St. Stephen, the protomartyr, teaches us that a faithful, loving soul must be ready to give up everything, itself and even its life, for the glory of its God. St. John the Evangelist, “the blessed Apostle to whom heavenly secrets were revealed” and who penetrated so deeply into the mystery of God as infinite charity, shows us that love for our neighbor “is the precept of the Lord; if this only be done, it is enough ” (RB) to give glory to Him who is infinite Love. The Holy Innocents, “the first tender buds of the Church,” demonstrate that the voice of innocence is a hymn of glory to God, resembling that of the angels: “From the mouths of babes and sucklings you have perfected praise, O God!” But this hymn becomes much more powerful and eloquent when it is united to the sacrifice of their blood: “The martyred Innocents confessed God’s glory, not in word but by their death” (RB). May our life also be a hymn of praise to God, “ not by words, but by works. ” 


COLLOQUY

“May my voice loudly resound: with attentive mind may I contemplate You, my God, and with my words sing Your praises; it is right that a creature praise its Creator, for You created and redeemed us that we might praise You, although You do not need our praise. You are incomprehensible Power and have no need of anyone, but are sufficient in Yourself. You are great, O Lord, my God, Your power is great and the works of Your wisdom are without number. You are great, O Lord, my God, and worthy of all praise.. May my soul love You, my tongue praise You, my hand write of You, and may my whole soul be occupied in these holy exercises. Satisfy me ever with this sweet food, so that I may praise You with a mighty voice, with all my heart and all my powers, singing Your praise sweetly, joyfully, and fervently, O God! 

“O my soul, bless the Lord, and let all that is within me bless His holy Name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget His innumerable favors!’ Let us praise this God whom the angels praise, before whom the Dominations prostrate to adore, who is feared by the Powers and in whose honor the Cherubim and Seraphim continually sing: Holy! Holy! Holy! Let us join our voices to those of the angels and saints, and let us praise the Lord with the fullness of our powers” (St. Augustine). Yes, my God, my Redeemer, and my Savior, I desire to praise You eternally, and until I go to praise Your glory with the angels and saints in heaven, I want to begin to praise You here below, not only with my tongue, but with my deeds, with my whole life. “In order to be a praise of glory, I must love You with a pure, disinterested love, without seeking myself in the sweetness of Your love; I must love You above all Your gifts. Now, how shall I desire and effectively will good to You, except by fulfilling Your will, since this will orders all things for Your greater glory? I ought, therefore, to surrender myself completely, blindly, to that will, so that I cannot possibly will anything but what You will” (E.T. J, 10). When Your will or Your laws ask me to sacrifice myself for love of You and for Your glory, grant that I may never shrink from it, but be ever ready to give myself wholly, even to the supreme sacrifice of my life. 

33. PEACE TO MEN
DECEMBER TWENTY-NINTH

PRESENCE OF GOD - I place myself at the feet of the Infant Jesus to meditate on the angels’ hymn: “Peace on earth to men of good will” (Lk 2,14).


MEDITATION

1. At Bethlehem the angels announced two things: glory to God and peace to men; the one corresponds to the other. No one glorifies God as much as that little Babe lying on the straw. He alone, being the eternal Word, can give God the perfect, infinite praise that is worthy of Him. And no one more than Jesus, our Savior, brings peace to men; making reparation for sin, He reconciles man with His Creator and establishes a new covenant between them: the Creator will become Father, and man, His son. Something similar is verified in our daily life. Those who obey God’s law enjoy peace; observing the divine law they also glorify God. The glory of God corresponds perfectly to the peace of men. But we are treating of that peace which comes only from Jesus, from His grace, peace which we will seek in vain elsewhere. “Peace is the tranquility of order.” Order is established by the law and will of God. Those who respect this order fully, possess the plenitude of interior peace; those who depart from it, even in a slight degree, lose their peace in proportion to their deviation from it. Peace is the refreshment and repose of the soul in the midst of the struggles and sorrows of life, but this is not the only reason for which we should try to obtain and possess it. We should desire it above all because it gives glory to God. 

