Thirsting For Love
October 13, 2026
Hello! How is each and every one? It just dawned on
me that the past week was replete with feast days and I could not help spending
time to gather them for you so you can savor each one of them even after we
have celebrated them. Oct
7, 8, 9, 12.
7 October
Our Lady of the Rosary
Pope St. Pius V established this feast
in 1573. The purpose was to thank God for the victory of Christians over the
Turks at Lepanto - a victory attributed to the praying of the rosary. Clement
XI extended the feast to the universal Church in 1716.
The development of the rosary has a long history. First, a practice developed of praying 150 Our Fathers in imitation of the 150 Psalms. Then there was a parallel practice of praying 150 Hail Marys. Soon a mystery of Jesus' life was attached to each Hail Mary.
Though Mary's giving the rosary to St. Dominic is recognized as a legend, the development of this prayer form owes much to the followers of St. Dominic. One of them, Alan de la Roche, was known as "the apostle of the rosary." He founded the first Confraternity of the Rosary in the 15th century. In the 16th century the rosary was developed to its present form - with the 15 mysteries (joyful, sorrowful and glorious). In 2002, Pope John Paul II added the Mysteries of Light to this devotion.
October
8
With
a blessing and many details of affection
The first three women who began the work of Opus Dei in the
Philippines landed in Manila on October 8, 1965 at 5 o’clock in the afternoon.
The event was narrated by Ana Labrada in her book “The Vanguard of the East”
(c) 2017. Here are excerpts.
The blessing of St.
Josemaría
On October 6, 1965, Sole Usechi, Maria Teresa Martinez Baron and
Lali Sastre were in a small living room inside the headquarters building of
Opus Dei in Rome. A few months earlier, they had received the invitation
from the Founder of Opus Dei to start apostolic work in the Philippines.
St. Josemaría entered the room, accompanied by Don Alvaro del Portillo and Don
Javier Echevarría. He welcomed them with a big smile and in a jovial tone
exclaimed, “My daughters,
are you happy that you will be going to the Philippines?” The
answer was firmly and unanimously affirmative.
The Founder had prepared some gifts for their new country: a set
of table napkins from the Philippines and a silver frame in which to place an
image of the Blessed Virgin. Then he took out from his pocket a rather bulky
package and put it on the table saying, “This
is for you, so you get up on time...” It was an alarm clock.
Then he gave them some advice for the future, “Keep calm, never lose your peace, do
not be overly anxious. Leave anxiety outside the house and shut the door. If
you need more hands to help you out, speak up. However, the apostolic work in
the Philippines has to be carried out by Filipino flesh and blood. There will
be many vocations. You have to form them very well and later you will be
sending them to the Roman College.” He continued speaking, giving
them advice as would a father who is bidding goodbye to his children before a
long trip. “Don’t fail to
write to me....” And he asked them to pray for him (…)
The moment of farewell came: Sole, Maria
Teresa and Lali knelt to receive the blessing. This is the manner by which the
Founder of Opus Dei would send off his children who were beginning
apostolic work anywhere in the world: with an image of the Blessed Virgin, a
crucifix, a small detail of affection, and his blessing. It had to be this simple
because back then they had scarce resources and lacked most everything, even if
he wished that those leaving to start in other countries had the necessary
material means as far as possible.
He had nothing to give them, but they were
taking with them something more valuable: the blessing of a priest.
The first steps
The next day they took the flight to Manila.
Once on the plane, each reacted in her own way.
Sole, 25 years old, was from Navarre and had a determined
character; dark-haired and athletic, she was going to be the Director. Maria
Teresa, from Andalusia, was a lighthearted person, of the same age as Sole; she
was known to break the ice during tense moments by dancing the sevillanas. Having studied
in a school run by Irish nuns, she was convinced she knew English until she
arrived in Manila and realized she could understand practically nothing. During
the trip, she dreamt of being the first one to set foot on Philippine soil...
and she got what she wanted. Lali was Catalan, passionate about mountaineering,
shy-looking, and was 24 years old. On the trip, she wept openly as she recalled
the blessing and the words of the Father.
They landed in Manila on October 8 at 5
o’clock in the afternoon. The male members of Opus Dei had arrived a year
before and had taken care of preparing what was most essential: that is, the
house. “The priests of Opus Dei had already known a group of ladies, who
were thus awaiting the arrival of the first three. Among them were Ladi
Faustman and Luisa Lorenzo.
