To apostolate is the expression of charity peculiar to the disciple because it is through action that the true cult of the Word is expressed. An action to be sublime must reach the heights of selflessness and be imbued with the most intense effort. This is apostleship. What work demands more care, more watchfulness, tears, fasts and love than that of preparing hearts of stone, sunk in the mire of material gain, to receive the Light? Everyone is not capable of suddenly becoming an apostle. First, one must have learned to know men, to understand their true needs, in order to fray a path to their hearts. Charity is the teacher of this long-term apprenticeship. We must modify the attitude, habits and status-quo of our heart. However, let it stay where it is because, whether our heart is located in science, philosophy, art, manual labor, or is temporarily in heaven or in hell, God placed it there. Let us only seek the point from where our transitory situation can solder itself to the eternal Now, (the eternal world). We shall find Jesus there, awaiting us. His gentle and powerful Hands will draw our tired, weary, sullied hearts out of our chest. These Hands will nurse it, they will reopen the inner paths that our laziness has permitted the brambles and thorns to fill. From this purified, revivified, recreated heart, living energies will burst forth and flow to our intellect and to our senses. These two poles of the human being will regain their posts as instruments and regulators. we shall then know Life within us instead of running after its changeable images. We shall have a direct understanding of Life outside of us. As tired eyes are revived when gazing upon luminous landscapes, so will our heart palpitate with ecstasy at the sight of the Sun of spirits, and radiate It's incomprehensible splendour upon the other hearts around us which are in the shadow. The shaft of divine Light will penetrate the core of our Mystic Mosaic -

APOSTLESHIP 117 will, open and unfold its wings, just like the first rays of the morning sun dispel the fog in the countryside and awaken its inhabitants. For this to occur, it is not indispensable for our meeting with the Master to have taken place, it is sufficient for us to know this meeting to be possible, absolutely certain. Such a conviction, because it is supra-intellectual, is the first marvelous encounter. It cannot germinate within us except through radical humility; it is the first direct vision of Jesus according to His true form. It is the first time that the soul transmits an eternal word to the Self. The Mystic Forces and the Conduct of Life Everything speaks in the Universe--yet everything listens too. We naturally seek to find out what beings are saying; the sages, however, far more anxiously search for what is being kept silent. If the world of sounds contains the intellectual food for our minds, the world of silence is that of mystery--the storage place of ideas, the original kingdom of Truth, of Beauty and of Goodness. The doors to the World of Silence are narrow; only to be found erring for a long time through the thickets of words. One must have experienced the accuracy of the Persian proverb: "The word you hold back is your slave; the one you speak is your master." Who can foresee the consequences of a spoken word? In such a simple act, how many involvements escape beyond our control? That is why the disciple speaks little; that is why he finds refuge in the "closet" of silence before speaking and encloses himself after having spoken. speech is between two silences, as time is between two eternities, or space between two infinities. To speak is to sow. Mysteries are celebrated in the silence; there, souls are tilled by the gods. See to it that your silence be alive; light a torch before it--the torch of Love--so that the Master Himself may direct the plough through the vast fields of your spirit. The Mystic Forces and the Conduct of Life From one century to another, the eternal lamp is transmitted by the hallowed hands of the secret workers of the Father, who endeavor to fulfill the work of Christ. He, Possessor of all Mystic Mosaic -

APOSTLESHIP 118 magnificence, Lord of all creatures, has placed Himself at the bottom rung of temporal grandeurs; He has espoused all forms of abjection. Devoid of wealth, bereft of glory, minus friends, He went so far as to give His Mother to mankind, and from the abyss of such destitution went forth to conquer the world. Each one of His disciples must therefore reproduce one of the facets of His divine Poverty, according to the ignorance peculiar to the epoch in which the Spirit has placed him. A Few Friends of God Let us meditate upon human fraternity, upon this flesh and blood-- unique after all--of which we are all composed. See the parallelism of sentiments and of thought beyond national and racial dissimilarities. Beyond intellectual, esthetic or religious specifications, this immense internationalism of the spiritual man, see the innumerable contacts among souls, the responses, and the prolongations of mentalities from one end of the world to the other, from the beginning of time until its end. Finally, let us meditate upon this cohesion which becomes more intimate as we analyze each form of life more deeply. The thoughts of a great man who has passed over two hundred centuries ago do not only subsist in the respectful memory of the erudite, they still palpitate in secondary atmospheres, vividly alive in proportion to the Truth they hold, and they are immortal regardless of the fact that they fail to find an echo in the successive generations who obey them unconsciously. A masterpiece deteriorated by the ravages of centuries still lives, though indecipherable to readers or even unseen by man. And the brutal act of some prehistoric ancestor still casts its spell upon the impulses of our contemporaries. Thus, each quiver of our brain, each purring tremor of our heart, each physical gesture influences other contemporaries and all of their descendants. How important becomes the purification of our inner selves! The Mystic Path Mystic Mosaic -

