Of Three Things That Will Help Us to Have This Zeal

BESIDES what has been said, three things especially will be a great help to us to have this zeal and to desire and work diligently for the salvation of souls. The first and chiefest will be the great love and regard that the Son of God had for souls, since He gave His lifeblood for them and thought it well spent. The blood of Christ on the earth is a great sign of the value of a soul, of the regard that God has for it, and of the love that He bears it. This is what should move and animate us ever to go about our ministries with zeal and solicitude, and to make our heart go out to souls and the care of their salvation. The love of Christ urgeth us on, as St. Paul said (II Cor. v. 14), continually soliciting and compelling us to this end. How shall we not give our blood for him for whom the Son of God gave His? How shall we not give our life in His cause, Who died to give us life? How is it tolerable that God shall have died for a soul and I see that soul going to perdition and falling into hell, while I might help it and do not? Charity cannot endure such a thing. Our heart should go out to souls, and this should be the greatest of our cares, as it was of the Apostle St. Paul. Amid all the exterior afflictions which he suffered, which were very great, what gave him most concern and pressed heaviest upon him was his solicitude for the churches and for souls.

St. Augustine on those words: Jesus, fatigued with his journey, sat down, a weary man, by the fountain (John iv. 6), quotes also another passage from St. Matthew (xxiii. 37): How often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not, and says that Christ is very aptly likened to a hen. As for other birds, you would not know them for mothers, nor for having young, except when you see them sitting; but when the hen has chickens she looks so thin and worn out, droops her wings so, her feathers stand so on end, her note is so hoarse, the bird is so out of condition and languishing that, even though there were no chickens following her, you could tell at once that she is a mother. So, says St. Augustine, went Christ our Redeemer on His quest for souls, worn out, weary, and tired. So, then, we should have such zeal for souls, and be so careful and anxious to rear spiritual children that it should render us enfeebled, exhausted, and forgetful of all our own comforts, as we see in Christ that, though worn out with His journey and hunger, He nevertheless refused to eat, making more account of the salvation of souls than of the nourishment necessary for His own body. So, when His disciples bade Him eat, He replied: I have other food to eat that ye know not of: lift up your eyes and see the fields, white and ready for the harvest (John iv. 32, 35); soon you will see the Samaritans come and be converted. This is My food, the conversion of souls. The same also ought to be ours.

Father Master Avila makes a good reflection to move us to this zeal. He says that, though on the one hand it is quite true that God seeks and requires no return for the favors that He does us, because what He gives, He gives for pure love; still, looking at the matter another way, there is nothing that He gives for which He does not expect a return; not for any profit of His own, since He is the rich and thrice-wealthy Lord of all things and has need of nothing, but for the profit of our neighbors, who are in need of being loved and helped. He illustrates this by a good comparison. It is as when one man has lent another large sums of money and done him many other good turns, and says to him: “Of all that I have done for you I have need of nothing. All the right and claim I have upon you, I cede and transfer to the person of So-and-So, who is in need, or is my relation or servant; give him what you owe me, and thereby I take myself as paid.” This is the way in which we should regard our neighbor. We should enter into an account with God, and consider the vast benefits that we have received at His hand: how He has created me and redeemed me with His own blood; also the particular benefits that He has done me, not punishing me for my sins, bringing me to repentance in hope, rendering me good for evil, and other countless favors that I cannot record. Thereupon we should reckon that all these debts and bonds God cedes and makes over to our neighbor, and professes Himself paid by the service and good works that we do for Him. In this way will zeal and love of our neighbors burn in our heart; on the one hand we consider them as adopted sons of God and brethren of Jesus Christ our Redeemer, Who has given His lifeblood for them; and on the other, we view them as creditors to whom God has ceded and made over the heavy debt that we owe Him for the great and countless favors that He has done us.

It will also be a great help to us to consider that one of the best means that we can take to make satisfaction for the many offenses that we have committed against God, will be to help and be instrumental to others’ ceasing to offend Him and coming to serve Him henceforth in earnest, according to that saying of the Apostle St. James: He that shall convert a sinner from the error of his ways, shall deliver his own soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins (James v. 20). St. Augustine observes this well on that passage of St. Luke, when Christ our Redeemer cured the man of the legion of devils that tormented him. The Sacred Text says that, seeing himself cured, he wished to remain with Christ in gratitude for the benefit received; and the Lord would not agree to that, but bade him go and preach and publish the favors that He had done him. Return to thy house, and relate all the things that the Lord hath done for thee. And so he did. And he went all through the city, telling what Jesus had done for him (Luke viii. 39). This is what the Lord asks of you in return and recompense for the blessing that He has bestowed on you in drawing you out of the world, out of so many sins and dangers as there are in it, that you help others to get out of sin and serve God with their whole heart.