Apostolate 4: From the writings of Don Orione
From the writings of Don Orione
Keeping Ahead of the Times
We are not politicians: our only policy is great and divine charity which does good to everyone. We do not look to anything else but the saving of souls. If we must have a preference, it will be for those who need God the most, since Jesus came for the sinner rather than for the just.Souls and more souls! That is our whole life; that is our cry, our programme, all our hearts and souls: souls and more souls! Yet, in order to succeed more in saving souls, we must know how to adopt certain methods, and not become fossilized in forms, if these forms are no longer liked, if they become, or have already become antiquated and disused …
Let us make the lives and the souls of the orphans, the young, and those entrusted to us, Christian: this is what God and the Church ask of us. Let us use all the holy skills and arts, which are most accepted and used, to achieve this! Even those forms, those customs which may seem to us a little secular, let us respect them and adopt them when necessary, without scruple or hair-splitting: we need to save the substance for that is everything!
The times move quickly and have changed so much, and we, in all that does not touch on doctrine, Christian life or the Church, must stay ahead of the times and the people, and not at the tail allowing ourselves to be dragged along. In order to pull and bring the people and youth to the Church and to Christ, we must walk at the head. Then we can remove the abyss which is being created between people and God, between people and the Church.
Look up to heaven, pray, and then . . . forward with courage and work. 'Ave Maria and forward' said that holy, seraphic monk that was Father Ludovico of Casoria to Bartolo Longo.
Forward always, my children, in the Lord. Always forward with our Lady. 'Ave Maria and forward.' Forward in the Lord!
(from a letter to Don Pensa, 15 August 1920, cf. L.I, p.249ff RA 29)
He Wanted to Die with Arms Outstretched Calling All People to His Broken Heart
. . . Christ did not have soldiers and he never wanted to have them. He spilled no one's blood and set fire to no one's house. He did not want his name engraved on the mountain crags, but in the hearts of men! This king did harm to none, and good to all, like the sun's light which falls on good and bad alike. He stretched out his hands to sinners, and went out to them, he sat and ate with them to inspire their trust, to save them from their passions and vices, to rehabilitate them and direct them towards the honest life, to the good and to virtue. He put his hand gently on the feverish brow of the sick and cured them of every ill. He touched the eyes of men blind from birth and they saw, they saw the Lord in him.
He touched the lips of the dumb and they spoke, blessing the Lord through him. To those smitten by deafness he said 'Hear!', and they heard; to the lepers and the outcasts he said, 'I want to cleanse you' (Matt. 8:3), and the leprosy peeled away, and they were cleansed. He brought light into the comfort of hovels, and evangelized the poor, living in the most miserable little village in Palestine.
He did not seek a following among the great; he did not exalt those with the power of intelligence, the arm or the purse, rather the humble and the poor. He was very poor himself.
'The wolves have their den', he said, 'and the birds their nest, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.' (Matt. 8:20)
He lived frugally, and made his followers used to the discipline of mortification, prayer and work, to fortify themselves in the life of the spirit. He first mortified himself, prayed and worked long hours, sanctifying in this way with his hands and his life, work itself.
In a simple way, he loved cleanliness and avoided adornments of any kind; the holiness of his life and doctrine were sufficient to show he was God's messenger. His eyes and brow were so illuminated with such celestial bliss, that no honest person could feel unhappy having seen that face.
To those who asked him how they should live, he replied: . 'Love God above all things, and your neighbour as yourselves: strip yourselves of all that is surplus to your needs and give it to the poor, and then, if you want to be perfect, deny yourselves, take up your cross, come and follow me!' (Matt. 19:21)
To the crowd which surrounded him to listen, or because an amazing cleansing virtue emanated from him, he spoke these words of supreme sweetness and of eternal life: 'A new commandment I give you; love one another in the Lord, and do good to those who do you harm.' (John 13:34; Matthew 5:44)
Of children, he said that their angels always see the face of God, and; that anyone who is like a child in his heart, will be happy, and as pure as children. He blessed their innocence, and with the highest, divine love he loved children so much that, although he never raised his voice, he cried 'Woe to those who would corrupt the innocent . . .' (cf. Matthew 18:6)
He multiplied the loaves not for himself but for the crowds. He caused no one to weep, but he wept for everyone, and wept blood! Instead, he dried the tears of so many people, and so many lost souls.
