|
Let
us work!
Let
us love God my brothers, let us love God. But let it be with the strength
of our arms and the sweat of our brow.
Outpourings
of affection for God, of resting in his presence, of good feelings toward
everyone and sentiments and prayers like these ... are suspect if they
do not express themselves in practical love which has real effects.
In
spite of my age (79), I tell you before God that I do not feel excused
from the responsibility of working for the salvation of the poor. For
what could really get in the way of my doing that now? If I cannot preach
every day, all right, I'll preach twice a week. If I cannot preach more
important sermons, I will preach less important ones. If the congregation
cannot hear me at a distance, what is to prevent me from speaking in an
informal, more familiar way to those poor just as I am speaking to you
right now? What is to hinder me from gathering them near me just as you
are sitting around me now?
When
you are called from your prayers or the Eucharistic celebration to serve
the poor, you lose nothing, since to serve the poor is to go to God. You
must see God in the faces of the poor.
The
poor have much to teach you.
You have much to learn from them.
The
net result of my experience on the matter is the judgment I have formed,
that true religion - true religion, Gentlemen, true religion is to be
found amongst the poor.
The
poor are your masters. You are the servant.
Let
us, my sisters, cherish the poor as our masters, since Our Lord is in
them, and they are in Our Lord.
Let
us work with a new love in the service of the poor, looking for the
most destitute and abandoned among them. Let us recognize that before
God they are our lords and masters, and we are unworthy to render them
our small services.
How
to treat the poor.
Whenever
I happened to speak abruptly to the convicts, I spoiled everything. But
whenever I praised them for their acceptance and showed them compassion,
whenever I sympathized with them in their sorrows, when I kissed their
chains, and showed them how upset I was when they were punished, then
they always listened to me and even turned to God.
A
missionary needs patience and restraint in his works with those to whom
he is sent. The poor can be so unrefined, so ignorant ... If an individual
hasn't the gentleness to put up with their crudeness, what can he hope
to accomplish? Nothing at all. On the contrary, he will dishearten those
poor ones. When they feel his sharpness, they will be put off and will
not return to learn those things which are needed for them to be saved.
Gentle patience, then, is demanded of us.
Obstacles?
We
should assist the poor in every way, and do it both by ourselves and by
enlisting the help of others.
Love
is inventive, even to infinity.
A
partnership with God.
We
cannot better secure our happiness than to live and die in the service
of the poor.
What!
To be a Christian and see a Brother afflicted without weeping with him,
without being sick with him, would be to be without charity, to be a mere
picture of a Christian, to be without humanity, to be worse than brute
beasts!
My
God! What a wonderful title and what a beautiful description ... Servants
of the poor! It is the same as saying Servants of Jesus Christ,
for He regards as done to Himself what is done to them. What did He do
while on earth but serve the poor?
Work
for the poor is tiring.
Give
me persons of prayer and they will be capable of anything.
top
of page
The Vincentian
Center for Church and Society
copyright 2000 - all rights reserved
send questions or comments about this site to John
Freund, C.M.
|
