Spirit of service

This is my spirit, and this has to be your spirit, my daughters and sons. You have not come to the Work to find anything. You have come to give yourselves, to renounce any personal ambition out of love for God. If we want to be efficacious in the Work, each of us has to leave something behind and work as God asks us to, like a faithful donkey: utiumentum! The faithful donkey’s only ambition is to serve, to be useful. It expects only the reward that God has promised: quia tu reddes unicuique iuxta opera sua (Ps 62[61]:12), for you will render to a man according to his work.

Dearly beloved children, you are here in the Work because the Lord has placed in your hearts the pure and generous desire to serve, a true zeal that makes you willing to make any sacrifice and work away quietly for the Church without seeking any human compensation. Fill yourselves with these noble ambitions and strengthen this holy disposition in your hearts, because the work to be done is immense.

Pray that our eagerness to serve will increase

We should ask God our Lord to increase our hunger to serve, because messis quidem multa, operarii autem pauci (Matt 9:37); because the labourers are few, and the harvest plentiful. Our apostolate is a sea without shores, and there are so few souls in the world who want to serve God! Imagine what would happen if those of us who are willing to serve did not give ourselves fully.

Life is short

My children, our lives are short. We have very little time on earth, which is when we are able to render this service to God. As the poet says: “As in a flash of lightning we are born, and even while its brightness lasts, we die: so brief is our existence here beneath!” The psalmist puts it even better: Homo sicut foenum dies eius, tamquam flos agri, sic efflorebit (Ps 103[102]:15), as for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; born at the first kiss of the sun and withering by nightfall. For the same reason St Paul says: tempus breve est (1 Cor 7:29), time is short. We have hardly any time at all!