Preaching by Your Life

Mary

My child, the indirect apostolate of prayer and suffering is marvelously fruitful, but you must join to it the direct action of soul upon soul. You think I mean the apostolate of the word. That is important, no doubt, but there is another which should precede, accompany, and follow it: the apostolate of a good life.

2. You do not need much experience in life to realize that certain souls remain untouched by even the most eloquent words. Words are fruitful only if received in a soul disposed to receive them. If they fall on stony ground or among thorns, how can they bear fruit? It is the example of a good life that will dispose souls to listen to your words. An action, a gesture, a look, or a smile often does more good than a long sermon.

3. Make people esteem your religion for what they see in you. Always be respectable and remember your greatness as a Christian in whom you know God Himself has made His dwelling. Let people near you feel something of that mysterious Presence which they experience near the tabernacle. Let your virtue be above suspicion in the midst of universal corruption. Be honest and upright, although persons about you think only of enriching themselves at their neighbor’s expense. Be straightforward and sincere even though lying and dissimulation have become the rule almost everywhere. Be conscientious and faithful in your duties even in the midst of persons who seem to have lost the very notions of duty and conscience. May those who do not share your faith, and even those who attack it, find themselves obliged to esteem it by the very fact that they esteem the conduct to which it inspires you.

4. Strive to appear just what you are, without display or concern for human respect. What have you to blush about? About possessing the truth when others know nothing but error? About retaining your dignity as a human being while they submit to the bondage of degrading passion? About being the disciple of Christ and the soldier of His Mother? Are you afraid of not being esteemed by those who think or act differently from you? Have you never noticed that men, even the most perverse, esteem those who dare to have personal convictions and to live up to them? Be a Christian who knows no fear and gives no ground for reproach; and your conduct will be a constant sermon.

5. It is a grand achievement to make the doctrine of Christ esteemed in your own person. But go still further: make men love it. Take an interest in others; do them all the favors you can; listen to their complaints; relieve them in misfortune; dress their wounds; assist them in their toil; be obliging and kind to all those who come to you; make yourself all things to all men and you will gain all men to Christ. If they feel happier because of you, they will end by loving those ideas which made you a source of happiness. By contact with you let them grasp better the meaning of affection, and they will better understand what God is, even if they do not know Him by name—for God is not a name, God is Love. By opening their hearts to love, they open them to God. 

6. In order to make yourself all things to all men, you must not consider their qualities or defects, their virtues or vices, their actions, good or bad; you must see in them the price of the Sacred Blood of Jesus and of my immense sorrow. Love them with the same love with which their Redeemer and their Mother love them, and you will win them over to love, and through love, to God.

The Faithful Soul:
Mother, I have seen a number of your children, whose lives were a continual exhortation, whereas I so often shock the persons near me. With you I too will make an effort to preach Jesus henceforth by my conduct. Grant that, when people see me, they will feel drawn nearer to Him.