Volume III, Treatise I, Chapter XII

Three Things Which Contribute Very Much to Give Us This Zeal

Brswes what I have already said, there are chiefly three things which may excite this zeal in us, and urge us to do all in our power for the salvation of our neighbour. The first and chief is, to consider that “it is for these Jesus Christ died”, and how tenderly must he have loved them, since he gave his blood and life for their purchase! The earth sprinkled with the blood of God shows us the price of a soul, and the esteem and love Jesus has for her. It is this should fill us with zeal and fervour in those offices which regard the salvation of souls. It is this should make us eagerly seek out occasions of doing them service, that we may be enabled to say with the apostle, “the charity of Jesus Christ urgeth us’—II. Cor., v.14. Now, can we feel difficulty in shedding our blood for him for whom the Son of God has shed his? And can we refuse to sacrifice our life for the love of a God who has sacrificed his for us? What! I see a soul ready to perish, I see it ready to fall into Hell, I think that God died to redeem it, that it is in my power to save it, and I will not do it, even at the loss of my life!—this is what charity cannot permit. The zeal of souls ought engage our hearts every moment; it ought always to be our greatest care, as it was the sole care of the apostle, who, “in his labours, in his chains, and in his sufferings, having death often before his eyes, was less touched with the things without, than with the care and solicitude he always felt. within for the churches under his care”—II. Cor., ii. 23, 28.

St. Austin writing upon this passage of St. John, “Jesus therefore being weary from his journey, sat down upon a fountain’—- (John 4:6),—quotes also this other passage of St. Matthew, “How often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not”— Mat., xxiii. 37. And he says, that it is with reason our Saviour compares himself to a hen that has chickens. For we cannot know when other birds have little ones, but when they cover them in the nest; but when a hen has chickens, she becomes so lean, her wings hang so low, her feathers are so erect, and in fine she is so changed, that that alone shows she is a mother. This is a true image, adds the father, of the state our Saviour was in,

when going to the conquest of souls, and overwhelmed with labour and weariness, he sat down upon the fountain of Jacob; and it is in this manner that the zeal of souls, and the earnest desire of bringing up spiritual children for Heaven, ought as it were so devour us as to weaken our constitution and make us forget our own wants. For though our Saviour was harassed from the _ journey, and was very hungry, yet he refused to eat, preferring the care of the salvation of souls to that of his own nourishment. Hence, when his disciples pressed him to eat, he said to them, ‘“‘T have food to eat that you know not of. Lift up your eyes, and behold the country, which is already white for the harvest” (John 4:32,35) The food of which our Saviour intended to speak, was that change he was going to make in the heart of the Samaritans; it was the salvation and conversion of souls, and it. is this also we ought to make our food.

Father Avila makes use of another consideration which is very proper to excite in us a zeal for the salvation of souls. It is, that though, generally speaking, it is very true that as to the graces God bestows upon us, he gives them out of pure love, and without desiring any return from us, yet in another sense it may be said, he gives us nothing for which he seems not to desire a return, not for himself, “because he is master of all things, and stands in need of nothing”—II. Mach., xiv. 35,—but for our neighbour, who stands in need of our compassion and assistance. God acts herein, says he, like a man who, having done great services to another, and lent him a considerable sum of money, should afterwards say to him, I do not desire that what I have lent to you should redound to my own profit, for I am rich enough without it; but 1 transfer it to such a person, who wants it; pay him what you owe me, and you shall thereby cancel your debt to me. We have an infinity of obligations to God. He has created us, he has redeemed us by his blood, and has had the goodness not to punish us for our sins, in expectation of our doing penance; he daily heaps his graces upon us, and in fine, it is to him we owe all things. But since he stands in need of nothing, he transfers to our brethren the right he has to all we owe him,. and gives us a full discharge thereof, upon condition that we serve them in all things possible forustodo. Let us therefore consider them, on the one hand, as the adoptive children of God, and as brethren of Jesus Christ, who has given the last drop of his blood for them; and on the other, as assignees to whom God has transferred all the claims he has on us for so many benefits conferred; and by this means we shall feel ourselves inflamed with zeal for our neighbour’s salvation.

Another thing which will contribute very much to this, is to consider that one of the best means we have to satisfy God for all the offences we have committed against him, is to procure that others cease to offend him for the future, and that they serve him with all their heart. This is the doctrine of St. James, who says, “that he who makes a sinner forsake the errors of his life, will save the soul of the sinner, and cover a multitude of his own sins’ (James 5:20) And St. Austin takes notice of this truth, upon occasion of the cure of the possessed person in the gospel. The holy text says, that this man seeing himself cured, wished to follow Jesus Christ in acknowledgment of the benefit he had received; but our Saviour, not willing to permit him, said to him: “Return home and recount the wonders that God has wrought in thee; and he went about the town preaching the wonders that Jesus had wrought in him” (Luke 8:39) What God requires of you in acknowledgment of the grace he has done you, in drawing you from the contagion of the world and the occasion of sin, is, that you help to draw your neighbour also out of sin, and that you urge him to serve God with all his heart.

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