Fr. Antonio Royo Marín on the Theology of the Apostolate

[800] Article 4

The Apostolate

664. The apostolate, in whatever its form, carried out with a true supernatural spirit, can and ought to provide to the Christian a true source of sanctification. We are going to examine the concept of the apostolate, its degrees, obligation, forms, and relations to Christian perfection.

665. I. Concept. We are going to detail its nominal meaning and its real content.

a) NOMINALLY, the word “apostle” comes from the Greek term ἀπόστολος, derived from the verb ἀποστέλλω (“to send”), and signifies an envoy, messenger, or ambassador.

In the New Testament this word is sometimes used to designate the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, to which there is added the names of Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas, [801] who are apostles by antonomasia (par excellence); but at other times the name of “apostle” is also given to every kind of preacher of the Gospel, including those not belonging to the church hierarchy. Thus St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans: “Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and fellow prisoners: who are of note among the apostles” (Rom. 16:7).

It should be noted that the words “mission” and “apostolate,” as well as “missionary” and “apostle,” are etymologically equivalent. “Mission” and “missionary” come from the Latin verb mitto, which means “to send”; this is exactly the same as the words “apostle” and “apostolate,” which as we have said before come from the Greek verb ἀποστέλλω, which also means “to send.”

b) REAL MEANING. The nominal or etymological significance of the word apostle has set us on the path to its true meaning or real content. For in the understanding of the Church which interests us here, an apostle is, in the end, nothing but an envoy of God sent to preach the Gospel to men. St. Paul expressly says so (Rom. 1:1), and it is the common doctrine of the entire tradition of the Church. The expression apostolate has no meaning other than the work and activity proper to the apostle.

666. 2. Degrees. However, the word apostle is undoubtedly analogous and is applied in many different ways to different subjects of attribution. Accordingly, we can distinguish without effort, based on the data of Sacred Scripture and of tradition, up to six degrees or distinct categories of apostolate:

1. The apostolate in its most eminent grade, as the supreme analogate in its analogical scale, corresponds by right to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is sent by the Father in order to bring to the world the good news and message of redemption (Jn. 3:17, 8:16, 17:3, 8, 18, 21, etc.). From Him all other apostles receive the mandate and apostolic mission (Jn. 20:21).

2. In the second place, the apostolate corresponds to those apostles par excellence, in other words, the twelve apostles chosen by Christ, to which is added the names of Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas, and those sent by Him to preach the Gospel to every creature (Mk. 16:15).

3. Occupying the third place is the Roman Pontiff, the successor of St. Peter, and the bishops, the successors of the remaining apostles and heirs of the ordinary mission that Jesus Christ has committed to them although not of the extraordinary mission as founders of the Church nor of the personal charisms if we make exception for the Roman Pontiff in referring to the privilege of infallibility.

4. Fourthly, simple priests sent by the Pope and the bishops with any jurisdictional mission that participates directly in the authority of the Church.

5. The laity involved in any apostolic organization, among which Catholic Action stands out, which, without participating in any manner in properly ecclesiastical or jurisdictional authority, nevertheless partakes in the official activities of that authority under the direction of the hierarchy and as their instruments. [802]

6. In the broadest sense, finally, the name of apostle can be applied to any person who performs some action of the apostolate (catechesis, giving good council, etc.) although it would be through his own initiative and not with any official mission.

667. 3. Obligation. Having explained the notion of the apostle, the apostolate, and the different degrees in which one can participate in the latter, it will be of interest to demonstrate before all the obligation of the apostolate on all the members of Christ without exception. No one may be excused from this sacred obligation although it affects Christians in many, diverse ways according to the higher or lower position in which they have been placed by Divine Providence on the scale of analogous degrees that we finished enumerating above.

Here are the principle reasons or theological foundations of the universal obligation of the apostolate:

1. It is a requirement of charity in relation to God, to our neighbors, and to ourselves.

a) RELATING TO GOD. The love that is selfish and sensual is exclusive: it does not want anyone to participate in its joy; it wants to savor it by itself. It is very easily understood because of the limitation and smallness of the creature upon which this love has fallen. But the love of God, which rests on an infinite and inexhaustible object, far from diminishing, grows and becomes truly massive even when in the depths of one’s being one does not feel the blazing of the fire of the apostolate. A love of God that remained indifferent to apostolic concerns would be completely false and illusory. “There is only one thing I desire,” said St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus: “to make God loved.” It is the fundamental and primary desire of all souls who are authentically in love with God. We will come back to this when discussing the relationship between perfection and the apostolate.

b) RELATING TO NEIGHBOR. The charity relating to our neighbor obliges us to desire and procure every kind of good for him, principally those in the spiritual order that are ordained to his eternal beatitude. It is impossible, therefore, to love one’s neighbor with a true love of charity without the affective and effective practice of the apostolate, at least to the measurement and degree compatible with our state in life and with the means and methods within our reach.

c) RELATING TO OURSELVES. It has rightly been said that material charity benefits more the one who gives than the one who receives because, in exchange for something material and temporal, one acquires a right to a spiritual and eternal reward. This same principle should apply, for greater reason, [803] to the great spiritual charity of the apostolate. It is certain that the recipient also benefits in the order of the spiritual and transcendent, but without any prejudice, even before this, comes a great benefit to the benefactor. By submitting ourselves to apostolic labors for the good of our brothers, we accrue on a grand scale our capital of merit before God. Hence in this manner the apostolate is not only an obligation but simultaneously an excellent practice of the love of God, our neighbor, and ourselves.

2. It is a consequence of the dogma of the Mystical Body of Christ.

God used the apostle St. Paul to give to His Church the doctrinal treasure of the theology of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is an infinite treasure of inexhaustible fecundity for the Christian life. Much has been written on it, and we have the fortune of possessing a wonderful synthesis in the enlightening encyclical of Pope Pius XII.¹ Perhaps in no other aspect of this doctrine are offered possibilities as magnificent for the theologian as those relating to the universal duty of the apostolate that flow from it naturally and without effort. In fact it is inconceivable that the members of one and the same supernatural organism should remain indifferent to the health and well-being of the others.

a) BAPTISM, by which we are incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ, has linked us in such a way to our Divine Head and each one of us to the other that no one can “wash one’s hands of” the other without committing an attack, a true crime against the members of that same Mystical Body, which has inevitable repercussions even to its Divine Head. The “you did it to Me” of the final judgment will have its perfect application both in the line of the good and the bad (Mt. 25:40, 45).

b) CONFIRMATION. The demands of Baptism are invigorated and reinforced with the sacrament of Confirmation, which makes us soldiers of Christ and gives us the necessary strength to wage the battles of the Lord. The mission of the soldier is to defend the common good. A selfish soldier is a contradiction. For this reason he must be confirmed an apostle by an intrinsic demand stemming from his own fallen condition.²

668. 4. Forms. However, even here there is room for distinct modes and grades. Not all Christians are obliged to practice the apostolate in the same degree and, above all, in the same form. It is possible to characterize the apostolate as a state, as a life, and as a practice.

a) AS A STATE, the apostolate corresponds properly to the Roman Pontiff and the bishops, the legitimate successors of the apostles, to whom [804] Christ has entrusted the august mission of perpetuating the apostolic functions and ministries even to the consummation of the ages (Mk. 16:15).

b) AS A LIFE, it corresponds to any priest who has legitimately received the apostolic mission to announce the Gospel to the people. Within this fierce phalanx of the apostles of Jesus Christ, priests occupy an outstanding place because of the transcendent importance of their apostolate, these missionaries in a land of infidels and charged with expanding the dominion of the Christian faith until it has invaded the entire world.

c) AS A PRACTICE, it is the exercise of any apostolic activity whether with a canonical mission or not. This latter is that which extends also to the lay faithful, who must exercise the apostolate—in virtue of those demands that we noted above—at least in their particular environment with all the means at their disposal.

669. 5. Relations between the Apostolate and Christian Perfection. Having examined the concept of the apostolate, even if only with the extreme brevity that the extension and nature of our work obliges us, let us now see what its intimate relations with Christian perfection are.

a) THE APOSTOLATE, A FORMAL PART OR EFFECT OF PERFECTION. St. Thomas beautifully proves that apostolic zeal is an effect of charity.³ Above all, when charity attains to a great intensity, it tends to overflow into the exterior. It is impossible to love God “with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength”—the first commandment of the Law, in the perfect practice of which Christian perfection consists—without the soul feeling a devouring zeal for the glory of God and an insatiable craving for the apostolate. In this way the apostolate is inevitably a formal effect of Christian perfection. There is not nor can there be any form of Christian perfection that can prescind from or not want to have anything to do with this apostolic giving of one’s self towards others. In the Church of Christ all is united and collective. Egotistic isolation is a sin, and the sanctity that cares not for the good of others is an illusion. None, not even cloistered nuns or contemplative religious, can renounce being an apostle without committing a crime against the Mystical Body of Christ and without destroying the very contemplative life in its integrity. The nun of the cloister and the contemplative too have a most elevated apostolic mission that, at the same time that it is an indispensable duty, constitutes for them one of their most precious peals of glory. They are not to be apostles through the exercise of the word or exterior activities diametrically opposed to the spirit of their contemplative vocation, but they are to be, in an eminent [805] degree, apostles through their prayer, through their sacrifices, through their example and witness before the pagan society of our day.

Our immortal Donoso Cortés wrote the following phrase: “I believe that those who pray do more for this world than those who fight and that if the world goes from bad to worse, this consists in that there are more battles than there are prayers.”⁴ As a missionary bishop once affirmed, ten Carmelite nuns praying could help him more than twenty missionaries preaching.

