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Letters of Fr. General

Trinity 2007

The Vow of Charity of the Vocationist

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My dear Confreres,

May the Holy Spirit unite us more to the Father with the Son!

Introduction

According to our six-year program, the year 2007 is dedicated to the understanding, outlining, verbalization and living the Vocationist culture in itself. This letter follows my last two letters, that of Ash Wednesday and that of Easter.

We have just concluded our great lent, that which outlines our fundamental life and pastoral program, the forty days from Easter to the Ascension. We are currently enjoying the month of divine fervour (Ascension, Pentecost, Holy Trinity, Corpus Christi, and Sacred Heart). Therefore, we have to continue to remain on the heights of that love that is ascensional, uniting and espousal union with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We are joyful for the encyclical letter of the Holy Father Benedict XVI, Deus Charitas Est and his Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Charitatis, since for us Vocationists, love is the beginning, the means and the end of our existence. And because by nature love is insatiable, we want more of it and we want to spread it usque ad summum, usque ad extremum, There is no Vocationist culture, no Vocationist language, no Vocationist practice that is not inspired and motivated by love, brought forward in love and with love and that is not oriented towards a more personal, intimate, and exclusive love with the Divine Persons.

Like in our cognitive process where we go from what is known to what is not known, in our spiritual life, we move from the natural to the supernatural, from the creature to the creator, from the attributes and qualities of the created things to those of the Holy Trinity. The knowledge of myself brings me to the knowledge of God extending to infinity that which is good and beautiful in me. Likewise, the knowledge of God brings me to a better knowledge of myself, finding in me, in a very limited way, the perfection, beauty and the holiness of the Divine.

The espousal supernatural is our supernatural from which we are born, to which we are ordained, in which we have to establish ourselves, flourish and bear fruit, in the image and likeness of the Lord, taking a hint from the natural order, in which we are born of a relationship and at the end of our development and perfection, we will aim at an espousal relation. (Fr. Justin, Inspiration of May 5, 1950).

Love

Instinctively, we want to be delighted in love. We call love that which delights us and it is most of all friendship, and amongst it is the espousal friendship. For us human beings, love is mainly and essentially espousal friendship, that which is uniting and that bears fruit. And so it is in the Supernatural. (Inspiration of June 30, 1950)

Like in the Divine Persons where the true distinction between one person and the other is the relation, in our spiritual life, that which distinguishes one person from another is his or her way of loving.

Everything that the saints have done is of the Lord! That which is personal is their way and degree of intimate love with which they have loved the Lord and in this I want. . . (Inspiration of June 30, 1950). Let us try to complete this sentence which Fr. Justin left incomplete in his spiritual diary. In this I want. . . to excel; in this I want . . . to immerse myself; in this I want . . . to direct all my energies.

The wisdom is all in nourishing oneself with food in the fire of love, in attending directly to the culture of charity. To neglect this is the worst foolishness. This expression of our Fr. Founder in his Libro dell’Anima in the year 1942, is my inspiration in writing this letter that I send to all of you on the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity.

I am ever more convinced that if we cannot fully live our consecration, it is because we do not follow the counsel of our Fr. Founder. Our spiritual life is not continually nourished by the fire of God’s love.

Of course, we have made the religious profession with an act of loving donation of ourselves to the Lord, likewise we have received the imposition of hands with great enthusiasm of love to Christ Jesus who has bound us to himself forever. But in the passing of time, the flame of the first love weakens, if it not completely dead.

My letter wants to be an invitation - like St. Paul to his spiritual son Timothy – to reignite that flame of love that has marked the beginning of our religious and priestly life. (Cfr. 2 Tim. 1). Fr. Justin, in the direttorio di carità (directory of love), comparing the initial love with the flowers of spring, entreats us: For the sake of love, do not pull out from spring her garland of flowers. You would not gather anything in due season. (. . . ) Welcome the flowers of love with smiles of kindness as one welcomes spring. Florete flores!

