November 25, 2006
Saint Francis of Assisi, over 700 years ago, used to cry out through the streets: “Love is not loved!” In the 16 th Century, Saint John of the Cross, the Mystical Doctor, wrote: “The smallest act of love is more valuable than all other works combined.” Saint Philip Neri, Hidden Hero of the Counter-Reformation, took and lived as his motto: “Love Alone” (Sola Caritas). In the late 1800’s, Saint Therese, Doctor of the Little Way, wrote about the power of “picking up a pin for the love of God.” And our dearly beloved Mother Teresa of Calcutta heralded: “Do small things with great love.”
If it is love, and “love alone,” that gives meaning and value to all our desires, words, actions, and sufferings, then where do we obtain this love so that we may “know it,” “live it,” and “give it?”
Pope Benedict XVI is continually reminding us, noticeably in his first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est,” that God is love (1 Jn 4:16); that love is a Person, that Jesus Christ is the Incarnate Love of God among us, that His Gift of the Holy Spirit enables us to live and to love: through, with, in, for and even like Christ—as beloved children of God our Father destined to share the everlasting glory of Heaven!
Jesus, our Savior, objectively obtained our salvation by His Holy Death of Love on the Cross of Calvary. But it is not “enough” for us that He offered Himself for us 2000 years ago—each one of us must also freely and personally accept and live out His gift of salvation now in our own lives.
Even in our age, Christ chooses to mediate the necessary graces to enter Heaven through His Bride the Church, whose Mystical Body is composed of many individual members like you and I. And though we encounter the ultimate Gift of Himself in the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist, each of us, in our own little way, is an important channel of His love to one another in our ordinary daily lives.
So we wonder: how many souls have embraced Christ’s gift of salvation because of the love of people in their lives who revealed Jesus to them? How many Christians suffering persecution in far-off lands, perhaps even centuries ago, obtained for us the grace of soul-saving repentance? How many parents and grandparents won back the souls of their wayward sons and daughters by their many labors, prayers, and tears? And how often do I neglect to make even a very tiny act of love for others? How quickly would the whole world be changed if only we really forgave and loved one another “constantly, from the heart,” becoming joyful vessels of God’s love for each other!
Saint Faustina asked Jesus to grant salvation to a new soul for “every stitch” she made out of pure love for Him, and He granted her prayer! I imagine that my own conversion may have been obtained by my late grandmother as she knitted away while praying the Rosary. I may very well have been “saved by a stitch!” If she did such a small thing for me, her grandson by blood, what can I not fail to do for love of my brothers and sisters redeemed by the Blood of Christ?
May God grant me and everyone the grace to give everything possible to others in imitation of Jesus—even the total gift of ourselves—becoming living vessels of His love on earth. Amen.
Br. Philip Maria Allen, CFR
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