There can be no doubt. The love of God when legitimate and true enkindles within our souls a love of neighbor. The apostle St. John arrives at the saying that he lies who says that he loves God but does not also love his neighbor (1 Jn. 4:20), and among the acts of love, not one is more authentic than the apostolic zeal and ardor for procuring our neighbor’s spiritual good.

b) INTIMATE UNION, NECESSARY FOR PERFECTION TO BE AUTHENTIC AND THE APOSTOLATE FRUITFUL. Between perfection and the apostolate there must be—necessarily so when authentic—a most strict relationship and a reciprocal and continual influence. It is a classic formula that the interior life is the soul of the whole apostolate and the guarantee of its efficacy. This affirmation is supported by very firm principles of Catholic theology.

As it is known, in establishing the comparison between the active life and the contemplative, the Angelic Doctor concludes that the latter is more perfect and meritorious than the active since, among other reasons that he explains there, the direct exercise of the love of God, which is the object of the contemplative life, is more perfect and meritorious than the love of neighbor, which is the immediate object of exterior activities.⁵ But a little afterwards he adds that the mixed life is more perfect than either of the others considered in isolation because it unites the best aspects of both and more closely imitates the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, the supreme model of perfection.⁶

The difficulty is in specifying the true concept of the mixed life, for there is no state of active life that does not claim for it some directing principle or source influence from the contemplative life. Hence if one does not proceed with much caution and theological rigor, one will come to the danger of concluding that the properly active life does not exist and that all apostolic activity—whatever may be its origin, end, and manner of fulfilling—enters fully into the concept of the mixed life and is, therefore, superior to the merely contemplative life. This would be a [806] most grave error that would affect not only the serene realm of theoretical principles but would also have enormous and pernicious repercussions in practice.

No! Not all apostolic activity is beneficial when it is cut off from the further excellencies of the mixed life and as if it worked in an ex opere operato manner. This excellence, according to the Angelic Doctor and the universal theological tradition, is what proceeds from the fullness of contemplation.⁷ It is an overflowing of one’s own supernatural life. It has two absolutely inseparable aspects: to contemplate and to communicate to others what has been contemplated: contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere.⁸ Neither of the two aspects can be neglected without damaging in a radical manner the concept of the mixed life. Without the contemplative element, we would have pure exterior activity: the active life. Without the apostolic giving of one’s self in exterior activity, we would have pure contemplation: the contemplative life. And in neither of these two cases would we have achieved the concept of the mixed life. The mixed life is, therefore, only that in which apostolic activities would be an effect and a redounding of one’s own contemplation. From which it must be concluded that when these apostolic activities, however numerous and intense they may be, do not emanate from an authentically contemplative soul that is ablaze with the love of God, they cannot claim to be part of the dignity and excellence of the mixed life: they are mere exterior activity, the active life pure and simple, greatly inferior in itself to the contemplative life and—a fortiori—to the authentic mixed life as well. That is why the Angelic Doctor carefully insists that when a contemplative is called to apostolic activities, this ought not to be done in a manner of subtraction, subtracting and reducing anything from the contemplative life, but in a manner of addition, adding in a manner that further enkindles one’s own life of union with God: hoc non fit per modum substractionis, sed per modum additionis (“this is done by way not of subtraction but of addition”).⁹

Is this to say that an apostle who does not live a profound and exuberant interior life is unforgivably condemned to sterility and failure? Applied to the priest in the totality of his ministry, it seems to us not to be the case. It would do no good here to invoke the argument that “one cannot give what one does not have.” The reason is that a good part of the ministerial activities of the priest has an intrinsic efficacy—ex opere operato—that functions independently of the personal worthiness of the one who administers the sacraments. In this sense, the priest does not give of his own but only what is of God, that is, that which God puts into his hands, however unworthy and sinful those hands may be. This is true. But one cannot entertain the slightest doubt that in all those other activities the efficacy of which depend in a good part on the proper dispositions of the instrument—ex opere operantis—(and these are all those activities of the priest except those we referred to in the valid administration of the sacraments), the supernatural efficacy of his apostolate will be in direct and immediate proportion to the degree of sanctity and perfection of the minister of God, and a poor curate in Ars, ignorant and scorned but aflame with divine love, will convert [807] more sinners and bring more souls to God than all the professors of the Sorbonne in Paris combined.

Hence, an intimate and deep union between the contemplative life and the active is indispensable in order to come to the authentic notion of the mixed life and to assure the authenticity of Christian perfection and the fruitfulness of the apostolate. Therefore it is necessary to avoid with all caution the errors and dangerous deviations of both extremes.

c) ERRORS AND DANGEROUS DEVIATIONS OF BOTH EXTREMES. Without any doubt, in the field of the apostolate there are greater errors and dangers that arise from an exaggerated overestimation of the active life than from an unhealthy exaltation of the contemplative life: the activism or Americanism, which was called by the most recent Popes the heresy of action, is a much deadlier error than quietism. In any case, every error is pernicious, and we ought carefully to avoid both vicious extremes in order to come to the just and balanced middle in which virtue consists.

a) The excess of uncontrolled activity almost always leads to the heresy of action and the personal failure of the man who lives in such a way. Well known are the words of a man as apostolic as Cardinal Lavigerie: “For an apostle there is no middle ground between complete sanctity—at least desired and pursued with fidelity and tenacity—and absolute perversion.” Unfortunately, experience daily confirms the somber perspective of this phrase. The man, devoured by the fever of action, submits himself more and more to exterior activities: paperwork, statistics, organizations, the press, radio, cinema, the devouring fever of movement…

Does he live a life of profound piety, of continual and intense prayer? Does he recite the breviary digne, attente, ac devote (“worthily, attentively, and devoutly”)? Does he make a long preparation in order to celebrate the Holy Mass and deepen and prolong his thanksgiving afterwards? Does he do spiritual reading, meditation, and acts of personal piety? “There is no time for this!” he says. “The times are very bad; the forces of evil have organized themselves to oversee everything more and more; it is necessary to oppose them by the barricade of our resistance, from organization to organization, activity to activity. If only we could attend to everything! We would love very much to live the life of prayer, to keep in constant contact with our Lord in the tabernacle… What a pity! We do not have the time for this.” Such is how these poor souls run astray. The result of this insensible reasoning tends to be the loss of the spirit of faith, lukewarmness and boredom in the prayer life, and, all too often, a noisy and belligerent defection and the scandal of final apostasy.

b) Quietism. In diametrical opposition to this great error, another great aberration disguised as supernatural prudence tries to take refuge in darkness and sloth. It is quietism, a ridiculous caricature of recollection and the contemplative life, which coincides in reality with the most repugnant selfishness when it does not fall into the abyss of sensuality as history has so often testified. The quietist “does not want to meddle in anything.” Under the pretext of concentration and prayer, he fortifies himself into a castle of isolation and idleness without thinking of anyone outside of himself or preoccupying himself with anything other than his own interests. He has not heard—or does not want to hear—the anguished cry [808] of the Divine Redeemer: “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Lk. 12:49).

He is very comfortable not “meddling in anything” or to abandon for a single instant his sweet idleness—il dolce far niente—, but it is not acceptable, when he has such a contemptible attitude, to call himself a disciple of that divine Master Who precisely for meddling in every affair was put to death on the height of the cross.

d) THE JUST AND BALANCED SOLUTION. It is precisely to avoid carefully and equally both vicious extremes. The just and balanced solution was given to us by the Angelic Doctor in that gem of an expression which we have already mentioned above: Contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere: To contemplate the divine realities through prayer and study and then to communicate to others the clean and crystalline waters that spill over from the fullness of our own supernatural life.

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Footnotes:

1 We have collected an extensive summary of this encyclical in another place in this work (cf. n. 78).

2 Cf. III,72,2.

3 I-II,28,4.

4 Donoso Cortés, Obras completas t.2 p.227 (BAC, Madrid 1956).

5 Cf. II-II,182,1,2.

6 Cf. II-II,188,6.

7 «Ex plenitudine contemplationis derivatur» (II-II,188,6). “Proceeds from the fullness of contemplation.”

8 «Et hoc praefertur simplici contemplationi. Sicut enim maius est illuminare quam lucere solum, ita maius est contemplata aliis tradere quam solum contemplari» (ibid.). “And this work is more excellent than simple contemplation. For even as it is better to enlighten than merely to shine, so is it better to give to others the fruits of one's contemplation than merely to contemplate.”

9 Cf. II-II,182,1 ad 3.

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Source: Fr. Antonio Royo Marín, OP, The Theology of Christian Perfection, trans. by Richard Grablin (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2015), 800–808.

Fr. Jordan Aumann on the Contemplative and Active Lives Compared

[87] Active Life

5. As the contemplative life consists essentially in the operations of the speculative intellect, which has knowledge of truth as its proper object, so the active life consists essentially in the operations of the practical intellect, which controls and directs the lower faculties in view of the means to an end. The practical intellect is not a distinct faculty from the speculative intellect, but a distinct operation of one and the same intellect, so far as the intellect is able to consider truth as such (speculative operation) or truth as ordained to action—something to be done or made—(practical operations).[1] The immediately eliciting principle of contemplative activity is the speculative intellect, while the activity of the will is antecedent, concomitant or consequent. In the operations of the active life, however, the immediately eliciting faculty is not the speculative intellect, but for prudence the practical intellect, for justice, the will, for courage and temperance the sensitive appetite.

