25 — SPIRITUAL FATHERHOOD AND MOTHERHOOD

Presence of God. — O my God, unite me to you with the bond of intense love, and by force of this union grant that I may generate souls for you.

Meditation

1 — God has done man the great honor of willing him as collaborator in the work that is most properly his and belongs essentially to Him alone, namely, the communication of life - and not only natural life, but supernatural life as well. On the natural plane, which we could call the plane of creation, his collaborators are fathers and mothers of families to whom is entrusted the lofty mission of communicating life to new human beings, raising and educating them for divine glory. On the supernatural plane, the plane of Redemption, God’s collaborators are all those who, devoting themselves to apostolate, have the mission, even nobler and broader, of communicating to men the life of grace, without which they are unhappy and in a certain sense diminished creatures, unable to attain eternal life. In the encyclical Menti Nostrae Pope Pius XII declares: “The priest is... the organ of communication and increase of the life of Christ’s Mystical Body. By the law of celibacy, rather than losing the gift and office of fatherhood, the priest increases it infinitely, since if he does not generate offspring for this earthly and passing life, he generates it for that heavenly and eternal life.” In due proportion, the same can be said of any apostle, because the ultimate end of every apostolate is precisely to generate souls to supernatural life.

“My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you!” exclaims St. Paul to the Galatians (4:19). Likewise every apostle, with regard to the souls for whom he sacrifices himself, giving his whole self, has full right to feel himself father and mother at once, a fatherhood and motherhood that are a reflection - or better, a participation - of God’s fatherhood. In the natural order God established that fecundity, source of life, be the fruit of union between two creatures; in the supernatural order too fecundity is fruit of union, but of an immeasurably higher and wholly spiritual union, that of the soul with God. The more a creature is united to God in love, the more it shares in his inexhaustible fecundity, whose end is communication of divine life to men. Whoever therefore has renounced natural fatherhood or motherhood to consecrate himself to God has not impoverished and suffocated life in sterility, but, by force of union with God, is raised to a fatherhood and motherhood far superior.

2 — One is father, one is mother of souls not only by laboring in external apostolate, but also by dedicating oneself to purely contemplative life. St. Therese of the Child Jesus, though totally separated from the world, felt the sense of spiritual motherhood grow beyond measure in her heart and, in Carmel’s solitude, wrote: “To be your spouse, O Jesus... and, by my union with You, mother of souls” (St. 11). This is the fundamental aspiration of her spirit, the ideal that attracts, sustains, and impels her in a life of continual and painful immolation. The humble cloistered nun is perfectly conscious of having to give and sacrifice herself for souls, of having to place herself wholly at their disposal, just as a loving mother gives herself entirely for her children. One day, seeing a novice go reluctantly to work, the Saint, full of fervor, corrected her: “Is this the care one should have who has children to nourish and is obliged to work to support them?” (CR.).

The true apostle is aware of having children to nourish, of having to spend his whole life for them, of having to support them with his sweat, prayers, labors, and above all with his love. Precisely from love - from that same love that unites him to God - he draws strength to sacrifice for them, and also that spiritual fecundity by which he becomes God’s collaborator in communicating to them the life of grace. The more love grows, the more union with God deepens, and thus there results greater fecundity, greater power of communicating divine life to an immense number of souls. Who can say to how many souls the spiritual fatherhood and motherhood of the saints has extended?

There is no interior life, no authentic holiness, that is not crowned with the aureole of spiritual fatherhood and motherhood. But as, in the natural order, a mother gives birth to children only in pain, so in the spiritual order one does not become father or mother of souls without suffering. Jesus generated us to divine life by dying on the Cross; from Him we learn that if we wish to associate ourselves with his redemptive work, we must fear neither persecutions, nor mockery, nor scourges, nor thorns, nor nails, nor cross, but be ready to give for souls all we have and are, even to consuming for them our substance, even to nourishing them with our blood.

Colloquy

“O Eternal Father, You cannot fail to know that poor sinners are your creatures, and by the supreme title of creation they belong to You.

“O Son, O blessed King, You cannot deny that these miserable ones are yours, won by You with the incontestable title of Redemption. Hear me, O most obedient Son, hear me and show Yourself precisely in answer to my prayers, because thus presenting myself to the Eternal Father with the pledge of your Blood and Passion in hand, He cannot drive me from Himself before granting my requests.

“Help me, O eternal Holy Spirit! These souls, though abominable by enormity of sins, still belong to You, because You made them yours by admitting them to share in your goodness.

“O Lord, I have no other refreshment than seeing my neighbors converted to You; and for this alone I patiently endure your absence. If You do not grant me this contentment, what shall I do? Do not cast me away, most merciful Lord!

“You are resolved and already disposed to hear me; turning your kindly eyes toward me, I see clothed with your light my spiritual little sons and daughters, my brothers and sisters and all those whom day by day I acquire for You by the desire of seeing them always faithful to You.

“I recommend to You, highest and eternal Father, my most beloved children whom You have placed upon my shoulders; I beg You to visit them with your grace; make them live dead to the world with true and most perfect light; bind them together with the sweet bond of charity. I beg You, Eternal Father, let none be taken from my hands, and forgive all our iniquities. I offer and recommend to You my most beloved children, because they are my soul” (St. Catherine of Siena).