Desire to serve

We don’t carry out apostolate in order to receive applause, but to stand up for the Church when being a Catholic is difficult, and to pass unnoticed when being called Catholic is fashionable. In fact, in many environments, being genuine Catholics, even without calling oneself such, is sufficient reason for being subjected to all sorts of insults and abuse. That is why I have sometimes told you that while we find it repugnant to live off being Catholics, if necessary we are prepared to live in spite of being Catholics. Recall, as I always add, that we would find it even more repugnant to live off calling ourselves Catholics.

Our ambition is to serve

Ambition to serve: this ambition has some very clear and specific signs, which we could also call our dominant passions, our follies. The first is that we want to be last in everything, and first in love. We tell our Lord, in our personal meditation, “Jesus, may I love you more than anyone else! I know that I am the least of your servants. I know that I am full of wretchedness. You have had to forgive me for so many offences, so many omissions. But you yourself said that he who is forgiven little, loves little (Luke 7:47).”

Zeal for souls

Zeal for souls: we have an intense desire to be co-redeemers with Christ. This is a desire to save all souls with him, because we are, we want to be, ipse Christus, and He dedit redemptionem semetipsum pro omnibus (1 Tim 2:6), gave himself as a ransom for all. United to Christ and his Blessed Mother, who is also our Mother, Refugium peccatorum, and firmly attached to Christ’s Vicar on earth, “the sweet Christ on earth”, the Pope, we long to bring to all men and women the means of salvation possessed by the Church. Thus we will fulfill the aspiration I have been repeating since the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels in 1928: omnes cum Petro ad Iesum per Mariam!