5 — THE SOUL OF APOSTOLATE

Presence of God. — Make me understand, O Lord, that only union with You, only love, can make every apostolate fruitful.

Meditation

1 — One cannot be a collaborator of God, a docile instrument in his hands; one cannot feel with Christ and associate oneself with his love and his work for salvation of souls, without a life of loving intimacy with God and with blessed Jesus — that is, without an intense interior life.

By prayer and struggle against sin, by self-denial and practice of virtues, interior life progressively strips soul of all that is defective, thus favoring in it growth of grace and love. This means clothing it with divine life, since grace and love are participation in God’s own life. It follows that the more a soul cultivates interior life, the more it approaches God; and becoming like Him through grace and love, it can live in his intimacy, enjoy his friendship, penetrate his mysteries, and associate itself with them.

Who then will be more capable of understanding great mystery of Redemption and bringing to it his contribution than one who, through fervent interior life, lives in intimate friendship with God?

For purposes of apostolate, that first degree of divine friendship resulting merely from absence of grave sin cannot suffice. A deeper friendship is required, one creating conformity of views, will, desires, and affections, so apostle may act according to heart of God, moved not by personal impulses but by impulse of grace, by divine will, by inspirations of Holy Spirit.

It is significant that Jesus, before sending Apostles to conquest of world, wanted to make them live for three years in his intimacy, treating them as true friends: “I will not now call you servants ... but I have called you friends” (Jn. 15:15). Friends, not only because He shared with them treasures of his divine life, but also because He wanted them collaborators and, in a certain sense, continuators of his mission as Redeemer.

Apostle cannot be such unless he is friend of God. God Himself invites him to this friendship, but it is necessary he correspond by serious interior life that makes his relations with God ever more intimate and richer in love.

2 — Only from friendship with God, only from charity that unites us to Him, does apostle draw those supernatural energies that make his works truly effective and capable of reaching their goal.

But where will apostle draw this love which, uniting him to God, renders him so powerful? Certainly from God Himself: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us” (Rom. 5:5).

At first moment, that of justification, God infuses charity in us without our collaboration; but He does not preserve this gift for us, much less increase it, unless we keep united to Him through exercises of interior life. Struggle against passions, practice of virtues, frequenting sacraments, prayer, recollection, and God’s presence have precisely purpose of fostering union with Lord and increase of charity.

Interior life is hidden forge in which soul, in contact with God, is inflamed by his love and, precisely because inflamed and forged by love, becomes docile instrument God can use to spread love in other hearts.

It is therefore very fitting to recall often this great principle: interior life is soul of apostolate. A deep interior life will generate intense love and intimate union with God; and from it will spring fruitful apostolate, true collaboration in Christ’s saving work. A mediocre interior life, instead, can produce only very weak and languid love and union with God, and consequently apostolate deriving from it cannot have effective influence on souls.

Where interior life were almost or entirely extinguished, charity and friendship with God would also threaten to die out. And when interior flame is extinguished, apostolate is emptied of its substance, reduced to mere movement that can make noise but cannot bear fruit. “Everything,” says St. John of the Cross, “will come to no more than hammering in vain and doing little more than nothing, and sometimes truly nothing, indeed at times even harm” (C. 29, 3).

Colloquy

“Draw me, Lord, after You; let us run!...

“O Jesus, I ask You to draw me into flames of your love and unite me so closely to You that You Yourself may live and act in me. The more fire of your love enkindles my heart and the more I repeat, ‘draw me,’ the more souls that approach mine will run swiftly after fragrance of your perfumes.

“Yes, Lord, they will run, we will run together; for souls inflamed by love cannot remain inactive. They remain, like St. Mary Magdalene, at your feet listening to your sweet and burning words; but if outwardly they seem to do nothing, they do far more than Martha who busies herself with many things.

“O Jesus, it is not necessary then to say: drawing me, draw also souls I love. This simple word, ‘draw me,’ is enough; for when a soul has let itself be conquered by intoxicating fragrance of your perfumes, it can no longer run alone, and all souls loved by it are dragged behind it. It is like natural consequence of its attraction toward You.

“As a torrent drags with it into depths of sea all it encounters on its course, so, my Jesus, soul that plunges into shoreless ocean of your love draws behind it all its treasures. Lord, these treasures are for me souls You have been pleased to unite to mine; these treasures You entrusted to me.

“But to reach a goal, one must use fitting means. Therefore, my Jesus, since You have made me understand You would give me souls through cross, the greater the crosses I meet, the more vivid in me becomes longing for sufferings” (T.B.G. St. 10 and 7).