2. The angels promised peace “to men of good will.” Our will is “good” when it is upright, docile, and resolute. It is upright when it is sincerely and entirely oriented toward good; docile, when it is always ready to follow every indication of God’s will; resolute, when it is prompt to adhere to the will of God, even though difficulties and obstacles arise, and sacrifices are required. The Lord is continually urging us to generosity and abnegation in all the circumstances of life, even the smallest ones. We must give ourselves to God without hesitation, certain that if God asks anything of us He will also give us the strength to carry out His wishes. Such was the conduct of the shepherds; as soon as they heard the message of the angel, they left all, their flocks and their rest, and “came with haste [to Bethlehem] where they found. . .the Infant lying in the manger” (Lk 2,16). They were the first to find Jesus and to taste His peace.

St. Teresa of Jesus says, “Holy peace consists in a union with God’s will, of such a kind that no dissension arises between the will of God and the soul, but they are both one — not in words or in desires alone but in works. When a soul finds that by doing something it can serve its Spouse better, it listens to no objections raised by its mind, nor to any fears...but allows faith to act, and considers not its own profit nor its own tranquility” (T.J. Con, 3). This is perfect “ good will.” Mary and Joseph are unsurpassable models of it. Despite the obscurity of the mystery and the great sacrifices entailed, they clung to the divine plan in total abandonment, and had the supreme joy of receiving the King of Heaven in their arms. To the greatest good will corresponds the greatest union with God, and the deepest peace and joy. 


COLLOQUY

I give You thanks, O Jesus, for the infinite glory which You give to Your divine Father, making up for all the inability and insufficiency of Your poor creatures! You are the perfect praise of glory of the Blessed Trinity, the splendor of Their glory: praise and thanksgiving I render to You, O Lord! You could have glorified Your Father without caring for us who had offended Him. What need did God have of our happiness and welfare? But You, the most merciful, wanted to glorify Your Father precisely by obtaining salvation for us and giving us peace. Oh! how much I long for that peace which You came to bring into the world! You alone can give it to me, You alone can wholly pacify my poor heart, which is too often torn between the demands of Your divine love and the violence of my passions or the attractions of the world. 

O Lord, give me Your peace; let it establish Your kingdom in me and make me a praise of glory of Your Holy Name. But it is Your will that, while I hope for everything from Your grace and mercy, I should not fail to labor assiduously to obtain this Your great gift. You will give me peace if I have “good will”: a sincere will, which clings strictly to the good, without duplicity or artifice, without secondary ends or compromises. O Lord, give me this upright will which never wanders from the good and true; even when the truth stings, and discloses all my weaknesses, give me courage to love it, to accept it wholly, just as it is, and to act accordingly. O Lord, I also want my will to be submissive to the smallest sign from You, like a light sailboat which follows every breath of wind with docility. Alas, my will is still so tenacious, so obstinate and hard to bend, so firm in its stand! Make it supple, O sweetest Jesus, who came down from heaven to earth to carry out Your Father’s will.

Strengthen my will also, so that I may be enabled to conquer every repugnance, every vacillation and hesitation, especially when I have to overcome difficulties and face sacrifice. O Lord, I desire to have an upright, resolute will, that I may go straight to You, with the swiftness of an arrow; a will as supple as a wave which obeys the wind, that I may follow every indication of Your will. Then there will be no division between my will and Yours; there will be perfect union, perfect peace. O Jesus, what a high ideal You have given man, whom You have redeemed! Man was living in sin, and was therefore as far away from God as sin is from infinite perfection. By your precious merits You not only raised him from the abyss in which he lay,
but called him to union with God. By Your mediation, the Master and Judge becomes the Father, Friend, and Spouse of the soul of good will! O Jesus, how much You have given us, how much You have given me! Eternal praise be to You!

34. A SIGN OF CONTRADICTION
SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS

PRESENCE OF GOD - The world is made up of friends and enemies of Jesus. O Lord, grant that I may be one of the former, and one of the most loving of them.


MEDITATION

1. Today’s Mass is an echo of Christmas, but while it speaks of peace and joy, it also has a note of deep sadness. The Gospel (Lk 2,33-40) suddenly transports us to the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, forty days after His birth, and repeats Simeon’s prophecy, “Behold this Child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted.” The Son of God became man for all men; He brings and offers salvation to all, but many will not receive it. This is the great mystery of human freedom. God has made man intelligent and free; He offers him all the treasures of salvation and sanctity contained in the infinite merits of Jesus Christ; man is free to accept or refuse. This is our tremendous responsibility. Jesus came to save us, to sanctify us, to give Himself entirely to our souls. He is ready to do it, He wants to do it, and yet He will not do it until we freely accept His infinite gift, until we correspond to His loving solicitation with the free gift of our will. “God never forces anyone; He takes what we give Him, but does not give Himself wholly until He sees that we are giving ourselves wholly to Him” (T.J. Way, 28). The prophecy of Simeon was addressed directly to the Virgin Mother. “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce.” The bloody vision of the Cross is thus mingled unexpectedly with the charming scene of the Nativity, reminding us that the tender Babe of Bethlehem is the divine Lamb who will one day be immolated for the salvation of the world. 


