> [[325-apostolic-prayer|← 325. Apostolic Prayer]] | [[-divine-intimacy-toc|TOC]] | [[327-the-apostolate-of-example|327. The Apostolate of Example →]] # 326. Apostolic Immolation PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, immolated for my salvation, make me worthy to immolate myself with You for the salvation of souls. MEDITATION 1 Apostolic prayer must be accompanied by sacrifice, as we learn from the prayer which Jesus made to His Father in the Garden of Olives and on the Cross. 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). There is a close connection between prayer and sacrifice, since they both flow from one source: love, which spurs the soul on to prayer and incessant immolation for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. The contemplative life, therefore, is synonymous with an austere, penitential life; it is a continual “sacrifice of praise.” ‘The more prayer is nourished and accompanied 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” ([[jc-ascent-toc|J.C. AS]] J, 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; not until He had been scourged, pierced with nails, abandoned by God and man, could He say, “Consummatum est,” it is consummated (Jn 19,30). It will be the same with us; 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.” Our participation in the apostolate of Jesus attains its fulfillment in the sacrifice of ourselves—not an imaginary, hypothetical sacrifice, but one that is real and concrete. The form and measure of this sacrifice will be made known to us by God Himself, through the circumstances of our life, the events permitted by His divine Providence, the orders of our superiors, and the duties of our state in life. When, for the salvation of souls, we are disposed to live in continual sacrifice of our own will, in continual renouncement of self; when we are disposed to let ourselves be crucified in whatever way the holy will of God ordains, in order to win other souls to His love, then we shall have reached the apex of the apostolate and hence of apostolic fruitfulness. 2 Many souls are lost because there is no one to pray and make sacrifices for them. Without the tears and sufferings of a St. Monica, it is probable that the Church would never have had a [[augustine-of-hippo-saint|St. Augustine]]. Blessed, then, are those souls who make apostolic immolation the reason for, and the object of, their life. ‘Oh, my sisters in Christ!” St. Teresa of Jesus wrote to her daughters, “Help me to entreat this of the Lord, who has brought you together here for that very purpose [the salvation of souls]. This is your vocation, this must be your business, these must be your desires, these your tears, these your petitions.... If your prayers and desires, your disciplines and fasts are not performed for the intentions of which I have spoken, reflect (and believe) that you are not carrying out the work or fulfilling the object for which the Lord has brought you here” ([[tj-way-ccel-toc|Way]], 1 — 3). Contemplatives, not having an exterior apostolate, are especially bound to concentrate all their powers in prayer and sacrifice; only by so doing will they make the great contribution which the Church expects from them and thus fulfill their vocation. They are called in a special way to generously fill up in their flesh, for the benefit of His Mystical Body, the Church, what is lacking in Christ’s Passion. This is accomplished by the penances entailed by community life and by the observance of an austere, humble life, subject to obedience in all things and deprived of all human satisfaction (cf. Apostolic Constitution: Sponsa Christi).  St. Thérése of the Child Jesus declared: “I have come to Carmel to save souls” (St. 7); and after she had consumed and offered all her energies for this end, she even offered for sinners the prayers which were offered for her during the sufferings of her last illness that she might obtain a little relief.  Contemplatives should be “specialists” in the apostolate of sacrifice which, however, cannot and should not be wanting, in one form or another, in the life of every apostle. Christ has purchased our souls at the price of His precious Blood; and whoever wishes to collaborate with Him in the salvation of mankind, should be willing to unite to the most precious Blood of Christ some drops of his own blood. Souls cost dearly, and an apostle must pay with himself for those he wants to win. The apostolate is true and fruitful in the measure in which it is imbued with suffering, which is the fruit of immolation.  COLLOQUY “Lord, my heart rejoices when I consider that You have deigned to associate me to the great work of Redemption, that in me You may undergo, as it were, an extension of Your Passion. You have taken me, and You will that I be as another humanity in which You can still suffer for Your Father’s glory and for the needs of Your Church.  “How glad I should be, my adored Master, if You asked me also to shed my blood for You. But what I ask of You, above all, is that martyrdom of love that consumed the saints.... Since You...have said that the greatest proof of love is to give one’s life for the one loved, I give You mine, to do with it as may please You; and if I am not a martyr unto blood, I want to be a martyr by love. “How I rejoice when I think that from all eternity we were known by the Father, and that He wished to find Your image in us, O Crucified Christ! How necessary suffering is then, if Your work is to be accomplished in me! You desire to enrich me with Your graces, but it is I who set a limit to Your gift, and determine its measure by the generosity with which I let myself be immolated by You.  “O Lord, You called the hour of Your Passion ‘Your hour,’ the hour for which You had come, the hour You welcomed with all Your desires. When a great or even a very small sacrifice presents itself to me, I want to think quickly that this is ‘my hour,’ the hour in which I can give a proof of my love to You, who have loved me ‘exceedingly’” (E.T. £). --- ![[bibliography#^biblio-di]] > [[325-apostolic-prayer|← 325. Apostolic Prayer]] | [[-divine-intimacy-toc|TOC]] | [[327-the-apostolate-of-example|327. The Apostolate of Example →]]