Our Fr. Founder has been a bright light and his light has reached us and will bring its beneficial effects even after us because he has never strayed away from God, always nourishing his life from the flame of divine love. In his Libro dell’Anima of Dec. 19, 1943 he wrote: Haec dicit Dominus (thus says the Lord): Ti amo Giustino, Giustino ti amo (I love you, Justin; Justin I love you). Justin responds to the love of God and God responds to the love of Justin. What comes out is an espousal love, the highest relationship of love in which Fr. Justin has lived and lives for eternity.

Besides, how could he write profound words and do great things if he did not get all of them directly from God whom he loved and contemplated upon in his prayers and meditations? Only the one who contemplates the face of God and lives of his live can say the words of God and work according to His designs. The world, the Church, the Congregation need these prophets.

Virtue of Religion

Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give to God and neighbour what is them due. Justice towards God is called “virtue of religion” (ccc 1807). Charity leads us to render to God all what we as creatures owe him in all justice. The virtue of religion disposes us to have this attitude. (ccc 2095).

Fr. Justin teaches us to acquire in everything that we do the merit of the “virtue of religion”. Each of our meritorious and good action becomes also an act of the virtue of religion when we, spontaneously, oblige ourselves to do them because of a particular consecration or vow. So, in all that we do, besides obtaining the merit of the virtue of charity, of justice, of service, etc., we also acquire the merit of the virtue of religion, strengthening our determination and making the same actions necessary by the merits of the virtue of religion towards God. For this reason, Fr. Justin loved consecrations and loved binding himself with vows to do all that has to be done and all that he was already supposed to do for other reasons.

Religion for us is most of all a relationship; a relationship that unites, that binds, that makes us more like God. The virtue of religion makes us perfect in our relationships with the Divine Persons e with others. Everything that we do because of a vow or consecration also becomes an act of the virtue of religion.

The Vow of Charity

The first and greatest commandment is: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength. With the vow of charity, one expresses his obligation, his determination to observe it always and everywhere. By virtue of this vow, each and every act of love becomes twice meritorious and each and every transgression becomes twice regrettable.

According to one’s state of grace, one can profess the vow of charity in his or her own words in the first, second or third degree, it can be expressed as follows:

Vow of charity in the first degree: I commit myself to do everything and to suffer everything, even death, to avoid every mortal sin.

Vow of charity in the second degree: I commit myself to do everything and to suffer everything, even death, to avoid every venial sin.

Vow of charity in the third degree: (that professed by Fr. Justin and the one that each and everyone of us should aspire to profess): I commit myself to do everything and to suffer everything, even death, to avoid every voluntary imperfection. The most common formula of the vow of charity in the third degree is expressed more commonly saying: I commit myself to do always and everywhere, in any case, that which I know is more pleasing to the Lord.

The soul, which understands that without love it is nothing, is capable and ready to do everything e to suffer everything so as to assure itself to live in love and obliges itself with a vow. The only thing that we can really offer to the Lord that He does not possess, is the act of love expressed in our own freewill.

Vow of Charity of Fr. Justin

Fr. Justin has sealed with his vow of charity his relationship of love with the Lord, began at a very young age, the day of is priestly ordination on September 20, 1913 at the age of 24. I am not exaggerating when I say that this vow of charity is the most important event in his life, more than his priestly ordination and more than the founding of the Vocationist Congregations.

Always in his diaries, he makes references to that event and in his life, he has always celebrated its anniversaries. This is because Fr. Justin made this vow not only as something personal but almost as the founding act of the two Vocationist Congregations and as the program of life of each Vocationist. He himself said that his spiritual notes, in which he explains his vow of charity in a more detailed manner and is found in the Agende della Settimana Maggiore (Diaries of Holyt Week) 20 to 27 March 1932, are written so as not to be lost and that they might be of great help. In other words, Fr. Justin wrote his vow of charity thinking of us and for our use.