To dead bodies he said 'Rise up!', and by that all-powerful voice, death was overcome, and the dead were resurrected to new life. For everyone he had a word of pardon and peace; on all he breathed a breath of restoring love, a life-giving ray of light, sublime, divine!
Unjustly persecuted and betrayed, at the end, on the Cross, he called on his heavenly Father, and in a loud voice pardoned the barbarians who had crucified him. He, who had put Peter's sword back in its scabbard, who had never spilled the blood of anyone, wanted to give his own divine life and blood to men without distinction between Hebrew and Greek, between Roman and barbarian; the true king of peace: God, Father, Redeemer of all men!
He wanted to die with arms wide, between heaven and earth, calling all—angels and men—to his open and torn heart: gasping to embrace and save, with that divine heart, everyone, everyone, everyone; God, Father, Redeemer of all and of everyone!
(from Strenna Natalizia ai Benefattori, Christmas 1920, cf. L.I, p.265ff RA 31)
That All My Poor Life Might Be a Hymn of Divine Charity
Oh yes, my Jesus, I yearn to sing most sweetly the divine hymn of your love, but, no, I do not want to wait and sing it on entering paradise. In your infinite mercy I beg you, 0 my sweet Lord, Father, teacher and saviour of my soul, to allow me, in your piety, to start this sweet hymn here on earth; Here, O Lord, from this great breadth of water and sky, from this immense Atlantic which speaks so much to me of your power and your goodness.O my God, make my life a holocaust, a hymn, a sublime canticle of divine love and of utter consumption with love for you, O Lord, for your holy Church, your Vicar on earth, for your bishops and all my brothers. May all of this my poor life be only a hymn of divine love on earth, because I want it to be, through your grace, 0 Lord, a simple hymn of divine charity in heaven! Charity! Charity! Charity! O love of charity Wherefore hast thou wounded me thus? Whole, I have my heart divided, And now it burns for love!
Make, O Jesus, at least a spark of this divine fire descend on me and all my brothers; this fire which burned in the breasts of all your saints, with which Saint Francis of Assisi, who was 'all seraphic in his ardour', was consumed in his love of charity; 0 Jesus love, make it perpetually and most sweetly unite us in you alone, make it give us life and blessings!
From you, O Jesus, my love and my life, from you crucified, 0 my Lord, from you, the eucharist, from you infinite charity, from you, master and divine mercy, may it come in abundance and spread itself on me, a sinner, and on all my brothers: may it spread like the light of the sun, which you make to rain down on the heads of the good and the evil alike—like the sun may it spread the wave of your love on all, that it might purify us all, penetrate and transform us—and so, immersed in you, 0 my God—in an ocean of charity, more immense by far from this ocean upon which I am sailing and from which I am writing to you, in a boundless ocean of light and splendour which makes us more glorious than Mount Hermon and Mount Sion—let us sing for ever the Lord's mercy, and let us be blessed eternally by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Quoniam nobis mandavit Dominus benedictionem, et vitam usque in saeculum!
Fiat! Fiat! Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare fratres in Linum!
Pray for me, a poor sinner, and in your charity pray always! May God reward you!
(from a piece written on 24 June 1922 on the journey from Brazil to Italy, cf. LI, p.425ff RA 41)
. . . The almighty God, who, through faith, raised the sons of Abraham from the rocks: the good and great God who, to spread the faith, is often accustomed to use weak to confound strong, and that which is not to confound that which is, so that all can see that the most miraculous things are not the work of man, but of God: he, the Lord and the Father, has brought me to this distant land, to this immense and distant river, that I may bear witness to the faith.
Sustained by the Lord's grace and the maternal generosity of the Church, I have preached the gospel to the small, the humble, the people, I have endeavoured to preach to the poor, to offer them the comfort of the faith, with the spirit of Christian charity. I confess that I ought to have done more, much more, and I ask the Lord's forgiveness. I have preached to the small, the humble, the people, the poor people, who, poisoned by perverse doctrines, have been snatched away from God and the Church.
In the name of divine providence, I have opened my arms and my heart to sick and sane of every age, creed and race: I should like to have given to all, with the bread of the body, the divine balm of faith, but especially to our brothers who are most suffering and most neglected. Many times I felt Jesus Christ near me, and many times it was as if I saw Jesus in the most unfortunate and most outcast.
This work is so dear to the Lord, that it would seem to be the work of his heart; it lives in the name, the spirit and the faith of divine providence: the Lord sent me not for the rich, but for the poorest of the poor and the people.
How Often Have I Felt Jesus Near Me!
