“After loving our Lord, I recommend loving his bride, the Church. She is the noble and delicate dove, the only one capable of bearing children to her divine Spouse” (St. Jeanne de Chantal).
St. Jeanne de Chantal tells us to love God first and then the Church. The Church is the Bride of Christ and she shines in all her purity and beauty when she becomes more and more like the Mother of the Lord and adopts her features.
However we know that this is not always the case which is why it can sometimes be difficult for us to love the Church. Yet we must not remain in rejection of her disfigured face marked by confusion and negligence in fulfilling her mission which consists in announcing salvation to all men and thus giving many children to her divine Spouse.
At such times it is all the more important to become aware of the profound reason for which God founded her and to unite spiritually with all those members of the Church who fulfill the mission entrusted to them by God and who thus represent the faithful Bride of Christ. The faithful Bride does not allow herself to be carried away by the powers of evil or the spirit of the world. Throughout the centuries and even today we find her in the faithful who do not deny their holy faith even at the risk of losing their lives. They remain steadfast on the path of holiness to which the faithful Bride has borne witness for so many centuries in her dedication to the divine Spouse.
Yet she does not lose sight of those who have strayed or gone astray. The Church intercedes for them before God as well as for those who have not yet had the grace to know Him. In this way the Bride remains ever fruitful and even in times of grave crisis can cling to the hope that even if she is only a “little flock” her service at the foot of the Cross will be pleasing to God and will serve for the renewal of the Church.