370. Twenty-third Monday of Ordinary Time
Meditations no. 334 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
Interior life, to start any apostolate.
The seed of grace that God sowed in our souls at Baptism is like a grafting on of divine life, which is destined to grow. Our soul is divinized, raised to a higher, supernatural plane. We can never merit this gift on our own; it totally exceeds our natural powers. Interior life stems from grace, which brings with it, by Godās mercy, the infused virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Only through them can we carry out actions worthy of eternal life.
Among all the virtues, we should, as St Paul said, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Love, charity, somehow joins together all the virtues: it enlivens them, makes them meritorious, and orders their actions. To grow in supernatural life is, in the final analysis, to grow in charity, to love God more. By prayer and mortification we prepare ourselves to receive grace and grow in divine life. And it is this supernatural vitality that is the source of our apostolic activity. First, prayer; then, expiation; in the third place, very much in the āthird placeā, action.
The Second Vatican Council teaches: The precept of charity ā¦ urges all Christians to work for the glory of God through the coming of his kingdom and for the communication of eternal life to all men, that they may know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Our apostolic zeal, which is an accurate indicator of the degree of our charity, comes as a consequence of interior life. As our Father wrote: You have got to be a āman of Godā, a man of interior life, a man of prayer and sacrifice. -Your apostolate must be an overflow of your life āwithinā.
Jesus himself set us an admirable example. He came into the world to proclaim the good news, yet he lived an ordinary life, working and praying for thirty years before setting out to preach. You must draw from the hidden life of Jesus this further consequence: you must not be in a hurryā¦ even though you are!
First and foremost, that is, comes interior life. Everything else - the apostolate, any apostolate - is a corollary.
Our Founder wanted to engrave on our hearts that the foundation for all our apostolic activity lies in an intense interior life, which means really and truly being contemplatives. Therefore our first duty is not only to nourish and sustain our own interior life, but also to deepen it continually, and that of the others as well. This duty especially binds those who govern or form others in the Work. Keep very much in mind that without interior life there can be no true proselytism or fruitful activity: apostolate then becomes precarious and even fictitious.
We need interior life to persevere at our task in spite of difficulties.
Ours is not a human undertaking, but a supernatural one; it can go forward only by virtue of the supernatural means. We should be able to say with St Paul: When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
We need interior life, because no one can give what he doesnāt have; we can proclaim Christ fruitfully only if all our faculties are imbued with Christ. Only with interior life, by the power of love, can we overcome all the obstacles: the lack of time and means, the shortage of resources and human talents, discouragement when fruits are long in comingā¦ How can we overcome those obstacles without a vigorous love for God, an ever-increasing charity, and a deep interior life?
When that supernatural life is missing, apostolic zeal does not overflow spontaneously from within. With people like that, only external circumstances remind them, and to a certain extent āobligeā them, to do apostolate. What the Directors say is no longer seen as a practical help which facilitates and guides the apostolate. It appears to them rather as something coming from outside, calling to mind bothersome duties of conscience, alien to their own interests and desires.
In these circumstances, unless such people react in time and try to renew their interior life, the situation tends to worsen. Finding no pleasure in the apostolate, and no value in the sacrifice it entails, they neglect prayer, avoid talking with God, and lose the spirit of examination that is required for firm resolutions. They find apostolate and practices of piety burdensome, and they begin to neglect their spiritual duties still more. Thus a vicious circle arises: and as their heart, which is created for happiness, loses its taste for the spiritual life, they look instead for pleasures and consolations which may not be intrinsically unlawful, but which do involve straying from the narrow path of complete dedication. And by seeking to quench their thirst in the waters of this world, they lose more and more their taste for the riches of the spirit, which they find increasingly disagreeable. Little by little, their heart is drawn to the lowest temptations, and difficulties which in normal circumstances would be easily overcome are magnified.
Our Father warned us against this precarious state of affairs. Someone I knew - although Iāll never get to know him completely - once dreamed that he was on an aeroplane in mid-flight. He wasnāt inside, but outside, on the wings, and he suffered tremendously. Our Lord helped him understand that such is the lot of souls who embark on the heights of the apostolate without interior life. They are forever in danger of falling, frightened and insecure. If such a situation should ever arise in our dedication, we would need to turn straight away to prayer and mortification. Ordinarily, this will not involve extraordinary penances, but rather, constant and effective purification, to cut the bonds that tie us to things that are not of God.
The remedy of remedies is piety. Strive, my child, to live in Godās presence; be specific in your struggle to stay close to him throughout the day. It should be possible to ask you at any moment: āHow many acts of love for God have you made today? How many acts of reparation? How many aspirations to our Lady?ā We have to pray more. This is the conclusion we must come to. Perhaps we are still praying very little, and
God is expecting more intense prayer from us for his Church. More intense prayer means a stronger spiritual life, which requires a continual reform of our heart: a permanent conversion. Think about this, and draw your own conclusions.
We need interior life to crown apostolic action.
It sometimes happens, St Ambrose says, that there is exuberant external activity, but little interior depth, as when one who has received the saving sacrament of Baptism does not strive to learn the precepts of the different virtues. And then it usually happens that by the neglect of interior life, the fruit of action is lost.
Without interior life it is impossible to carry out apostolate in accordance with the spirit of the Work. Ours is an exclusively supernatural endeavour. The alternative is clear: either we follow the Holy Spiritās promptings, which lead us to serve God joyfully, in a filial spirit, or we will be carried away by our own spirit, by our pride. And then we could easily fall prey to the devil, because only the divine Spirit possesses the strength needed to cast out Satan. Meditate, therefore, on how important it is to embark on the way of prayer, which is the path of docility to grace. Our
Father insisted: The devilās whole aim, I would dare to say, is to dissuade people from persevering in prayer, because prayer draws us into friendship with God. Without Godās friendship, all apostolate is fictitious and doomed to be barren. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?
Some fruit there may be, because in the end we are instruments in Godās hands. As St Augustine wrote: Just as bodily medicines are only of use when God grants health ā¦ so human teaching is of benefit to the soul only when God grants his assistance. Therefore, he could have given mankind the Gospel without the mediation of men. But generally God provides for his plans to be brought to fulfilment through our prayer, so that we realize how much we need to have recourse to God. Thus our apostolic fruitfulness normally depends on our interior life. Without a life of prayer, any great human talents and good material instruments we may happen to have will be of no avail: there may be apparent fruit, but there will be nothing of lasting value.
Prayer, then, is essential, in order to acknowledge that without our Lord we can do nothing, and to identify our will with Godās. Not my will, but yours be done, we should pray with Christ our Redeemer. We also need mortification, in order to cut the bonds tying us to created things that blind us to God and his concerns. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. The more vibrant our interior life, the greater our apostolic fruitfulness will be. You know all about the means to nourish and deepen your interior life, which is the root and foundation for our effectiveness. Those means are the careful and constant fulfilment of our Norms and Customs. Meditate and have others meditate on what Iām saying, and draw practical conclusions for your personal life and your work of government and formation.
Let us ask our Lady to obtain for us from God a true interior life - a life of prayer and sacrifice - which is the indispensable condition for the effectiveness of our work with souls.