. . . The almighty God, who, through faith, raised the sons of Abraham from the rocks: the good and great God who, to spread the faith, is often accustomed to use weak to confound strong, and that which is not to confound that which is, so that all can see that the most miraculous things are not the work of man, but of God: he, the Lord and the Father, has brought me to this distant land, to this immense and distant river, that I may bear witness to the faith. Sustained by the Lord's grace and the maternal generosity of the Church, I have preached the gospel to the small, the humble, the people, I have endeavoured to preach to the poor, to offer them the comfort of the faith, with the spirit of Christian charity. I confess that I ought to have done more, much more, and I ask the Lord's forgiveness. I have preached to the small, the humble, the people, the poor people, who, poisoned by perverse doctrines, have been snatched away from God and the Church.
In the name of divine providence, I have opened my arms and my heart to sick and sane of every age, creed and race: I should like to have given to all, with the bread of the body, the divine balm of faith, but especially to our brothers who are most suffering and most neglected. Many times I felt Jesus Christ near me, and many times it was as if I saw Jesus in the most unfortunate and most outcast.
This work is so dear to the Lord, that it would seem to be the work of his heart; it lives in the name, the spirit and the faith of divine providence: the Lord sent me not for the rich, but for the poorest of the poor and the people.
(from a letter from Chaco in Argentina, 24 June 1937, cf. L.II, p. 462ff RA 104)
The souls of the small, the souls of the poor, the souls of sinners, the souls of the just, the souls of those astray, the souls of the penitent, the souls of those who rebel against God's will, the souls of those who rebel against Christ's Church, the souls of degenerate sons, the souls of unfortunate and perfidious priests, the souls that submit to grief, souls white as doves, the simple, pure and angelic souls of virgins, souls which have fallen into the darkness of the senses and the low bestiality of the flesh, souls proud of evil, souls greedy for power and gold, souls full of themselves, souls that only see themselves, lost souls, looking for the way, grieving souls that seek shelter or a word of pity, souls that cry out in the desperation of condemnation, or souls intoxicated in their elation at the truth they have lived out: all these souls are loved by Christ, Christ died for all of them and Christ wants them all safe in his arms and his wounded heart.
Our lives and our entire Congregation must be a song and a holocaust of universal brotherhood in Christ. Seeing and feeling Christ in man. We must have in us the profound music of charity. For us the central point of the universe is Christ's Church, and that on which the Christian drama turns, the soul.
I feel nothing but an infinite, a divine symphony of spirits palpitating around the cross, and the cross exudes, drop by drop, across the centuries, the divine blood spilled for every human soul.
Christ cries out from the Cross 'I am thirsty'. It is a terrible sultry cry, not of the flesh, but the cry of thirst for souls, and it is for this thirst for our souls that Christ died.
I can see nothing but heaven, a truly divine heaven, because it is the heaven of salvation and true peace: I can see nothing but a kingdom of God, the kingdom of charity and pardon, where the whole crowd of peoples are the inheritance of Christ and the kingdom of Christ.
Perfect happiness cannot but be perfect dedication of self to God and men, to all men, to the most wretched as to the most morally and physically deformed, to the most distant, the guiltiest and the most adverse.
O Lord, put me in the jaws of hell, so that I, by your mercy, may close them. May my secret martyrdom for the salvation of souls, of all souls, be my paradise, my supreme bliss. Love of souls, souls souls! I shall write my life in tears and blood.
May the injustices of men never weaken our full faith in God's goodness.
I am nourished and led forward by the breath of immortal and renewing hope.
Our charity is the sweetest folly of love for God and men, which is not of the earth.
Christ's charity is of such a sweetness and so unspeakable that the heart cannot think nor say, the eye not see, and the ear not hear.
Words ever aflame.
Suffering, silence, prayer, love, crucifixion and adoration.
Light and peace of heart I shall climb my Calvary like the meek lamb.
Apostolate and martyrdom; martyrdom and apostolate.
Our souls and our words must be white, chaste, almost infantile, and they must bring to all men a breath of faith, goodness and comfort, which uplifts us towards heaven.
Let us keep our eyes and our hearts still in divine goodness. Building Christ! Building always!
Petra autem est Christus!