6. As with contemplation, so with the operations of the active life, it is possible to consider them as purely natural or as supernatural. According to ethics the acquired moral virtue of justice is the primary eliciting virtue in the active life, although the moral virtues of temperance and courage likewise are part of the active life, but as removing impediments to the virtue of justice. According to Christian theology, the active life depends on a working and instructed faith, the infused virtue of prudence, enhanced by the Gift of Counsel, the infused virtues of justice and mercy and the Gift of Piety first of all, and then on the infused virtues of courage and temperance and the Gifts of Courage and Fear of the Lord.

The active life is essentially related to the performance of the acts of the moral virtues and its first fruits should be the perfection of the individual through the practice of virtue. But since the active life consists principally in the acts of justice and the Gift of Piety, it follows that it not only performs the works of justice but it is ordained directly to the love of neighbour [sic].[2] For that reason the virtue of mercy, under the direction of charity, forms part of the supernatural active life. For St [sic] Thomas, the good active life is a disposition or preparation for the contemplative life; it is also a consequence of the contemplative life, as being ordained to love of neighbour. In its perfection the active life looks to the supernatural society of the Church and seeks to extend the kingdom of God on earth. As the interior life, rectified by the moral and theological virtues, is a source of the good done to others in the works of mercy and justice, so the contemplative activity is a source of preaching and teaching in the apostolate.

[88] Active and Contemplative Life Compared

7. Both the contemplative and the active life can be considered in their interior operations and in their external acts. As regards the interior or immanent acts of the virtues characteristic of the contemplative life, the following supernatural powers will predominate: the theological virtues (including the interior act of love of neighbour), the speculative Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the virtue of religion (especially in the worship of God). The contemplative acts of the Christian are therefore designated as constituting the 'interior life' or the 'life of prayer'.

The active life, on the other hand, calls into play the interior acts of the virtues and Gifts which pertain to self and neighbour, mainly the moral virtues (especially justice), prudence and the practical Gifts of the Holy Spirit. For that reason the active life is also called the 'moral life', the 'life of the moral virtues' or the 'ascetical life'.

Both of these lives are aspects or phases of the one and the same spiritual life of an individual person, though they will vary with the individual. And since the spiritual life necessarily involves the interior acts of the theological and the moral virtues as well as the gifts which perfect them, every Christian should cultivate both the interior or contemplative aspect of life and the moral or active aspect. In practice, however, because of dispositions flowing from temperament and character, some persons will be more inclined to contemplative acts, even if they are in an active state of life, while others may be more inclined to the moral and ascetical acts, even if they are in a contemplative state. According to the teaching of the early Fathers it was to be expected that contemplatives would at the beginning be concerned primarily with the ascetical practices of the moral virtues, since the active life was considered a preparation for the contemplative phase. On the other hand, although there have been 'contemplative types' who remained in the active life (St Ignatius of Loyola was called a 'contemplative in action'),[3] the person who has this inclination would normally be expected to seek a contemplative state of life. Judging from the history of spirituality, it would seem that women are generally more disposed to the contemplative state than men, because they usually have more of an inclination to prayer and are more devout and receptive than men.

The person who is active by disposition is usually characterized by a strong sense of duty to God and neighbour, a desire to prove his love by actions and great facility in the practice of the moral virtues. The active type is much more common than the contemplative type and the reason given by St Thomas is that 'the contemplative life is not properly human but superhuman',[4] while 'the properly human life is the active life, which consists in the practice of the moral virtues'.[5]

[89] 8. Considering the external acts or spiritual exercises proper to the contemplative and the active life, the former is manifested predominantly by the practice of prayer, both liturgical and private, while the latter is expressed by the works of mercy in some type of apostolate. This does not mean, of course, that prayer as a spiritual exercise is restricted to those who are contemplative by profession, for St Thomas says that 'although all who are in the active life do not arrive at the perfect state of contemplation, nevertheless every Christian should engage in contemplation to some degree'.[6] There is, however, this opposition between the exercise of set prayer and the performance of the works of mercy: both activities require time and it is impossible to give one's attention to both at the same time. Nor does it solve the problem to state that work can be made prayer, for the two are distinct. What can be done is to supernaturalize one's external action by proper motivation and to restrict one's external occupations so that time for genuine prayer can be provided. This is more necessary for those who are engaged in study, teaching, preaching—what we may call a doctrinal or intellectual apostolate—because those engaged in the manual or mechanical tasks can usually remain recollected in God and even pray as they work.

The most important thing is charity, and this should motivate the activities of both the contemplative and the active types of life. In the supernatural order what matters most is not what one does, but the love with which he does it. As St Thomas says 'The root of merit is charity'.[7] Consequently, the truly spiritual man will strive with all his power for the perfection of charity, and as he grows in charity he will feel compelled to manifest it in his actions. The person who is inclined to external works will manifest his charity especially in the works of mercy, out of love of neighbour; the person who is more inclined to the interior life and its practices will manifest his charity in the practice of prayer, which is the language of the love of God.

Footnotes:

1. cf. Ia. 79, 11

2. cf. 2a2ae. 182, 2

3. cf Nadal, H., S.J., Epistolae, Monumenta Historiae S.J., IV, Madrid, 1905, p. 651

4. De virtutibus cardinalibus 1. In Ethic. X, lect. 11 & 12, he calls the contemplative life 'divine'

5. De virtutibus cardinalibus 1

6. III Sent. 36, 3, 5

7. 2a2ae. 182, 2

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Source: Jordan Aumann, Appendix 1: Active and Contemplative Life," in Summa Theologiæ: Volume 46: Action and Contemplation, trans. by Jordan Aumann (Cambridge: Blackfriars, 1966), 87-89.

Ora et Labora and the Heresy of Action

The Benedictine phrase is "ora et labora" (pray and work), not "oratio est labor" (prayer is work) or some variation. The difference is key: it is the difference between a true spiritual life that balances the active and contemplative, each dimension aiding the other, and the heresy of action.

New Catholic Encyclopedia: Apostolate and Spiritual Life

[578] From the Greek ἀποστολὴ [apostoli], a sending, commission, or expedition. The Greek term is more indefinite than the Latin apostolatus, which refers more to the condition and office of the messenger than to his action. The Koine (NT) is of course greatly influenced by the Latin. The word came to signify in particular the active mission of the Church in the world. The normal relationship between the apostolate and the spiritual life is a mean standing be-[579]tween the various species of activism, on the one hand, and another extreme less easily denominated, the main feature of which would be solicitude about the "disturbances" consequent upon the exercise of the apostolate, on the other. This article provides a brief introduction to the question of how the two complement one another and how, under some conditions, the apostolate is apparently opposed to the spiritual life.

The Church has been in a mission status from the very beginning of its existence. Those who first constituted the new people of God were given the title "apostles." The community founded upon them is essentially apostolic, not merely in the sense of being in historical continuity with that small group through the apostolic succession of episcopal consecration but also in the sense of having the mission, at the present time, of preaching the gospel to the whole of creation. (Mk. 16.15).

The Church, however, is a community in whose members the word of the Gospel has borne fruit in various degrees, and it is also a community that is organized hierarchically. Both these factors determine the exercise of the apostolate—the former because it is assumed that apostolic works are somewhat the overflow of communion with God in the Church, the latter because the whole apostolate of the Church is under the direction of the episcopal hierarchy, who stand in place of the Apostles.

The exercise of the apostolate, by those who share in this mission of the Church, normally bears fruit in the interior life of the apostle himself. Experience witnesses to the fact, and that it should be so is to be expected because such activity is in the likeness of trinitarian [sic] life. In God, the Father unceasingly generates the Son without losing anything of Himself. Rather, the Son abides in the bosom of the Father and gives Himself to Him in love, so that from their mutual embrace proceeds the Holy Spirit. The apostle exercises, in one degree or another, a spiritual paternity, through which real relations are established between himself and those to whom he is sent. "I became our Father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel," says St. Paul (1 Cor. 4.15b). This does not mean that the persons brought forth "in Christ Jesus" remain in some infantile way dependent upon the Father-Apostle, for "through the Gospel" they receive a share not in his life but in God's. Nonetheless, if the exercise of the apostolate is authentic, those who are spiritually engendered thereby, as they grow up in Christ Jesus, remain united to their apostle-father by love and piety. The communion thus established must obviously bear fruit in his interior life.

What, then, in this context, is an authentic apostolate? Reference here is not primarily to the so-called canonical mission, which gives a certain juridical authenticity to the work of the apostle who receives such a mandate, even though the canonical mission should normally be the sign and guarantee of the overall authenticity of a given work. Here the word "authentic" refers more to the moral quality of the apostolate, its genuineness as an exterior and visible expression of the apostle's interior life.

St. John provides the best possible description of this authenticity: "[T]hat which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ" (1 Jn 1.3). The order is clear: seeing and hearing come first, then proclamation, and this in turn is for the sake of fellowship, i.e., deeper communion with God in the Church. An authentic apostolate, therefore, in terms of the spiritual life, is one that is based upon a measure of "seeing and hearing" and is motivated by a desire for sharing. Of course, St. John refers to an experience wherein Jesus was physically present to those whom he chose as Apostles, but the sensible contact scarcely exhausts what he means. The Apostles saw and heard by faith what the Father revealed in Jesus, especially through his "enactment" of the paschal mysteries. Living faith, then, is the heart of the apostolate, together with that work of charity called mercy. The interior life of any apostle is constituted by an acceptance and assimilation of the living truth of God's love for mankind in Christ Jesus, together with the urge to share the joy that is the normal fruit of being "in the truth." "The love of Christ urges us on" (2 Cor. 5.14a).

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Source: M. B. Schepers and F. Klostermann, "Apostolate and Spiritual Life," in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1, ed. Thomas Carson and Joann Cerrito (Detroit: Thomson-Gale, 2003), 578-579.

