Chapter XV

Caritas omnia credit.

He who loves Jesus Christ believes all his words.

A person who loves gives credence to everything the beloved says; and therefore the greater a soul's love for Jesus Christ, the firmer and more living is its faith. The good thief, seeing our Redeemer dying on the cross without having done any wrong and suffering with such patience, began to love him; whereupon, seized by this love and then illuminated by the divine light, he believed him to be truly the Son of God, and so he begged him to remember him when he reached his kingdom.

Faith is the foundation of charity, upon which charity stands; but charity is then what perfects faith. He who more perfectly loves God more perfectly believes. Charity makes a person believe not only with the intellect but also with the will. Those who believe with the intellect alone but not with the will — such as sinners who know full well that the truths of faith are true but then do not wish to live according to the divine precepts — have a very weak faith. For if they had a living faith, believing that divine grace is a good greater than every good and that sin is an evil greater than every evil, since it deprives us of divine grace, they would certainly change their lives. If, then, they prefer the miserable goods of this earth to God, it is because they either do not believe or believe very weakly. He, on the other hand, who believes not only with the intellect but also with the will — so that he not only believes but wishes to believe in God revealing, because of the love he bears him, and rejoices in believing — he perfectly believes, and therefore seeks to conform his life to the truths he believes.

The lack of faith, however, in those who live in sin does not arise from the obscurity of faith; for although God has willed that the things of faith should be obscure and hidden from us, so that we might acquire merit in believing them, nevertheless the truth of the faith has been rendered so evident to us by the signs that manifest it that not to believe it would be not only imprudence but impiety and madness. The weakness of faith in many arises, then, from their evil habits. He who scorns the divine friendship so as not to deprive himself of forbidden pleasures would prefer that there were no law to forbid them, no punishment for the sinner; and therefore he tries to avoid the sight of the eternal truths — of death, judgment, hell, and divine justice. And because these realities frighten him too much and embitter his pleasures, he comes to strain his brain to find reasons at least plausible by which he can persuade himself or flatter himself that there is neither soul, nor God, nor hell, so as to live and die like the beasts that have neither law nor reason.

And this is the source — that is, the laxity of morals — from which have arisen and daily continue to come so many books and systems of materialists, indifferentists, politicists, deists, and naturalists; some of whom deny the divine existence; others deny divine providence, saying that God, after having created men, no longer takes any care of them — whether they love him or offend him, whether they are saved or lost; others deny the divine goodness, saying that God has created many souls for hell, inducing them himself to sin, so that they may be damned and go to curse him forever in the eternal fire.

Oh, the ingratitude and wickedness of men! A God has created them out of his mercy in order to make them eternally happy in heaven; he has heaped upon them so many lights, benefits, and graces, so that they might gain eternal life; for the same end he has redeemed them with such pains and with such love; and they labor to believe in nothing, so as to live in their vices as they please! But no, however much they labor, the wretches will never be able to free themselves from the remorse of a bad conscience and the fear of divine vengeance.

On this subject I recently published a work entitled The Truth of the Faith, in which I clearly demonstrated the inconsistency of all the systems of these modern unbelievers. Oh, if they would leave their vices and apply themselves to loving Jesus Christ, certainly they would no longer cast doubt on the things of faith and would firmly believe all the truths revealed by God!

He who loves Jesus Christ from the heart always keeps before his eyes the eternal maxims and directs his actions according to them. He who loves Jesus Christ — oh, how well he understands that saying of the Wise Man: Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas (Eccl. I, 2) — that every earthly greatness is smoke, mud, and deception; that the sole good and happiness of a soul consists in loving its Creator and fulfilling his will; that we are worth only what we are before God; that it profits nothing to gain the whole world if the soul is lost; that all the goods of the earth cannot satisfy the heart of man, but only God can satisfy it; in short, that we must leave all to gain all.

Caritas omnia credit. Some other Christians, then, are not so perverse as those we have named, who would wish to believe in nothing so as to live in vice with greater freedom and without remorse; some others, I say, believe, but have a languid faith. They believe the most holy mysteries; they believe the truths revealed in the Gospels — the Trinity, the Redemption, the sacraments, and others; but they do not believe them all. Jesus Christ has said: Blessed are the poor; blessed are the afflicted; blessed are those who mortify themselves; blessed are those who are persecuted, spoken against, and cursed by men: Beati pauperes (Luc. VI, 20); Beati qui lugent (Matt. V, 5); Beati qui esuriunt (Ibid. 6); Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur (Ibid. 10); Beati estis cum maledixerint vobis,... et dixerint omne malum adversum vos (Ibid. 11). So speaks Jesus Christ in the Gospels. But how can it then be said that those believe the Gospels who say: Blessed is he who has money? Blessed is he who does not suffer? Blessed is he who takes his pleasure? Wretched is he who is persecuted and mistreated by others? Of such people it must be said that they either do not believe the Gospels or believe them only in part. He who believes them entirely considers it his good fortune and a divine favor in this world to be poor, to be infirm, to be mortified, to be despised and mistreated by men. So believes, and so says, he who believes all that is said in the Gospels and has a true love for Jesus Christ.

Affections and Prayers

My beloved Redeemer, O life of my soul, I believe that you are the only good worthy of being loved. I believe that you are the greatest lover of my soul, since for love alone you died consumed by sufferings for love of me. I believe that in this life and in the next there is no greater fortune than to love you and do your will. All this I firmly believe, and therefore I renounce all to be entirely yours and to possess nothing but you. By the merits of your Passion, help me and make me what you wish me to be.

Infallible Truth, in you I believe. Infinite Mercy, in you I trust. Infinite Goodness, I love you. Infinite Love, who have given yourself entirely to me in your Passion and in the Sacrament of the altar, I give myself entirely to you.

And I commend myself to you, O refuge of sinners and Mother of God, Mary.