APOSTLESHIP 119 Our compassion must not remain platonic. Let us gear it toward action, no matter how small it may be; action alone will give it a physical body and fructifying power. Around us tumultuous moans of pain and cynical laughter are increasing more than ever; our concern should be to change the latter into tears of repentance and the former into smiles of Hope. The afflicted would come to us in droves if we, Christians, did not give in to complaints and wishful thinking. We should take upon ourselves part of the load which harasses our neighbors, we should understand their sorrow, put ourselves in their place, fuse our hearts together. Jesus is in the midst of those who gather in His Name. It is up to us--we who know Him--to bring to Him the unfortunate who have not yet been able to perceive Him. The first disciples acted this way. After dedicating themselves wholly to their Master, then to one another, they gave themselves as offering to infidels and unbelievers. Through their dulled sensitivities, down to the depths of their obtuse consciences, the dedicated love of the apostle fanned the almost extinct divine spark . in the pagans' heart. This is what we should do in these times which so closely resemble the decadence of antiquity. Other people hold meetings, form groups, publish periodicals, make revelations; but we, who believe in the living Christ as the only won of the living God, being animated by a secret order of Christ--our mission is to repeat that belief endlessly; let us give embodiment to this credential to humanity; to make it live in matter finally, by our conduct, our actions and our works. The Mystic Path It is to be expected that when, as a benefactor, you sow kindness you will harvest ingratitude. Be aware of it beforehand, so as not to be surprised nor discouraged, nor even capable of evincing contempt for your debtors. Living for others is an easy thing to say, but so difficult to practice! You must first find out that which they need, the best way of offering it, and learn how to profit from their lack of appreciation. That is the theory of altruism. Mystic Mosaic -

APOSTLESHIP 120 Then you must love your brother, understand his erring ways, his weaknesses, his limitations, his faults, his clumsy blunders as well as his good points. This is the inner realization of altruism. Lastly, you must be able to give them something useful by being well versed in your field, be well educated so as to be able to counsel them-which means having lived and learned. Spiritual Duty Charity is a living chain forging God to man, it draws man to God and binds all beings one with another. Love is a living flame whose ardor and splendour increase in proportion to the obstacles it meets. I t inflames all who partake of its spark, it nourishes the living fervor of our heart forever; it flows generously upon all who come in contact with it as water from an inexhaustible well. Charity does not seek mystical quietude nor raptures. It soars, wings immobile, outspread, like the great eagle of the Solitudes; its glance ferrets out the unfortunate--no matter where they are hidden. Charity pounces upon them to bring them back toward the Sun of pure Love. Its life is a ceaseless death and because it gives itself in its entirety, at each agony, the Father resuscitates it for further sacrifices. Charity feeds upon fatigues and pain because in them it finds the flesh and blood of our Saviour, as they are part of the many forms of God's will. Any act done through love, in virtue of its mysterious transubstantiation extends the redemptive power of the Master of Love. We are not sufficiently aware that Jesus still suffers. We forget that any limpid prayer cools the fever of the perpetual Martyr nailed upon the Cross of permanent expiation. We forget that the smallest crust of bread we deprive ourselves of for a beggar heals one of the scars of the Crucified. That an affectionate visit, some drudgery joyfully endured, a frank reconciliation, are joys to His heart ceaselessly wounded by billions of malevolent words and actions committed each minute in this vast universe. The Mystics Path Mystic Mosaic -

APOSTLESHIP 121 Sorrow is the great mystery of life, and He alone, Who incarnates universal dolor can explain it to us. He -- our Christ -- as a wondrous fruit suspended on the branches of the tree of Calvary offers to all men the omniscience of Faith, the omnipotence of Love and the beatitude of Humility. He alone among all leaders of men, dares offer suffering to quench our thirst for an ideal. He alone fills the heart of those who suffer in His Name, with joy. He alone suggests that Sorrow become the sign of moral beauty, the talisman of moral power, the keyword of all secrets. Christian Mysticism You whose heart is scarred by the wound of universal dolor, you ask yourself if suffering will ever leave unfortunate humanity, and your answer is that it will remain here as long as one man can find enjoyment in life without concerning himself that others should be able to enjoy it too. You understand that fortune, happiness, power, even intelligence, are poisons for the spiritual heart, not poison in themselves but in the possessiveness it engenders in those who received these formidable treasures. Please understand that Jesus did not come to take Sorrow away from the world, like a surgeon cuts to remove a cancerous growth--He is that magnificent, lamentable, frightful Grief itself. He came to teach us how to cure this awful cancer, not by performing an operation, but how to cure it through the profound and total transformation of our whole being, which takes place through obedience to the Law. This means--by sacrificing ourselves totally for all beings in the world, under total acceptance of His Law. The Healings of Christ