Faithfulness to purity, for Love

My children, love holy purity. Our chastity is a joyful “yes”, a clear consequence of our self-giving in God’s service and of our Love. We could have given our heart’s affection to another human being. But when God called us, we put our heart, young, vibrant and clean, entirely at Christ’s feet. And we did so because we chose to (a very supernatural reason) respond to our Lord’s grace.

Allow me a digression. We must have great respect and veneration for the married state, which is noble and holy – sacramentum hoc magnum est,³⁰ matrimony is a great sacrament. We see it as another vocational path, as a marvellous participation in God’s creative power. But it is a defined doctrine of faith that, in itself, the vocation to noble, clean, apostolic celibacy is higher.

We will go forward with God’s grace; not, however like angels (clearly a disorder since the angelic nature is different from ours), but as strong, upright, normal human beings. Let us do for the Love of Loves what so many people in this world do for a home, what our own parents did with their lives of Christian faithfulness. Have, therefore, great love for holy purity. Invoke Mary, Mother of Fair Love, and we will persevere, joyful and supernaturally fruitful, in this divine Way of our Work.

The means to win through

If you ever feel that this grace God has given you is in danger, don’t be surprised, because, as I already told you, we are made of clay: habemus autem thesaurum istum in vasis fictilibus,³¹ an earthenware vessel to carry a divine treasure. I am not telling you this for the present, but in case at some stage in the future you might feel your heart begin to waver. For that moment, I ask you from this time on to be faithful: in making good use of your time, in overcoming your pride, in obeying selflessly, and in controlling your imagination. All these little details are very effective means of safeguarding and demonstrating the quality of your self-giving.

Don’t allow oneself to be deceived

If the interior struggle ever becomes harder, that will be a good opportunity to show that our Love is true. For a person who has begun in some degree to savour self-giving, to succumb to defeat would be like perpetrating a swindle or a terrible hoax. Don’t forget St Paul’s cry: Quis me liberabit de corpore mortis huius? (Rom 7:24); who will deliver me from this body of death? And listen to God’s reply in your soul: Sufficit tibi gratia mea (2 Cor 12:9), my grace is sufficient for you!

With the passing of the years we are not going to take back that love which, moved by grace, we gave to God wholeheartedly in our youth. Fidelity is the perfection of love. In the life of a soul dedicated to God, lurking behind any form of disenchantment, there is always some point of corruption and impurity. When it is whole and unbroken, fidelity is always joyful and unquestioned.