New Catholic Encyclopedia: Activism

[83] A teaching or orientation that emphasizes action in contradistinction to passivity. Thus, in a learning situation, the functionalism advocated by John Dewey or the method of teaching children promoted by Maria MONTESSORI [sic] is sometimes called activism. As a philosophic notion, it is opposed to intellectualism and gives precedence to practice and activity over theory. In this sense contemporary EXISTENTIALISM [sic] can be called activism in that it repudiates speculation in favor of action.

However, in Catholic circles, particularly in the U.S., it has come to denote an excessive activity of the apostolate that is detrimental to the spiritual life, especially in religious orders and congregations: exterior work of the apostolate absorbs the interest of the one engaged in it to the extent that his interior life suffers as a consequence. [84] It is also referred to as naturalism. Although such activism is not a formal doctrine, but rather a tendency of human nature, it is sometimes called the "heresy of action" and may be said in a general way to have a spirit opposed to the QUIETISM [sic] promoted by Miguel de MOLINOS [sic] and condemned by Innocent XI in 1687 (H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum, ed. Schönmetzer, 2210-69).

Activism should not be confused with the salutary work of the apostolate performed with the proper spiritual motives. Far from being an obstacle to spiritual growth, the giving of oneself in the service of others out f charity fosters the interior life of the soul. Activism, therefore, should not be equated with activity or a multiplicity of works. In its modern connotation, it has reference only to spiritual activity prompted by an indiscreet zeal and lacking a spiritual foundation. In the encyclical Menti nostrae Pius XII refers to it as "that kind of activity which is not based on divine grace and does not make constant use of the aids provided by Jesus Christ for the attainment of holiness" [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 42 (1950) 677].

Safeguards against activism include proper spiritual formation, the constant exercise of humility and prayer, and a wholesome spiritual outlook concerning the work of the apostolate. Those engaged in the apostolate should keep the words of St. Paul foremost in mind: "So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth" (1 Cor. 3.7). The avoidance of activism should not, on the other hand, give way to a negativism characterized by a turning away from the performance of good works. In fact, there is great necessity for an increase in apostolic work to counteract growing materialistic tendencies.

Activism is also called AMERICANISM [sic]. Such a spiritual pragmatism was condemned by Leo XIII in the apostolic letter TESTEM BENEVOLENTIAE [sic], addressed to Cardinal James Gibbons in 1899. While the pope praised the Church and the people of the U.S. for their spirit of progress and accomplishment, he nevertheless cautioned them, among other things, not to place too great an emphasis on externals and outward activity to the detriment of the spiritual life. Thus the term Americanism is often used, especially by European writers, to denote an excessive apostolic activity lacking the proper spiritual motivation.

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Source: L. F. Bacigalupo, "Activism," in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1, ed. Thomas Carson and Joann Cerrito (Detroit: Thomson-Gale, 2003) 83-84.

New Catholic Encyclopedia: Active Life, Spiritual

[83] A life of external activity as opposed to contemplation. In the third century, Origen identified the active life with Martha and the contemplative life with her sister Mary. Before the Christian era the Greeks had differentiated the theoretical life from the practical life. The practical life was that which busied itself with the affairs of the family or the city. St. Paul used the Greek word "askein" to express the practical matter of working out one's salvation, of striving for perfection or making a spiritual effort to purify one's conscience in the sight of God. Gradually this word acquired the meaning of an exercise of the spiritual faculties in the acquisition of the virtues of learning, or exercise, in a physical sense. St. Paul often made reference to the efforts of athletes in the games when urging his Christians to the practice of perfection.

Origen was again the first to apply the word "ascetic" to Christians who practiced virginity and devoted themselves to works of mortification. With St. Augustine, the term active life became almost synonymous with ascetical striving, by making it consist of the practice of virtues, as apart from contemplation of truth. St. Gregory the Great, [sic] seconded this doctrine by identifying the active life with the practice of the corporal works of mercy, and to some extent the spiritual works and this tradition persisted through St. Thomas and Suarez.

The active life reaches a new plane when it concerns itself with the care of souls. From the time of Augustine authors point out that bishops, to whom the care of souls properly belongs, lead the active life in its fullest sense, as well as the contemplative life, since all their activity must be richly impregnated with contemplation. It follows that those who are not bishops lead the active life more fully, the more they participate in the care of souls, a work that is proper to bishops. That is why St. Thomas can rank those religious orders whose concern is to give to others the fruit of their contemplation in the first place. Historically, religious orders, at the beginning, were concerned only with the perfection of their own members. Gradually, the need of souls forced them into the apostolate proper to bishops. Religious orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans in the 13th century, were founded with a view of doing the work that bishops could no longer handle alone. The revolutionary Society of Jesus (1540), which set the pattern for many of the more modern religious institutes, moved into whatever area was necessary for the good of souls, whether it was the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, or preaching and the administration of the Sacraments. In modern times, the next logical step was taken by the participation of the laity in the apostolate of the hierarchy, or what is known as Catholic Action, a way of living the active life of the spirit while remaining in the world.

The secret of the successful practice of the active life is charity in action. As St. Thomas teaches, charity is the root of merit. Affective charity,consisting in internal acts of the love of God is common to both the active and the contemplative lives, and must be made effective in the external worship of God in the contemplative life. St. Augustine says that it is "only the compulsion of charity that shoulders necessary activity" (Civ. 19.19). Affective charity is the real measure of perfection, but is itself best gauged by this effective charity of good works. Effective charity means carrying out God's commands. The whole purpose of the active life is to attain union with God by service to the neighbor, whom God has commanded us to love. One leading the active life does not so much leave God for God, as the popular phrase puts it, but finds God always and everywhere in the activity done for the love of God.

Obviously the term "active life" is an analogous term. In a non-spiritual sense it would be the opposite of quiet. In a spiritual sense it is ambiguous, for it can either mean the opposite of the contemplative life or the life that flows from contemplation. When used in the context of the spiritual as a univocal term, it usually refers to the life of virtue, the pursuit of virtue, the life of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and all those things that are indirectly connected with charity.

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Source: J. F. Conwell, "Active Life, Spiritual," in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1, ed. Thomas Carson and Joann Cerrito (Detroit: Thomson-Gale, 2003), 83.

St. Thomas Aquinas on States of Life and Temperament

He that is prone to yield to his passions on account of his impulse to action is simply more apt for the active life by reason of his restless spirit. Hence Gregory says (Moral. vi, 37) that "there be some so restless that when they are free from labor they labor all the more, because the more leisure they have for thought, the worse interior turmoil they have to bear." Others, on the contrary, have the mind naturally pure and restful, so that they are apt for contemplation, and if they were to apply themselves wholly to action, this would be detrimental to them. Wherefore Gregory says (Moral. vi, 37) that "some are so slothful of mind that if they chance to have any hard work to do they give way at the very outset." Yet, as he adds further on, "often . . . love stimulates slothful souls to work, and fear restrains souls that are disturbed in contemplation." Consequently those who are more adapted to the active life can prepare themselves for the contemplative by the practice of the active life; while none the less, those who are more adapted to the contemplative life can take upon themselves the works of the active life, so as to become yet more apt for contemplation.

Summa Theologiæ 2a2ae.182.4 ad 3

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3182.htm#article4

Faith Changes Our Relations

Faith changes our relations with each other and ought to make us aware of these changes.

By faith we come to realize that how we treat others is not only how we treat Christ but how we treat ourselves, for we are all connected mystically by grace into the Body of Christ. Hence the second great commandment is that we love our neighbors as ourselves. Why? Because as we love our neighbors, so do we love ourselves.

Actually, we can know this principle even without divine revelation. We see that the unconscious reflects the Other and projects ourselves into the Other. How we treat others, then, unconsciously reflects and projects how we treat ourselves and wish to be treated. Hence if we wish to receive qualities of patience, consideration, and generosity, we ought to give these out and practice them ourselves.

Amazingly, divine revelation has taken this psychological-social dynamic and elevated it through grace, showing us that our relations are more profound than we ever believed. This is why sin can never be isolated, and to believe that my personal actions and choices in private do not affect others betrays a lack of faith and a lack of understanding of the unconscious. Everything I do creates and changes my relations with others, both in the natural and supernatural realms.

In this phenomenon we can also find one reason for the spiritual and psychological stagnation of so many people: they do not put in the effort to treat others in such a way as to reveal to themselves their earnest desire for transformation through virtue. The very effort to act virtuously works as a signal that effectively mobilizes the unconscious forces to cooperate with grace such that even if the initial attempts of a beginner are filled with failure and imperfections the process of spiritual transformation is nevertheless truly begun. The effort to treat others in a saintly way stimulates one to become actually a saint and to encourage others to become likewise. It in a certain sense gives permission to oneself to become holy, to let go of old habits of behavior.

The Apostolate Flows from the Nature of Love

The love which has been poured out on us cannot remain static in our souls. It must ascend once more whence it came, having made us the instruments of a further giving of itself. Taking us captive, the Wisdom of Love introduces us into the inner current of the divine life in the bosom of the Trinity, enlisting us as her co-operators in attaining her divine designs, making us channels of grace and instruments of her action. Love is essentially dynamic [....]

The apostolate is not a work of supererogation. It is the normal sequel to contemplative love. To think only of intimate union with God is to be ignorant of the nature of love, to arrest its movement. For it would be the destruction or at least the diminution of love to confine it within any kind of selfishness no matter how spiritual this might seem.

