The Sweet Guest says,
«The Law is spiritual. It is also when it forbids material things.
Truly, in the Decalogue, the purely spiritual commands are the first three. The other seven, and especially the last six, are prohibitions of sins against one's neighbour, against his life, his property, his rights, and his honour. One could then say that it is right to call the Law "spiritual" because it comes from God, however, it is not altogether right in so far as it commands, for a good two thirds of it, not to commit material acts that God prohibits.
However, above the ten Commandments of the perfect Law is the perfection of the Law, with the two commandments given by the teaching Word, "You will love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with your whole mind.' This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is similar to this one, 'You will love your neighbour as yourself.' The whole Law and the prophets proceed from these two commandments."
In the light of the Light that is the Word, the spirituality which is in the whole Law illuminates itself because it is given to make one live in love. Because the whole Law rests on love and lives for love. And because love is a spiritual thing, be it the Being or the individual towards whom it turns.
A triple love for God: love of the heart, of the soul, and of the mind; because inside man, there is this small trinity: matter (heart), soul (spirit), and mind (reason); and it is just that the three things created by God in order to make a unique creature - man - should equally give gratitude to God for the life which they have received from God.
Therefore, a triple love: love of the heart, of the soul, and of the mind; because Adam sinned with the heart (concupiscence of the flesh), with the soul (concupiscence of the spirit), and with the mind (concupiscence of reason), departing from the order for having abused the gifts received from God, and by offending God with the same gifts he had received from Him so that man could resemble Him and be for Him a cause of glory.
With the very things they sinned, sin is therefore to be repaired, the offence cancelled, and the violated order is to be re-established.
And the Word made Himself Flesh to do this, and to return "grace and truth" to you in full, overflowing and inexhaustible measure.
The Man-God repairs however much the first man sinned.
And He teaches you by way of example even more than by doctrine, which is perfect but that you could judge as impossible to practice, on how to save oneself. He is the Master of facts, not only of words. And however much He has done, you too, can also do.
The inheritance of Adam remains in every man. It is as if, hidden in every flesh, there is an Adam who can be weak when put to the test, as the first Adam was at the beginning of time. However, Christ has come so that your falls could be repaired, your wounds mended, and vital Grace restored to you when your weakness in day-to-day trials deadens that supernatural life that Baptism had given to you. However, Christ has come in order to be a Master and Model to you and so that you could be His disciples and brothers, not only in name and in the flesh, but also in spirit and truth, by imitating Him in His perfection, in His triple love towards God.
For this triple love, Jesus was faithful to the justice of the flesh, despite being tested and free in His free will like every other man.
For this triple love, Jesus was perfect in the justice of the soul, that is, in the obedience of the ancient divine precept, "You will love the Lord your God" by not feeling He was exempt from this duty because He was God like His Eternal Generator; Man-God, true Man and true God not for a temporary infusion of the Spirit of God in a flesh predestined for the same destiny or for the moral union of a just [man] with His God, but for the hypostatical union of the two Natures without any mutation of the divine nature because it was joined to the human nature, and without any alteration of the human nature - composed of flesh, mind, and spirit - because it was joined to the divine nature. For this triple love, finally, Jesus was sublime in the justice of the mind, by submitting His most perfect intellect not only to the divine Law like every man who knows it [the law] must do, but also to the intentions of God the Father for Him and upon Him: the Man, accepting everything proposed to Him and adhering to every obedience up to the utmost submission of His death on the cross.
"Having made Himself a servant" for the whole of a fallen Humanity, Jesus has passed the sign placed by Himself to men so that they can reach perfect love, but He did not impose on men the total sacrifice as a term of love in order to possess Heaven, and in the second precept of love, He does not say to you other than, "Love your neighbour as you would love yourselves." He went beyond. He did not limit Himself to loving His neighbour as He loved Himself, but He loved him much more than Himself because in order to give this "good" to His neigbour, He sacrificed His life and He made the sacrifice in sorrow and in death. But He does not propose much to you. It is enough for Him that the great majority of the members of His Mystical Body carry the little cross of everyday life and love their neighbour as they love themselves.
Only to His elect, to His chosen ones does He indicate His Cross and His fate and says, "Love one another as I have loved you" and insists, "Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends" and He concludes, "You are my friends if you do that which I command you."
