Respect for the vocations of others

Anyone who is incapable of loving, or at least respecting, the vocation of others – with the apostolic tasks that each vocation brings with it – does not truly love his own vocation, perhaps because he wishes in a disordered way that the vocation of others be like his own. Or he wants to absorb all the apostolates into his own, with the immediate result that he neglects the objectives which, in justice, he is called to accomplish, and consequently he himself becomes an obstacle for the work of others and for the unity and variety of the apostolate.

Love and veneration for religious

I don’t want to lengthen these considerations too much in this Letter, but I mustn’t fail to tell you once again how much I love and venerate the religious, and all those souls who work for Christ. Referring to them, I could truly repeat lots of times the words St Paul wrote to the faithful of Philippi: testis enim mihi est Deus, quomodo cupiam omnes vos in visceribus Iesu Christi (Phil 1:8), God is my witness to the affection with which I love you in the heart of Jesus Christ.