Letter to a friend, June 24, 1948

I am embarrassed to death for the way I have treated you but you know all about my life and the thousand and one things I am mixed up in which leave me no time to write you a long newsy letter.

I am really happy with your reports about what you are doing. Your work, your activities; above all about the contemplation the Lord is calling you to.

I am daily more convinced that the path begun is the only solid one for any Christian influence. The forgetfulness of God, so characteristic of our age, is I believe the gravest of errors, much greater even than the forgetfulness of the whole social dimension.

Our century is, above all, “the century of man.” In searching for the active virtues, we have lost a sense of sacrifice and resignation. Nonetheless, this has an eternal value that nothing can replace.

Hopefully, my dear friend, you will become inundated with calm and with adoration. This last little word is the one I would most like to emphasize: adoration. Try to imbibe the immense grandeur of God, something of what is seen in the Old Testament and which an excessive sentimentality makes us forget at times. It is absolutely necessary to develop friendship with Christ in a fraternal sense but nothing should make us forget the infinite distance that separates us; if God calls us His sons, it is not due to any right on our part but as a gesture of His infinite goodness.

I recommend that you learn to relish the prayers of the Mass, the Pentecostal Sequence and others of the same type. Hopefully you will accustom yourself to live in union with the liturgical cycle in its widest sense, with the singing of the psalms, with Eucharistic adoration. What I most desire for you – and I will repeat it a thousand times – is that you come back with a greater spirit of adoration, with deep interior peace, and totally disposed to be an instrument of Christ. In this is sanctity. I have never found a more beautiful definition of prayer than that of P. Charles: “To pray is to conform our desires with the divine desire, in the same way that He manifests Himself in his works.”

My many comings and goings have increased with the project for emergency housing that is beginning to move ahead as an annex of the Hogar de Cristo. The fine spirit among my collaborators is truly superb and I believe that this great idea will become a concrete reality by the end of the year. We are thinking of constructing emergency villages for the poorest of the poor. First they will be rented to them and then they will begin the gradual decrease in quotas until they cover the value of the houses.

On the other hand, for those less poor, we are thinking of constructing housing that can be theirs from the very start. They will contribute with small quotas and the rest will be recovered in accord with their possibilities.

May God give us men of interior life who face things with serenity and true justice. I greet you with all warmth and affection, your friend,

Alberto Hurtado C. S.J