To prove the importance of the vow of charity in the life of our Founder, there is also the incredible and exceptional description of the details of places, time and series of encounters and steps made with spiritual directors to verify its authenticity. Why these details? Without doubt, it is because it concerns something that is of great importance to him and to the Congregations.

I am sure that Fr. Justin wanted that every Vocationist unite himself to the Trinity with the vow of charity. For this reason, he introduced the solemn promise of love to the Most Blessed Trinity in the same formula of the vows. In this way, purely Justinian, I always saw his will to unite us to the Lord with the bond of the vow of love. After all, to say vow, solemn promise is to say practically to say the same thing.

When he speaks of the culture of charity, certainly he does not refer only to himself. The culture is the way of doing things, expressions, gestures, values of a group and not only of an individual.

As a proof of this, I also like to take from his Libro dell’Anima how he himself wrote on September 23, 1933 – liturgical anniversary of the foundation of the Congregation. A good number of our young religious – and also of the Sisters – have united themselves with God with my vow of charity. They are the real Vocationists. Blessed are they: Cajazza, Fraraccio, Giacci, Scandiffio, De Caprio, Di Matteo, Palmieri, Sabatino. Isn’t it clear that in the mind of Fr. Justin, the true vocationists are those who untied themselves with God with the vow of charity?

In the holy card to remember the death of Fr. Palmieri, Fr. Justin wrote: After a prudent, slow and long battle, he won and was elevated by grace to unite himself with the Lord with the sublime vow of charity in the third degree, and to spend his life in the service of vocations (Op. VIII, 325). Unfortunately, I was not able to find out what Fr Justin said or wrote on the occasion of the death of the young confrere Giuseppe Sandiffio! We can have a vague idea from what Fr. Justin wrote in one letter to the young Ugo Fraraccio: I have cried these days. Another of my religious is dead, Scandiffio. He was a friend to me, other than a son (Vocazionisti nella Casa del Padre – Vocationists in the House of the Father – 18/9/1934).

The real Vocationists, therefore, are those who unite themselves with the Lord with their vow of charity following the example of the Founder! I believe that there is no need to be an expert on Fr. Justin to understand that his language is the language of love, and in order to establish this language in the Congregation, wanted to have it written in bold letters above the main altar of the parish church of St. George the Martyr in Pianura: Deus Charitas Est. And wanted that our Vocationary in Pianura, our Mother House, be known with the name: Deus Charitas.

For this, it is necessary to examine the vow of charity as written it in his diary. There are two forms: the original of 1913 and the vow in its sevenfold form explaining the first.

From the careful description of the details of the first form, it seems that our venerable father wants that not only the vow of charity be remembered but also the exact place where he professed it, his spiritual director who examined and approved it. From this vow, which is his consecration and the beginning of the Society of Divine Vocations, he has never strayed away.

We read again how he has left it written:

First form of the vow of charity pronounced on September 20, 1913, the morning of my priestly ordination, in the last room of the first floor on the right hand side of one who looks from the front of the building, but on the left hand side of one who climbs the steps to the corridor, the room on the northeast where I made my spiritual exercises – I say, in the regional seminary of Campania – opened only two years. My director was Fr. Piccirelli who examined and approved my vow. It was pronounced explicitly to begin and found the religious congregation which at the time I called Servants of the Saints and now is called Servants of the Divine Vocations. Was pronounced as the first vows of the first member of the said Congregation.

J.M.J

Domine Jesu Christe, Deus meus et omnia, per Verginem Matrem tuan et Dominam Mariam pulcrae dilectionis (Lord Jesus Christ, o My God and my All, through the hands of your virgin Mother Mary, Our Lady of divine love) in the presence of the blessed spirits assistant to your throne, of St. John the Baptist, of St. Joseph, of the holy Founders and Fr. Faber

To your Most Sacred Heart

I make the vow:

To love you with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my strength.