2. Among all those present when the Child Jesus was presented in the Temple, there were only two who recognized the Savior, the aged Simeon and the prophetess Anna. Of Simeon it is said: “He was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Ghost was in him” (Lk 2,25); and of Anna: “She departed not from the Temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day.” Behold the characteristics of souls well disposed to accept the redemptive work of Jesus: rectitude of mind and will, sincere longing for God, recollection, prayer, mortification. The more profound these dispositions become, the more the soul opens itself to the divine action. The light of the Holy Spirit enables it to recognize in Jesus its Redeemer
and its Sanctifier, and Jesus can wholly accomplish His work in it. St. Paul’s magnificent words in today’s Epistle (Gal 4,1-7) apply to such souls in a special way: “And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father!” And the Apostle says to every Christian, to every soul redeemed by Jesus’ Blood, “ Now you are not a servant, but a son. And if a son, an heir also through God.” Unfortunately, not ell Christians live as true sons of God; in Baptism they have received the “adoption of sons,” but they do not make their deeds correspond to this immense, gratuitous gift, the fruit of the merits of Jesus. When, on the other hand, a soul generously corresponds with God’s action, He takes total possession of it, and the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, cries out from the depths of its heart, “Abba, Father.”


COLLOQUY

O my God, what responsibility men have when they consider Your great gifts, and especially the Incarnation of Your only-begotten Son, who became man for our salvation! "Oh, how the very greatness of His favor will condemn those who are ungrateful! Do come to the help of such, my God! O children of men, how long will you be hard of heart and fight against this most gentle Jesus? What is this? Is it possible that our wickedness will prevail against Him? No, for human life is cut short like the flower of the grass, and the Son of the Virgin will come and pass that terrible sentence.... Blessed are they who at that dread moment shall rejoice with You, O my Lord and my God. 

“O my Lord, how shall I ask You for favors, I who have served You so ill and have hardly been able to keep what You have already given? How can You have any confidence in one who has so often betrayed You? What, then, shall I do, Comfort of the comfortless, and Help of all who seek help from You? Can it be better to keep silence about my necessities, hoping that You will relieve them? No, indeed, for You, my Lord and my Joy, knowing how many they are, and how it will alleviate them to speak to You about them, bid us to pray to You and promise that You will not fail to give. 

“What, then, can one who is as wretched as I, ask of You? ‘That Thou wilt give to me, my God,’ as St. Augustine said, ‘so that I may give to Thee, to repay Thee some part of all that I owe Thee; that Thou wilt remember that I am Thy handiwork; and that I may know who my Creator is, and so may love Him’” (T.J. Exc, 3-5). But it is I, O Lord, above all, who am forgetful and do not correspond as I should to Your infinite gifts! O gentle pilgrim of love, You stand at the door and wait! How many doors in Bethlehem were closed to You: there was no room for You except in a wretched stable. And is not my heart still more wretched, more squalid, more unworthy of You than that poor stable? And yet, if I open it to You, You will not disdain to make it Your dwelling and the place of Your repose, as You did the stable where You were born. O my Jesus, give me the grace to open my heart wide to You, to adhere with all the strength of my will to Your grace, to give You all my liberty, because henceforth I desire but one liberty: the liberty to love You with all my strength, to give myself wholly to You. O Lord, how much You have loved us, and how few are those that love You! Grant that at least these few may be truly faithful to You, and that I also may be of their number. 

35. LET US MAKE GOOD USE OF TIME
DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST

PRESENCE OF GOD - On the last day of the year, I recollect myself in the presence of the Child Jesus, to examine in the light of eternity
the value of time.