Ladi (nickname for Eladia) Faustman as well
as her husband, Ramon, belonged to a prominent Spanish family. They had moved
to the Philippines to try to save an important family business which had
suffered extensive damage during World War II. They ended up bankrupt and had
to live for years on the brink of poverty, but with great human and Christian
dignity and elegance.
Ladi introduced the priests of the Work to
the Lorenzo family and asked Dona Luisa if they could hold the monthly
recollections in the Lorenzos’ house on Taft Avenue. It was also Ladi who put
the first women of Opus Dei who arrived in Manila in contact with her
friend Cholang, daughter of Dona Luisa, thinking that she would understand the
spirit of Opus Dei, as did happen. Years later, the [Faustman] couple
returned to Spain and spent their last years in Guecho (Vizcaya), where Ladi
asked for admission to the Work after some time.
Ladi and Dona Luisa took Lali, Sole and Maria Teresa to a rented
house on Leon Guinto Street. It consisted of two storeys; it was spacious, had
a big garden, and had the basic facilities and amenities for comfortable
living. In one of the rooms on the second floor, a provisional oratory was set
up so that the Holy Mass could be celebrated. From the very day of the
installation, the Blessed Sacrament was reserved in the tabernacle. The center
was given the name Mayana.
A few months later, it became a Home Management school where classes on home
arts, decor, and cooking were offered (…)
The day-to-day experience was always intense
and full of surprises. One day they received a letter from the women members of
the Work in Japan, welcoming them and telling them that they now felt more
accompanied since they already had neighbors. Some mornings they would find
bottles of milk at the door of the house, left there by Don Pablo. Another day
the whole house was fumigated and they had to bring out all the furniture into
the garden. They often received sweets and cakes... when what they really
lacked was staple food.
One of the first people they met was Rina
Villegas. Her brother Bernardo had met the Work at Harvard University in the
United States. A year earlier, in 1964, Rina’s mother had taken into her house
with extraordinary hospitality the friends of her son Bernardo, that is, the
male members of Opus Dei. Along with her son, they began the apostolic
work in the Philippines.
Over the years, she saw
how, in addition to her son, two of her daughters—Rina and Tessie—and her
daughters-in-law also joined the Work. She went to Rome for the beatification
of the Founder of Opus Dei in 1992 and there she understood that she had
been, according to her own words, “an instrument in God’s hands to collaborate
in the early years of Opus Dei in Asia.” 11/19/2021
October 9
Saint John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
John Henry Newman, the 19th century's most important English-speaking Roman Catholic theologian, spent the first half of his life as an Anglican and the second half as a Roman Catholic. He was a priest, popular preacher, writer and eminent theologian in both Churches. Born in London, he studied at Oxford's Trinity College, was a tutor at Oriel College and for 17 years was vicar of the university church, St. Mary the Virgin. He eventually published eight volumes of Parochial and Plain Sermons as well as two novels. His poem, "Dream of Gerontius," was set to music by Sir Edward Elgar. After 1833, Newman was a prominent member of the Oxford Movement, which emphasized the Church's debt to the Church Fathers and challenged any tendency to consider truth as completely subjective.
Historical research made Newman suspect that the Roman Catholic Church was in closest continuity with the Church that Jesus established. In 1845, he was received into full communion as a Catholic. Two years later he was ordained a Catholic priest in Rome and joined the Congregation of the Oratory, founded three centuries earlier by St. Philip Neri. Returning to England, Newman founded Oratory houses in Birmingham and London and for seven years served as rector of the Catholic University of Ireland.
Before Newman, Catholic theology tended
to ignore history, preferring instead to draw deductions from first
principles – much as plane geometry does.
After Newman, the lived experience of believers was recognized as a key
part of theological refection. Newman
eventually wrote 40 books and 21,000 letters that survive. Most famous are his book length Essay on the
Development of Christian Doctrine, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of
Doctrine, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (his
spiritual autobiography up to 1864) and Essay on the Grammar of Assent.
He accepted Vatican I's teaching on papal infallibility while noting its limits, which many people who favoured that definition were reluctant to do. When Newman was named a cardinal in 1879, he took as his motto “Cor ad cor loquitur” (Heart speaks to heart). He was buried in Rednal (near Birmingham) 11 years later. After his grave was exhumed in 2008, a new tomb was prepared at the Oratory church in Burmingham. Pope Benedict XVI beatified Newman on September 19, 2010, at Crofton Park (near Birmingham) and Pope Francis canonized him in Rome on October 13, 2019.
