Love of Our Neighbor
by VP
Posted on Thursday September 26, 2019 at 12:00AM in Books
Zeal for the salvation of souls is the outcome of the love of God overflowing to the love of our neighbor. It is a virtue for all Christians to cultivate, as belonging closely to Christian charity. It is a necessary part of religious, priestly, and spiritual life, for no one could love God truly without loving the souls for whom Christ died.
It is clear that with many their zeal for souls will have to be mainly affective, yet to some unknown degree effective by their prayers, as they have neither the ability not the call to work effectively. But prayer entreats God, and God lest Himself be entreated.
Let all true lovers of God therefore associate themselves with our Lord and the priesthood of His Church; let them be in union with all the Masses and Divine offices of the Church going on night and day in the world; and let them offer all the toils and trials of daily life, too, for the conversion of souls to God - for the heathen, the heretics, and for bad Catholics; let them especially pray in all this union for the hundred thousand dying daily, and let them pray for the vast wants of the Church in her conflict with the world, and especially for the Holy Father, the bishops, and priests and all the religious of the world , that all may be men of God, and profitable in His hands for the salvation of souls. Let them extend their prayers and penances to the holy souls in Purgatory in the same spirit of love and zeal, looking to the glory of God and the blessedness of the spirits departed. Sometimes of course opportunities for effective charity will come, and then each one must be ready for caritas in actu, remembering that our progress is by love, and that our Lord tells us we are to be "rich towards God."