Predestination is never separated from heroism. Saints are heroes. In one way or another, in the manner which is proposed to them by God, their life is heroic. They know what it is they do and they know where they will be guided to by doing that which they do. They are not frightened however. They also know that what they do serves to continue the Passion of Christ and increase the treasures of the Communion of Saints, to save the world from the punishments of God, and snatch many lukewarm souls and sinners from Hell, who without their immolation, would not be saved from damnation. Because even lukewarmness, by gradually cooling the love which every man must have in order to live in God, slowly leads to the death of the soul as per a spiritual starvation.
If predestination were separate from the heroic will of the being, it would not be a just thing. And God cannot will unjust things. I am speaking here of the predestination to sanctity, proclaimed by the justice of the life and extraordinary facts that, like stars, mark the life and way of the faithful predestined one to his predestination to glory, and who continue to be proclaimed by miracles beyond the death of the predestined one.
Because another is the predestination to divine Grace, common to all men, and therefore, freely given by God in sufficient measure in order to be saved; and another is the predestination to glory which is given to those who during their earthly life have used the gift of Grace well and who have remained faithful despite every trial of temptation to evil, or of any other extraordinary gift, movingly accepted with joy but not demanded or destroyed by making of it a foolish presumption of being so loved and so sure of already possessing glory that it is no longer necessary to struggle and persevere in heroism in order to reach it.
Quietism, in which the first impulses of a spirit called to an extraordinary journey then degenerate, is disliked by God. And, so too, is pride and spiritual gluttony: the two very likely sins in the elect, aided - and tried in order to confirm them into the mission or to deprive them of it as unworthy - by extraordinary gifts, the sins of Lucifer, of Adam, and of Judas of Kerioth who by having very much, wanted to have everything; who believed of being sure of saving themselves without merit and out of the sole love on God's part; who trusted solely in the infinite Goodness without thinking that the perfect, divine Goodness, though infinite, never becomes foolishness and injustice; and who believing themselves to be "gods" since they had been elected, and sinned ever so gravely.
God certainly knows those who will remain heroically persevering till the end, whereas man does not know if he will be perseverant to the end.
And even in this, there is justice. Because if God wanted that, despite the free will of man, very often the adverse cause with respect to the attainment of glory - because with difficulty does man correctly use this regal gift of God, given so that man, aware of his final end, freely elects of only doing good actions in order to merit the attainment of that beatific end - every man would be saved, He would force men not to sin. However then, He would fall short in His respect for the freedom of the individual, created by Him with all those gifts that make him capable of distinguishing good from evil, capable of understanding the moral law and the divine law, and capable of striving for his end and attaining it.
And the reason for the glory of every predestined individual would also be lacking: the heroism of life in order to remain faithful to the end for which he was created and to use, and use holily, the gifts freely received from God, those gifts which are the marvellous fruits of the divine Love who wants the salvation and eternal joy of every man, but who leaves man free of wanting his eternal future of glory or of condemnation. This ignoring, on your part, of your final fate is also just. Because if you were to know your eternal future, you would remain without the cause that pushes the just to act in order to merit the beatific vision of God who is joy beyond every limit, and you could fall, even if transitorily, either into quietism or pride, though always sufficient to create for you a lengthier expiation and a lesser degree of glory while the unjust ones would have in this the motive that would push them into becoming true satans, going as far as to hate and blaspheme God, and to hate and hurt their neighbour, without any more control, knowing that they are already destined for hell.
No. By knowing the Law and the end which obedience or disobedience to the Law brings, but by ignoring only how much the all-embracing vision of God knows so that the spur of pure love will not be lacking in the just ones which will merit them glory, and the perverse, who prefer sin and crime over justice and love, will not lack in the freedom of following that which is pleasing to them - so that in the hour of divine condemnation, they do not commit the extreme sin by hurling this blasphemous accusation against the Love, "I acted thus because You had all along destined me to hell" - every reasoning individual must freely choose the path that he wishes to take, and elect for himself the end which he prefers.
The predestination to glory is not a free gift that is granted to all men, but it is a conquest besides being a gift, made by those who persevere in justice, a conquest which is obtained with the perfect use of the gifts and aids of God and with a good will which does not ever leave anything inert that is proposed or given by God, but renders everything active and turns everything towards the holy purpose of the intuitive vision of God and to the joyous possession of Him.
Someone objects, "But then only those who are saints at the moment of death will have glory? And the others? Is Purgatory perhaps a less sorrowful prison, but always constraining, which separates souls from God? Aren't purging souls also predestined to Heaven?"
