«Love - and the masters of it should be those whom Jesus has made into "shepherds, masters, salt and light - is to be explained also to those who are weak in their faith.
It is not given to all to become shepherds, masters, salt and light, or champions of wisdom and justice. As in the firmament, not all the stars are as powerful as the sun - and woe if they were! - also in the Militant Church, not all are giants in power and this is what counts more because it is of worth and supernatural duration, and in sanctity. There are lambs and there are shepherds, and the lambs have a different sturdiness. For some, it is easy to fall, others are prone to distractions, and yet others to sluggishness. One needs to understand, sympathize and help each and every one through love.
"Behold, I myself will seek my sheep... I will rescue them from all the cloudy and dark places... I will bring them into their own land... to good pastures... I will seek the lost, and bring back the strayed, I will bind up the crippled, I will strengthen the weak...," says the Good Shepherd in Ezechiel c. 34, v.11-16; and in John it says, "I give my life so that my sheep may have the Life and in superabundance."
However, turning to the evil shepherds who do not graze the sheep and do not rescue them but exploit and oppress them, He says, "You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the crippled, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but you exercised your rule with force and harshness... To my sheep you gave to eat what you have trodden with your feet and drink what you have fouled with your feet (Ezechiel 34, v. 4 and v. 19). My fury has therefore lit itself up against the shepherds... Woe to those shepherd idols who abandon and oppress the flock... I have taken and I have broken the bar of Grace in order to break the pact with those who have not remained my faithfulshepherd-servants."
This is how the Wisdom forever speaks, before, during, and after His coming. Love, forgiveness and aid to the sheep and to the lambs, just as Christ has taught you by having done it first Himself. Not violation of individual freedom which God respects in man and which is a means of trial, reward or condemnation for everyone.
No one knows how God guides individual souls. No one is so powerful as to be able to always judge with justice. There are creatures who through their pride appear as rebels or guilty to the short-sighted and yet they are not, while others truly are, but through their shrewdness have the appearance of being just ones by operating properly on the outside and poorly on the inside; they have the appearance of being just ones, yet they are doubly unjust, for they feign and act perniciously.
"Judge not" said the Word of truth. And it would be the perfect rule. However, if you judge, for however humble or powerful you may be, judge at least with love, always, not being able because of your limitations as men to penetrate inside of men and discern the 'reasons' of their every action. You must know that nothing is a secret to the All-Seeing, even if in secret, you carry out your unjust actions and pronounce your insincere, unjust and uncharitable judgements upon your neighbour. God sees you and hears you whilst you act and speak, and He judges you, He, yes, with a just and final judgement.
It will not be for having been powerful that you will be spared the judgement of God. Rather, since more has been given to you, the more rigorous the judgement will be when as with every man, you will have to present yourselves before God in order to account for your actions. And for each one who has been placed more highly than the mass of the flock of Christ, either out of being in office, or through extraordinary election, remember that sometimes only one sin against Love, that is, against the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Wisdom, Mercy, Justice and Love, can destroy all the merits of a life lived in the Law. God can strike you immediately after you have struck Him in a servant of His, or in a work of love of His; He can strike you, as He struck Adam, immediately after one of your sins of pride. And then? To what avail will your previous works have been? And what of your being in office? And what of your extraordinary election?
"Woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh" said the One in whose pierced hands the Father has placed every power of judgement. And even though He was the Mercy Incarnate, He clearly told of the fate that awaits the one who scandalizes souls with unjust actions.
If it is true that for a soul which one brings unto salvation, that man certainly saves his own, it is also true that for every soul that stops or retreats from perfection, or worse, falls into the sin of mistrust in God, in the power of prayer and in the truth of the things in which he once believed, a punishment which can go as far as to an eternal torment - and certainly goes as far as to a very lengthy expiation in Purgatory - will strike the one who was the cause of that stopping, retreating, or fall of a soul.
As the soul of a "little one" can be disturbed by an injustice towards him, so it can also be disturbing to see the shepherds, lights and masters give an example contrary to what they teach. Woe to those who are intransigent with the "little ones" and who overburden them while for themselves and for their I, they have every indulgence! To edify one another is a duty for all, but it is a thousand times more for those who are high up.