Holy Wisdom is concerned with souls less for themselves than for her own divine purpose. And this only purpose is the Church. She chooses us as members of the Church, that we may hold a place in it and fulfil [sic] a mission.

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Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 335–336.

Dietrich von Hildebrand on Patience, pt. 2: Holy Patience

[325] Patience respects the hierarchy of goods

The patient man, in the first place, preserves the right order in the scale of his interests. The requirements of the moment, no matter how imperious, can never displace or overshadow his attention to higher values. The intensity of his attention to a thing will not be determined by its dynamic appeal, its aggressive presence at a given moment or the noise with which it is advertised, but by the objective weight of its content. His emotional accents are ordered in a fashion proportionate to the objective order of values. He possesses a prompt readiness to bear any cross that he cannot avert from himself without injury to charity or infringement of some duty.

He has the art of waiting, and he knows that, though he might justly reproach somebody with having caused him a needless loss of time, a loveless rebuke sometimes amounts to a greater evil before God than a measure of lost time. Our neighbor's sluggishness, too, as his other awkward and annoying traits, belongs to the things we must bear in charity.

It is because he generally refrains from letting himself go that the patient man achieves this order. He maintains himself at a certain distance from his nature and its stirrings. Even when intensely set upon attaining a purpose, he does not lapse from the status of habitare secum [dwelling within oneself]. He watches lest he overestimate a thing [326] merely because he is striving after it at the moment. He is on guard against delivering himself over to the autonomous logic of that striving which tends to impart an undue weight to any chosen aim merely on the strength of its being chosen.

Patience never pursues limited aims inordinately

In the second place, he never engages himself totally for a partial aim—which means that he never becomes blind to the consideration he owes to others, restricting his vision to himself and his own affairs as an exclusive whole. He knows that such a total engagement is illicit; that God demands of us a confrontation of all things with Him and with one another. Still less would he push such a total engagement to its extreme limit, at the cost of sacrificing even his own important concerns of another order. He would not stake everything on a card, to the point of dissolving his fundamental nexus with God—as the Flying Dutchman who, impatient to round a cape more rapidly, wagers his soul thereon; or as Esau who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage.

Though we are at liberty, and in certain cases, in duty to bound to do everything in our power to attain a legitimate purpose, no obstacle and no ill-success must ever be allowed to throw us off our balance. The true Christian is determined to preserve in all circumstances his open and devoted attitude to God: that basic constitution of his soul which guards him against ever losing hold of the habitare secum; for he is well aware that he cannot remain in communion with God except in such a state of composure and self-possession.

Patience recognizes the sovereignty of God over time

Above all, the true Christian never pretends to a false position of supremacy over the universe. Indeed, Christian patience issues [327] from religio: the consciousness of being a creature of God, whose property we are, without whom we can achieve nothing, and in whose hands all our endeavors, actions, and accomplishments are placed. The true Christian assents to his creaturely dependence on God, and consciously derives from it the informing principle of his life. "My days are in Thy hands" (Ps. 30:16).

He knows that God is also the Lord over Time; that He has assigned to the course of events its temporal extension; that we must recognize the interval of time that separates the taking of a decision from the reaching of the intended aim as a reality willed by God: "All things have their season: and in their times all things pass under heaven" (Eccles. 3:1).

He loathes the hybris [hubris] which lies in the pretension to override the autonomous operation of the causae secundae and to secure effects by a mere fiat. That is why patience in this first and inferior sense, too, is an integral component of a life centered in Christ. It contains a specific response to the omnipotence of God and to our absolute dependence on Him, as well as an acceptance of our creaturely finiteness. He who has patience abides by the Truth; the impatient man, posing at least in a partial sense as though he were God, submits to the bondage of the illusions of pride.

Patience is appropriate even when pursuing high goods

The second form of patience belongs to a much higher level. It refers to the realization of things valuable in themselves, and in particular, the spreading of the kingdom of God. It is in this context, again, that the second dimension of patience—that which makes it akin to constancy and perseverance—assumes its full significance. Here it is a question of intrinsically noble and all-important aims, whose furtherance we ought to seek with impetuous zeal. The moral advancement of ourselves and of others, the triumph of justice, the dissemination of the true Faith, the [328] conversion and the progress of a soul specially entrusted to our care—these, to be sure, are things for which we must yearn in our every fiber and strive after with our whole being; our concern for these can never be too intense.

Woe to those who can take but a moderate and conditional interest in these aims. With a burning eagerness should we engage in their service; for "the kingdom of God suffers violence." So far as these things are concerned, it would be wrong of us to take our time. Rather we should emulate the response of St. Matthew the Apostle to the inexorable call, Sequere me: "Jesus... saw a man sitting in the customhouse, named Matthew; and he saith to him: Follow me. And he arose up and followed him" (Matt. 9:9).

Thus, too, did St. Peter and St. Andrew leave their fishing nets and all their work, and without glancing back, follow Christ. No less immediate and wholehearted was the response of St. Anthony, who, upon hearing the words of the Gospel, at once went to live as a hermit in the desert. No less eager and integral, many centuries later, was the response of St. Francis of Assisi.

And yet, even in this zeal, holy patience is absolutely necessary, and an essential part of holiness. For holy patience means our response to the truth that it is not we but God alone who determines the proper day and hour for the fruitful performance of certain actions and even more exclusively, the ripening of our seed and the harvest of our labors.

The rapidity of our immediate response may sometimes differ in our inward dedication and our outward actions

A keen distinction must be made between our inward dedication to God and to His kingdom in ourselves and in others, and our action proper (on ourselves and on others). The call of God once perceived, our response cannot follow quickly enough. We should immediately and unconditionally respond to the sequere me, giving [329] ourselves to God without demur or reserve as did Mary: "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to thy word." All hesitation here would be a perilous error.

But this unhampered inward dedication to God does not by itself involve the performance of all single acts which it entails in a general and essential sense. Particularly does this caution apply to extrinsic and public action, that is, the works of the apostolate. 

Certain saints—among them, as we have seen, St. Francis and St. Anthony the hermit—immediately drew the full consequences from their conversion. But this is a great privilege of grace. Our sense of discretion must enlighten us about whether we may take the decisive step with its full implications at once, or had better remain for a period in inward maturing. There exists a danger of skipping over necessary stages.

Sometimes it also happens that a sincere but not so highly privileged Christian, instead of awaiting a more unmistakable and concrete call of God, overreaches himself in a kind of natural enthusiasm and anticipates certain acts fraught with grave obligations, without being able to posit them with a true inward decisiveness. Many converts immediately want to enter a religious Order, though they lack actual vocation and have not measured the whole significance of such an enhanced dedication to God.

The Church knows this danger; that is why she requires an adequate interval of inner maturing for all great steps in religious life. Unless a particular and a rare grace makes up for it, man needs an appropriate space of time for all deep and great things.

The attitudes deep things require cannot, in general, attain their complete validity and reality except after a period of organic development, whose length varies greatly according to each case. For every deep, fateful word there is a fullness of time in which alone it can be legitimately and fruitfully spoken. Anticipate it hastily by acting without discretion, and your utterance of it will be shadowy, devoid of maturity, and invalid. Again, let the "destined hour" pass [330] unused, and you will no longer be able to speak that word except in an empty and purely formal fashion.

It is touching to read how the chamberlain in the Acts of the Apostles hastens to be baptized by the deacon Philip; for him, thanks to a special grace of God, the destined hour—the fullness of time—was at hand there and then. But the Church by no means modelled [sic] her general practice in admitting converts upon these cases, recorded in apostolic times, of an instantaneous and definitive conversion.

On the contrary, in the first centuries she imposed on the catechumens a long course of preparation through the successive stages of which they had to pass before being admitted to Baptism. Even today, every adult baptism must be preceded by a certain period of instruction and maturing. As regards the preparation for monastic life, the Church only allows the taking of temporary vows at first; final vows require a preparatory stage. Nor does she admit a definitive private vow of virginity without an antecedent temporary one. Thus, in forming these decisive resolutions concerning our inner and personal life, too, we must exercise holy patience, and accord time the significance in human affairs with which God has invested it.

Evangelization also calls for patience

Even more does the same caution apply to the apostolate or our activity devoted to the winning of other people's souls. Anxious as we may be at once to communicate the Truth we have unmeritedly [sic] received and to light up other souls with the fire Christ has kindled in ours, we must always bear in mind that we ourselves cannot fruitfully sow before the divine seed has unfolded to a certain degree in our own souls—which, again, means a period of maturing.

Undoubtedly a special grace of God may overrule this, too; but generally speaking, a time of silence must precede the time to [331] speak. St. Paul, after his conversion, lived in silence for several years before he started his work. Nay, the Savior Himself only began His public activity after thirty years of complete privacy; not that He, in whom the fullness of Divinity resides, needed a process of maturing: but He chose to give us an example of the rhythm which God has imposed on human life.

Notwithstanding all our zeal, then, we must observe the obligation of patience even as workers in the vineyard of the Lord. With careful discretion we must try to perceive the striking of God's own hour for our work to start in His vineyard rather than insist, in a spirit of natural enthusiasm and impatience, on determining it by ourselves. Suppose we are animated by a glowing zeal: if, at the same time, we have patience, we may be infallibly sure that we no longer live by our nature but by a supernatural principle of life.

To be sure, we are not in all circumstances obliged to make the time of our action dependent on the degree of receptivity we may suppose to exist in the souls we deal with. There are cases when, with St. Paul, we must set forth the truth opportune, importune ("in season, out of season"). Yet, even then, we are not relieved of the duty of patience; for St. Paul says further: "Reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine" (2 Tim. 4:2).