MEDITATION

1. Time passes and does not return. God has assigned to each of us a definite time in which to fulfill His divine plan for our soul; we have only this time and shall have no more. Time ill spent is lost forever. Our life is made up of this uninterrupted, continual flow of time, which never returns. In eternity, on the contrary, time will be no more; we shall be established forever in the degree of love which we have reached now, in time. If we have attained a high degree of love, we shall be fixed forever in that degree of love and glory; if we possess only a slight degree, that is all we shall have throughout eternity. No further progress will be possible when time has ended. "Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to all
men” (Gal 6,10). “We must give every moment its full amount of love, and make each passing moment eternal, by giving it value for eternity” (Sr. Carmela of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.).1 This is the best way to use the time given us by God. Charity allows us to adhere to God’s will with submission and love and thus at the close of life we shall have realized God’s plan for our soul; we shall have reached with which we shall love and glorify Him for all eternity. 

1 Sr. Carmela of the Holy Spirit, a Discalced Carmelite Nun who died July 23, 1949, was a soul of an exceptional interior life, some of whose writings were published by FATHER GABRIEL OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN, O.C.D. toward the end of 1950 in his Revista di vita spirituale (See Nos. 1 and 2). In 1954 her life was published together with more of her writings and some notes of direction from Father Gabriel, who had been her spiritual director in Carmel. Cf. Sr. Carmela of the Holy Spirit, Carmel of St. Joseph, Rome.


2. The growth of charity depends upon meritorious acts, that is, good works done under the influence of charity. Every good act merits an increase of charity, which may be given to the soul at once or withheld until the end of life, according to whether the act had been performed with all the love of which the soul was capable, or whether, on the contrary, it was performed with less vigor, generosity, and carefulness than was possible at that moment. In the first case, the increase of charity comes like interest which is immediately accrued to the capital, and which then bears interest together with it. In the second case, it is like interest which is kept separate from the capital and hence does not increase with it, even though it remains the property of the one who has acquired it. In order that the merit of our good works, that is, the increase of charity which we have merited by them, be granted immediately, it is necessary that these works be done with all the love possible, that is, with all the good will and generosity of which the soul is capable. Then it is as if the soul opens to receive the increase of love it has merited; and this is added at once to the capital of charity already possessed, immediately increasing its degree and intensity. 

We have only the short day of this earthly life in which to grow in love, and if we wish to derive from it the greatest possible profit, we must overcome our natural inertia and carry out our good works “ with our whole heart.” Then love will increase immeasurably and we shall be able to say to Our Lord like St. Thérése of the Child Jesus: “Your love has grown with me and now it is an abyss, the depth of which I am unable to sound” (St, 12). We must, then, make haste while we still have time, for “the night cometh when no man can work” (Jn 9,4). 


COLLOQUY

O Lord, as I look back on the year just passed, a year given me by Your divine Providence in which to increase my love of You, I can only grieve over myself and say to You: “How little I have loved You, my God! How badly I have spent my time!” “How late have my desires become enkindled, and how early, Lord, did You go in search of me, calling me to spend myself wholly in Your service! Did You perchance, Lord, forsake the wretched or turn from the poor beggar who sought to approach You? Can it be, Lord, that there is any limit to Your wonders or to Your mighty works? O my God and my Mercy! Now will You be able to show Your mercies in Your handmaiden. How powerful You are, great God! Now it will become clear, Lord, if my soul, looking upon the time it has lost, is right in its belief that You, in a moment, can turn its loss to gain. I seem to be talking foolishly, for it is usual to say that time lost can never be recovered. “Blessed be my God! O Lord, I recognize Your great power. If You are mighty, as indeed You are, what is impossible for You who can do all things?

“Well do You know, my God, that in the midst of all my miseries I have never ceased to recognize Your great power and mercy. May it prove of avail to me that I have not offended You in this. Restore the time I have lost, my God, by granting me Your grace both in the present and in the future, that I may appear before You wearing the wedding garment, for You can do this if You so will” (T.J. Exc, 4). On my part, O Lord, I can think of no better way to make up for the time I have lost than to try with all my might to increase my love. Yes, my love will grow if, for Your sake, I fulfill all my duties and perform all my good works “with all my heart” and “ with all my good will.” Alas! I am so weak, so careless, so indolent! I am inclined to
flee from exerting myself; I try to avoid making sacrifices. My nature always seeks what is easiest, what is least tiring, and soon falls into negligence and laziness. Help me, O Lord, and strengthen my love by Your almighty power. What I do for You is so little; grant, O my God, that I may at least do it with all the love possible.