So as it is in eating and in drinking, in one's way of living, dress, and dwelling place, one should always keep charity in mind, the thought of one who is hungry and thirsty, and who is half-dressed and has no shelter. Neither do royal cloaks nor garments of purple and gold give an automatic right to enter into Heaven, but the manner in which they were worn. It will be easier to see the eternal wedding gown on one who wore - with resignation if he was poor, with humility out of the spirit of charity if he was powerful - a simple and even shabby garment than not on one, who by loving to show off his quality garments more than nurturing his merciful self, wore valuable garments knowing fully well that his conscience was advising other ways of life to him.
Because in this is the condemnation: to do what the conscience advises you not to do. And to do it with complete awareness and deliberate intention after having freely chosen.
In order for a bad action to become a sin, it needs to be performed with complete awareness. Thus each person, however high up or down he may be, should examine himself and consider the reason of his every action, and may the examination and the consideration be truly sincere, as is the scalpel of a surgeon when exposing even the deepest roots of a disease. And seeing that his action is not good, let him sever it from his will in order to take away its life, and he should not limit himself only to this, but he should immerse the axe of an upright consciousness into his own soil, into his humanity, in order to also remove the root and the essence that favour the rise, in the heart, mind and spirit, of plants which are not good because they are proud; and burn everything upon the fire of love which will certainly return to glow when the soil will be freed from the cold pride and from the weeds that have come from it, barren, poisonous, darkened weeds sown by the I aroused by the Proud one: Satan.
And if they are strong, those who are high up, let them with mercy sustain those who are weak, and without foolish prides, acknowledging that more than the I, it is God who co-operates in making man a saint. Let them bless God if He loved them in an extraordinary way. However, they should not believe themselves to be the absolute authors of their own sanctity and they should not scorn whomever is less of a saint, or appears to be, than them.
Christ, most holy and most perfect, being God and Man without any sin, neither hereditary nor voluntary, did not scorn anyone, and through His compassion for all the miseries, He brought a great number of people to salvation.
Christ worked many powerful miracles and He spread rivers of wisdom. But what most attracted people towards Him, and therefore, to Salvation and the Life, was His mercy first of all, and then His incorruptible and impartial justice with everyone.
By not seeking His own satisfaction but the true good for souls and the glory of God, He drew upon Himself outrage, insults, rancours, hatred and revenge, but in this way, He was able, however, to guide many souls to the Truth and to the Life.
With patience, constancy and faithfulness to the Law, a holy zeal for the Father, and with an infinite love for all souls, He was an example to Jews and to Gentiles, and salvation to all those who did not voluntarily reject the Light who had come in order to bring them to the Life and to restore them to the progeny of God.
Minister to the circumcised and the one, eternal, universal Shepherd who does not gather only the sheep of His Fold but also "those who were not of His Fold" so that these, too, could also be under the guidance of the one Shepherd, He gathered and received Gentiles as well as Jews so that all could glorify God for His mercy.
And the Gentiles glorified Him. They glorified God the Father finally known to them, and His most holy Son, and the Spirit who proceeds from Them, and they became members of the flock of Christ, and in this way, the prophesies were fulfilled there where it is said that God has given His Word so that He could be a "covenant" amongst the people and a light to the nations; and so that He might open the eyes (not only bodily) of the blind, and bring forth the prisoners from the prison of paganism, so that He could open the founts of the living water that give eternal Life, and would give the Word that is life to anyone who wanted it, and the nations that did not know the Lord would run towards Him and would become the children of God in as many as those who would observe His Law and would remain faithful in close friendship with Him by living in the "House of prayer for all the nations of the Earth", that is, the Church of Christ.
This is what the Lord has worked in order to save every man who has fallen because of Adam's sin. He has brought the Light and the Law even to the Gentiles, He has given supernatural gifts in order to help man conquer the law of the flesh which makes him carnal and prone to evil, and to allow him to follow the law of the spirit that supernaturalizes him from a reasonable being to a divinized creature. Because whoever is faithful to the gifts of God, re-obtained through Christ, and faithful to the perfect Doctrine taught by Christ, deserves that of him be said what the word of the Psalm says, "You are gods and sons of the Most High."
Just as it was, in the thought of God, the destiny of all men.
Just as it would have been if Adam had not sinned.
Just as it is possible that it be for an infinite amount of creatures thanks to the Sacrifice of Christ who (so) loved men by giving His life for them.
Just as it will be until the end of time.
And they will have life, the however many of every age and nation who will have loved Christ, the Source of their eternal Salvation.»
End of the explanation
of the Epistle of Paul
to the Romans.