June 2, 1978

GOD, THE SOURCE OF LIFE

Write, brother Octavio; I am St. Joseph Cottolengo.

Humanity, obscured by the first fault and by the almost infinite multiplication of personal faults, is born, grows, lives and disappears from the scene of this world, in almost total darkness. Only a faint clarity glimmers through the thick darkness that envelops it, and this is due to the fundamental revealed truths. Very few in number are the enlightened souls, who clearly see the great celestial realities, for which man was created.

The first, unique and great reality: God, the source of life, that communicates life to the entire world, life that vibrates, that palpitates everywhere, in the depths of the sea, upon the surface of the earth, in the density of the air; the entire universe is filled with it; everywhere life is in movement.

O insensate, arid, blind men, who do not want to see the prodigy of life that God works, yes, for his glory, but also for all of you, who wants to make you participants of his glory; for all of you who live, and who enjoy the gift of life, and who are all the stupendous and prodigious fruit of his love!

The creation of the universe was an act of love; the creation of each living being is an act of love; but the creation of man, among all living beings upon earth, is an act of love and of predilection, for only man was made to the image and likeness of his Lord and Creator, and he is the only one who can project the image of God upon all other living beings; he alone was created with a task and a cosmic mission, the king and dominator of all living beings upon earth. Man is the only being who can, and who really is, (provided that he wants to be), the interpreter of the thanksgiving due to God from all living beings upon earth.

Now then, brother Octavio, if God is the beginning and the first cause of the life of all living beings, it would be absurd if he did not employ himself in providing for conserving and directing all his creatures toward the end for which they were created. And he does employ himself in directing them. In the Gospel it is said that if God provides for the flowers of the field, clothes the lilies with his splendor and feeds the birds will he not also provide for the necessities of you, human creatures, who are his reflection upon the earth?

Having become brutish, man puts himself below the very beasts

Brother Octavio, by the divine Will in these days you are giving life to a community, the first of several communities of the Association of Hope, and this small seed of a community will flourish, if it has the impulse of faith, hope and love; that is to say, only if the life of grace has taken root firmly in each one's personal life and in his social life; the life of grace by which God, Creator and Lord, is acknowledged and is given the first place; in other words, as yesterday St. Therese of the Child Jesus said, divine life, that will move you and direct you toward him, to obtain the finality that he has determined for you, in the exercise of faith, of hope, and of charity.

Brother Octavio, also for other reasons I spoke to you about life, a prodigious gift of God. Indeed life palpitates everywhere, this life that, according to the order established by God the Creator, should be respected and venerated by everyone, as the upright use of human reason demands, as faith demands, and as the natural order of things demands, but in reality, never before as in this century of such obscure and barbarous materialism, the life of men and even of inferior beings, is de-sacralized, violated and annihilated. As one brutish and become mad, man rises up against God, against the natural order established by God, and with crazy instinct, with a savage instinct of rebellion, assassinates, violating the divine Law, he suppresses life from its very beginning with iniquitous and inhuman laws; he destroys it with innumerable forms of violence, thus placing himself, man, king of creation, priest of the universe, below the very brutes, formidably surpassing them in their worst and basest instincts. And all this, deceitfully, in the name of “rights,” of the “law,” and of “freedom of the human person!”

To this, then, the cunning deceit of Satan has led you, to all this, the most profound darkness of this pseudo-civilization of sin has led you!

Faith, a powerful magnet that attracts the very author of life

Brother Octavio, I spoke to you of life, a prodigious gift of divine Love, that by its very nature works for the conservation of this life, directing it to the attainment of its finality; here supernatural love is revealed, working in the mystery of divine Providence; here faith becomes a powerful magnet, that attracts the very Author of life: "If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, and you say to a mountain: be moved, it would be moved."

Brother Octavio, in this subject, facts speak louder than words, and in regard to my own life, you well know the great miracle that occurs in Turin, that in itself is sufficient to dissipate the darkness that envelops the men of this materialistic century, but the men of this perverse generation do not want to see; they refuse to see; they love darkness, and have preferred it to the light.

To visit the ''Piccola Casa" of Cottolengo, that shelters thousands upon thousands of human creatures who are rejected, suffering, abandoned, gives a most clear witness of how beloved the life of all human creatures is to God, and how he intervenes continuously to conserve and help the growth of so many human creatures, with uninterrupted miracles.

God loves, and with predilection, the life of all human creatures, particularly of those who suffer more and those who have greater needs; he provides for the latter with infinite love. A living miracle of divine Providence! Perchance has there ever been a saint, or is there one, who has not experienced the power and mercy of divine Providence?

Your community will be among those that, if you have faith, will directly experience how kind is the Lord. He not only provides, but even anticipates the needs of those who trust in him, and who abandon themselves in him.

It will be your task, Brother Octavio, to love, and to teach everyone to love, of all those who form part of your Association, having great faith and love without limits in divine Providence. For you, they should not speak of believing in, but rather of having absolute certainty, in this stupendous reality.

How much more could be said about this subject, brother, that I do not consider finished...

Now I ask God to grant you the gift of trusting in him without reservation; may he bless you and protect you always from every evil, and with you, I bless the directors and the entire Association of Hope.

Do not mistrust! You will see the works of God, and the miracles of his divine Providence.

St. Joseph Cottolengo