10 — APOSTOLIC IMMOLATION

Presence of God. — O Jesus, immolated for my salvation, grant that I may be worthy to immolate myself with You for salvation of my brethren.

Meditation

1 — Apostolic prayer must be accompanied by sacrifice, in imitation of prayer Jesus raised for us to Father in Garden and on Cross. Love must urge those who pray “to active sacrifice, a sacrifice that does not rest in prayer until pain and suffering have almost touched limits of strength. In those moments, consumed by ardor of charity and vehemence of desire, they will no longer be those who pray, but living prayers” (Pius XII, 17-1-43).

Prayer and sacrifice are intimately connected because they spring from one flame: love that impels to unceasing prayer and immolation for glory of God and salvation of souls. Contemplative life is therefore synonymous with austere and penitential life, so as to become continual “sacrifice of praise.” The more prayer is nourished and kneaded with sacrifice, the more effective it is; indeed it reaches maximum efficacy precisely when sacrifice is maximum.

Every contemplative soul must be “worthy altar where Divine Majesty may dwell” (G.C.S. I, 5, 7), altar from which prayer rises and on which sacrifice is immolated. Jesus’ apostolate culminated and was accomplished in annihilation of death on cross and by means of it.

Only after being crushed by scourges, pierced by nails, abandoned by God and men, did Savior say: “Consummatum est” — all is finished (Jn. 19:30). So it will be for us. Only when we have truly sacrificed ourselves for souls, only when we have accepted with Jesus to immolate ourselves totally for their salvation, can we repeat with Him: all is accomplished.

Our participation in Jesus’ apostolate finds fulfillment in sacrifice of ourselves: not fantastical or hypothetical sacrifice, but real and concrete, whose form and measure God Himself indicates through circumstances of life, permissions of his divine Providence, dispositions of superiors, and duties of our state.

When soul is disposed, for salvation of brethren, to live in continual sacrifice of its own will, in continual self-denial; when it is disposed to let itself be crucified in any way by holy will of God so as to win other souls to his love, then it reaches summit of apostolate and therefore of apostolic fecundity.

2 — Many are not saved because there is no one who prays and sacrifices for them. Without tears and sufferings of Monica, Church would very probably not have had St. Augustine. Blessed then those souls who make apostolic immolation reason for being and goal of their life.

“My sisters in Christ,” writes St. Teresa of Jesus to her daughters, “join me in asking God this grace [salvation of souls]. For this He has brought you here; this is your business and your desires, this matter of your tears and your prayers ... On day your prayers, disciplines, desires, and fasts were not employed for this, know you would not reach end for which Lord gathered you here” (Cam. 1, 5; 3, 10).

Contemplatives, not having tasks of exterior apostolate, are especially bound to concentrate all strength in prayer and sacrifice; only thus will they correspond to great hopes Church places in them and realize their vocation.

Through penances arising from common life and observance of austere and humble life, fully submitted to obedience and deprived of human satisfactions, they are specially called to accomplish generously in their flesh what is lacking to Passion of Christ for his Mystical Body, Church (cf. Sponsa Christi).

“I came to Carmel to save souls,” had declared St. Therese of Child Jesus, and after consuming and offering for this end all her energies, during anguish of last illness she offered for sinners even prayers made to obtain some relief for her.

But if contemplatives must be “specialists” in apostolate of sacrifice, this cannot and must not be lacking, though in different form, in life of every apostle. As Jesus bought our souls at price of his Blood, so whoever wants to collaborate with Him for salvation of humanity must be disposed to unite to precious Blood of Christ some drop of his own.

Souls cost dearly, and apostle must pay of his own for those he wants to win. Apostolate is true and fruitful in measure it is imbued with suffering and is fruit of immolation.

Colloquy

“Lord, my heart exults in thought You have deigned to choose me to associate me with great work of Redemption and to suffer in me almost prolongation of your Passion. You have taken me and want me to be for You almost added humanity in which You can suffer for Father’s glory and needs of your Church.

“How happy I would be, adored Master, if You asked even to pour out blood for You. But what I desire above all is martyrdom of love that consumed saints. Since You said greatest proof of love is to lay down life for one loved, I give You mine that You may do with it what You will. If I am not martyr of blood, I want to be martyr of love.

“How I rejoice in thought that from eternity we were known by Father and that He wants to find in us your image, O Christ crucified! How necessary then suffering is, that your work be accomplished in me! You desire to enrich me with your graces; it is I who limit your gift and determine its measure according to generosity with which I let myself be immolated by You.

“O Lord, You called hour of your Passion ‘your hour,’ that for which You had come, that all your desires sought. When great suffering, or even very little sacrifice, presents itself to me, I want at once to think this is ‘my hour,’ hour in which I can give proof of my love to You who loved me so much” (E. T. Lt.).