I intend to oblige myself for those divine intentions and with those divine dispositions with which you live sacrificed in the blessed sacrament, to live:

1. in perfect self denial,

2. totally dedicated to avoid even the minimum offence against you,

3. totally committed to do, to pray to suffer that which I will know each moment to give you greater pleasure,

4. spending all my free time with you in the Blessed Sacrament,

5. seeing in everyone your most adorable person and to answer to their needs like the servant of all, in their relationship with you.

For the infinite love with which you want me totally for your in the priesthood and you have made yourself everything for me, since the beginning of this life, being all in me, as I hope you will also be in the other. Amen.

Deacon Justin Russolillo

(I intend to oblige myself sub gravi, and as grave matter I intend the whole day of transgression of all the five points of the vow).

After some years, with the approval of the same spiritual director, Fr. Piccirelli, I reduced it only to the vow of charity in the third degree, which is the highest degree of humility and charity.

Years after, while in Badia di Cava for spiritual exercises and precisely during the Holy Mass of the day of all saints, in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, beside the grotto of St. Alferio but on the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, renewing my vow of charity – I wanted it as a synthesis of the seven vows each containing seven points. And I wrote the following document that I copy.

“The sevenfold vow of charity with which I am obliged to do, suffer, pray every moment that which I know is most pleasing to the Blessed Trinity, embraces in its unity those of:

1. chastity,

2. poverty,

3. obedience,

4. prayer,

5. mortification,

6. servitude,

7. laboriosity.

As seven vows in one, for each I intend the following things :

1. not to touch and not be touched,

2. neither read not write romantic litterature,

3. neither receive nor give worldly news,

4. neither to love sensibly nor to allow to be loved sensibly,

5. compose myself always as in liturgical functions,

6. friendship with angels and with the Blessed Virgin,

7. concentrate in the humanity of Jesus all the tenderness of the heart

For the holy vow of poverty;

1. renunciation of any earthly property,

2. renunciation of every available spiritual property in favour of the Blessed Virgin,

3. renunciation of my own personality,

4. reduction to that which is necessary in the use of creatures,

5. in the use of creatures, depend on the taste of others,

6. joyful privation of even the most necessary,

7. to live in the oblivion of myself

For the holy vow of obedience to the divine will manifested:

1. in the Canonical laws,

2. in the liturgical laws,

3. in the civil laws,

4. in the proper rules,

5. through the spiritual director,

6. through the inspirations approved by the director,

7. through all my neighbour, within the limit of what is possible

For the holy vow of prayer: to be always occupied in one of the following:

1. mental prayer,

2. vocal prayer,

3. spiritual reading,

4. sacramentalization of all things,

5. union with the three-fold church,

6. union with the Holy Family,

7. union with the divine perfection and persons

For the holy vow of mortification always with some present pain procured by others or by oneself:

1. of the five senses,

2. of the tongue,

3. of the intellect,

4. of the will,

5. of the heart,

6. humiliation,

7. contrition

For the holy vow of laboriosity:

1. study,

2. manual labour,

3. teaching,

4. preaching,

5. ascetic writing,

6. priestly ministry,

7. catholic organizations

For the vow of servitude:

1. to the diocesan clergy,

2. to the religious clergy,

3. to women religious

4. to all faithful and unfaithful,

5. to the souls in purgatory,

6. to the saints and angels,

7. to the Blessed Mary with her servitude in the work of the Society of Divine Vocations.

Fr. De Giovanni, SJ – approved it.

Fr. Panades, SMF – censured it.

In reality, all these fifty points represent nothing but the stronger and more constant

Inspirations that I received and receive that I am obliged to obey on account of my vow of charity in the highest degree with which I have always understood to do and practice it.

They are not a multiplication of vows and obligations, but a successive exposition of various acts willed by the Spirit of love, for which I have beent carried to a particular way of seeing and doing things and sometimes in another.

That which is permanent is the internal vow of charity, and then the holy religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in our Congregation.”