They are. A day will come, and it will be the one of the Last Judgement, in which Purgatory will no longer exist, and its inhabitants will pass over to the Kingdom of God. And also Limbo will no longer exist, because the Redeemer is the same for all men who follow justice in order to honour God in whom they believe, and to tend towards Him, just as they know Him, with all their strength.
There is still much exile, however, for these people after their life on Earth! And how much exile for those who limit their love and works to that minimum sufficient so as to not make them die in disgrace of God that they know of as Catholics!
How much difference amongst these saved ones, more than out of their own merits, out of the infinite merits of the Saviour, out of the intercession of Mary, out of the treasures of the Communion of Saints and the prayers and sacrifices of the just, and those who willed glory not out of egoism but out of love for God!
How much difference between the first, who with much effort and many rests of langour, murmurings of discontentment and also of dismay on the paths of egoism, drag their very limited love like a chain and weight, and the sec-. ond, true lovers of God and imitators of Jesus Christ, who "love as Jesus has loved" by also giving their life, and who always embrace every cross, asking, rather, for the cross as the gift of gifts in order to save the soul of their neighbour, host-souls who have appeared all along to the divine knowledge as "friends of Jesus" because they will do that which He commands them to do!
Eternal present, "You are my friends." God knows. Individual conditional, "If you will do". Because the conquest of a friendship requires works capable of obtaining that friendship. However, the assurance that such works will make a friend He whom you want as such, helps you to perform them. As it is amongst men, so it is also, and even more perfectly, between God and men.
Jesus, when the lesson was already more of a "fact" than a word, gives the last lesson to His apostles so that they could reach the perfection required by Him in order to call them "friends". And this is the perfection required by Jesus for all those predestined to a quick glory, proclaimed by the heroic justice of life, by extraordinary deeds during life, and by miracles after death. "You are my friends if you will do that which I command you." He heartens future effort by rewarding it already with the present, "You are."
Jesus knew His disciples as He knows every man, and He considered them, as He considers you, for who they were: creatures weakened by the inheritance of Adam, weighed down by many elements in conflict with elevation in the spheres of perfection. And He knew, as He knows, what a powerful factor love is when it is given in advance in order to spur to an exchange. Man is like a child who learns to become an adult and independent of another person's help; exactly in consideration of one who is incapable and who must be assisted in everything in order to grow, be fed and walk, he is to be helped by one who is already schooled by having reached maturity in body, mind and spirit.
And Jesus becomes a "mother" in order to make man, who is a "spiritual child", into an adult of the elect lineage, a royal priest, a living host who continually offers himself to God like Christ, with Christ and for Christ, in order to continue the perpetual sacrifice that has begun with Christ and that will draw to a close at the end of the centuries. And His Love is the milk with which He nourishes you, the arms with which He sustains you and the words that He says to you in order to teach you the true wisdom of life.
The Gospel of St. Luke says, "Many sins are forgiven her because she has loved much." But who brought the sinner to redemption of loving much He who is a Saint, if not the much love of the Redeemer for her? I said that in every man, there is an Adam. And I add, "In every creature, there is a Mary of Magdala." It is the infinite love of God which many times saves a sinful soul.
Truly, you are the redeemed through love even before than from the Blood and from the Death of the Son of God. Blood and Death have been the final events of your redemption. However, the love of God for you is the eternal state of God for you, and this divine love has begun to save you from His eternal being, because even before time existed, you were in the thought of God. All of you, from Adam to the last man. With your heroisms and your aberrations, your treasures and your poverty, with your great need of being strongly helped, divinely helped, so as to be able to reach the end for which you had been created. And the Love had already established "from the beginning", in His divine Knowledge and Will, how much was necessary in order to bring you back to the Life, as a Humanity and as individuals. He embraced everything that was sacrifice and sorrow out of love for you. And He has always sacrificed Himself for your love, for the love of you who are so often ungrateful, and even more often, weak.
You need only to contemplate the heroic will of the Son of God, the future Christ, always such; such before the Redemption, before His Birth, before His Incarnation, such from the beginning of the world and before the beginning of the world, drawing back in an immensity of time which is no longer time but "eternity", and you will be able to comprehend that it is out of love that you have been saved. For just as "in the beginning the Word was with God", the same "in the beginning love was with God", rather, it was God. For God is none other than Love. And just as it is written that "Through Him all things were made," it is also correct to write that "through Love all things were made."
