Personal reflection written in November 1947

All my brothers, all mankind. Suffer with their failures, with their miseries, with the oppression that makes them victims. Rejoice with their joys. Begin by recalling in spirit once again all those who have crossed my path. My parents from whom I have received life, who have given me light and nourishment. Those with whom I have shared a roof and broken bread. Those I knew in my neighborhood, during my school days, at the university, during military service, during the years of study, in my apostolate… Those with whom I have fought, whom I have caused pain, bitterness or harm… All those I have assisted, supported, gotten out of trouble… All those who have opposed me, despised me or done me harm. All those I have seen in the slums, in the shacks, under the bridges. All those whose unhappiness I have been able to discern, whose unrest I have been able to glimpse. All those pale little children with sunken faces. Those tubercular patients at San José, the lepers of Fontilles… All the young students I have met in study groups… Those who have taught me through the books they have written, with the words they have said to me. All those of my city, my country, those I have met in Europe, in America… Every person in the world: all of them, my brothers.
 
Enfold and carry all men in my heart, all at once. Be fully conscious of my enormous treasure and with a robust and generous oblation, offer them all to God. Unify all my loves in Christ. All this in me as an oblation, a gift which bursts and overflows the breast; a movement of Christ within me, which awakens and quickens my love; a movement of all humanity, through me, towards Christ. This is what it means to be a priest!

My soul has never felt richer, never felt pulled along by a wind so strong that seems to spring from its own deepest depths. Never has it united within itself such great worth, all lifted up together to the Father.

Impelled by justice and animated by love

Attack, not so much the effects but rather the causes. What do we achieve by groaning and complaining? We must fight hand to hand, in single combat, against evil. Meditate again and again the Gospel on the road to Jericho (Lk 10,30-32). The dying man on the road is the unfortunate fellow I meet with every day, but he is also the oppressed proletariat, the rich materialist, the man without dignity, the powerful without a prospect, and all our contemporaries from all walks of life.

In the first place, take the miserable poverty of the people. It is the least deserved, the most tenacious, the most oppressive and the most fatal. And they have no one to safeguard them, to lift them out of this state. Some pity them, others regret their sufferings, but who is willing to dedicate themselves body and soul to attacking the profound causes of their sufferings? Here we have the reason for the inadequacy of philanthropy, of mere material aid that amounts to a band aid on the wound but no real remedy. The misery of the poor affects body and soul simultaneously.

First we must love them: love the good in them, their simplicity, their roughness, daring, strength, frankness, their tenacity, their human qualities, their joy, the mission they carry out in their families… Love them to the point that you will be unable to support their misfortune… that you will prevent the causes of their disasters, rid their homes of alcoholism, venereal disease, tuberculosis. My mission cannot be limited to beautiful words of consolation, leaving them in their misery while I dine in peace, lacking nothing. Their pain should make me ill: the lack of hygiene in their homes, their poor insufficient diet, their children who cannot attend school, the tragedy of their daughters: may all that demeans them, tear me apart as well.

Love them in order to make them live, that a more human life may develop in them, unlocking their intelligence, putting an end to their backwardness. May the errors anchored in their hearts prick me continuously. May I be tormented by the lies and illusions used to intoxicate and enrapture them; may the materialistic press that pretends to enlighten them, irritate me; may their prejudices stimulate me to show them the truth.

And this is nothing more than the translation of the verb “to love.” I have placed them in my heart so they may live as men in the light, and the light is none other than Christ himself, the true light that enlightens every man who comes into the world (Jn 1,9). All the light of natural reason is really the light of Christ; all knowledge, all human science. Christ is the supreme science.

But Christ brings them another light, a light that orients their lives toward the essential that gives them an answer to their most agonizing questions. Why are they alive? What destiny are they called to? We know that there is a noble divine calling for each one of them, a calling to find complete happiness in the face-to-face vision of God (1Cor 13, 12). We know that they have been called to enlarge their vision, to satiate themselves in God Himself. And this calling is for each and every one of them, for the most miserable, the most ignorant, the most uncaring, the most depraved among them. The light of Christ shines in the darkness (Jn 1,5). They are in need of this light. Without it they will be profoundly miserable and forsaken.

Love them with all the heart’s passion, in Christ, so that the divine likeness may grow in them; that it might rectify them from within in such a way that they would become horrified by defilement or by demeaning themselves; that it might bring them to respect their own greatness and the greatness of all human creatures, to respect the right and the truth, so that their entire spiritual being might mature in God; that they might find in Christ the crown of their activity and their love, that the suffering of Christ might be salutary for them so that their suffering might fill up what is wanting in the suffering of Christ (Col 1,24).

If we love them we will know what we must do for them. Will they respond? In part, yes. But above all God wants my effort, and nothing done in love is ever lost.