In his Libro dell’Anima, Fr. Justin has always held on to specifying the time, the place and the activity that he was doing, but only for the vow of charity he offers more details. It looks like he wanted to be reminded not only of the vow but of the exact place where it was pronounced. In various episodes, Fr. Justin always carefully noted that this vow of charity was approved, suggested and corrected by Fr. Picirelli and then confirmed by Fr. De Giovanni and then censured by Fr. Panades and then simplified by Blessed Schuster.

Let us go back to his intimate account in his Libro dell’Anima:

20, 26 September 1925. In Rome, for the Jubilee, accompanying the pilgrims of Pianura.

How I would have liked to know all the religious houses of the various Orders and all the good works that they do and all the Institute of higher studies. How could I care about the dead things and condemned things by the Lord?

I saw Fr. Shuster, the Abbot of St. Paul and I was also able to confess to him and I asked and was dispensed from all my minor vows but not from the three religious vows and the universal vow of charity.

He told me: Who has given all has also given the small parts. Therefore, without any difficulty, he dispensed me from the vows of particular acts (for example: from certain prayer, from not taking coffee, from refraining from caresses). I added some other thoughts. Are these small things more pleasing to the Lord or not? If they are, then I am already obliged to observe even them by my vow of charity without multiplying it. If they are not pleasing to the Lord, the vow would be void because it is not the case of “something better” compared to the vow of charity. Secondly: if they are pleasing to the Lord, when the occasion comes to observe them, either I become aware of it or I don’t. If I become aware of it, I am obliged to observe it in force of the vow of charity, that is by itself higher, stronger and more prevalent. If I do not become aware of it, then I am not obliged to observe it. In any way, the Lord is not displeased with me, I confide in Him. Imprudently and without the permission of the director, I made these minor vows, lighting a lantern in the sunlight. The glory of God does not seem to have gained something nor now have lost anything. Maybe at that time, it was a real inspiration and was good – but now, there is no need of it.

I had asked to be dispensed by the Fathers of the Mission on the occasion of the spiritual exercises made in their house. Then by Fr. Ildebrand. But after Fr. Shuster, I felt very much at peace. O My God, now I understand why! – the first time – I wanted the dispensation so that once and a while I could satisfy my nature. Now, not anymore, O My Lord, I really want without deceiving myself to do also those acts already matter of the minor vows, I want to observe them for the vow of charity, as it is your will.

(only for my future peace) in Rome 20, 28 September 1925.

Also here, it is incredibly and exceptionally detailed the sequence of encounters and steps taken. Why this richness of the details? Without doubt, it is because they are of great importance to him. Always referring to his vow of charity, on September 6, 1934, Fr. Justin wrote in his spiritual diary: Internal infusion of a certain flame of elevation and application to the greater pleasure of God, right now, moment by moment, according to my commitment; and on February 23, 1936: That which counts the most and the only thing that really counts and always remains is charity! Let us go back to the first program. The Lord has lead you to unite all things in charity.

And the synthesis rediscovered in the great and universal vow of charity is sealed by these beautiful spiritual elevations that we get from his Diaries.

The Blessed Trinity is pleased by the vow of charity and in exchange for this vow shares his life with the soul: Pay attention in the observance of your vow. The life of the Blessed Trinity is communicated to your soul in any way. Vivo, iam ego (May 15, 1949).

Always remembering and living his vow of charity, he wrote on September 20, 1940:

I was expecting some particular gift for me from him who loves me on this day in which . . . Four days after he continues: Please to the Lord with real pleasure of pleasing him, with real sorrow for having displeased him, with alive fear of displease him, with real pleasure to please him ever. O grace of all graces!

The Vow of Charity of the Vocationist

From the vow of charity of Fr. Justin and from what has already been said, it is clear that this is the sure track that brings us to divine union and to the higher levels of holiness. From the explicit will of the Founder and from our formula of the vows, I conclude that every Vocationist has to take and live the vow of charity.

