List of points

You might tell me, 'Why should I make an effort?' It is not I who answer you, but St Paul: 'Christ's love is urging us.' A whole lifetime would be little, if it was spent expanding the frontiers of your charity. From the very beginnings of Opus Dei I have repeated tirelessly that cry of Our Lord: 'By this shall men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.' I did this to encourage generous souls to put it into practice in their own lives. This is precisely how we shall be recognised as Christians, if we make charity the starting point of everything we do.

He, who is purity personified, does not assert that his disciples will be known by the purity of their lives. He, who so lived sobriety that he didn't even have a stone upon which to lay his head, and spent so many days in prayer and fasting, did not declare to his Apostles: 'you will be known as my chosen ones because you are not gluttons or drunkards'.

The purity of Christ's life was — and will be in every generation — a slap in the face to the society of his day, a society which then as now was often so corrupt. His temperance also stung those whose lives were one long banquet, interrupted only by self-induced vomiting so that they could then get back to eating, thus fulfilling to the letter the words of Saul: their stomachs have become their god.

The principal apostolate we Christians must carry out in the world, and the best witness we can give of our faith, is to help bring about a climate of genuine charity within the Church. For who indeed could feel attracted to the Gospel if those who say they preach the Good News do not really love one another, but spend their time attacking one another, spreading slander and quarrelling?

It is all too easy, and very fashionable, to say that you love everyone, Christians and non-Christians alike. But if those who maintain this ill-treat their brothers in the faith, I don't see how their behaviour can be anything but 'pious hypocrisy'. By contrast, when in the Heart of Christ we love those 'who are children of the same Father, and with us share the same faith and are heirs to the same hope' then our hearts expand and become fired with a longing to bring everyone closer to Our Lord.

I am reminding you here of the demands of charity, and perhaps someone might object that it is precisely the virtue of charity which is lacking in what I have just said. Nothing could be further from the truth. I can assure you with a holy pride and without any false ecumenism that I was overjoyed when in the recent Second Vatican Council the Church expressed with renewed intensity its concern to bring the Truth to those who walk outside the one Way, that of Jesus; because I am consumed by a hunger that all may be saved.

Yes, I was very glad; glad too because it confirmed anew a favourite apostolate of Opus Dei, the apostolate ad fidem, which rejects no one and admits non-Christians, atheists and pagans, allowing them to share as far as they are able in the spiritual benefits of our Association. As I have mentioned on other occasions, this apostolate has a long history, involving both suffering and loyalty. So I am not afraid to repeat that I think it is a false and hypocritical zeal that leads some to be friendly towards those who are far away from us, while they trample on or despise those who share our same faith. In the same way, I don't believe that you are genuinely concerned about the poorest of the poor, if you persist in mortifying the people you live with; if you are indifferent to their joys, sorrows or grief; if you are not trying to understand or overlook their defects, provided they do not offend God.

Doesn't it move you to find the apostle John in his old age devoting the best part of one of his epistles to exhorting us to follow this divine teaching? The love that ought to exist amongst us Christians is born of God who is Love. 'Beloved let us love one another; for charity comes from God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who has no love does not know God, for God is Love.' He focuses on fraternal charity because through Christ we have become children of God: 'See what love the Father has shown towards us, that we should be called children of God, and should be such.'

At the same time as he raps sharply on our consciences to make them sensitive to God's grace, he also insists that we have received a marvellous proof of the Father's love for men, 'By this was made manifest the charity of God for us, that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through him.' It was the Lord who took the initiative by coming out to meet us. He gave us this example so that we might join him in serving others, generously placing our hearts on the ground, as I am fond of saying, so that others may tread softly and find their struggle more pleasant. This is how we should behave because we have been made children of the same Father, that Father who did not hesitate to give us his dearly beloved Son.