Community 9: From Don Orione
From the writings of Don Orione
Community life
Charity! Charity! Charity! There is nothing dearer to Jesus Christ, nothing more precious than brotherly love; we must therefore, my dear people, take extreme care to preserve it and to cause it to grow in ourselves and in the Congregation so as to be, in Christ, one for all and all for one, since it is this spirit of charity alone that edifies, bonds and unites in Christ. To the extent that we should abandon any subject, even those entered into through love for the truth and zeal for the glory of God, if it should ever, in however small a degree, embitter our hearts and weaken the spirit of charity.
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My dear people, the Little Work of Divine Providence must be like a Family in Jesus Christ. Bound by charity, united as one indivisible heart in this moral body of our Congregation, oh, what great help we will have from the hand of God, and how joyful, happy and strong we will feel! The Congregation will prosper and will be blessed through the merits of all those who contribute towards maintaining unity and peace - because our strength, my dearest people, is in unity, whose bond is Christ. Oh! with what joy and heartfelt happiness will we then sing the: "Oh how good and joyful it is to live as brothers in unity!"
(Christmas 1934. Letters II page 88 ff.)
I beg you my dear son, to do likewise. Read and meditate frequently on what is written in Book 1, Chapter XVI, of the Imitation of Christ, Verses 1 to 14.
"1) What a man cannot correct in himself and in others, he must accept with patience and in patience, until God disposes otherwise.
2) Reflect that it is perhaps better this way for your own testing and patience, without which our merits have little value.
3) You must also pray to God about such irritations, so that He may deign to help you, and give you the peace to bear them.
4) If someone, after one or two warnings, does not mend his ways, do not keep on quarrelling with him; but leave it with God, who knows how to turn evil into good, so that His will may be done, and that He may be honoured in all His servants.
5) Try to be patient with all the faults of others, and with all their weaknesses, because you also have your share of them, which the others have to suffer.
6) If you cannot even become as you would like, tell me how you would bring the others up to your own standards.
7) We like to see perfection in others, but in the meantime we do not correct our own faults.
12) If everyone were perfect, what would there be left for us to suffer from others for the love of God?
13) But God has allowed things to be like this, so that we may learn to carry the burdens of each other's faults: for no-one is without fault, no-one is without a burden, no-one is self-sufficient, no-one is sufficient in knowledge for himself: but we must bear with one another and console each other together, thus helping and correcting each other.
14) And when some mishap occurs we can better see what virtue a man has."
But, if you have the Latin text, you will better understand and savour these noble spiritual teachings on how to suffer other people's faults. "The patient man," say the Scriptures, "is more than the strong man."
(20 february 1923 letters I page 281)