11 OCTOBER: ANNIVERSARY OF THE NIHIL OBSTAT FROM THE HOLY SEE
525.1 God guided our Father along our juridical path.
In one of his letters, our Father says that Opus Dei is something new, and yet as old as the Gospel. It enables persons of every status and position, without any discrimination of race, country or language, to encounter the love of Christ in their daily tasks. Its newness is something simple, like all the good "news" of our Lord. And to open the way for this divine project, so new from the theological, pastoral and social perspective in the Church's life, God led me by the hand, quietly, little by little, until his "castle" was built. "Take that step," he seemed to say. "Put that here, pick that up and put it over there." That is how our Lord has built his Work, with firm strokes and fine outlines, a work both old and new, as is the Word of Christ.
The divine game I am describing is very apparent in the history of our juridical path within the life of the Church. I have not had to calculate, as if I were playing chess; among other reasons, because I have never tried to guess the other person's moves so as to checkmate him later. What I have had to do is to let myself be led.
Today, we give special thanks to God for one of the important steps on our juridical path: the Holy See’s nihil obstat for the canonical erection of the priestly Society of the Holy Cross, which took place on October 11, 1943, then the feast of the divine Maternity of Mary.
From the beginning our founder's main concern was to form very well the vocations God was sending to the Work. In addition, he knew that he had to find a juridical framework that would provide the Work with a clear path on which to travel and that would be a solid defense for the foundational charism he had received from God. With the help of God's grace, he wanted to hand this charism down to his children in all its purity and integrity. As early as 1928 or 1929 our founder was already praying for the Work’s juridical solution, even though he did not know what exactly it would be. And this remained his special intention for many years.
Referring to the early years of Opus Dei, our Father said that the Work was born with the desire for holiness, which is one of the signs of a divine call, and with the desire to overcome oneself. I don’t say the reality but the desire to be saints. We were all deeply enthused, although we didn’t yet have any official approval from the Church. At first I didn’t speak of the Work to those who came to me. I put them to work for God and that was it. It’s what Jesus did with the apostles. If you open the Gospel you’ll see that at first he didn’t tell them what he planed to do. He called them, they followed him, and he conversed privately with them or in groups, both small and large.
Well that’s what I did with those who
came at the beginning. I would tell
them: come with me… Some of them aren’t
even sure when they asked for the admission.
And right away, naturally, like a requirement of life itself, the first
means of formation took shape.
Our Father was in no hurry to obtain formal approval from the ecclesiastical authorities, since none of the existing canonical structures was suited to the Work’s nature. Nevertheless, his apostolate was always carried out with the encouragement and affection of the bishop of Madrid, where the Work had begun. Docile to God’s will and attentive to the Holy Spirit’s inspirations, he worked tirelessly, waiting trustingly for the best moment to take the right steps in Opus Dei’s juridical path.
525.2 In 1943 the Holy See granted the nihil obstat for the diocesan erection of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross.
In the early 40's the apostolate of the Work was in full expansion. Apostolic activities were beginning in a number of cities in Spain, and many new vocations were coming, all of whom had to be formed properly. At the same time, God permitted a harsh campaign of slander against our Father and against the Work to take place. Bishop Eijo y Garay of Madrid-Alcala, who was well aware of the Work's supernatural origins and who had great esteem for our founder, had granted the Work his verbal approval from the very beginning. But to silence the detractors, he now urged our Father to seek the appropriate written diocesan approval. Our Father complied, and the Work was approved as a Pious Union on March 19, 1941.
This approval failed to solve all the juridical problems, nor did it silence the attacks. Yet the number of vocations continued to increase, and these required assiduous spiritual attention and a solid doctrinal formation. Therefore the Work was in great need of priests who understood and lived the spirit of Opus Dei, who would be able to form their brothers and sisters and help out in the apostolic activities soon to begin all over the world.
Our founder prayed very much for a solution to this problem, studied it and obtained the opinion of experts in the field. But he could not find any possibility that would allow the Work to have priests ordained from among its lay members and who, without changing their secular state, could remain part of the Work and at the service of its apostolates.
