“Man’s life must change for the better from day to day” (St. Augustine).
When we walk the spiritual path, each day becomes a challenge to grow in love, which, according to Saint Paul, is the greatest of all gifts (1 Cor 13:13). In his Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle to the Gentiles never tires of praising love in the most glorious terms, concluding with the exhortation: “Make love your aim” (1 Cor 14:1).
If we consider the high value of charity, we will understand this phrase of St Augustine, who even dared to say: “Love and do what you want”.
Growth in charity is the central theme of the journey to holiness, the goal of which is to be completely united in love with our Heavenly Father. Towards this goal we strive and try to do everything in our power to correspond to God’s perfect love, so that our soul is filled with divine love.
This is a daily journey that goes hand in hand with a deepening understanding of what love really is.
So how do we put St Augustine’s words into practice? It is not really that difficult: small steps, day by day. Perhaps sometimes we are asked to take a bigger step: to deny ourselves out of love, to accept the cross willingly out of love, to persevere in difficult days out of love for God, to perform acts of charity towards our neighbour, to renounce certain comforts in order to have more time for our Heavenly Father, to overcome certain fears we may still have of God and thus grow in trust in Him, to fulfil our duties of state with love, to be forgiving of the faults of others, to serve with simplicity….
There are countless opportunities and if we take at least some of them, even just one, our lives will be changed for the better and our Father will reward us.