19 — PERFECT HUMANITY AND APOSTOLIC CHARITY

Presence of God. — Soften, Lord, my heart with the flame of your charity.

Meditation

1 — The apostolate is the expression and fruit of charitas apostolica, that is, of love of God and neighbor grown until it becomes zeal for souls. But beside this, which is the essential aspect of the charity that must animate the apostle, there are secondary aspects, almost human, and yet of great importance for enabling the apostle to win souls. We mean all those qualities of affability, refinement in manner, courtesy, sociability, sincerity, and understanding that in themselves are human qualities, but which, elevated by grace and used for apostolic ends, acquire a supernatural value. In substance, they are those qualities St. Paul attributes to love: “Love is patient, is kind... is not provoked, thinks no evil,... rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor. 13:4-6).

It is not enough to love souls in the secret of our heart, working and sacrificing for them; this love must also appear outwardly through a kind and pleasant manner, so that, when people come near us, they feel loved and are encouraged to confidence and trust. Certain rough, abrupt, impatient ways are the reason many turn away disgusted, and perhaps even scandalized. The apostle may indeed have a heart of gold, rich in charity and zeal, but if he keeps a coarse and prickly shell, he bars for himself the way to souls, greatly reducing the good he could do. The Saints, though very supernatural, never neglected these more human aspects of charity. St. Francis de Sales constantly taught that, just as more flies are caught with a drop of honey than with a barrel of vinegar, so more hearts are won with a crumb of sweetness than with many rough manners. And St. Teresa of Jesus, who wanted her daughters united by the bond of pure supernatural charity, did not consider recommendations such as these superfluous: “The holier you are, the more affable you must show yourselves toward your sisters; never avoid them, however annoying and tiresome their conversations may be. If you want to win their love and do them good, you must guard yourselves against every roughness” (Way 41, 7). A most useful warning for anyone who wants to win souls for God.

2 — Regarding natural qualities placed at the service of apostolic charity, we can profitably meditate on the following exhortation addressed by Pius XII to a group of religious: “Before the young religious [and one could say before the apostle] can be a shining example, let him strive to become a perfect man in ordinary daily things... Let him learn, and show by his conduct, what decorum befits human nature and society; let him regulate his face and bearing with dignity and be faithful and truthful, keep his promises, govern his actions and words, honor all, disturb no one else’s rights, endure wrong, and be sociable... As you well know, the so-called natural virtues are raised to the dignity of supernatural life especially when a man practices and cultivates them precisely in order to become a good Christian or a worthy herald and minister of Christ” (September 1951). One cannot therefore think there is opposition between the fullness of supernatural life that must lead to union with God and the fullness of humanity that comes from right development of natural virtues. We must remember that grace does not destroy nature, but elevates it. The struggle against nature, for the triumph of grace, aims at mortifying and destroying only what is defective in it, while good qualities and strengths are elevated and carried onto the supernatural plane. Grace, and thus Christian life, is supremely respectful of and makes use of all human values; besides, how could one think the supernatural destroys the natural, when this no less than that is the work of God, fruit of his wisdom and infinite goodness?

By raising man to the supernatural plane, God did not intend to destroy in him what he had already created, but only to sublimate and elevate it. In light of these principles we understand why it has been said that the apostle, like the priest, must be a “perfect gentleman” (Newman); we understand why saints are also the most perfect men, in the sense that they brought natural virtues to their highest perfection and sublimation; we understand why saints, though loving creatures with purely supernatural love, are able, more than others, to surround them with amiability, delicacy, and understanding, and thus win their hearts more easily. Besides, it is easy to understand that perfect courtesy always equal to itself - even with the troublesome and even in moments of fatigue - can come only from deep supernatural virtue, from delicate charity.

Colloquy

“O Lord, if I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I would be only sounding brass or a clashing cymbal. And if I had the gift of prophecy and knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I had all faith so as to move mountains, and then lacked love, I would be nothing. And if I distributed all my goods to feed the poor and gave my body to be burned, and had not love, it would profit me nothing.

“Grant me, therefore, my God, love: love that is patient, kind, not envious, not vain, not puffed up, not ambitious, not selfish, not provoked, thinking no evil, but rejoicing in the truth, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things” (cf. 1 Cor. 13:1-7).

O Lord, grant that, in giving myself to your service, tenderness toward my neighbor may not decrease but grow in my heart and become ever purer, ever more supernatural. Teach me to love with this tenderness all who come near me. Make me gentle, affable, accommodating, not in order to attract to myself the goodwill of creatures, but in order to win their hearts for you.

O Jesus, if the apostle must be a copy of you not only in broad lines but also in details, how can I be so unless I try to imitate the gentleness of your Heart? O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like yours.