Naturally, I suggest that everyone take it under the guidance of his spiritual director and do it gradually; first that of the first degree, then of the second, and then the third degree. It is necessary to know this vow, to be willing to make it and then pronounce and live it.

Repeating, I remind you of the fact that Fr. Justin considers real Vocationists those who unite themselves with God Trinity with the vow of charity.

The seven vows included in the one vow of charity of Fr. Justin are part of our Vocationist culture and spirituality.

1. Chastity: Aside from being an essential vow to the religious life it is also one of the three virtues of the Vocationist because it enables us to see God in Himself and in his images.

2. Poverty: Aside from being one of the principal evangelical counsels, it is a necessary pre-requisite to a soul spouse relationship

3. Obedience: For Fr. Justin and for us, obedience has to be like a second nature to us. To do in everything the will of God and not ours. All that happens to me against my will or without my will, is for me the will of God!

4. Prayer: Pray, pray always and everywhere, going up, coming down, in the chapel, in one’s room, on the road, mental and vocal prayers, rosaries and ejaculations and use alternate formulas of prayers to maintain the freshness and the newness of our dialogue with God.

5. Mortification: Active and passive, reparative and preventive, internal and external to intensify one’s spiritual vitality and productivity.

6. Servitude: As servant of the saints I pledge and promise service to the Church in the clergy. We can be sons in one family. We want to be servants in order to be able to offer to all our service.

7. Laboriosity: Work is our sacrifice, our nourishment, the easiest way to avoid and prevent temptation, the necessary means to provide to poor vocations and so as Vocationist I have to work for ten, for twenty, or for one hundred people.

The Pilgrimage of Love

Fr. Justin, in the Directory on Charity invites us to become pilgrims, beggars and searchers of the love of God because God makes himself found by those who search for Him. We have to make ours the cry of love of Psalm 27: of you my heart has said: search for his face; Your face O Lord I search for. Do not hide your face from me.

After the means of the sacraments and the act of charity and the payment of debts and the purification of the heart comes the search for the Lord that we call the pilgrimage of the heart, rather, the first pilgrimage of love, with which the soul goes from one thing to another, from one book to another, from saint to saint, from mystery to mystery, beggar of love; everyone should be searching in everything for the ray of the amiability of the Lord, the glitter of the divine love, constantly and patiently.

And since love, then, needs the knowledge and the presence of the loved one, or else it weakens and it may also die out, our Founder asks us to make seven spiritual exercises of love. These are sensible and felt acts of love with which we build with the Lord a real relation of love.

In this time of Easter, we have read the Gospels of the apparitions of the Lord. With much patience Jesus presents himself to his apostles and makes himself known. This teaching of Jesus, Fr. Justin applies in the Directory on Charity. Like the apostles, we are also lead, through a pilgrimage, to discover the signs of the presence of the Risen Christ because it will be this that will make us strong in temptation and fearless in testifying.

The first sensible act, that presupposes a condensation of the presence of Christ, is an interlocking of looks of love. With these – says our Founder – we fix our eyes on the Lord in his every form and traces, in his every image and likeness in the superior creatures, as to encounter us in his infinite beauty and amiability, of which the lover has one particular cult, certain that each of our look of love has been anticipated by a look from the eyes of God that pierces us.

To turn a look on the Lord, continues Fr. Justin, requires an orientation also of the body, wherever we are, night and day, towards the nearest church, and to try to place ourselves as close as possible to the divine sacrament and try to remain the longest time possible with Him.

This encounter becomes a lasting staying with the Lord. Thus we bring ourselves in person to the house of the loved one, or to another place, always alone and in solitude to enjoy all the more each other and to concentrate all the more one upon the other with that totality and exclusivity proper to every intense passion of the heart (. . .) not really because of any imposition of a rule or obligation of piety but for the need of the heart to see each other, to be close to one another, to talk to one another, to possess each other. The lover of the divine union is known on account of these frequent retreats, throughout the day, in solitude; from these very frequent visits to the sacrament; and he longs for the hours of silence to be able to retreat all the more internally with God; this is the true spirit and the reason of religious silence, imposed at certain times and in some places by the sacred institutions; it is a need of the love of God and the soul; and so is the privilege of having the Sacrament in the house.

