Love is the Path to Eternal Life

Before praying the Angelus today Benedict XVI turned his attention to this Sunday's Gospel narrative of the rich man and the poor Lazarus. While the former lives in selfish luxury and, when he dies, goes to hell, Lazarus, who eats the crumbs from the rich man's table, at his death is carried by the angels to an eternal dwelling with God.

"This parable", the Pope told faithful gathered in the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace at Castelgandolfo, "tells us two things: firstly, that God loves the poor and raises them from their abjection; secondly, that our eternal destiny is dependent upon our behaviour, it is up to us to follow the path God has shown us in order to achieve life, and this path is love, understood not as an emotion but as service to others in the charity of Christ".

The Holy Father then went on to recall the fact that tomorrow marks the feast day and the 350th anniversary of the death of St. Vincent de Paul, patron of Catholic charity organisations. "In seventeenth-century France he personally experienced the great contrast between rich and poor. As a priest he was able to frequent aristocratic circles, the countryside and the deprived areas of Paris. Encouraged by Christ's love, Vincent de Paul organised regular forms of service to the marginalised, creating the ... 'Charitees'; that is, groups of women who dedicated their time and goods to helping the poorest".

In this context, the Pope made specific mention of St. Louise de Marillac who, together with Vincent de Paul, founded the Daughters of Charity, "the first female congregation to live their consecration 'in the world', among the people, serving the sick and the needy".

"Only Love with a capital 'L' brings true happiness!", the Holy Father exclaimed. "This was also made evident by another witness, who was proclaimed blessed here in Rome yesterday. I am talking about Chiara Badano, an Italian girl born in 1971 who died of an illness when she was just under nineteen, but who was a ray of light to everyone, as her nickname says: Chiara Luce".

The beatification of Chiara Badano, who was a member of the Focolari Movement, the Pope concluded, "is a feast day for all young people, who may see in her an example of Christian coherence".

Love and Fear and Christian Piety

These days it is hard to find a biography for the saints of the day. In addition to this making plans to travel out for Christmas so South America is taking up a fair amount of my time. This being the case, I am posting an article by Dr. Plinio Correa called 'Love and Fear and Christian Piety'



According to Church teaching, love and fear of God are virtues. Since neither antagonism nor contradiction can exist among the virtues, love does not exclude fear and fear does not exclude love.

Furthermore, both of these virtues are essential for salvation. If we cannot envision a saint without love of God, like wise we cannot envision a saint without fear.

One could affirm that love is the higher virtue and that these virtues influence each soul in different degrees, according to its individuality and the economies of grace. But, disregarding one virtue under the pretext of stimulating another-that is, maintaining silence regarding fear to develop love, or vice versa-usually inflicts irremediable damage on souls.

Now, there was a time when the profoundly balanced piety of the faithful held love and fear in proper perspective, whence both virtues were proportionately reflected in sermons, art, and religious literature. Later, however, Jansenism stressed the role of fear to the point of exaggeration and delirium. In reaction, saints, theologians and preachers pertinaciously stressed the role of love. As a result, many treasures of grace, of theological and pastoral wisdom, and of artistic beauty blossomed in the Holy Church because of Her most characteristic and best elements which we need not mention.

In this way, a wise and strategic maxim was applied: whenever one side of something is exaggerated, one must accentuate the other side.

Let us bring this principle into focus and see how to apply it today. Which one is being exaggerated? Love or fear? It seems modern man sins neither by excessive love nor fear. Much to the contrary, having forgotten God and having been impregnated with secularism, naturalism and indifferentism, he takes no account of God, neither loving Him nor fearing Him.

Consequently, the solution to this complete lack of love and fear is to call men to God by attracting them to one and the other virtue. For fear also brings men to God: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

In this regard, religious art can be of much help. It is a marvelous means of demonstrating how Our Lord Jesus Christ should be loved and feared.

In the famous Arena Chapel at Padua, the immortal brush of Giotto left us this mocked Christ, an admirable representation of the patience of the Divine Master. His adorable face is barbarously wounded; sacrilegious hands pull His hair and beard; a crown of thorns, a derisive symbol of His royalty, is set upon His venerable forehead. But Jesus, with eyes lowered, seems neither to see His enemies nor to feel the enormity of the outrage, but rather feels a fathomless sadness. This is truly the gentle Savior Who suffers everything for our redemption with a meek and humble Heart.



"Judas, dost thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" Both faces were close to each other at the memorable moment of this infamous kiss and terrifying question. Giotto depicts this scene in another painting in the same chapel. With his low forehead, flabby flesh, grim look, vulgar nose, loathsomely soft and drooping lips, Judas reveals an inexpressible infamy in his whole being. Jesus-noble, infinitely superior, and possessing an ineffable moral loftiness-looks upon him with a gaze wherein a sparkle of love, rebuke, severity, and total repulsion can be found. Poor, miserable Judas, who did not want to open his soul to the love or fear which this gaze elicited and to which this doleful and pungent question invited him.

And, because his soul resisted every invitation to love and to fear, it sank from theft to deicide and from deicide to despair.