All of the sensitive world and supersensitive creation is the work of love. All the providences, the physical, moral and supernatural laws are the work of love. All the actions of God are works of love. Love - the creation of God, and love - the particular creation of man, the adoptive child of God. Love - the Incarnation of the Word. Love - the Passion to redeem man. Love - the Eucharist. Love - the gifts of the Paraclete, whom the Paraclete, Theologian of theologians, Giver of Wisdom, Intellect, Advise, Strength, Knowledge, Mercy and Fear of God, gives to those who worthily receive Him, He, the Love of the Father and of the Son, Fecundator and Sanctifier of the many who know how to keep Him within, with a pure and holy life. Love - the Church, distributor of grace and Teacher of the faithful.
The perfect Love One and Trine fills you with Himself and His munificences in order to make you perfect on Earth, and blessed in Heaven; and Christ proposes to you the two perfections through which you will attain eternal glory.
Jesus, the Word to creatures divinized by Grace, proposes to you the same holiness of His Father, "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." As a Teacher to men similar to Him in the flesh and soul, He, the Man, proposes His holiness to you, "Learn from Me. I have given you the example that as I have done to you, so you do also, You shall be blessed if you put into practice my example. You are my friends if you do that which I command you."
Between the parallels of these two holy proposals, your path to eternal Life is the Christ, who joins to Himself, as the Word Son of God, the Holiness of God, and as Jesus, Son of Immaculate Mary, the perfect justice of the innocent Man full of Grace and Truth. And since "you are gods and sons of the most High", oh men redeemed by Christ, you can and must, as children of God and as children of men, copy Jesus your Brother in becoming other Christs, true children of God and heirs of Heaven; nor is it an impossible thing because He, Jesus, has demonstrated how it is possible to be so.
If the Word had revealed Himself only as the divine Word, as the uncreated and spiritual Master, just as God revealed Himself to the Patriarchs and to the Prophets before the coming of Christ, the amazed or rebellious man could have groaned or cursed, depending on his soul, "How can I, carnal, I, the perpetual Adam, tempted to sin and weak by nature, do that which You teach, You who are the purest Spirit, nor does Satan tempt You, and You do not by nature have any imperfections?" Or also, "Why did You permit that from the womb of the mother, I should have been corrupt, why did You permit the father of Humanity to have been so if you wanted me to be holy? To Your scorn, I reply with my curse."
However, the Word made Himself Flesh, He took on human nature, in every likeness to the brothers of Abraham, not dissimilar, for the time in which He was Jesus of Nazareth, not dissimilar to Adam full of grace and innocence on his first day in Eden, and like him, tempted in order to be tried, so that [He could] understand and help, even through His direct experience as Man and through His example, those who are in trial.
And man can no longer become discouraged by saying, "I who am carnal cannot be perfect as the Father in Heaven, nor do what the Word teaches." And nor can he call "scorn" the teachings of the Word, given to whom, by human nature, was made weak and corrupt by original Sin, and only with much and continual effort succeeds in putting them into practice.
And nor can man say, "The spiritual Law is not fitting for me, I who am carnal, because much in contrast is the exterior voice of my members, of the world which is around me, and of the devil who continually prowls around me and tempts the lower strengths of my animal nature and the moral strengths of my rational nature, with the interior voice of my conscience that turns to my spiritual nature with God's own voice - since the voice of the conscience is God's call to His creature so that he will not distance himself from the Law or trample on it - the voice which from deep inside speaks to me to tell me, 'Do this' or 'Don't do that.' I - though having the will to do good and acknowledging this Law as holy, which my conscience as man along with reason distinguishes me from a brute, and which was given to me by God in order to render me capable of understanding, reflecting, choosing and to will that which is good, tells me that it is good, despite the divine impulse that He Himself moves within me, God, eternal Foundation for all His creatures, the Immense One who communicates His immensity to me, as to every other divinized man called to great things, so that I may be capable, I, His adoptive child, of performing great works in which there can be a resemblance of His greatest and most perfect [works]; and the first and greatest of all is the one to stretch out towards Him with all my love because He is the one true Good - however, I am not able to do the good that I will, but give in to the evil which ferments in me more strongly than the good."
No. You cannot say this. Because evil is great, great is the inheritance of evil that is in you, greater the evil that is hidden in order to harm you in the circumstances of life (the world), and greater still is the evil that has the name of Satan, the beginning of Evil, devouring and insatiable monster, living eternal hatred towards the Creator and His creatures. However, only One is infinite: God. And the divinized man has Grace within him, that is, God. God Love, God Intelligence, God Holiness, God Strength, God Power, God Wisdom, God Life, God Beauty, God Truth, God Goodness, God Purity, all most perfect and infinite, God the All.