The Atlas becomes for our Fr. Founder a book of prayer, a devotional, because through it we can visit God present in all the tabernacles of the world.

The lovers of the earth, Fr. Justin continues, when they cannot personally visit each other, they send their homage and joy of love through letters; and also the lover of God, even though he does not need it because of the presence of the loved one, nonetheless sometimes he is pushed to use written letters for his love God, just like God sends him the letter of the always alive, personal and new Scripture: This writing to the Lord can benefit the fervour of love.

This explains why Fr. Justin has this cult for the direct words that have to be searched for, conserved, reread, kissed, memorized, rewritten, recited because they are words of the loved one.

Thus we start a dialogue of love with our Lord. To this we must reduce especially the meditations, examinations of conscience and each and every similar exercise; we must likewise get used to this intimate conversation, so that we may be able to continue it in every other material and intellectual work.

With the gift, external sign of the intimate transportation with which the lover begins to pass to the loved one, in order to unite himself totally to him while he begins doing it partially, with the gift of all he has, of all he does, and in it he gives a part of himself, in what he has externally and a better part of himself, in what he does internally until he does give all of himself, in all that he does. (. . .) So the first thought with which he thinks of anything is: how could this please Jesus? How can it be done so as to please Jesus? From a single coin to a million, from a minute to a year, to a century; love gives itself with growing fullness in every gift .

In the end, comes the union between God-spouse and soul-spouse. Almost irresistibly each one falls in the arms of the other, like forming a single being from the two that they were. It is almost like wanting one to give to the other one’s own spirit in a breath of love, being open in a long kiss: the seventh spiritual exercises of love reserved to God alone, the embrace and the kiss.

O My God and My All, Compendium and Essence of the vow of Charity

O My God and My All! Father Son and Holy Spirit, May your will be done, your love reign, your glory shine in me and in everyone always more as in yourself. O My God and my All.

This is the most characteristic, most used and most known prayer, compendium of the Vocationist culture. This prayer that we pray at the end of every prayer like the Glory be…at the end of every Psalm, expresses the essence of the vow of charity.

To conclude, let us pray it once more together.

O my God and my All. God is everything for you and for me. Aside from being creator, saviour and sanctifier, He is father, mother, brother, sister, friend, defender, doctor, nurse. In him I find everything that I need and, if he is everything, I do not need anybody, anything else!

O my Father, Son and Holy Spirit! O my divine family, my divine persons, my divine relations! You have created me to be a living personal relation of love with You, and only in You I find my realization, everything in myself!

Your will (and not mine) be done in heaven and on earth, in me and in everyone. In all and for all I want to know Your will to conform myself with it. Not only do I want to do Your will, but that which is more pleasing to You.

May Your love reign and reign sovereign. That all souls, opening themselves and accepting Your love becomes a fountain and source of love. That your love be the inspiration and the end of all my desires and actions. My Divine Trinity, You are love and not only you want me to love, but that I become love as You are love.

Your glory shine. Your glory is the Divine Word, your glory is your image and likeness. Everything under the earth and above the earth is an emanation and revelation of your glory. Only in you and always to you all honour and glory!

You have made me, O my God, limited but the limits of my potential are always extendible and therefore without limit; I can always grow, I can always rise up higher, I can always improve your image and likeness in me.

That your will be done, that you love triumph and your glory shine always more and always better in me as in yourself, o my Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

O my God and my All, grant that I may always have present the program prepared for me by Fr. Justin in these four simple expressions and that they may be the track on which to ascend to the highest summit of union with You: Always more and always better, always forward and always upward.

O my God, that all of my actions be of charity so that I may always be fervent in obtaining from you the infusion of new heights of graces always more until death. (Libro dell’Anima, March 2, 1934).

