List of points

Many people ask with an air of self-justification: Why should I get involved in the lives of others?

—Because it is your Christian duty to get involved in their lives, in order to serve them!

—Because Christ has got involved in your life and in mine!

Saint Ambrose has some words that fit the children of God marvellously well! He is speaking of the ass’s colt, tethered to its dam, which Jesus needed for his triumph: “Only an order of the Lord could untie it”, he says. “It was set loose by the hands of the Apostles. To do such a deed, one needs a special way of living and a special grace. You too must be an apostle, to set free those who are captive.”

—Let me comment on this text for you once more. How often, upon a word from Jesus, will we have to loosen souls from their bonds, because he needs them for his triumph! May our hands be apostles’ hands, and our actions, and our lives also. Then God will give us an apostle’s grace, too, to break the fetters of those who are enchained.

Since all honest professions can and ought to be sanctified, no child of God has the right to say: I can’t do apostolate.

You have a duty to reach those around you, to shake them out of their drowsiness, to open wide new horizons for their selfish, comfortable lives, to “complicate” their lives in a holy way, to make them forget about themselves and show understanding for the problems of others.

If you do not, you are not a good brother to your brothers in the human race, who need that gaudium cum pace, that joy and that peace, which maybe they do not know or have forgotten.

I didn’t think God would get hold of me the way he did, either. But, let me tell you once again, God doesn’t ask our permission to “complicate” our lives. He just gets in: and that’s that!

Those of us who bear in our hearts the truth of Christ have to put this truth into the hearts, and minds and lives of others. Not to do so would show a love of comfort and bad tactics too.

Think it over once again: Did Christ ask you permission before coming into your soul? He left you free to follow him, but he was the one who sought you out, because he chose to.

I beg you, don’t be so shocked! As a Christian you have the right and the duty to provoke a wholesome crisis in souls so that they live their lives with their eyes on God.