2 — DUTY OF APOSTOLATE

Presence of God. — O Jesus, who welcomed me as your member, grant that I may not live as stranger in your Mystical Body, but may serve good of all brothers.

Meditation

1 — Apart from degree of charity a soul may have reached and apart from its particular vocation, there exists for every Christian a duty of apostolate founded in very fact of being Christian, that is, member of Christ’s Mystical Body.

“Being many, we are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Rom. 12:5). Therefore, as in our body each member is concerned for good of others — “if one member suffers anything, all members suffer with it; if one member glory, all members rejoice with it” (1 Cor. 12:26) — so every Christian is bound to concern himself with others’ good.

“If a thorn,” says St. John Chrysostom, “pierces sole of foot, whole body feels it and is solicitous: back bends, hands reach out to extract it, head lowers, eyes look with great care and concern.” As back, hands, head, and eyes do not neglect good of foot nor say, “What does it matter to me?” but each in its own way runs to help suffering member, so no Christian may be unconcerned with brother, but is bound — according to his possibilities — to labor for good of his soul.

And this precisely by force of Baptism, which by constituting him member of Mystical Body has made him in solidarity with other members, so that another’s good is his good, and another’s evil his evil.

“All evils arise from fact that we consider as foreign things concerning our very own body. No one can do his duty if he neglects salvation of neighbor. If you dare say you have nothing in common with your member and esteem to have nothing in common with your brother, you have not even Christ as Head.” These strong words of Chrysostom tell us apostolate is not an extra, not something optional left to arbitrariness of individuals’ generosity, but precise duty of every Christian, a duty deriving from very nature of Christianity, so binding that one cannot be true Christian without fulfilling it.

2 — As St. Paul to first Christian communities, as St. John Chrysostom to Church of Antioch, so today Christ’s Vicar raises voice to inculcate in faithful of whole world great duty of apostolate.

Jesus, who by dying on cross merited grace for us, “could have bestowed it directly on whole human race; but He willed to do so through visible Church, in which men should unite in order to cooperate with Him and through it in communicating to one another divine fruits of Redemption. As Word of God, to redeem men by his pains and torments, willed to make use of our nature, in almost same way, throughout centuries, He makes use of his Church to continue perpetually work begun” (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis).

Church is society of faithful, Church is we ourselves. Therefore on each of us falls duty to cooperate in diffusion of grace in souls. Without doubt in this ministry first place belongs to bishops and priests; but beside them and under dependence on them, every Christian is called to take part. “Not only sacred ministers and those who have offered themselves to God in religious life, but also other members of Christ’s Mystical Body, each in proportion to own possibility, are bound to labor with all commitment and diligence for building and increase of same Body” (ibid.).

Of each member, that is, of each Christian, Jesus wants to make use in continuing his redemptive work in world. He, infinite omnipotence, who as He created all from nothing also has power to sanctify souls without help of anyone, wants to need us, our poor work, and invites and urges us to sacrifice ourselves with Him for salvation of brethren.

“A tremendous mystery, never sufficiently meditated: that salvation of many depends on prayers and voluntary mortifications undertaken for this purpose by members of Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, and on cooperation of Pastors and faithful” (ibid.). To be apostles means to lend Christ our capacities and activity so that He may through us continue to redeem and sanctify souls.

Colloquy

“My Lord, turn the eye of your mercy upon your people and upon the Mystical Body of the holy Church, for You will be more glorified in pardoning so many creatures than in pardoning only me, a wretch who has so greatly offended You. Therefore I beg You, divine and eternal Charity, to take vengeance on me and to have mercy on your people; I will not depart from your presence until I see that You show them mercy. How could I be content if I had eternal life and your people death?... I wish, then — and as a grace I ask it of You — that You use mercy toward your people for that charity which moved You to create man in your image and likeness, that he might share in You, in your life.

“O Lord, I offer You my life, now and always, whenever it shall please You; and I place it for your glory, asking still humbly, by the virtue of your Passion, that You cleanse and purify from every defect the Church, your spouse, and delay no longer... I then turn my gaze elsewhere and see the lost souls of countless sinners, and seeing them my heart breaks — or rather, with the force of bitter sorrow, it swells — and so, overcome by compassion, I cannot help but weep their misery, almost as if I found myself like unto them, stained with the mud of their sins.

“Lord, You, in the course of your mortal life, bore the weight of two crosses, carrying upon your back the heavy burden of our sins; so You, that I might become conformed to You, loaded me with the weight of two crosses: one bears down with infirmities and other anguishes upon the body, the other pierces the sorrowful soul for the perdition and blindness of so many wretched and obstinate sinners” (St. Catherine of Siena).