Don't let your life be barren. Be useful. Make yourself felt.
Shine forth with the torch of your faith and your love. With your
apostolic life, wipe out the trail of filth and slime left by the
corrupt sowers of hatred. And set aflame all the ways of the earth with
the fire of Christ that you bear in your heart. (The Way, 1)
If you were to fall into the temptation of wondering, ‘who’s
telling me to embark on this?’ We would have to reply: ‘Christ himself
is telling you, is begging you.’ ‘The harvest is plentiful enough, but
the labourers are few. You must ask the Lord to whom the harvest belongs
to send labourers out for the harvesting’. Don’t take the easy way
out. Don’t say, ‘I’m no good at this sort of thing; there are others who
can do it; it isn’t my line’. No, for this sort of thing, there is no
one else: if you could get away with that argument, so could everyone
else. Christ’s plea is addressed to each and every Christian. No one can
consider himself excused, for whatever reason: age, health or
occupation. There are no excuses whatsoever. Either we carry out a
fruitful apostolate, or our faith will prove barren.
Besides, who
ever said that to speak about Christ and to spread his doctrine, you
need to do anything unusual or remarkable? Just live your ordinary life;
work at your job, trying to fulfil the duties of your state in life,
doing your job, your professional work properly, improving, getting
better each day. Be loyal; be understanding with others and demanding on
yourself. Be mortified and cheerful. This will be your apostolate.
Then, though you won’t see why, because you’re very aware of your own
wretchedness, you will find that people come to you. Then you can talk
to them, quite simply and naturally — on your way home from work for
instance, or in a family gathering, on a bus, walking down the street,
anywhere. You will chat about the sort of longings that everyone feels
deep down in his soul, even though some people may not want to pay
attention to them: they will come to understand them better, when they
begin to look for God in earnest. (Friends of God, 272-273)
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