Seeing and Feeling Christ in Men
. . . Being able to see and love nothing in the world but the souls of our brothers.The souls of the small, the souls of the poor, the souls of sinners, the souls of the just, the souls of those astray, the souls of the penitent, the souls of those who rebel against God's will, the souls of those who rebel against Christ's Church, the souls of degenerate sons, the souls of unfortunate and perfidious priests, the souls that submit to grief, souls white as doves, the simple, pure and angelic souls of virgins, souls which have fallen into the darkness of the senses and the low bestiality of the flesh, souls proud of evil, souls greedy for power and gold, souls full of themselves, souls that only see themselves, lost souls, looking for the way, grieving souls that seek shelter or a word of pity, souls that cry out in the desperation of condemnation, or souls intoxicated in their elation at the truth they have lived out: all these souls are loved by Christ, Christ died for all of them and Christ wants them all safe in his arms and his wounded heart.
Our lives and our entire Congregation must be a song and a holocaust of universal brotherhood in Christ. Seeing and feeling Christ in man. We must have in us the profound music of charity. For us the central point of the universe is Christ's Church, and that on which the Christian drama turns, the soul.
I feel nothing but an infinite, a divine symphony of spirits palpitating around the cross, and the cross exudes, drop by drop, across the centuries, the divine blood spilled for every human soul.
Christ cries out from the Cross 'I am thirsty'. It is a terrible sultry cry, not of the flesh, but the cry of thirst for souls, and it is for this thirst for our souls that Christ died.
I can see nothing but heaven, a truly divine heaven, because it is the heaven of salvation and true peace: I can see nothing but a kingdom of God, the kingdom of charity and pardon, where the whole crowd of peoples are the inheritance of Christ and the kingdom of Christ.
Perfect happiness cannot but be perfect dedication of self to God and men, to all men, to the most wretched as to the most morally and physically deformed, to the most distant, the guiltiest and the most adverse.
O Lord, put me in the jaws of hell, so that I, by your mercy, may close them. May my secret martyrdom for the salvation of souls, of all souls, be my paradise, my supreme bliss. Love of souls, souls souls! I shall write my life in tears and blood.
May the injustices of men never weaken our full faith in God's goodness.
I am nourished and led forward by the breath of immortal and renewing hope.
Our charity is the sweetest folly of love for God and men, which is not of the earth.
Christ's charity is of such a sweetness and so unspeakable that the heart cannot think nor say, the eye not see, and the ear not hear.
Words ever aflame.
Suffering, silence, prayer, love, crucifixion and adoration.
Light and peace of heart I shall climb my Calvary like the meek lamb.
Apostolate and martyrdom; martyrdom and apostolate.
Our souls and our words must be white, chaste, almost infantile, and they must bring to all men a breath of faith, goodness and comfort, which uplifts us towards heaven.
Let us keep our eyes and our hearts still in divine goodness. Building Christ! Building always!
Petra autem est Christus!
(from notes made on 25 February 1939, cf. I.C., p. 328ff RA 121)
May we always want to boil over with faith and charity.
May we always want to be holy, alive to others and dead to ourselves.
Our every word should be a breeze from the open skies: all people should feel the flame that burns in our hearts, and the light of our inner fire; finding there God and Christ.
Our devotion should not leave people cold and bored, for it must be truly and wholly alive and full of Christ.
We must thirst for martyrdom. Serving in men the Son of man.
In order to conquer for God and to win others over, we need, first, to live are intense life of God within ourselves, to have inside us a dominating faith; a great ideal the denial of ourselves for others— should be the flame that burns and shines in us, setting our lives on fire in an idea and a sacred love which is stronger.
No one who serves two masters—the senses and the spirit—can ever discover the secret of winning souls.
We must say the words and perform the tasks that will outlive us.
Mortification of ourselves in silence and secret.
We must be saints, but we must be such saints that our saintliness does not limit itself to the faithful, nor remain only within the Church, but transcends and throws such a shining light, such a great life of love of God and man on society, that we are more than saints of the Church; we are saints of the people and saints of social wellbeing.
We must be a very deep vein of mystic spirituality that penetrates every social stratum: meditative and active spirits, 'servants of Christ and the poor'.
Do not give yourselves over to the vanity of letters, do not let yourselves swell up with worldly things.
Communicate with your brothers only to edify them, communicate with others only to spread the Lord's goodness.
(1) Love Christ in all men.
(2) Serve Christ in the poor.
(3) Renew Christ in us, and restore Christ in everything.
(4) Save, always save all people, save at the cost of every sacrifice, with redeeming passion and a redeeming holocaust.