Then, on February 14, 1943, during Mass, our Lord himself gave our Father the solution he was seeking: the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross. But our Father was still faced with the task of transcribing this divine light into a workable juridical structure. He prepared the required documentation and sent Don Alvaro to Rome with the mission of informing the Holy See about Opus Dei and looking into the possibility of erecting the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross.
Don Alvaro was received very cordially by Pope Pius XII. In light of this positive response, the bishop of Madrid officially asked the Holy See in June 1943 for the nihil obstat required by canon law for the diocesan erection of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, which would allow priests to be ordained for the specific needs of the Work. The Holy See granted this authorization on October 11, 1943. Seven days later, on October 18, 1943, the feast of St. Luke, this decision was communicated to the bishop of Madrid, who immediately notified our Father. A few weeks later, on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Bishop Eijo y Garay oversaw the canonical erection of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross.
Our Father was very grateful to God for each step forward along the Work's juridical path, recognizing God's fatherly care. This particular step was indeed an important one. The Holy See placed its hands over the Work (the appositio manuum, as our Father liked to recall), granting it a nihil obstat which, for all practical purposes, constituted the Work's first pontifical approval.
In commemorating another anniversary of this nihil obstat from the Holy See, we join in our founder's gratitude. In one of his letters he recalled how our Lord guided our steps, back in 1943, leading us in a direction which turned out to be truly providential. He provided the Work, then a new born child, with the clothing it needed. We received the ecclesiastical approvals in scriptis required to ordain our priests and to prevent the slander which some people were uttering against the Work from causing any damage to our “way.”
525.3 We thank the Blessed Virgin for the nihil obstat; despite its limitations, this provisional solution constituted a big step forward along the Work's juridical path.
Years after the event, our Father spoke about the first time that the Holy See placed its hands over the Work. I was very young and your brother Alvaro, who was at my side, said to me: Father, you must be very happy, since tomorrow is the feast of our Lady of the Pillar. And I told him: all the feast days of the Blessed Virgin move me deeply. They are all marvelous. However, if I had to choose, I would pick today’s feast, the Divine Motherhood of our Lady. When I said this, I ddin’t know that the Mother of God had interceded on behalf of the Work of God, and that the first approval had been granted.
The solution adopted in 1943 was provisional. It consisted in transforming a small part of Opus Dei, made up of priests and some laymen in preparation for the priesthood, into a "Society of Common Life without Vows." This was based on a provision of the Code of Canon Law then in force which explicitly stated that the members of these societies were not religious. The rest of the Work, including the women and the vast majority of lay men, were considered to form their own association, united to and inseparable from the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross. With respect to this provisional solution, our Father often used to say that Opus Dei was relegated to a place of secondary importance. It was seen as an association proper to and inseparable from the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, when in reality neither of the two parts of the Work is secondary. Both are essential to the Work.
These steps along the Work's juridical path made our Father suffer, since he knew that this was not what God had asked of him on October 2, 1928. Nevertheless, guided by the Holy Spirit, he realized that this was the only possible way ot ensure that the many vocations God was sending to the Work would be properl taken care of spiritually. The moment would come when a better solution would be possible. In one of his letters written around that time, our Father wrote that it involved being ready to yield in the wording, always on the condition that the essential nature of our path be precisely set out in the document in question.
These steps were a question of giving way without giving in, with the determination to reclaim any concessions made. Speaking with his characteristic good humour about the difficulties along our juridical path, he once said: when the years have gone by and everything becomes known, you will see clearly the pathways of God. Our itinerary will have all the appearance of the graph of a patient's fever.
Now, with the Work's becoming a personal prelature, God has given Opus Dei a juridical suit that fits our spirit perfectly. As we look back on our itinerary, we marvel at the paths taken by Divine Providence. And we once again thank our Lady for her constant protection, so clearly manifested on a day like today, many years ago now, when the Church celebrated her divine Maternity.
October
12 Our Lady of the Pillar
Our Lady of the Pillar is one of the oldest
Marian invocations. We celebrate her feast day on 12 October.
Our Lady of the Pillar is one of the oldest
Marian invocations. According to tradition, when the Mother of Jesus was still
living in Jerusalem, Saint James the Greater saw her arrive in mortal flesh on
the banks of the Ebro River, accompanied by a group of angels carrying a
column.
The Apostle had been one of the first to travel to the western
confines of Europe — the Iberian Peninsula, the finis terrae, then part of the Roman Empire —
to preach the Gospel. St. James the Apostle was downcast by the difficult work
and Mary Most Holy wanted to show her motherly care by appearing and
encouraging him. According to the same tradition, St. James received from the
Virgin the order to build a chapel in her honour in the place of the
apparition.
