Nov 11 Wed
Do I have a sincere concern for all souls?
St. Josemaría wrote: “My children, when anyone has something good, when they are happy, when they know they are fortunate, they strive to share that blessing and joy with others. Thus, we have an imperative duty to do likewise."
“In the course of your life, how many of your friends' hearts you could set ablaze!
Aren't you saddened to see so many restless young people around you searching vainly for an ideal? Shout to them: ‘Fools! Leave those petty things that shrink the heart... and very often degrade it. Leave all that and come with us in search of Love!’"
Our desire to identify ourselves with Christ must lead us to feel responsible for the salvation of all souls. We can't limit ourselves to helping just one person or a few; that would show feeble love. When we truly care that everyone be saved, we find ways to reach many souls. The cry of countless anguished voices reaches us, clamoring from the darkness of their lives for a worthwhile ideal. How many people who cross our path await only an encouraging word, a kind look, or our clear example, to resolve to love God above all things and serve others for God! “Not a single soul -not one- can be a matter of indifference to you."
Our Christian vocation is a flame that must spread, turning our lives and the lives of those around us into an ever-burning ember. This is “the personal apostolate that each committed Christian must seek to carry out continually, as though always hearing those divine words: I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and would that it were already kindled!"
“The desire to set the earth ablaze with Christ's fire makes my children propagators, missionaries of Christian perfection in the midst of temporal tasks. And their apostolic zeal leads them to draw vocations to a life of commitment, or at least to help others to arise from the death of sin, to awaken from the torpor of lukewarmness, to lift themselves from mediocrity."
This apostolic concern should shape our whole life. The sight of a world straying from God has to be a constant spur for us. Our task is immense and pressing: we are called to restore Christian meaning to the lives of so many people who impatiently await a friend's conversation, full of supernatural outlook. When, as happens to everyone, the moment comes for them to sense more deeply their need to grasp the divine meaning of their daily lives, we have to be at hand to guide them.
Our life, in sum, is to be mediators between God and others by our identification with Christ. If we live in this way, we'll bring back joy to countless people and guide them on the path to salvation. But everything depends on our falling more and more in love with our Lord, identifying ourselves with him. Bringing Christ to souls and souls to Christ should be the meaning of our lives. All the rest is worthless, and we get rid of it so as not to distort the brightness of the divine message.