The great souls, the great and magnanimous hearts, the strong and free Christian consciences, that feel their mission of truth, faith and great hope, of holy love of God and man, walk in the light of a great, great faith, 'that faith' in divine providence. They walk without stain, without fear, per ignem et acquam, through the filth of so much hypocrisy, so much perversity and dissolution.
Let us carry with us, and indeed inside us, that divine treasury that is God, and though we must go out among peoples, let us keep that heavenly silence in our hearts, a silence no earthly noise can interrupt, and the inviolate cell of the humble perception of ourselves, where the soul speaks to the angels and to Christ the Lord.
Around us there will be no shortage of scandal and the false shame of the scribes and Pharisees, nor of malevolent insinuations, nor of calumnies and persecution. My sons, we should not have the time to 'turn our heads to guide the plough', for as much as our mission of charity drives and presses us, as much as our love of our neighbour burns within us, so much will the divine, scorching fire of Christ consume us.
We are intoxicated with charity, fools of the Cross and Christ crucified.
Above all, in our humble, holy lives full of good, we must take the small and the poor into our charge, and follow God's path. We must live in a radiant sphere, intoxicated with light and the divine love of Christ and the poor, and of heavenly dew, like the lark that soars upward, singing in the sun.
Let our table be like the ancient Christian agape. Souls! Souls!
Have great hearts and the divine folly of souls!
Serving in Men the Son of Man
. . . Let us open up a new divine world to many peoples, let us yield with loving sweetness in understanding the small, the poor and the humble.May we always want to boil over with faith and charity.
May we always want to be holy, alive to others and dead to ourselves.
Our every word should be a breeze from the open skies: all people should feel the flame that burns in our hearts, and the light of our inner fire; finding there God and Christ.
Our devotion should not leave people cold and bored, for it must be truly and wholly alive and full of Christ.
We must thirst for martyrdom. Serving in men the Son of man.
In order to conquer for God and to win others over, we need, first, to live are intense life of God within ourselves, to have inside us a dominating faith; a great ideal the denial of ourselves for others— should be the flame that burns and shines in us, setting our lives on fire in an idea and a sacred love which is stronger.
No one who serves two masters—the senses and the spirit—can ever discover the secret of winning souls.
We must say the words and perform the tasks that will outlive us.
Mortification of ourselves in silence and secret.
We must be saints, but we must be such saints that our saintliness does not limit itself to the faithful, nor remain only within the Church, but transcends and throws such a shining light, such a great life of love of God and man on society, that we are more than saints of the Church; we are saints of the people and saints of social wellbeing.
We must be a very deep vein of mystic spirituality that penetrates every social stratum: meditative and active spirits, 'servants of Christ and the poor'.
Do not give yourselves over to the vanity of letters, do not let yourselves swell up with worldly things.
Communicate with your brothers only to edify them, communicate with others only to spread the Lord's goodness.
(1) Love Christ in all men.
(2) Serve Christ in the poor.
(3) Renew Christ in us, and restore Christ in everything.
(4) Save, always save all people, save at the cost of every sacrifice, with redeeming passion and a redeeming holocaust.
The great souls, the great and magnanimous hearts, the strong and free Christian consciences, that feel their mission of truth, faith and great hope, of holy love of God and man, walk in the light of a great, great faith, 'that faith' in divine providence. They walk without stain, without fear, per ignem et acquam, through the filth of so much hypocrisy, so much perversity and dissolution.
Let us carry with us, and indeed inside us, that divine treasury that is God, and though we must go out among peoples, let us keep that heavenly silence in our hearts, a silence no earthly noise can interrupt, and the inviolate cell of the humble perception of ourselves, where the soul speaks to the angels and to Christ the Lord.
Around us there will be no shortage of scandal and the false shame of the scribes and Pharisees, nor of malevolent insinuations, nor of calumnies and persecution. My sons, we should not have the time to 'turn our heads to guide the plough', for as much as our mission of charity drives and presses us, as much as our love of our neighbour burns within us, so much will the divine, scorching fire of Christ consume us.
We are intoxicated with charity, fools of the Cross and Christ crucified.
Above all, in our humble, holy lives full of good, we must take the small and the poor into our charge, and follow God's path. We must live in a radiant sphere, intoxicated with light and the divine love of Christ and the poor, and of heavenly dew, like the lark that soars upward, singing in the sun.
Let our table be like the ancient Christian agape. Souls! Souls!
Have great hearts and the divine folly of souls!
(from notes without precise date of 1939, cf. I.C., p. 324ff RA 132)