Still more is patience our duty in regard to the blossoming of the seed which we are allowed to sow in the Lord's vineyard. As Pascal wrote, "Christ will us to fight with Him, not to conquer with Him." We must be humble enough to renounce any pretension to determine ourselves the time of the harvest. While doing everything in our power to hasten the extension of the kingdom of God for which we are working, we must let God alone decide when He shall grant it.

Even in cases when our business concerns some object eminently pleasing to God, which indeed we ought to pursue with consuming zeal, we must not cease saying, "Not as I will but as Thou wilt." At the start of his activity. St. Dominic lived for four [332] years among the Albigensian heretics without converting a single one of them. Yet, he became neither impatient nor discouraged; he did not give up his effort. By the end of his life, he and his sons had converted sixty thousand people. It is in this higher sphere that the second dimension of patience—the aspect of perseverance and indefatigable zeal—reveals its full importance.

Holy patience frees zeal from impatience

Once more, we encounter here the fact, repeatedly stressed in the foregoing pages, of an organic mutual union on the supernatural plane between aspects apparently antithetic. The nearer we draw to God, the more we see develop in ourselves a coincidentia oppositorum—a reconciliation between two equally valid demands which seem to imply an opposition or at least a tension.

It is only on a basis derived from Christ that we can achieve an accord between these two attitudes: hunger and thirst after justice and holy patience. In the natural framework, zeal appears inseparable from impatience.

But the saints accomplish the miracle: on the one hand, they say with the Apostle of the Gentiles, "The love of Christ presseth us," and live up to the message of Christ, "I am come to cast fire on the earth. And what will I, but that it be kindled?" (Luke 12:49); on the other hand, they await in holy patience and inward peace the time when God shall choose to manifest the fruits of their labors.

What holy patience expresses is a living recognition of the truth that the Lord God alone can bring forth the fruit; that, even in this highest sphere, man—with whatever blessings of grace—can do no more than disseminate the seed he has received from God, thus establishing the conditions for the operation of grace in his fellow man's soul. As St. Paul put it: "I have planted, Apollo watered: but God gave the increase" (1 Cor. 3:6).

[333] Holy patience is an ultimate act of surrender to God

Holy patience, seen from another angle, embodies an ultimate act of our surrender to God, and therefore a status of consummate self-possession. For only in the measure that we have surrendered our inmost being to God do we possess ourselves. He who has holy patience has accomplished the process of dying unto himself, and entered the peace of Christ which "surpasseth all understanding." "In your patience you shall possess your souls" (Luke 21:19).

In holy patience, we become children of Him who with inconceivable longanimity "maketh his sun to rise upon the good and bad and raineth upon the just and the unjust" (Matt. 5:45) and who does not weed out the cockle but sorts the chaff from the wheat at the harvest only.

In this sense, holy patience may be described as a sister of wisdom and of contemplation. As these virtues cause us to consider and appreciate everything in a perspective centered on God, thus evoking to the full the beauty and depth of all things, so also in the attitude of patience we emphatically let God act, thus allowing all things to unfold from above—as proceeding from their Origin—and by so experiencing their operation again render to God what is God's.

Holy patience is the fruit of faith, hope, and charity

Holy patience is a fruit of faith, hope and charity. Faith teaches us that God the universal Lord is also the Lord of Time; that He alone appoints the proper hour to everything; that we must place the success of all endeavors, including such as are eminently pleasing to Him, in His hands; that we must believe in the possibility of success though no pledge of it be visible to the human eye; and that consequently we must labor for the kingdom of God whatever the odds seem to be.

[334] Hope keeps us from getting discouraged in spite of all failures and all delays in achieving success and expects "against hope" everything from the goodness of Him "with whom nothing is impossible." Charity impels us to love God and His holy will above everything, and prevents us from expostulating with Him or renouncing our work in His vineyard on account of any defeat sustained. Particularly is patience an offspring of charity insofar as it is assimilable to constancy and perseverance—an offspring of the charity, that is, which in St. Paul's words "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1 Cor. 13:7).

The fruits of holy patience, finally, are meekness and that inner peace of Christ "which the world cannot give." Patience, then, is closely related to the very flower and perfume of Christian life.

Holy patience acknowledges man's creaturely status.

It constitutes one of the basic traits that distinguish a true Christian in statu viae, in the sense even that it connotes in a twofold fashion as specific reference to the character of earthly existence as a status viae—a journey destined to lead us to our ultimate goal. First, it expresses our assent to our creaturely and finite condition, and more particularly, our response to the significance of time as an aspect of the divine plan of creation, as an essential constituent of the status viae, the world of "that which passes" in contradistinction to eternity. Second, patience represents a basic condition for winning through to our eternal salvation, since it implies a capacity for waiting without despairing of our effort for the kingdom of God, an attitude of perseverance in the midst of all obstacles and all sufferings, an intrepid hope for victory, and a humble but sustained preparation for eternity.

Not only is patience an indispensable virtue; beyond that, it discloses a formal apprehension of the basic condition of status viae [335] and of the relation between terrestrial life and eternal life. Thus are the mysterious words of Our Lord on patience related to these others: "He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved" (Matt. 24:13).

He alone who possesses patience—encompassed by disappointments, worn down by defeats, painfully aware of the narrowness of the road to salvation—can yet give proof of the constancy demanded by God, and hold on to the one thing necessary with a devotion not only unflagging but ever increasing. In him alone can the hunger and thirst after justice unquenchable on earth—which is Christ Himself—and the undying fire that the Lord came down to kindle, burn throughout his entire life. Only the patient man, who lives by Christ, can persevere unto the end: "In your patience you shall possess your souls" (Luke 21:19).

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Source: Dietrich von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2001), 325–335.

Fr. Victorino Osende on the Active and Contemplative Life

It is generally believed that the active life is inferior to the contemplative and that they are mutually incompatible. The first part of this statement is true if by active life we mean ascetical life, but it is not true if by that term we mean apostolic life. So St. Thomas states that the work of the active life which proceeds from the fullness of contemplation, such as teaching and preaching, is more excellent than simple contemplation (Cf. Summa th., IIa IIæ, q. 188, a. 6).

According [as active and contemplative refer to active and passive in the ascetical and mystical lives], the active life is undoubtedly inferior to the contemplative, even as the ascetical state is inferior to the mystical. However [as active and contemplative are considered as exercises proper to each life], it is necessary to make a distinction: the external works referred to are either a means for attaining perfection or they are the exercise of perfection already attained. If the works are a means to perfection, then those [works] of the contemplative life, generally speaking, are considered superior to those of the active life. If the works are those of perfection already attained, then those of the active life, at least the works of the apostolate, are preferred to those of the purely contemplative life.

This also clarifies the question of the apparent incompatibility of the two kinds of life. For if they are considered from their external aspects, inasmuch as the contemplative life is dedicated almost exclusively to meditation and prayer in retirement and solitude and the active life to preaching, teaching, and so forth, then undoubtedly they are incompatible. But such is not the case if one considers their intimate nature, for then the contemplative life is the best disposition for the fruitful exercise of the apostolic life. [...]

The perfect contemplative life is fundamentally the same as the passive state of the soul or the mystical life; therefore it is equivalent to the life of permanent union, the supernatural life, the plentitude of the interior life, habitual contemplation, the mystical, unitive, or contemplative state, and other similar expressions [....] It is the interior life developed to perfection. [...]

Mystical union is a mysterious and ineffable contemplation which does not bind the understanding or the other faculties of the soul and make it impossible for them to act, but on the contrary, it makes them all the more ready and alert. There is no ecstasy of the senses, but an ecstasy of the heart and spirit, an ecstasy of faith and love.

Thus do we see how the contemplative life is the best disposition for the active life. For a soul that enjoys this most intimate communication with God, encounters no obstacles whatsoever from the natural order; on the contrary, it operates even more perfectly and it possesses, so to speak, the plenitude of divine and human efficacy at one and the same time. This is why great apostles have always been great saints and all truly contemplative souls eventually become apostles. [...]

That is why the saints, particularly St. John of the Cross, advise the cultivation of the interior life in preference to exterior works; not that they condemn the latter, but because it is an error to give preference to their material efficacy rather than to the efficacy of the spirit, which is the soul of the apostolate.

This does not mean that one may not undertake any work of the apostolate unless he possesses the plenitude of the interior life [....] The division between the two states is not so definite and absolute that each one does not share some of the qualities of the other. But as a general rule, the efficacy of one's apostolate is in direct proportion to the degree of perfection of his interior life, and as long as his interior life has not attained the plenitude of perfection, neither will his apostolate.

It also follows that the principal exercises of the contemplative life, such as prayer, study, meditation, and other pious practices, are not opposed to the exercise of the apostolate, but are its basis, its support, and its very life. Therefore, the apostle should always give preference to the practices of the interior life as a means of increasing the efficacy of his apostolate. [...]

[When works are always performed with a most pure intention, with a magnanimous spirit, and with an ardent desire to fulfill the will of God, then] the apostolic life will not only not be opposed to the contemplative life, but it will be the best means of developing it and of giving it its greatest expansion. [...]

The principal beauty of the perfect life comes from within and from within also come its value and efficacy. Without this, all else would be like a body without a soul; it would be what St. Paul says the most heroic actions are when done without charity (Cf. 1 Cor. 13:1-3). On the other hand, the most humble and ordinary actions of a man who is filled with God have an influence and efficacy that are truly divine. His deportment and manner of life diffuse a supernatural aroma which profoundly affects souls and permeates them with the perfume of religious unction. His mere presence is sufficient to raise hearts to God.