Today the column of the apparition is preserved in the Basilica of Pilar in Saragossa, and visitors have venerated it throughout the centuries. The carving of the Virgin is not even forty centimetres high. Its lines are late Gothic, and by the way the tunic is buttoned, the belt with its buckle, the high waist and the shoes, it can be dated to the 15th century. The figure of the Baby Jesus does not follow the sculptural style of the Virgin and was undoubtedly added to the latter, either to complete it or, more probably, to replace a previous one that was destroyed or deteriorated. He holds a little bird in one hand and with the other he clings tightly to his Mother's mantle. The ensemble sits on the Pillar, which is a smooth jasper column covered with worked silver that (+except on the 2nd, 12th and 20th of each month) lights up with an embroidered mantle, which is changed daily (10/11/2023).
Saint Josemaría in the Seminary of San Carlos, Zaragoza (Spain). October, 1922.
Our Lady of the Pillar in Saint Josemaría's Life
"My devotion to Our Lady of Pilar has always accompanied me: my parents,
with their Aragonese piety, instilled it in my soul since I was a child,"
said St. Josemaría.
In 1909, when he was seven years old and went to the Piarist
school in Barbastro, they used to sing the popular invocation to our Lady: Blessed and praised be the hour when
Mary Most Holy came in mortal flesh to Saragossa... And this
devotion accompanied him until the end of his life.
In Rome, in the bedroom that he used, there
are two built-in shelves where, in the last two or three years of his life, he
kept a small image of the Virgin of the Pillar that he kissed every morning
when he woke up; and in his office, on a dark desk, there is another life-size
representation of this invocation.
During the years Saint Josemaria spent in Saragossa, in the
seminary and studying civil law, he visited the Pilar every day. "As I had good
friendship with several of the clergymen who looked after the Basilica, I was
able to stay in the church one day after the doors had closed. I went to Our
Lady, with the complicity of one of those good priests who has already passed
away, and climbed the few stairs that the infantrymen know so well. As I
approached, I kissed the image of Our Mother. I knew that this was not the custom
that kissing the mantle was allowed exclusively to children and to the
authorities (...). However, I was and am sure that my Mother of the Pillar was
happy that for once I skipped the established customs in her cathedral. I
continue to treat her with filial love. With the same faith with which I
invoked her in those times, around the 1920s, when the Lord made me sense what
he expected of me: with that same faith I invoke her now (...). Under his protection,
I continue to be happy and secure". That prayer before our Lady of the
Pillar, asking him to see and be what God wanted for him, prepared the
foundation of Opus Dei.
St. Josemaría celebrated his first solemn
Mass in the Chapel of the Pillar in Saragossa. When he moved to Madrid and,
years later, to Rome, he continued to visit Our Lady of the Pillar whenever he
could. The last time was on April 7, 1970.
A phrase of St. Josemaría,
found in the Book of Aragon, recalls that "the Pillar is a sign of strength
in faith, in love, in hope.”
Having satiated you let us now continue with the fifth word and this time on the 4th beatitude (From The Cries of Jesus from the Cross, A Fulton J. Sheen’s Anthology).
2
Blessed Are They That Hunger and Thirst After Justice
At the beginning of His public life on the hill of the Beatitudes, Our Lord preached the necessity of zeal: “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill” (Matt. 5:6). At the end of His public life on the hill of Calvary, He practiced that beatitude as there fell from His lips the cry of apostleship: “I thirst” (John 19:28).
The world cannot understand either this Beatitude or this word, for the world by its nature is seated in indifference. It is very fond of talking about religion but dislikes doing anything about it. It dismisses zeal and intense love of God with the sneer of “mysticism,” and regards religion as something incidental to human life, like poetry.
It is not uncommon, therefore, to find Catholics who say: “I knew I should not eat meat on Friday out of respect for the day on which Our Lord sacrificed His life for me, but I did not want to embarrass my host”; or “I was staying with some unbelieving friends over the weekend, and I did not want to embarrass them, so I did not go to Mass on Sunday”; or “When they made fun of devotion to the Blessed Mother and ridiculed veneration of saints, and the crucifix, I said nothing, because I did not want to start an argument about religion.”