And a man of good will can do everything if he remains united to Jesus Christ, who in order to not intimidate man with the frightening divine clangours of the Law of Sinai - with the four impositions and the six prohibitions, the man in whom the disorganized law of sense dwells more powerfully than in reason, and that struggles, with even strength, with reason from the moment the gift of integrity was wounded in Eden - reduces and concludes all the Law in a twofold command of Love, and He presents it to you like this, in a sweet, attractive garment, joyous with love. "Love God and love your neighbour."
To love is easier than to adore, than to honour, than to prohibit oneself from doing. By loving God, [love] draws God closer to man and man closer to God. To love is more inviting than to fear. And it is the staircase to ascend to adoration.
Man cannot reach the heights of adoration all at once. The same infinite greatness of God keeps him from doing so, together with the fear of God, common to the ancient Hebrews; and with the baseness of nature, it forms the bindings which keep him far from God. However, love melts those bindings with its ardour and places its wings of fire onto the soul, and the soul can rise, rise always more, depending on whether it continues to hurl itself without thinking of what it leaves behind: miseries, poor honours, limitations, riches and fleeting affections; but thinking only of what it will reach and conquer: God and Heaven. No act of formal cult can unite you to God as much as the spontaneous and continual act of love.
Wisdom is the fruit of the union with God. And wisdom leads to the exercising of justice in all things.
A man united to God is active and joyous. From the joy which he receives from the satisfaction of God for his actions as man who loves God, he discovers a drive towards an ever greater activity for good. Because union with God gives heightened peace, and never idle peace.
There is no inertia in God, the eternal working One. There is no inertia in the man united to God by love. He actively loves God. And he is actively loved. And this twofold activity produces an overflow, an illumination of charitable fire upon individuals, and it is not enough for man to contain the infinite Love within himself, who pours Himself into him in order to give some alleviation to his love as in a basin that is worthy and longing to receive Him. And nor is it enough for man, who has entered into the ardent whirlpool of divine love, to solely love the Creator, for the eyes of his spirit and the spirit of his soul, by contemplating the Creator, also see all creatures in the Creator, and man feels inclined, therefore, to love them all holily because they are the works of his most beloved Love.
And behold the love of one's neighbour that is born, that flows and effuses itself, a holy and inevitable consequence of the holy love of God. The love of one's neighbour exercised with justice, by seeing every creature in its just rank, that is, always inferior to God, even if it is the dearest one out of blood ties, or affections, or the holiest through justice of life, and therefore, never placing it before God, but seeing it also as a new gift from God, granted in order to make life of the one living on the Earth easier, more pleasant, sweet and meritorious.
And here, in virtue of love, is how man conquers the sublime freedom from the snares of the I, of the world, of the devil, the constraints consequent to original Sin.
Love is a living fire. A living fire is a flame. The flame is free and salient towards Heaven. It also radiates heat and light, and is beneficial to the one who draws near to it. And here is, in fact, how a man inflamed by love rises with his flame towards God, the centre of every fire of love, who at the same time radiates his fires onto his brothers, helps their miseries, illuminates their darkness, brightens them up by bringing into them the light which is God, purifies their impurities because every saint — and whoever loves God and his neighbour with his whole self is a saint — is a purifier of his brothers, sustains the afflicted, the poor, the sick in body or spirit, and preaches, and in this way, establishes the Kingdom of God within himself and in the world.
Because the Kingdom of God in man is love. Within man and in the world, the kingdom of God is love, in opposition to the kingdom of Satan that is hatred, egoism and triple lust.
The Kingdom of God!
That is, the "Paternoster" lived, made alive by the just, made into a continual "action" and not sterilized by a word murmured more or less absent-mindedly. The "Pater" truly lived, sanctifying the most holy Name of God by giving Him the truest praise: that of adoring Him in spirit and truth, and to work so that others may adore Him by means of a two-fold love which is obedience to the Law given in order to direct man to religion, or rather, to the union with God and with his brothers by seeing them in God, and with a venerable respect towards the rights of God, and fraternal [respect] towards the rights of his neighbour.
The "Pater" made alive by the establishment of the Kingdom of God in creatures and in the world for the twofold love towards God and towards one's neighbour, pathway to the possession of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The "Pater" made alive by adherence to the Will of God, whatever it may be, through the two-fold love that makes one accept trials, sufferings, agonies and bereavements with peaceful obedience, through the power of God, and to endure our neighbour for the sufferings that he can give us by considering him a "means" to the attainment of eternal merits, for the continual patience that one needs to exercise towards those who test you, your poor brothers guilty against love, who require mercy and prayers so that they can come back into the way of Life.