This is why only that active life which proceeds from the contemplative life truly merits the name of an apostolic life, for only then does the latter possess all its efficacy. We also say that the contemplative life is the best disposition for the exercise of of the apostolate, not only because of the abundance of lights, gifts, and graces which are proper to that life and are so necessary for the salvation and sanctification of souls, but by reason of the dispositions which that life arouses in those who possess it and which are the most adequate for the apostolate.

The life of an apostle requires consummate selflessness and detachment from everything, a holy freedom of spirit, an unshakable faith and constancy, and a limitless charity. The apostle should be totally dead to self and seek only the glory of God, but only in the way that God desires. There is, therefore, no self-interest in his works and enterprises, nor does he manifest any personal preference for one work rather than another, but only for those which he knows God has especially confided to him. It matters not to him whether he is here or there or whether he is occupied in this or that ministry, as long as it is the one that God has marked out for him through obedience or by means of the circumstances in which He has placed him. Everything is a matter of holy indifference to him. The only thing to which he aspires is to accomplish well the mission which the Lord has confided to him and to do all the good possible within his sphere of action.

However, in order to preserve this disposition and spirit, he needs an unshakable faith and constancy. Better still, we should say that he needs a divine strength that will sustain him in the bitter trials and battles to which his faith and constancy are exposed. In order to know what these dangers are it is sufficient to recall that all the powers of the world and of hell strive against the work of the apostle, and as if that were not enough, his own human frailty wages war against him. What would happen if he were not sustained by divine power?

It is therefore necessary for him to be in intimate union with God in order to defy and triumph over all the powers of evil. [...]

In spite of [all his frailty and misery, the apostle] must endure the most cruel trials, the most frightful battles, and the most painful sacrifices. [... The apostle] must retain nothing of self: neither ambition, nor interests, nor preferences, nor his own personality, soul, or life. He who is to become all things to all men in order to save all (Cf. 1 Cor. 9:22) must sacrifice everything for the sake of the divine ideal. But who can arrive at such utter selflessness and detachment? Only he who is totally possessed by the Spirit of God; he who can say with St. Paul: "I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20).

We see, therefore, that the contemplative life is the best disposition for the apostolic life and that the latter, in its turn, is the best means for the exercise and expansion of the contemplative life. They mutually complete one another, thereby bringing to its highest degree of perfection the accomplishment of the fundamental law of the Christian life: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength" (Deut. 6:5).

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Source: Fr. Victorino Osende, Fruits of Contemplation, trans. by a Dominican Sister (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1963), 307-315.

Fr. Victorino Osende on the Conditions of Effective Apostolate

Tradere aliis contemplata, "To give to others the fruits of contemplation." [1]

According to this concept, the active life of the apostolate should be a spontaneous and natural fruit of the contemplative life or a prolongation of the same, whereby the contemplative life is completed and perfected. The contemplative life, in its turn, should be the fruit and normal term of the active life in its ascetical aspect. [...] [2]

The active life differs from the contemplative in that the first refers principally to man's exterior actions and the second to his interior actions. But exterior activity can be considered under two aspects: as directed to one's own salvation and sanctification or that of others. In the first case the active life blends with the ascetical life and precedes the contemplative; in the second, it follows the contemplative life as its proper and natural effect. [...]

Many believe that contemplation, especially in its most lofty degrees, is the final term and the most elevated goal of the supernatural life. That is not true, however, save in certain exceptional cases in which God disposes otherwise in accordance with His high and inscrutable designs. [...]

Normally, therefore, the contemplative life should end in the active life, expending itself in some form of the apostolate. [...] A soul in this state will always feel the impulse to do everything possible to further the glory of God and the salvation of his neighbor. [...]

It is reasonable that this should be so, for good is diffusive by its very nature and it is in the contemplative life that one attains, through union with God, the most perfect possession possible of the highest good. Wherefore, he who truly has attained to the contemplative life cannot help but feel this divine impulse to communicate it to others. [...] We find it in all the saints, especially in the great apostles and ministers of the gospel [....]

[St. Teresa of Avila writes,] "[Saints'] conception of glory is of being able in some way to help the Crucified, especially when they see how often people offend Him and how few there are who really care about His honor and are detached from everything else" (Interior Castle, seventh mansions, chap. 3). [...]

We see also the gross error of those who say that the contemplative and active lives are incompatible or that the contemplative life fosters slothfulness and that it is totally disinterested in the good of others. [E.g. Nietzsche's "saint" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra] [...]

Thus we see clearly how the active life of the apostolate follows the contemplative life and is an effect and natural consequence of the same. We see also that the ascetical phase of the active life precedes the contemplative. [...]

The ministry of the apostolate requires such great sacrifice and detachment, abnegation and patience, constancy and fortitude, that only a love stronger than death can bear it and exercise it with the greatest possible perfection and efficacy. To launch upon the apostolate without due preparation and without the necessary spiritual provisions and, above all, with but a smattering of the interior life, is to tempt God and to risk becoming apostles of Satan rather than of Christ. For we cannot give what we do not have, and when we give, we have to give of what we have. If we possess the spirit of God, we shall communicate that spirit to others, but if we have the spirit of the world, we cannot but communicate a worldly spirit to others. That is why the saints did not want their disciples to go forth to preach and teach others what they themselves had not learned and practiced in the ascetical and contemplative life. They wanted them to be apostles of truth; not of abstract truth which is acquired through pure speculation [i.e. study and mental reflection], but of the truth actually lived and made incarnate within their hearts. They wanted them to communicate the divine word which is life and spirit, a flaming dart which penetrates into the deepest recesses of the heart.

So also we should strive to communicate to others our hearts transformed in the love of Christ; we ought to give them Christ Himself enclosed within our heart and hidden, so to speak, beneath the guise of our burning love of charity. Such is the idea of the apostolate according to the saints, the apostolate in its most elevated and perfect expression.

This does not mean that there are no inferior grades of apostleship. We already know that practice makes perfect. [...]

Ah, there is nothing greater or more sublime than the battles for the faith and for souls! Neither is there anything more terrible than the fury with which the powers of hell guard the prey which they are about to lose. But in spite of all that, success is certain for those who never turn away from the supreme commander, Jesus Christ. [...] He may be sure that he will bear much fruit as long as he remains united to Christ, but without Him he will accomplish nothing (John 15:5).

This means that the apostle, more than anyone else, has great need of prayer and the interior life. These are the life and soul of every apostolate and without them he will bear no fruit, however much he may work or however brilliant his enterprises and apparent successes may be. [...] He must ever keep his heart and attention fixed on God, doing everything for God's honor and glory and for the good of souls and never descend from the supernatural and divine plane on which he is placed by reason of his mission. He must forget self and selfish interests and be constantly vigilant lest there enter into his works or intentions the slightest personal interest or self-love. In a word, he ought to sacrifice all: comfort, health, life, and reputation for the sublime ideal to which he is consecrated. These are the fundamental dispositions required for a successful exercise of the apostolate.

Further, in order to bear fruit among souls, the apostle must be filled of the spirit of God, and this he will attain only through an intensive life of prayer. [...] He ought never lose sight of God and should remain united to Him either by means of ordinary prayer or, as St. Francis de Sales says, by means of the prayer of works: doing everything for the love of God and with the intention of serving and glorifying Him. [...] If these works were performed with the interior spirit which should animate them, that fact alone would suffice to make us saints. [...]

Although at first we may not have the virtue and sanctity required for a perfect apostolate, if we perform our works in this spirit, we shall reach that state gradually. [...] We shall produce increasingly greater fruit. For it is certain that we shall produce more fruit as our interior spirit is greater and our union with God more intimate.

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Notes:

1. Motto of the Dominican Order, taken from the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, IIa IIæ, q. 188, a. 6.

2. NB: Fr. Osende distinguishes between two kinds of active life: that which goes before the contemplative life (i.e. the active life in its ascetical aspect) and that which follows after the contemplative life and flows from it (i.e. apostolic life).

The active life that precedes and prepares for the contemplative life is the ordinary struggle for holiness, the acquisition of virtues, the purification of the soul of all evils, etc., in preparation for mystical union.

The active life that follows the contemplative life flows from that life of union as Fr. Osende will explain. The process, in summary is as follows:

Ordinary, ascetical life acquiring holiness (active life; leads to contemplative life) -> stable and profound union with God (contemplative life) -> apostolate (active life; effect of contemplative life)

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Source: Fr. Victorino Osende, Fruits of Contemplation, trans. by a Dominican Sister (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1963), 297-306.

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene on the Apostolate, pt. 2

Apostolic prayer must be accompanied by sacrifice [....] Love should urge those who pray to "active sacrifice which does not allow them to rest calmly in prayer as long as pain and suffering have not all but reached the limits of endurance. Then, consumed by the ardor of charity and the vehemence of desire, they are no longer persons who pray but living prayers" (Pius XII, January 17, 1943). [...] The more prayer is nourished by sacrifice, the more efficacious it becomes; indeed, it attains its maximum efficacy when sacrifice is total.

Every contemplative soul should be "an altar worthy of the presence of His Majesty" (Ascent of Mt. Carmel, 1.5.7), an altar from which prayer rises, and on which the sacrifice is immolated. The apostolate of Jesus reached its climax and was consummated in the annihilation of death on the Cross. [...] Only when we have really sacrificed ourselves for souls, when we have willingly immolated ourselves with Jesus for their salvation, shall we be able to repeat with Him: "It is consummated." [...]

Many souls are lost because there is no one to pray and make sacrifices for them. [...]