Conclusion

On January 5, 1947, Fr. Justin wrote: If you truly love, you would be insatiable in your hunger to have a taste of God, in your curiosity to know your Lord, longing always more for his familiarity! What do you want O my soul? This I want, o my Lord, that my love for you be perfect, integral and always ascending in your spirit, all in your spirit! Give me this hunger and thirst for this love, in everything.

With love, you unite yourself with the Father and He brings you to the Son! And so it is with other persons. Let us go back then in insisting and in repeating the act of love, actualizing the state of love, exercising the relationship of love towards the Trinity, elevating, simplifying and uniting everything to the act of real, explicit, intense, and exclusive love. (Libro dell’Anima, April 23, 1950).

We Vocationists, we really work hard! We continually sacrifice for vocations and for universal sanctification. I do not believe that we can still do more in quantity but, I am convinced that we can still do more in the quality, in the intensity and purity of love. Love is nourished by being seen and therefore, let us make it visible in all our actions and words, decisions and attitudes. Oh how I desire and pray that everyone of us really become a real witness of love, ray of love, revelation of love.

That each one of us not only do things for love but in imitation of the Trinity, really become all love and always spread the sweet perfume of love!

United in His love,

Fr. Ludovico Caputo, SDV
Of the Blessed Trinity

Rome, Feast of the Blessed Trinity, June 3, 2007

PS.

1. I am happy to inform all of you that after much consultation, study and reflection, the General Council has decided to elevate our mission in Nigeria to the status of a real and proper Delegation. This decision will be effective on August 28, 2007, the day in which, with the first profession of our novices, our Nigerian Vocationists will be more than the Italians in number.

2. On May 11, Feast of Our Lady of Divine Vocations, with the reading of the decree of erection, the blessing of the new house and the admission of two postulants into the novitiate, the new Vocationist community, Divine Union Novitiate, in Maasin, Southern Leyte in the Philippines, has been officially and canonically erected. The chapel of the community has been dedicated to the Holy Family.

3. On May 17, in the community of Davao in the Philippines, four novices have made first profession and other five confreres have renewed their vows.

4. On May 20, feast of the Ascension, the Vocationist community in Ruteng, Indonesia, St. Joseph Vocationary, has been officially and canonically erected. During my visit to this community I have also authorized the opening of another community, as a dependence of this first community, in the city of Maumere, in the island of Flores, Indonesia where our eight students will study Philosophy.

5. The following are our more numerous communities: 1) Ibadan with 60 religious; 2) Davao with 11 religious and 41 aspirants, disciples and postulants; 3) Oparanadim with 17 religious, 19 novices and 14 postulants; 4) Mulayam with 33 religious and 2 novices; 5) Rome, Generalate with 28 religious.

6. On August 25, in the Cathedral of Ahiara, Nigeria, eight of our deacons will be ordained priests.

7. These foreign trips are physically tiring but spiritually reinvigorating and they inspire me to do more. This year I have already visited our communities in India, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Philippines and Indonesia. Let us pray and thank the Lord everyday for these beautiful and great Vocationist realities that grow in all parts of the world.

8. I cannot finish this letter without a special note on the role of love in the Vocationist life and culture. I do this with a certain sense of humility and mortification on my part but is for the deepening of the Vocationist family. The title invented by our Fr. Founder for the one who exercises the highest authority in the Congregation is “His charity”. This is not a title of honour nor does it want to be a flattery but, a program of life, a challenge, an invitation to do so that the superior general may conform and identify himself with the divine charity and for the rest of the family be the witness and the bearer of this divine charity. It will not be harmful to remind him of this always! In one occasion, Fr. Justin, talking about himself, defined himself as “a shadow of superior”. I and every other superior are not but shadows of the superior. Our true superior is and should always be God-Love. Our effectiveness is directly proportional to our capacity to be and to become always more charity-love.

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