Such is the indifference of the world — a fear of being identified wholeheartedly with the God for whom we were made. If the world does hunger and thirst, it is always for something less than the justice of this Beatitude.
Communists, for example, hunger and thirst, but not for the justice of God; they hunger and thirst for a system built not upon love but upon class struggle and revolution. They seek to fill a want, but only the wants of the stomach.
It is just against such filling of the animal in us, and the starving of the spiritual, that Our Lord said: “Woe to you that are filled: for you shall hunger.” “Your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Luke 6:25; Matt. 6:32–33).
And against that compromising indifference that fears to assert God’s justice, He warned: “Everyone therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32–33). And against justice that limits itself to economic rights and excludes the duties of man to his Maker, He said: “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20).
Not only negatively but positively did He preach the necessity of zeal for the justice of the kingdom of God. His circumcision was a kind of impatience to run His course of justice, which led to the Garden and the Cross; His teaching the doctors in the Temple at twelve years of age was an impatience to teach men the sweetness of His Father’s ways.
At the beginning of His public life, we
find Him driving merchants out of the Temple, in fulfillment of the prophecy of
apostleship: “The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up” (John 2:17). Later on, He
made use of a dinner invitation to save the soul of Magdalen, and on a hot day
made use of a common love of cold water to bring the Samaritan woman to a
knowledge of everlasting fountains.
He came, He said, “not to destroy souls, but to save” (Luke 9:56); and, “seeing the multitude, he had compassion on them; because they were distressed, and lying like sheep that have no shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). Then he said to His disciples: “The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2). His whole mission in life was one of zeal, a hunger, and thirst for the justice of God, which He perhaps best expressed in words of fire: “I am come to cast fire on the earth: and what will I, but that it be kindled? And I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized: and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!” (Luke 12:49–50). “And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John 10:16).
And now, at the end of His life, He yearns still more for justice as He who called himself the Fountain of Living Waters and He who was figuratively the Rock that gave forth water as Moses struck it in the desert, now lets well from out His Sacred Heart the shepherd’s call to all the souls of the world: “I thirst.”
It was not a thirst for earthly waters, for the earth and its oceans were His. And when they offered Him vinegar and gall as a sedative for His sufferings, He refused it. It was therefore not a physical, but a spiritual thirst that troubled Him — the thirst for the beatitude of justice — an insatiable thirst for the souls of men.
The world, which dislikes zeal for God’s justice, first hated it in Him. It was His zeal that brought Him to the Cross. The world loves the indifferent, the mediocre, the ordinary, but it hates two classes of people: those who are too good, and those who are too bad.
Hence, on Calvary we find Our Lord crucified with thieves. Both innocence and injustice fell foul of the law. Some go to the cross because they are too good for the majority or for the system, and others go to the cross because they are too bad for it.
The world hates the zealous, such as Our Lord, because they are a reproach to its mediocrity; it hates also the wicked, such as the thieves, because they are an annoyance to its self-complacency.
“Give it One More Year, Sir” to till the interior soil and get out of mediocrity, complacency, artificiality, hypocrisy, cowardice, lukewarmness, and everything that defiles etc.
The race of quantity has always persecuted the race of quality. The good go down to death because they are good; the wicked go to death because they are wicked — the mediocre survive. As Our Lord put it: “The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth: because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil” (John 7:7). And if this was true of Our Lord, it must be true of us. The servant is not above the master.
If our passionate quest of God’s cause makes us disliked by men, we cannot say we were not warned by Him who was hated first. “If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. . . . If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you . . . that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law: They hated me without cause” (John 15:18–20, 25). Apostles of Christ, then, will never be popular. Their end is crucifixion.
And yet we must thirst for justice and be on fire for the kingdom of God. And why? Because everything that is good diffuses itself. The sun is good, and it diffuses itself in light and heat; the flower is good, and it diffuses itself in perfume; the animal is good, and it diffuses itself in the generation of its kind; man is good, and he diffuses himself in the communication of thought. A Christian is good, and must therefore diffuse his Christianity, throw sparks from the flame of His love, enkindle fires in the inflammable hearts of men and speak of his Lover because He is Love, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matt. 12:34).
Strong love makes strong actions, and the measure of our zeal in bringing souls to the feet of Christ is the measure of our love of Him.
Converting souls to Christ, then, is based on the pride of propaganda, but on a desire for perfection. An apostle desires to bring men and women to Our Lord, not for the same reason a businessman wishes to increase his trade.