There is no one who cannot contribute to the spiritual good of his neighbor by giving the example of a life which is integrally Christian: holding to the principles one has professed and faithfully fulfilling one's duties. [St. John Chrysostom says,] "There would be no pagans if Christians were real Christians, if they really kept the commandments. A good life sounds clearer and louder than a trumpet." A good life speaks for itself, it has an authority and exercises an attraction greatly superior to that of words. [...]

There is no difficulty in finding books and teachers who will present it in an attractive form, but there is much difficulty in finding persons whose lives give practical testimony to it. [...] The eternal Word became incarnate and through the concrete reality of His human life on earth, He manifested the infinite perfections of God and His tremendous love for us. Jesus, who possessed the divine perfections, could tell us: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:48). [...]

St. Gregory explains [...]: "Let the action [of good works] be public," he says, "while the intention remains hidden; thus we shall give our neighbor the example of a good work and, at the same time, by our intention which is directed only toward God, we shall please Him alone in secret." [...]

Every soul who lives an interior life, trying to please God alone, should also endeavor to be an apostle by his good example. His life of sincere piety, solid virtue, and union with God, should shine before men, inspiring them to pray, to be recollected, to seek after the things of heaven. [...]

The more deeply interior a soul is, the more brightly will its light shine upon other souls and bring them to God.

One who is just setting out in the spiritual life is not capable of attending to his own sanctification and the sanctification of others simultaneously; he should first have time to concentrate all his powers on his own spiritual formation. Furthermore, since the effectiveness of the apostolate corresponds to the degree of love and union with God which the apostle has attained, it is evident that a beginner will not be capable of exercising a very fruitful apostolate. Hence, if he engages in the active apostolate prematurely, he will dissipate his energy uselessly, with consequent harm to his own interior life and to the fruitfulness of his apostolate.

Jesus Himself spent thirty years in prayer and retirement although, being God, He had no need to do so. It was as if He wanted to show us that before we plunge into the work of the exterior apostolate, we must have reached a certain spiritual maturity by the exercise of the interior life. He treated the Apostles in a similar way: the three years they spent with Jesus were years of true formation for them. [...] Thus true Catholic tradition demands that, before apostles go out into the field of battle, they must prepare themselves by the practice of an intense interior life, which will make them qualified, fruitful instruments for the good of souls. [...]

Enthusiasm and good will are not enough. A vigorous interior life, maturity of thought and judgment, and a spirit of sacrifice and union with God are also necessary; if these are wanting, no good will be accomplished, and the spiritual life of the apostles themselves will be endangered. [...]

St. Teresa of [Avila] says, "A single one who is perfect will do more than many who are not" (Way of Perfection, 3). [...] The entire history of the Church is a practical demonstration of this principle: "St. Paul was only one, yet how many he attracted! . . . If all Christians were like St. Paul, how many worlds would be converted!" (St. John Chrysostom). The holy Curé of Ars [and St. Padre Pio] had very few human resources, yet he converted an immense number of souls by the power of his own holiness, love, and union with God. [...]

It is the saints who are the most efficient apostles. Must we then be saints before devoting ourselves to the apostolate? Theoretically, this is the ideal, but in practice, it is impossible. [...] We must therefore conclude that when the period allotted exclusively to preparation is over, we must combine our own personal efforts toward sanctity with the exercise of the active apostolate. In other words, apostles must sanctify themselves in the apostolate and by means of it. [...] Every apostle should be convinced that precisely in his own field of labor—and nowhere else—will he find all the graces necessary to sanctify himself, to attain intimate union with God. When a person gives himself to the apostolate, not by his own choice, nor because of a natural attraction for activity, but solely in answer to a call from God, he can be certain that, since God has willed him to engage in the apostolate, and as He also wills him to become a saint, that the apostolate will provide him with the means to become one. God cannot condemn to mediocrity one who, in order to do His will, and out of love for Him, is burdened with apostolic labors and responsibilities. [...] In the measure that an apostle is docile and faithful to grace, God will purify him, refine him, and sanctify him, precisely by means of his apostolic labors. [...]

It would be a fatal error to allow oneself to become so absorbed in work that time could no longer be found for concentration on God in intimate heart-to-heart conversation with Him. Not even from the standpoint of greater generosity should an apostle renounce his hours of prayer. [...]

He must make every effort to maintain an equilibrium, avoiding both extremes [of too much activity or too much time spent in leisure and prayer], and unifying his life by means of love. [...]

[Pope Pius XII in Primo Feliciter proposed four conditions for effective apostolic work]: purity of intention, union with God, self-abnegation, love for souls. [...]

An apostle whose heart is torn between opposing intentions will look in vain for peace in his work; he will always be disturbed and dissatisfied.

There can be a lack of right intention in a way that easily escapes one's notice; it may be so subtle that to a distracted soul, it passes wholly unobserved. [...] An atmosphere of recollection and prayer is necessary. In his moments of quiet at the feet of Our Lord, the apostle will discover that often, in the course of his daily occupations, he loses sight of the supernatural end which should animate his activity, and that in its place secondary ends appear, becoming the immediate motive of many of his decisions and acts. This means that his intention has not remained directed solely toward God and souls, but has often deviated under the influence of self-love. [...] He should not be discouraged by it; instead, he should humbly recognize his own misery and thank God who has revealed it to him in order that he may correct it. [...] His love is not strong enough yet to triumph completely over human passions. Therefore, the apostle should not give up the struggle against the manifestations of self-love, no matter how trivial. He must not yield to them under the pretext that they are natural tendencies, but must correct, mortify, repress, and cut them off without pity, and must always rectify his intentions. A long, thorough purification is necessary to overcome completely the dualism between God and "self," between love for souls and love of self. The apostle must ask Our Lord for the grace of this total purification and dispose himself to receive it, profiting by every occasion for detachment, renunciation, sacrifice, and humiliation, which apostolic activity offers in abundance to all who seriously dedicate themselves to it. If the apostle does this, he will find in his work an excellent means of spiritual progress, and instead of becoming entangled in the dangers which abound in external activity when self-love is not mortified, he will be purified by the very exercise of his apostolate. [...]

Without forgetfulness of self, it would be impossible to have rectitude of intention. [...]

Every apostle must renounce many things [...] tastes, habits, personal demands of culture, education, sensibility must be generously put aside, that the apostle may adapt himself to the mentality and to the demands of others; quiet, rest, relaxation, must yield their place to the service of souls. The apostle should not go about seeking interesting conversations, consoling friendships, pleasant occupations, satisfying results. Occasionally it may happen that he will meet these things on his way, but even then, he may not stop to enjoy them selfishly, but must use them as means for the apostolate. [...] The apostle is sent to "give" and not to "receive" [....]

Not only in moments of enthusiasm, on bright days [...] but also in moments of darkness, on gray days, when all seems to crumble under the impact of difficulties, when his tired body claims a little rest, when the work is heavy and energy declines and, with the onrush of internal and external struggles, it becomes very difficult to remain at his post. Yes, even in hours of abandonment and trial, the apostle must continue to give himself with equal constancy and generosity. If he does not do so cheerfully, that is, with a true spirit of sacrifice, it will be impossible for his conduct not to betray his ill humor, discontent, aversion, or impatience; and all this is very prejudicial to his work and the influence he could exercise. But where can the strength be found for this complete and continual gift of self? In the Holy Eucharist. [...] [We] can nevertheless follow [Christ's] example by putting himself at [others'] disposal to the point of allowing himself to be "eaten" by them, that is to say, by allowing himself to be consumed in their service. [...]

Humility is the indispensable foundation of the whole spiritual life; hence it is the basic condition of every apostolate and constitutes the principal part of the program of abnegation and forgetfulness of self which the apostolate requires. [...]

Oh! If we were truly convinced that, although God may will to make us of us, He alone possesses the power to make our action fruitful, He alone can produce fruits of eternal life, He alone can give grace to souls, and we are nothing but instruments! In fact, the smaller we make ourselves by acknowledging our poverty, the more qualified we become to be used as a means for the salvation of others. What glory can a brush claim if a skillful artist uses it to perfect a work of art? Can the marble used by Michelangelo to sculpture his Moses boast of any merit? "You have not chosen Me," Jesus said to His Apostles, "but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit" (Jn. 15:16).

"Without Me you can do nothing." How many ambitions and points of honor, how much vain self-complacency, how many desires for applause and for advancement in recognition of our personal worth are broken, like waves on the rocks, by these words! Jesus does not tell us that "without Him we can do little," but, nothing, absolutely nothing, and if in appearance the works flourish, admirers increase, churches and halls are filled, in reality not the least atom of grace can descend into hearts if God does not intervene.

Poor apostle, at times so satisfied, so inflated by success! Despite your abilities, your talent, your brilliant style, your attractive conversation, your titles, your successes—in relation to the apostolate, you are smaller and more powerless than an ant before a very high mountain. Recognize your nothingness, take refuge in God, keep yourself closely united to Him, for only from Him will you draw the fruitfulness of your works. [...]

If our apostolic activity produces few fruits, is it because, relying too much on ourselves, we do not constantly strive to keep close to God by means of humility and prayer?

"Abide in Me," Jesus repeats to us. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me" (Jn. 15:4). It does not suffice for the apostle to be united to Jesus through the state of grace; he must remain united to Him, plunged in profound humility which makes him realize that he can do nothing, absolutely nothing, without continual help.

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Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2005), 980-981, 983-985, 992-997, 999-1007, "326: Apostolic Immolation," "327: The Apostolate of Example," "330: The Formation of Apostles," "331: Sanctification in the Apostolate," "332: A Right Intention," "333: Self-Forgetfulness and Abnegation," "334: Humility in the Apostolate."