The "Pater" made alive in the love for one's neighbour, the most arduous to perform: that of forgiveness of ones' own offenders, offered to God Love so that He may forgive our trespasses towards Him.
Charity is the greatest of all the purifications, and it can be continual: a continual purification of your imperfections performed by the flames of the two-fold love. And charity is even the spiritual Law put into practice. Able to be put into practice even by the carnal man because faith is always associated to this charity, which in proposing its truths to you, spurs you to overcome the trials of life in view of the Origin and purpose of every creature: from Whom we were created, why we were created, for what destiny we were created, by Whom we are helped in order to reach that beatific destiny and by Whom we are assured that that beatific destiny is the inheritance of every man who lives in justice.
Every revealed truth is a confirmation of how the Lord One and Trine is good, provident and just. Good, provident, just, God, Father and Creator who "has ordered all things in measure, number and weight" and He has ordered all things to their own end, by giving to man whose end is supernatural, the indispensable means, besides Grace, of attaining this end: reason and conscience. These allow man to know and follow the natural moral law, not written by a perishable and fallible legislator on corruptible matters, but by the finger of God on the spiritual and therefore immortal pages of the soul, so that it will not be subject to any further tampering other than that, voluntarily, of the rebellious man. The rebellious man can escape from it, however, and overpower the voices of reason and conscience with the cry of uncontrolled senses, but he will never succeed in suffocating these interior voices forever. Because they are the same voices of God, resounding in every man, be he Catholic or infidel, schismatic or Hebrew, heretic, separated or excommunicated, so that every rational creature can know and live, if he wants, according to the dictates of the eternal Law of Good.
Good, provident, just, God Son Saviour who incarnated Himself in order to be Jesus and who died so that you could again be "one with God", just as children are one love with their father. And He has risen and ascended to Heaven not only to give to men the foremost proof of His Divinity, but also to give to you, with His rising and ascending to Heaven, the promise and assurance of the final resurrection of the flesh and the existence of the Kingdom of Heaven in which those who lived and died in the Lord will be taken up into Heaven so that they may enjoy the beatific vision of God, and in this way, come to the joyous knowledge of the mystery of God which no human intellect can penetrate. Good, provident, just, God Holy-Spirit Sanctifier, soul of the Church that He vivifies with His Grace and with His Gifts, that guides, teaches and saturates with love so that It can discern and decree with justice and wisdom that which is relevant to faith and customs, and so It may carry out with love and justice both spiritual goods and chastisements; and with love and justice, disengaged from every personal attachment to judgements, or calculations, or interests, or preconceptions, or from any other human impulse, that It may guide, support and teach her children by continuing the teachings of her Bridegroom, Head and Lord whom she must serve and not grieve by placing obstacles to His Wills even when they are out of the ordinary. Because God can will anything good for His children, and it is not lawful for anyone to judge the acts of God and to condemn them by obstructing them.
The Church exists because God the Word founded it through the will of God the Father and with the help of God the Holy Spirit; and the Trine Unity has made it very fecund, thus broadening, in size and depth, the Kingdom of God in hearts and on Earth so that Humanity can, in greatest numbers possible, arrive at the Kingdom of God in Heaven.
And together with faith is hope, which nourishes itself of faith, just as they are both kept alive by charity. It is the hope that is born and built on the certainty that God does not lie, nor does He give anything less than His promises, and therefore gives to man all the assistance so that he can attain beatific resurrection and eternal life for having known and believed in the Son of God, and for having put into practice His Word that saves from spiritual death. Because faith and union with Christ, living in Christ, is "life", and he who lives in Christ and of Christ will not die. But rather, even if he is a dead branch, and later, through the grace of God and through human good will, arrives at the first resurrection: that of grafting his branch - made dead for having been separated from the trunk of the Vine: Jesus, either because of sin or for having belonged to separate churches - to the one Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, he changes his spiritual death into life.
It is, therefore, through Charity - charity of God for man and of man for God and his fellowmen - through Faith and Hope, for everything that comes to you from the three theological virtues, for everything that they produce in you, that the carnal man, though still carrying the tremendous weight of his wounded humanity within him, can still follow the spiritual Law and attain glory.
"And who shall free you from this body of death? The Grace of God through Jesus Christ your Lord."»