The businessman advertises to increase his profits; the Christian propagandizes to increase the happiness of others. He wants to bring souls to Our Lord for the same reason he wants to see the sun shine, the flowers bloom, and lambs grow into sheep — because it is their perfection and therefore their happiness.
If a pencil is made for writing, we do not want to see it used for digging; if a bird is made for flying, we do not want to see it change places with the mole; if a soul is made for the fullness of life, we do not want to see it clip its wings and wallow in hatred, half-truths, and marred loveliness. We want to see it united with its perfection, which is the life and truth and love and beauty of God.
That is why a Christian soul is apostolic — it loves perfection, wholeness, completeness, happiness: God. And therefore it wants everyone to be Godlike and Godward.
And no cost is too great to achieve that end, for in the language of Paul:
Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? (As it is written: For Thy sake, we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) But in all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:35–39)
If there be hate, enmity, jealousy, and war on the face of the earth today, is it not due in the last analysis to our want of zeal for the cause of God?
Just suppose that outside of the necessary structure of the Church, there was only one in all the world who believed in it, who received Communion, acknowledged the primacy of Peter, and assisted at Holy Mass. Just suppose that that one zealous believer, the first year, converted one unbeliever to Christ and His Church. Suppose that the next year these two each made a convert; then there would be four the second year.
And suppose the next year, these four made one apiece; then there would be eight converts at the end of the third year. Now, how many would there be, from that one zealous believer, at the end of only thirty years? At the Communion rails of the church at the end of the thirtieth year, there would be 1,073,741,824 souls breaking their fast with the Bread of Life.
It is a tremendous thought and a reminder of how much we have failed to do our duty and to spread the love and knowledge of Christ in the souls of men. Are we unmindful that thirst for justice will save our own souls? Have we forgotten the words of St. James: “He who causes a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).
Have we forgotten that the cold must burn, that the tepid must flame like torches of the night, that “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and only the violent shall bear it away” (Matt. 11:12)? If we have, then we know why Our Lord cried: “I thirst.” It is because we have reached Him the vinegar and gall of indifference.
Away with mediocrity! Lift up your
hearts! The world is looking for light. Will you hide yours under bushels? The
earth is looking for savor. Will you let the salt lose its savor? Think of
those communists who are hungering for justice without knowing it! Think of the
atheists who are starving for peace without knowing it! Think of the great mass
of men and women in this country who set for themselves no higher life than
that of animals — namely, to eat and drink, sleep and search for prey.
Think of those who hate the good, really because they hate their own wickedness! They have a passion for God hid beneath the ashes of their lives, but they presently live in fear “lest having Him they must have naught else besides.”
We plead particularly for all
communists, who hate religion, who hate classes, and who hate God. But that
does not mean we must hate them.
They are yearning for something that their own communism cannot give them. They are hungering and thirsting for the justice of God, whether they know it or not. Therefore, we must not hate them just because they hate us. Rather, we must feel sorry for them because they miss so much, and because their zeal is bent on destruction rather than construction.
In fact, our sympathy for them should be so deep that we will strive to save them from the very ruins that, Samson-like, they pull down on their heads. This is our Christian duty, for we do not save our souls alone, but only in companionship with others.
On Judgment Day we shall be asked: Where are your children? If we can point to those whom we have saved, or can point to one communist whom we have made a Communionist, then we who hungered and thirsted shall be filled — filled even from the fountains of God.
— The Cross and the Beatitudes
My goodness! I am truly sorry this post took time. I had other things pressing on to be done, also for the good and obviously willed by him, that this post be delayed but not beyond this week. And so it is. I will say no more as in itself it is already long plus the feast days that I added for your reflections anytime.
I will
never tire of challenging you to bring the topics into your quiet moments of
prayer with Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the Blessed Trinity, God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit during the day. Listen intently to what each
one may say and do as you are told. I
tell it pays to do things this way. You
will enjoy your day and even if life may not be easy it will go smoothly and
things are done without you even realizing it.
Please keep
me in your prayers as I work on expanding the reach of the book, “Give It One
More Year, Sir”. And pray also for a
yearly outreach of gift packs for service personnel, children in girls and boys
clubs, colleagues at work, guards, secretaries, tellers, hairdressers, dressmakers,
church attendants, etc.
See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may
you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care;
‘til He brings us together again.”
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
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